It doesn't get better than God!

Ahhh.. so the last while I have been getting random urges to cry out and praise God and worship and I have been amazed by who He is and what He has done in my life and in so many others. So, I figured I would write some worship declaring a bit of that!

      To start off, God has absolutely revolutionized and transformed me, who I am, how I think, my goals, my inspirations, everything! I used to be so weak, stuck in sins, insecurities and what I thought would make me happy. God began to help me face my insecurities, one at a time. He helped me to grow strong and overcome them. He taught me that my identity is found in Him and who He has made me to be: A son who is loved and cared about, a son who has a purpose and a plan for his life, a son who can overcome, a son who can make a difference, a son who doesn't need feel worthless if the people around him don't really notice him or think he's "something special," because his Father has made him unique and beautiful, powerful in love, made him with care just the way He wanted.
      He has helped me to face the sin in my life. Its a battle as old sins seem to creep up and new ones are brought to light, but I don't have to be a slave to that sin anymore. I can grow and overcome it, and when I do fall, I know my Father loves me and forgives me and will help me to stand back up and keep going and continue to fight to be pure! I know that on my own I can't do a thing, but with God I can do everything. I know that I will always fall short, but because Jesus gave his life in my place, I am forgiven. God did what I couldn't so I could be given a gift that I never deserved, so that thought I am unworthy, God declares me to be worthy and have worth!
     God has added so much joy to my life. I no longer have to walk through each day wondering what the point is, because He has given me purpose. I can be joyful, knowing that He'll never leave me and He will always draw me closer to His side, which is the best place I could ever be! He comforts me and helps me to move past my hurts and habits. I can leave anything and everything in His hands, because He loves me enough to take care of me and help me through any and every situation. I know I can trust Him, because He is perfect and will never let me down. He'll never come up short. Even when I come up short He loves me so so much.
     I could go on and on about how amazing God is, but if this was too long, you probably wouldn't read it and I probably wouldn't get any sleep tonight. All I can say is that God is the best thing thats ever happened to me, the best relationship I've ever had, the best One I could have ever met! Growing close to God can be a long journey, and there will be hard times along the way, but it is so worth it. I wouldn't give up my relationship with God for anything or anyone. I would go through every hard time again, because God used those times to draw me close. He is worth everything, even life itself. I love Him unlike anyone else I have ever loved! Still though, He loves me more than I could ever love Him! 

Where are we going to start to make a difference?

"Factories in three countries – the Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka – were surveyed, and not one of them paid a living wage to their combined 100,000-strong workforce. Many of them didn't even pay the legal minimum wage. What the report also makes clear is that this is a gender issue: 76% of the surveyed workforce are women. Globalised supply chains exploit predominantly female labour. It's an irony that probably escapes most of the women who do the bulk of high street shopping in the west. Women shopping for products made by other, underpaid, exploited, women."

The list of brands ultimately sourcing from the 83 factories surveyed in the report is so comprehensive, it seems to make a mockery of the whole idea that the 'high street' has cleaned up its act.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/apr/28/sweatshops-supplying-high-street-brands

So what are we going to do?

Sweat Shops

Hey, so here's a link to an article talking about sweatshops/slavery. Its quite long, but there is a lot of information in it that would blow you away. Its easy to ignore the fact that slavery is more prominent today that before the American Civil War, but when you read an article like this and its brings the truth a little closer to home. Not only are many of the workers who make our clothes made to work long gruelling hours for little pay, but rape is also prominent. I guess when you think about it, if someone values another's life so little that they can force children to work for nearly nothing and beat them almost to dead when they don't produce well enough, rape isn't exactly a stretch. Anyways, if you care to, click the link or read a small section I've copied below.

http://www.salon.com/2013/03/21/sweatshops_still_make_your_clothes/

"For example, consider one of Kernaghan’s most horrifying exposés: In 2011 he penned areport on Classic, the largest factory in Jordan. Management hired young women from Asia, stripped them of their passports, forced them to work grueling hours for awful pay under a managerial regime that subjected them to routine rape. One woman hung herself in the factory’s bathroom with her own scarf after allegedly being raped at the hands of a manager. The Jordanian Department of Labor, when informed of the abuses, did nothing.

After Kernaghan’s exposé, Kohl’s, Macy’s and Lands’ End stopped doing business with Classic (they represented 8 percent of its export trade), but the factory’s chief customer, Wal-Mart, was unfazed. One serial rapist manager was fired, but many of the other managers accused of rape are still employed there, and women continue to disappear from the factory under highly suspicious circumstances. (Colleagues believe they are being murdered or sold into sexual slavery). According to documents recently smuggled out of the factory, 75 percent of Classic-made apparel is still going to Wal-Mart and Hanes."