Prayer journaling helps to strengthen your daily prayer time with God. There is something very powerful about writing down your thoughts and feelings. The entire book of Psalms is actually a collection of David’s and other writer’s prayers; it’s their feelings in written form, one of which says,

“In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice, in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.”

Psalm 5:3 (NIV)

God wants us to come before Him in prayer. He then honors us, and begins to reveal His plans for our lives. Prayer is the lifeline to God and to those plans.

God will prepare you.  Keeping you from temptation and showing you the proper path.  All you have to do is ask.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks received he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” 

Matthew 7:7

God wants to bless you. 

Because I gave him those few minutes each day I was able to hear him speak, when he told me that my husband was “the one.” I had spent just a few minutes praying before our first date.  I remember saying, “Lord, if this guy isn’t worth spending time on, please tell me, I don’t want to go through another heartbreak. I don’t want to waste my time on someone who I wouldn’t consider marrying.”  I had just come out of a long relationship that had been an emotional roller coaster to say the very least.  Because I spent time asking God his opinion, He soon revealed to me just how worthwhile spending time with that night’s date would prove to be.

Then, another time, I prayed for months over a decision I had to make about college.  I had for many years wanted to attend a Christian college, however when I got there I was desperately homesick.  The Christian school I had dreamed of going to, though I enjoyed very much, was three hours from home and my anxiety levels were high as I sat all alone in my dorm room on Sunday nights after returning to school. With my mom, dad, younger brother and fiancée miles away, I sat there alone and ached to be with them.  After many prayers and written chats with God in my prayer journal, I soon realized it would be okay to return home after just one semester at the Christian school to attend a secular community college closer to home.

Because I took the time to write down my prayers, I was able to see what God was leading me to do, and how He was guiding the answers to my concerns and requests as I poured them out to Him time and time again.  I am therefore grateful for the blank, white pages of each journal that my mom bought me - each of them empty but filled with amazing potential. They were an open canvas to be filled with my words - words that described my hopes, my fears, my dreams, and my aspirations, all of which I can now see God’s hand in, making my faith in Him today, greater than ever before. All because I took the time to spend some time writing notes to my Savior on the pages of a prayer journal.
Put your trust in Him & He will slowly put the pieces of the puzzle of yoru life together.  He will reveal to you His glorious plan.

“Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.  Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.“

Psalm 37:3-7

God is on your side.  You just have to trust Him and spend time with Him.  He wants to spend time with you, He will prepare you, and He will bless you.  Try Him!

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Prayer though it should come easily is hard for many of us.  We do not let the words flow as we do with a human friend, though we are talking with the most trusted friend any of us could ever have or want, Jesus Christ, therefore it should be an easy conversation to have.
I truly believe in the power of prayer and believe that you can pray about anything. The Bible tells us we are to

“cast all our cares upon Him, because He cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:7 (KJV)

The Lord truly wants us to bring our burdens and cares to Him through prayer. We are to pray about everything to “pray without ceasing.”
Here are some things that you can pray about:

1. Everyday life situations. You can pray about your friends, your worries, your grades, peer pressure, and your job. LIFE! God understands and He wants you to come to Him with it all.

2. For others. Pray for others, intercession is a privilege and we should always intercede on the behalf of others whether they have asked us to or not, whether they are sick, in need or you just want to thank God for them.

3. The future. Yes, it’s uncertain to us, but God knows all about it, praying for God’s will in our lives will help us to find the future that is best for us, the right path!

4. Thanksgivings. We don’t want to just ASK God for things, we want to take time to THANK HIM for things as well. Thank God for the many blessings he has given you and your family!

5. Your feelings. God can handle it. Feel angry? PRAY, Hurt? PRAY, Guilty? PRAY. Prayer is always a good answer to how you are feeling.

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Sure things over the years have helped to boost my confidence, making the cheerleader squad in Junior high, attending modeling school in high school, meeting my husband, graduating from college, being admitted to seminary. But then I let those failures creep in, or at least they are failures in my eyes, the things I’ve left undone, create a lack of confidence in myself. It is only when I put my full confidence in and draw strength from God that I am able to remain strong and confident.

The thing is we can rely fully on the confidence that comes from Christ if we just allow Him to be that confidence for us.  We are the ones who struggle with it, Not Him, He is in control, He has a plan.  Another song, “He Who Began a Good Work In You” begins playing in my head….then the verse,

Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Philippians 1:6

plays as well. The Lord puts all of things on my heart and mind helping me to remain confident. I know I can continually go to Him because I know He can bring me confidence like no other.

What about you, what gives you confidence?  Do you go to God for the confidence that you need?  Test him, and prove him today to bring you the confidence that you need.

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What is “true love”?

Have you ever thought that you were in love? I know I did when I was dating; early on in my teen years. But was it really love? I am not going to say for sure, but I do know that the Bible describes love best. It does so in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 which say,

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

These are all characteristics of true love. Love is also about a relationship. The purest form of a love relationship is that of Jesus Christ. We must look for characteristics of Jesus in another person in order to find true love.

So many times today, we allow other characteristics such as physical appearance, popularity, or personality to attract us to someone else. This causes us to be convinced that it is “true love” and then we often share the rarest gift that we have with the wrong person.

Love is not an emotion, but rather both a commitment and a devotion to someone else. If you are truly committed to and devoted to someone, you can wait for them. Christ was so devoted to us that he gave his own life. We need to be so devoted to our “true love” that we can wait to give them our rarest gift.

Likewise, sex and love are not the same. Sex is a completion of two people becoming one. The Bible explains it is a part of a marriage relationship, another gift given to us by God.

Pre-marital sex only leads to pain and heartache because it does not include the characteristics of the true love relationship, that of commitment and devotion. If you think about it, most people who participate in pre-marital sex do it on a whim or because of a long night of drinking. They are not in any means committed to or devoted to the person with whom they share their rarest gift.

I can remember vividly being a part of a True Love Waits rally. The True Love Waits campaign began in 1993. I was 13 years old. Standing in about the second pew of the church, I was asked to sign a card committing to stay sexually pure until marriage. I signed that card and committed in my heart also to stay sexually pure. So did my best friend. We even had a conversation afterwards saying that we would hold each other accountable. That next year my friend moved away. I was not in constant contact with her, and therefore it was a little more difficult to hold each other accountable. However, almost 2 years later, late one night, I had just arrived home from a date with my boyfriend when the phone rang. I fully expected it to be my boyfriend who always called me after he arrived home. However, it wasn’t, it was my friend, speaking through her tears, she told me that she had broken her promise and had given away her rarest gift that night. She shared with me how badly she regretted it, how much she felt cheated, how she felt scared, alone, and dirty. It hurt me so bad that she had done it and I longed to reach out over the phone lines and make it better. But, there was nothing I could do.

You see, when you have sex outside of marriage, that person can so easily and freely walk away from you because there is no real commitment made between the two of you. That night, my friend’s boyfriend had to go home, they weren’t married, they were young, immature, and had made a mistake. They broke up later and there was nothing left for her to hang on to, no way to feel that love or devotion.

I can tell you that my friend was heartbroken, I can tell you that “true love waits”, and heartbreaks don’t. If you want to be heartbroken, give away your rarest gift to the wrong person too soon.

Therefore, how can you avoid this heartbreak occurring in your life? Well, the Bible says, “Do not be mislead, bad company corrupts good character.” 1 Corinthians 15:33

When I was in high school I was constantly pressured more so by my friends and peers than by my boyfriend himself to participate in pre-marital sex.

If you surround yourself with those who are sinning and in sin then you too will be pulled into sin. I know that this is sometimes unavoidable. However, be watchful and mindful of those with whom you spend your time. People will automatically think you are like those that you hang around. Plus, you will be more tempted. Everyone undergoes this temptation. However, how you choose to respond to it is what is important. The Bible says, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man, And God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.” 1 Corinthians 10:13 (NIV)

It is important that you are ready, that you know how to avoid this temptation. For instance, what you spend your time thinking about and dwelling upon will eventually become what you will do. Your thoughts do indeed become your actions. Psychologists have proven this true. If you dwell upon lusting after the opposite sex, then you will be led into the temptation and indeed sin. Remembering that “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.” Philippians 4:8

True Love is indeed worth waiting for. Not only will you be rewarded with the rarest gift your spouse has in their life, on your wedding night, but also you will understand and appreciate the commitment and devotion that you share with each other from that day forward. Only Christ defines true love better than that.

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The choices you make today as a teen or tween will definitely affect the person you will become tomorrow.Many young lives are complicated by the results of choosing to drink and drive and then becoming the victim of a horrible car accident and maybe even the accuser of a horrible crime such as the loss of another person’s life because the accident resulted in a death. Or maybe, that one night of going too far with your boyfriend results in a teen pregnancy. Think about those consequences. Think about how they could affect you tomorrow and in the many days that lie ahead for you in life.

I know that the teenage years often include a time of “rebellion”. Mine did, yours will and it will be important how you choose to handle this time of your life. This next week on my podcast “Mom-Daughter Connection Radio Show & Podcast” I will be giving a personal testimony of my time of rebellion. I encourage you to have a listen. The recording will be available on Monday, October 8.

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So many girls today use their bodies with the wrong intentions. Just consider some of our “pop stars”, it goes without saying that they definitely flaunt their bodies for attention, and mostly the wrong kind. The following examples are ways you don’t want to be guilty of intending to impress: wearing a short skirt to lure that guy you have a crush on to you, Showing off a little too much of your chest for extra attention, you get the picture.

I know it’s fun to be stylish and there is nothing wrong with it, unless you are crossing too far past the line of immodesty. Immodesty is simply, not being properly restrained with your self-expression. Don’t you want to be able to show that you can restrain yourself properly? That you have enough of one of the fruits of the spirit, the fruit of self-control in your life that you can decide to wear a little more length on your skirt, rather than having to tug and pull at one that is a bit too short and catching too many luring eyes. Girls, we should not cause our male counterparts to stumble and we can do so by tempting them with our bodies, tempting them to lust after us. And that my friends, is a sin for us to do so intentionally.

Our intentions should start with a desire to be holy, or set apart for God. The best way for you to decide what your intentions truly are is to take a “heart check”. What are your motives and goals for the way that you are dressing?

Are you:

• trying to look pretty?
• trying to draw attention to yourself or flaunt your beauty?
• trying to lure a guy to you?

You can also do a “modesty check”. Follow the link to the modesty checklist.

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Now, is college important for some, yes, and it should be something that you think about for quite some time and consider several factors before making a decision. Here are some of the factors I feel are important:

1. Public university versus Private - Being someone who has attended both a public university and a private college, I do know there are some differences and they could make or break your decision and may greatly affect your decision.

Public universities tend to be less costly and often offer more state-scholarships. Public universities however may more often be considered the “party school”.

Private schools tend to be more costly and because of their size often have limited scholarships and financial aid opportunities. However, they are more often known for being either a “Christian school”, “Women’s College” or “Ivy League”. Often known much more for their religion, sex-specific activities, or academics.

For me, at first, I believed that a private college was the right option for me. However, after I got there, I realized I had not taken some other factors into account, including the location of the college. It was 3 hours away from my home, my family and my fiance. To say the least, this is an important factor.

2. Local versus Long Distance - Another factor that may come into play when deciding where to attend college is whether you will go to a local university or one several hours away or even states away from home.

Local colleges often give on the opportunity to live at home and commute thus saving money. While Long distance colleges often require one to live in a dormitory or in an off-campus apartment or house.

Remaining local gives one the security of having your loved ones nearby, while being away may give you the freedom you want as well as the opportunity to meet new people.

Being far way from home was difficult for me, search your heart to see if this might be difficult for you as well. Also, God had other plans in mind for my life. Marriage came early in life for me and God has blessed me immensely and shown me the path he had for me, along the way. (**Note: I’m not saying marriage in college is for everyone either, it is tough.)

3. Four year college versus community college - The differences in a four year university and a community college is simple in a four year college you complete all four years of college there on campus and as a result will receive a Bachelor’s level degree in your chosen major.

On the other hand a community college gives one the opportunity to take 2 years of college before going to a university, one may choose to follow a specific major and receive an Associates Degree in that area of interest or one may choose to just take classes and receive credits that they can later transfer to a university before completing their college career.

Both options can be positive, and again a 4 year college from day one is not always best for everyone. Also, some may choose to only go to a 2 year community college and that be the extent of their college careers. This is a choice each individual must make.

For me, I at first began at a 4 year college, though I thought I was prepared this was a difficult time for me. I only attended the 4 year college the first semester of my freshmen year, transferring to a community college in the Spring of that year to gain more credits before transferring to another university for my Junior and Senior Years.

Now, where does God come into all this? Sure these are all very practical options and choices to make, but does God care which choice I make? Absolutely, God will help you to decide which of each option to choose. God will clearly guide you if you ask him. Remember, God has great plans for your life, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

God also want to give you the “wisdom that passes all understanding”, to help you in your decision. He tells us that if we ask for that wisdom, then we shall receive it. So, begin weighting your options as you approach the time where you will have to make these decisions about college and in doing so, begin to ask God for the wisdom to make the right decisions.

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You can also come here and post your prayer requests and I will say a prayer for you.

I also hope to use this page as a way to connect to as many of you girls out there as possible. Maybe you have been a participant at one of my events, maybe your mom is on my mailing list and you read my emails with her, or listen to the Mom-Daughter Connection Radio Show & Podcast together, or maybe you just stumbled upon me while searching for something online. Whatever the case I hope that you will feel welcomed and will leave me a comment, shoot me an email or add me as a friend on Myspace or Facebook. I will be posting button links to both my MySpace an Facebook pages.

In the meantime, I will be posting content in each of the following categories in the weeks ahead: Tips & Trends, Devotions, and Ask Alyssa, more categories to follow. If you have a question to submit to Alyssa please post it in the comments section below or email  me.

This site will be officially launching on November 1st, but until then if you’ve found us, welcome and please begin sending me your questions and prayer requests as this will add to the content that will be available here on the site.

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