olive thinks.

-Married in January 2014 to one of the most sincere, sacrificially loving, gospel-centered man that I've grown to know and be with. He prays for me almost every night and reminds me of the grace we have by pointing me to our savior. 

-Faced the challenges of leaving home and relocating to the Bay.

-Have been cooking here and there, experimenting different dishes. Learned how to do laundry.

-Worked remotely from home and now doing contract work at a corporation where I'm meeting great people and getting more cultured. :)

-Recognizing more in marriage how I am a sinner, struggling to put the old woman to death, living out as a daughter of the most high king by recognizing the gospel. Marriage is really about holiness. 

-Starting bible study with an ex-muslim who has accepted Christ as her savior. The pastoral staff and I were able to hear her pray, weeping in Farsi. It was utterly beautiful and mind-blowing. She's going through a lot, please when you have time, lift her up in your prayers.

-Starting to pray for my coworkers and asking God for wisdom in how I can be loving towards them. 

-Looking forward by partnering with God to witness what He's already doing here in the bay.

"I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things."

This verse is offending. It's offensive to those that don't believe God created sickness, death, and pain.

But it's actually very comforting. It gives me the assurance that He is even more powerful and that nothing is out of his hands. It's not because He is weak that he isn't healing someone. It's not because He does not care about pain and suffering. But when He does not heal, when there is greater suffering ahead, .. I might even say that He creates darkness and calamity because knows that the ones that love him will be refined, refocused, re-established in their faith by them. 

He's sovereign and will use all things for His glory because everything is from Him. Nothing has been created without Him. 

Small problems seem big to us, but we’re not God. He is completely aware of all you face and every situation in which you find yourself. God will allow you to go through a trial to change you and to bring glory to Himself. It won't go on forever. It won't get too deep. It won't become too hot. So you need not falter—God is watching!

But let me remind you: The instant you move toward Jesus, the devil is rendered helpless. He cannot stop anyone who is headed to Christ! He could not keep the demon-possessed young man from reaching Jesus. All Christ had to do was say a word: “And Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the child, and delivered him again to his father” (verse 42). James tells us, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). So, how do you resist the enemy? You do it by faith alone! Simply come to Jesus, trusting that He will rescue you from Satan’s clutches. “Whom resist steadfast in the faith” (1 Peter 5:9). You can be free today.

You can say to Satan, “When I finish reading this message, I’m going to be a free person. Jesus is going to deliver me from every lust and ungodly passion. It’s all going to go because He said so.” The times ahead may get hard for you. But the Father’s glorious, blazing sun will shine ever brighter for you!"

- David Wilkerson

Mortification. It isn’t a word you hear much these days. But mortification of sin was what Paul was talking about when he said to the Colossians, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you” (Col. 3:5). He urged the Romans to do the same: “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Rom. 8:13).

Putting sin to death is an essential part of the Christian life. But how do we do it? One group we can turn to for guidance is the Puritans. The Puritanism was a 16th- and 17th-century movement that sought to purify worship and practice in the Church of England. As part of their emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing about lives of holiness, they wrote a lot about mortification; John Owen even wrote an entire book called On the Mortification of Sin. They offer sound advice for us today.

1. SEE SIN FOR WHAT IT IS

“If the thoughts of death, and the grave, and rottenness, are not pleasant to you, do not let the thoughts of sin be pleasant. Listen to every temptation to sin as you would listen to a temptation to self-murder, and as you would do if the devil brought you a knife and tempted you to cut your throat with it; so do when he offers you the bait of sin.”

 —Richard Baxter

2. DON’T WAIT FOR SINFUL DESIRES TO CHANGE ON THEIR OWN

“We must not indulge our inclinations, as we do little children, till they grow weary of the thing they are unwilling to let go. We must not continue our sinful practices in hopes that the divine grace will one day overpower our spirits, and make us hate them for their own deformity.”

—Henry Scougal

3. EXAMINE YOURSELF REGULARLY

“The longer you delay, the more your sin gets strength and rooting. If you cannot bend a twig, how will you be able to bend it when it is a tree? If you cannot pluck up a tender plant, are you likely to pluck up a sturdy oak?”

—Richard Baxter

4. DON’T TRY TO DO IT WITHOUT THE SPIRIT

“It is the Spirit alone that can mortify sin; he is promised to do it, and all other means without him are empty and vain. How shall he, then, mortify sin that has not the Spirit? A man may easier see without eyes, speak without a tongue, than truly mortify one sin without the Spirit.”

—John Owen

5. DON’T TRY TO DO IT WITHOUT OTHER PEOPLE

“Woe to him that is alone! David was alone when Satan drew him to defile his neighbor’s wife. While the sheep flock together they are safe, as being under the shepherd’s eye. But if one straggle from the rest, it is quickly a prey to the ravenous wolf. It is no hard matter to rob that house that stands far from neighbors. The cruel pirate Satan watches for those vessels that sail without a convoy.”

—George Swinnock

6. EXPECT TO FIGHT SIN YOUR WHOLE LIFE

“Let no man think to kill sin with few, easy, or gentle strokes. He who has once smitten a serpent, if he does not follow on his blow until he be slain, may repent that ever he began the quarrel. And so will he who undertakes to deal with sin and pursues it not constantly to death. Sin will after a while revive, and the man must die. It is a great and fatal mistake if we suppose this work will admit of any remissness or intermission.”

—John Owen

Gotta walk in the spirit.