Happy Valentine´s Day from Guatemala and welcome to my blog:

Rooted & Grounded in Love

The last weeks before leaving Wisconsin God took me to Ephesians 3 and highlighted verses 16 & 17 to me:

“16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love...”

Ok, so... verse 18 is a famous and incredible verse about the depth, height, length and width of God´s love, but God glued my eyes to, “rooted and grounded in love...” and had me sit on it (still sitting on it, by the way.)

He took me back to when I was age 16, when I became a believer, & afterward at age 17, when I started my senior year of high school!!! He was showing me that from the second He began to live in me at age 16, the planted seed in my heart gained the best ground for its new roots!!! I was a baby tree growing and being strengthened in Jesus which involve challenging experiences like:

• losing friends from left to right because I became a Christian...
• getting bullied in my senior year of high school for the first time in the longest time 
• entrusting Jesus with new friends and my career... and whole life
• boldly sharing my faith through my art work in art class

Imagine going through challenging experiences without being able withstand the many storms in life? Jesus is love, and in having Him in my life, I have been given the grit and firm foundation in Him to withstand any and every storm. How thankful am I?

VERY thankful... because I needed this reminder. At age 23 on my 3rd month on the World Race I also went through challenging experiences. Here’s a list:

• Unexpectedly leaving Wisconsin without one of our teams because of a Covid-19 positive case
• Seeing my parents after 3 months and saying bye to them at parent launch
• Doing parent launch and debrief-launch without one of our teams physically able to be there
• Having our 2 teams separate within a room at debrief-launch and having limited contact due to COVID-19
• Having to get COVID-19 tested various times 

Yes friend, these were interesting and hard experiences, yet through it all Jesus really strengthened me... I mean, isn’t He the one I am rooted and grounded in?

And so, being rooted and grounded in love, huh? It sounds pretty even though it doesn’t always look pretty. Good thing the results are always for our good. How does being rooted and grounded in love look like for you? Did you know that Jesus is love and that you can withstand any and every circumstance if you put your faith in Him?

Thank you for reading! Stay tuned for another experience that needed its own blog. Hint... the word involves the letter...“Q”.

With much love,

J