End It.

I recently heard about the organization called Enditmovement. Today they are encouraging everyone to 'disappear' from any social media sites to represent how 27 million people in 161 countries have disappeared to human slavery, mainly sex trafficking and child labor. I personally deactivated my Facebook account for a day, a small way to remind myself tomorrow to pray for slavery to end. I encourage you all to "disappear" for a day. Take the day to remember and pray for those who don't have social connections such as Facebook or Twitter to make their cry for help known. Be their cry for help today.

 To learn more go to Enditmovement.com.

Overcome

Loving people who love you is pretty easy, right? It's nice to care for people who you know reciprocate those feelings. But what about loving people who hate you? It's an aspect of love we often skip over. It's hard, and quite frankly, not very fun, so we ignore it. Yeah, maybe we learn to live peacefully with those who hate us, simply as acquaintances, or ignoring them all together. Lately though, I've been realizing that is so far from what God wants from us. We all know the saying from the Bible, "love your enemies..." yada yada yada. We've heard it a thousand times, but are we obeying it? 
Romans 5:10 basically says that while we hated God, he died for us to reconcile us to God. We were his enemies, and he chose to love us. We're supposed to be like Christ in all we do. Who hates you that you need to choose to love? One of my favorite commands from the Bible is "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:20-21). It is extremely hard to do, but in doing so, your own heart begins to change to be more like that of Christ. Give it a try. Love, deeply love those who hurt you. It will change you, and who knows, it might even change them. 

Demand it.

I am astonished lately at the lack of respect that guys/boys/men (whatever you want to call them) have for girls. I used to think it was all the fault of the guys; that they were just immature and had never learned how to treat a lady. But I'm starting to realize that maybe us girls are more at fault for it than we would like to think. It's a vicious cycle: they disrespect us, we let it happen and maybe even laugh it off, they think it's ok and then they continue to use and disrespect us. It will never, I repeat never stop, unless girls begin to learn to put their feet down and stand up for themselves. If I could talk to every girl in America, I would challenge them to do just that. Demand respect. And when you don't get it, move on. If more girls were willing to be ladies, more guys would feel challenged to be gentleman. Give it a try. It works.

Better Late Than Never

Are you ever just amazed at how something could have been right in front of you for so long, yet you just now took notice to it? Like a stain on your shirt you've been wearing all day. Or just now realizing during second semester that the caf has a constant supply of bagels. Or realizing that person who has only ever been a friend, might actually be something more. These realizations make us feel stupid and oblivious. How could we have not seen what was right before our eyes all along? And usually we come to these realizations a tad too late. The day is done; everyone has seen the stain. The year is almost over; so many days I could have eaten a bagel: passed. The boy is gone; a chance at love: lost. Is it worth changing your shirt now? Is it worth starting to eat bagels now? Is it worth loving that boy now?
I'd argue that yes, it is.