Even a lifetime is not forever

The desert and the parched land will be glad; 

     the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.

and the ransomed of the LORD will return. 

        They will enter Zion with singing; 

        everlasting joy will crown their heads. 

        Gladness and joy will overtake them, 

        and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

Isaiah 35:1,10

Do you ever feel like your frustrating circumstances are going to last FOREVER?! I know I have felt like that. I found that I was just waiting for the next "bad" thing to happen and that I was going to endure is so I can look more like Jesus. But isn't is also true that our Heavenly Father can use REALLY FUN things to make us look more like His son? I am beginning to believe so. I am figuring out that part of this process is to just be open handed with the fun things he brings my way. Learning to be content with the way life is today and letting God surprise me with the way He takes care of me and gives me little gifts of love. He knows me so much better than I could ever know myself and that alone is so cool.  

I was really encouraged today that even if all the hard stuff, the rejection, disappointments and such last my entire lifetime that is STILL NOT ETERNITY!!!  In eternity I get to be with Jesus forever and all this hard stuff will be a distant memory! Praise the Lord!!! And even in this I don't want to miss Jesus...I do not want heaven without Jesus...Oh that the Spirit would give me a longing for my Savior!!  

I love the passage above because in it I can see the PROMISES of God....this passage tells us what will happen. Not too good to be true, but rather this is the Reality of those who commit their lives to being whole hearted followers of Jesus, the Son of the Living God!!!  I pray you fall more in love with Jesus today and will join me in radically committing your entire life to Him. 

A Chance to Die

Is there something you don't like? Some thing that is frustrating, annoying, or just not going YOUR way? See in it a chance to die.

Then [Jesus] said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Luke 9:23

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20

back in the States....pictures soon.

Hey all! I am back safe and sound from the Caribbean! It was such a blast to spend time with the students there. I have to say that if you were praying it was working!!! Thank you!! It was quite the adventurous trip....we may or may not have had an emergency landing on the way home....we may or may not have been exposed to the swine flu....we may or may not have had to run from the authorities because we got reported our last day in country....I'm just sayin...

It was a jam packed week for sure and I was EXHAUSTED but these verses sum up this Adventure: Isaiah 58:10-11:

and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.

¹¹ The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.

2 Corinthians 12:15: And I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved.

Thank you SO VERY MUCH for sending me. It means everything to me to see students catch the vision for disciple making. These students sat for HOURS in the hot sun on the concrete and then again in the dark and cold to hear us talk about the importance of having a devotional life, prayer, making godly choices, finding their identity in Jesus.... It was humbling that they wanted to learn things like modesty, purity, time management from us and were willing to sacrifice so much...to really risk everything. The government over there can really make life hard on the believers there....it was an ABSOLUTE HONOR to be a part of what the Lord is doing there. I will be in SoCal in just a couple weeks to make disciples there! Its a beautiful thing to see students all over the world come to a real & passionate love relationship with Jesus Christ that changes the way they daily walk and points others to Him! Its what I live for. All Glory to the one who Saved us!

In Him,
Anissa Nishira <><

Live to make Him famous!

Strep Reflections.....

I'm at home sick with strep, so I thought I'd share some of what I have been learning...

Contentment. There's that frustrating word again. It's what I want...what I really want, but I think I am learning that I need to want Jesus more than I want contentment. I was grateful to have someone older and wiser put into words what I knew I needed, but couldn't articulate: "Stop strategizing to get what you want!" If you can't say 'Amen' you'd better say 'Ouch!'.
Now, no one REALLY wants to admit that they are manipulating things....thats just not a nice word, but lets be honest, we wake up everyday trying to figure out how to make other people cooperate with what WE want....so lame...
What I am realizing is that I need to be self-controlled and joyful if EVERYDAY until I go Home all I do is spend and be spent for the ladies the Father has placed in my life, right here. The forever question of "what's next" needs to go away...I DO NOT KNOW! How on earth am I supposed to know if there IS a next? The last thing I was told to do is come to Norman & stay in Norman...those were the orders and I'm sticking to 'em.

If you've known me for very long then you know I enjoy Adventure...the new, brave & exciting thing. I like to travel, to pick up and move, to immerse myself in the newness of friends I haven't met yet....but right now I am learning the art of losing myself for Gods Glory. So if it means being single, in OK, helping college girls to walk with Jesus..I'm in. All in. Because, no joke, I want to do whats pleasing to God.

In America, we forget that the cross is what we've taken up...I have been called to COME AND DIE....I have NO RIGHTS except the right to the Cross...I want to know Jesus and share in his sufferings, right? I suppose that may mean I actually have to suffer....hello! My brothers & sisters that I long to see come to know Jesus understand that it will cost them everything to follow him. Amy Carmichael said to people who wanted to come help, "Do not come unless you can say to the Lord and to us 'The Cross is the attraction'." Can I say that? OR did I come to Christ, am I following Him to get what I want...whatever that may be?
(Disclaimer: I absolutely LOVE living in Norman, OK. I have the best girls ever, my Ministry Team is ROCKIN, my Co-leader is fantastic and I am so blessed that God has me right here, right now. In fact, I would not call this suffering at all. Just wanted to make that clear...)

I know Jesus is asking: Do you love me more than these....these ideas, these people, these exciting adventure I claim are for him..or can I be humble enough that no matter what it takes, I will invest in a few girls, pray for them like crazy and hope they become firestarters...passionate lovers of Jesus who can't help but tell everyone what they have seen and heard....

I don't have it on my own. May the grace of God drive us to depend on Him for all that we need, all that we are.

"And I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved." 2 Corinthians 12:15

Everything rides on Hope Now....

I am ever learning that things are not always as hopeless as they seem. Have you ever pondered what a HOPELESS day saturday must have been for the disciples, right before Jesus showed them His amazing Resurrection power? Think about a time you had a just MISERABLE day... the kind where you go to bed just praying it was a bad dream...then sunlight comes (too early) and you think back and realize "nope, that was all for real. I actually had the worst day ever yesterday and I have to deal with it today." Hope less. And it really does make you want to hope less...because maybe if you quit getting your hopes up you'll be less disappointed.

And you have to go to bed saturday night knowing that tomorrow is going to be just as bad as today and you're not really sure you want to get up at all....but Sunday's coming.

Oh blessed Sunday! That day when God speaks and changes EVERYTHING! You find your self walking around in the pit of despair only to look up and see that Jesus is ALIVE!!! He's FREAKING ALIVE!!!! Nothing could have looked so impossible, so bleak, so desperate...it looked like the disciples got ripped off and were going to have to go back to fishing, but God said "WAIT!!! I'm not finished yet!!!! Don't jump ship so early!! This is about to be AWESOME!" And even though the disciples DIDN'T believe...Jesus came back with that good ole Resurrection Power! Praise the Lord!

I kind of resonate with this right now, because my "belief" has been a bit on the weak side these days...some things tend to look bleak or hopeless to me and I honestly find myself thinking the solution is to hope less...but gut tells thats not an option...you know that place where you KNOW that you KNOW whats true and right (the bible describes it as your heart), it tells me to hang on...just one more day. You never know whats coming...

Holy

I stole this video from Shanda....she posted it on her site...and I wanted to pass it on. All I can say is that we really have no idea. A God who loved us so much He would die on our behalf? We just don't get it.

Fireproof your marriage

umm..so I have been slightly lame and avoiding the movie "Fireproof" for many months now, but today since it was my day off and I had a free Redbox movie, I decided to partake. Of course you guessed it: I LOVED IT!!! Cheesy acting aside, I was completely sucked in to the whole thing. I loved the whole twist at the end and I was so excited that he chose to fight for her even when she wasn't buying it. SO GOOD! If you haven't seen it, you should. I think I'm going to buy it for my parentals...along with the little Love Dare book that everyone is selling. For like ever, I've wanted to have a marriage where we fight to put each other first (as my friend Jess describes it) and this movie is totally about that! Maybe God will let me have that someday...until then I'll just pass on this little movie and pray that my friends & family will have this kind of marriage!

"And God demonstrates His own love for us in this, while we were still sinners Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

PS this movie is also rather humerous at times...I laughed out loud more than once! :)