What am I passionate about?
I am passionate about Jesus Christ. I am passionate about sharing His love, and I am passionate about knowing Him better. I am passionate about letting this passion consume me--to have "Leslie" burned away and Jesus built within mee. I am passionate about falling more and more in love with the God that gave me hope, the God that gave me beauty. The God that took the wreck of my life and said, "I can do something with this."
What am I passionate about?
I am passionate about people. I love people! I love to be around people and love on people. I like to make them smile and laugh, to help people trust, to lift up other people and help them to feel loved. I am passionate about spending time with people--any time is a good time.
What am I passionate about?
I am passionate about mentorship. I am passionate about living heart-to-heart with young girls and pouring all of my love into them. I am passionate about helping girls grow deeper with their Creator, to actually know Him and not just about Him. I am passionate on being transparent with these girls--putting my bumps and bruises, broken hearts and bad history in front of them... so they can heal. So they can learn from my screw-ups.
What am I passionate about?
I am passionate about lifting others up. I can find good in almost everyone, and I want them to see it in themselves, too. I want to be a chearleader in life--to celebrate with others in their accomplishments, to encourage them when they're down. I am passionate about using my words to lift up the people around me.
What am I passionate about?
I am passionate about passion. I am passionate about pushing my own boundaries, 'cause I get way too comfortable. I am passionate about being full of life and loving what I do. I am passionate about not just watching my life slide through my fingertips.
What am I passionate about?
"My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystory of God, namely, Christ" (Colossians 2:2)
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Saturday, April 7, 2012
The Little Things
I remember the first time I saw the skirt. Window-shopping, I spot an ankle-length, pure-white hippie skirt across the aisle and my breath stops. It's just so beautiful! Maybe I could sacrifice ten or fifteen bucks... oh my goodness, it's thirty dollars?
There's just no way I can spare that kind of money--especially on something that I don't technically need. With my mission trip coming up in two months, I needed to be saving every penny. After all, if I'm asking other people to sacrifice their own finances for this trip, I should be doing the same thing.
...but man, I want that skirt so bad.
Determined to find a better price, I go home and search the internet for "ankle-length white skirts," "hippie skirts," and even "artsy white skirts." Yet every option was the same price or more! Since when did skirts become so dang expensive?
Two weeks passed, and I couldn't get this silly skirt off my mind.
That's how I found myself back at the department store again, holding up the skirt in my hands like a dainty silver necklace. "Please, God, provide this for me if I'm supposed to have it. If I'm not, just make me okay with that. After all, it's just a skirt." I whisper this prayer softly as I gently put the skirt back on its rack. I run my fingertips down the white material and slowly turn away. I don't know if or how You plan on providing this... maybe a gift card or something?
I kept this little secret in my heart. Somehow, I just knew it wasn't time to tell anyone yet.
Plus, I didn't want to look silly because I prayed over a skirt.
Later that night, I spent hours writing out support letters to send to friends and family members. Suddenly, my mother enters the room and puts a long, flowing, white hippie skirt in my lap--then proceeds to walk away like it was no big deal!
Freaking out, I jump up and ask her where she bought it. "Actually, I bought it two years ago, but accidentally got it in the wrong size! I just found it in a box of old summer things and realized it would fit you. Do you like it?"
Even in something so small, I know that God provided this gift for me. There's no other way to explain how my mom bought a skirt two years in advance would just so happen to fit me... and she found it mere hours after I prayed over the skirt.
"Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith!" (Luke 12:17-18)
Oh, and did I mention that it's even cuter than the one in the store??
There's just no way I can spare that kind of money--especially on something that I don't technically need. With my mission trip coming up in two months, I needed to be saving every penny. After all, if I'm asking other people to sacrifice their own finances for this trip, I should be doing the same thing....but man, I want that skirt so bad.
Determined to find a better price, I go home and search the internet for "ankle-length white skirts," "hippie skirts," and even "artsy white skirts." Yet every option was the same price or more! Since when did skirts become so dang expensive?
Two weeks passed, and I couldn't get this silly skirt off my mind.
That's how I found myself back at the department store again, holding up the skirt in my hands like a dainty silver necklace. "Please, God, provide this for me if I'm supposed to have it. If I'm not, just make me okay with that. After all, it's just a skirt." I whisper this prayer softly as I gently put the skirt back on its rack. I run my fingertips down the white material and slowly turn away. I don't know if or how You plan on providing this... maybe a gift card or something?
I kept this little secret in my heart. Somehow, I just knew it wasn't time to tell anyone yet.
Plus, I didn't want to look silly because I prayed over a skirt.
Later that night, I spent hours writing out support letters to send to friends and family members. Suddenly, my mother enters the room and puts a long, flowing, white hippie skirt in my lap--then proceeds to walk away like it was no big deal!
Freaking out, I jump up and ask her where she bought it. "Actually, I bought it two years ago, but accidentally got it in the wrong size! I just found it in a box of old summer things and realized it would fit you. Do you like it?"
Even in something so small, I know that God provided this gift for me. There's no other way to explain how my mom bought a skirt two years in advance would just so happen to fit me... and she found it mere hours after I prayed over the skirt.
"Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith!" (Luke 12:17-18)
Oh, and did I mention that it's even cuter than the one in the store??
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Czech Republic 2012
Dobrý den! I am excited to share the news about what God is doing in my life this summer:I will be in the Czech Republic on an extended 60-day mission trip from mid-June until August. While there, I will be teaching English in both one-on-one English lessons for women and youth camps. While teaching, my goal is to build relationships with the Czech people and share the good news of Jesus Christ with them. The Czech Republic is the most atheistic country in the world, but we have seen significant openness in the hearts of the Czech teens...of which I will be getting to know!
I'm asking for you to support me spiritually through prayer and encouragement. I recognize that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood...but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). For this trip to be successful, I need all of the prayer support that I can get!
Prayer List:
- That God will prepare me spiritually and emotionally in the time leading up to this trip
- That the hearts of the Czech people will be open to the gospel
- Against spiritual warfare that will seek to discourage me
- For travel safety and physical health
- That God will provide encouragement and friendship for me while I am there
- That others will feel a calling to the Czech people -- the harvest is many, but the workers are few (Luke 10:2)
Financial need: $0 -- how can this be??
God has completely provided the finances I need to go on my trip this summer! Yes: $3,200!! Largely through one generous donor, I am now fully funded... two months in advance!
If anyone still feels inclined to send some financial support, there are five other people from my church (including both of my parents) that will be joining me for two weeks in August. They each need to raise about $1,900 throughout the next few months. Any funds sent to me from now on (because God has already provided everything I need!), I will be putting towards the rest of my team as they also follow God into the Czech Republic this summer.
Interested in supporting the team financially?
For a tax write-off, make all checks payable to Mosaic Church, and send them to:
Leslie Goyer
14524 Cantrell Rd Suite 140
Little Rock, AR 72223
If you would like to contact me or receive updates, email me at:
leslie@thegoyers.com.
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| Me with several of the Czech friends I made during last summer's trip |
No Junk
Romantic relationships have always been the most difficult part of my life for me to surrender to God. When I pray for my future husband, I often can feel the war waging inside of me which I can't reconcile. There's the good side: the side that wants to trust God with His plans for my life. Then there's the bad side, the “Leslie” side: the part of me that wants to make things happen in my own time, with the guy I happen to be interested in, in the way that I want things to happen.
All the youth laughing at this point, he went on to say, “You know, Adam and Eve were the perfect people—God don't make no junk! And it will be the same for all of you when you get married: God don't make no junk.”
There was a second thing Jeff mentioned during this weekend that touched my heart. When he became a Christian, he feared that God would look at his life say, “Alright, let's take the ten things you love most in life and throw those out the window. Now let's take the ten things you don't want to do and make you do those every day.”
If I trust God to take care of my relationship status, I don't think that the Creator and God of the Universe—who loves me enough to die for me—would stick me with a boring, unattractive, unromantic, chauvinistic, lazy man. God don't make no junk. By trusting in Him, I'm trusting that He will fulfill my heart.
He's the best man I know, after all.
I spent this past weekend with seventy middle and high school students at a youth retreat. (This is relevant, I promise.) Our first night, Jeff Kinley (the guest speaker) spent some time talking about Adam and Eve and how they were the basis for our sin nature. As he was talking about this first couple, he made a joke that Adam must've named Eve “woman” because all he could say when he first saw her was “Whoa... man! Whoa-man! Wo-man!!”
All the youth laughing at this point, he went on to say, “You know, Adam and Eve were the perfect people—God don't make no junk! And it will be the same for all of you when you get married: God don't make no junk.”
For some reason, that comment stuck in my head throughout the entire weekend—and has been on my mind ever since. As I mentioned before, I struggle with trusting God in the area of guys. Not that there has really been any significant others lately... which is precisely the problem! With college graduation nearing, I've been wondering what I will do once school is through—and marriage, of course, is vying for a place at the top of my attention-list.
Yet, the more I focus on trying to find a husband the more frustrated I get. Either the guy isn't interested in me, or there aren't any available men that care even remotely about Jesus... I just can't get things to work out, you know?
There was a second thing Jeff mentioned during this weekend that touched my heart. When he became a Christian, he feared that God would look at his life say, “Alright, let's take the ten things you love most in life and throw those out the window. Now let's take the ten things you don't want to do and make you do those every day.”
His point was this: God's not like that.
If I trust God to take care of my relationship status, I don't think that the Creator and God of the Universe—who loves me enough to die for me—would stick me with a boring, unattractive, unromantic, chauvinistic, lazy man. God don't make no junk. By trusting in Him, I'm trusting that He will fulfill my heart.“What romance, beauty, and glory we forgo when we try to script the story ourselves. God has not called us to build our lives around the pursuit of our own selfish desires, but to be poured-out sacrifices for His kingdom” (Leslie Ludy, Sacred Singleness). During the rest of my time as a single woman—whether another year or two or twenty—I want to pour out my life for the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
He's the best man I know, after all.
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