Juliana Elizabeth Travis

         About a year ago, I decided to start a campaign to raise money for a charity. I had been looking for a charity to support for a while, but none of them really stuck out to me as the one I wanted to choose. As I was looking one day,  the song Oceans by Hillsong UNITED was running through  my head.  I came across The Water Project and started reading about it.  And I knew immediately that was the charity I had been looking for!         Water plays a huge role in each our lives. Water affects our health, education, and many other things. Nearly 1 billion people across the planet do not have access to clean, safe water. We don’t realize how lucky we are to have clean water in our homes and cities.             My goal is to raise $60,000 and I have raised about $3,000. Watch this video and check out their website to learn more: thewaterproject.org     

           Today, in the process of making my own personal prayer box, I decided that it would be really neat to make a universal prayer box!          To access the prayer box, click this link:  http://ask.fm/julianaelizabethtravis   and type your prayer into the box where it says "Ask @julianaelizabethtravis." You can submit your prayer request anonymously or you can chose to show your name.  When I receive the request, I will share it on the profile so that others can prayer for you too! If you do not wish for your request to be shared, please say so when you send me the request.            I will be continually praying over the prayer requests that I  receive and hope that through this others will pray for you too.            While you are on the profile, if you have any topics you would like me to blog about, please send those ideas to me as well through the "Ask" box. I will try to  cover the topic as quickly as possible and reply with the  link to the po

"A Christian isn't a man who never goes wrong, but a man who is enabled to repent."  -C.S. Lewis            I want to start this post by looking at the definition of repent. Repent 1. feel or express sincere regret or remorse about one's wrongdoing or sin. 2. view or think of (an action or omission) with deep regret or remorse. 3. feel regret or penitence about           One thing that I have always thought was that I should never regret  anything. I should live everyday being happy with my life and if I am filled with shame and regret there is no way that I can be a happy person.           However, Acts 3:19 says, " Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out ." We can see that God tells us to repent and the  definition of repent clearly says to feel regret in all three definitions above. So how can you repent your sins without regretting what you have done? You just can't.            Repentance i

             If you haven't noticed yet, I get a lot of my ideas from seeing things and hearing things.  For example, I was listening to a song on my Country Pandora station and the song "From The Ground Up" by Dan  + Shay came on.  Totally not what you would call a Christian song, but what came to mind when I heard it was amazing.  So the song says: Beside you I'll stand through the good and the bad We'll give all that we have And we'll build this love from the ground up           As I heard these lyrics, my first thought was "Oh, that's like our relationship  with God."   Think about "Jack and the Beanstalk" and how the beanstalk grew straight up into the clouds.   We start at the bottom with God and we must build our way up to Him in His spot in Heaven.  Each step we  take  in the right direction, the closer we get to Him.             However, whenever we make mistakes and start walking down the wrong path, we start to 

          I've seen this quote many times and have never really understood the exact meaning behind it, and as I was scrolling through Pinterest today, it hit me.            In a hallway, there are usually many doors that open into different rooms. In this scenario, think of a hallway with two doors, one behind you and one in front of you. Both doors take you to different places in your life. The door  behind you is something from the past that you're still hanging on to, even if it's just by a single thread. The door in front of you goes into your future, however, it has not yet been opened for you. The hallway is representative of the testing place for God to see if  you are truly ready to follow Him.               Now here comes the true test: Will you wait for God to open the door to what he has greatly planned for your future, or will you turn back to the door of the past and go back to your old ways?            God makes you wait in the hallway to see if

          Wow! I've been so busy with school and other activities that  I haven't blogged in almost two months... a HUGE topic of my blog today.             Before I get into my post, I wanted to  give a final update on the results of my Lenting. My giving up portion of Lent went very well. I had a few "mini Easters" along the way (which are totally acceptable) but overall I did a pretty good job with my fasting. Now that Lent is over and I have gone over 40 days resisting the urge to eat sugary, delicious desserts and candies, I actually do not have the desire to constantly eat these unhealthy things.            Now for the doing portion of Lent I did not do so well on. I was supposed to write a letter to someone who inspired me every day or every other day of Lent. I think I wrote a total of one letter the entire 40 days... Oops! I will most likely try this again in the future and will definitely be more dedicated to getting it done. Now time for the main t

          Today is Ash Wednesday and tomorrow I start my fasting for Lent! This year I am doing things a little differently. I am giving up desserts, candy, soda-- pretty much anything that has unhealthy sugar.            But this year I am adding a "doing" thing to my fast. Every other day of Lent, I will write a letter to someone who has impacted my life. I thought this was really neat because we never realize who really impacts us and who we impact ourselves until it is brought to our attention. I hope to be able to reach my goal of 20 letters for 20 people and hopefully even exceed my goal.            I am so excited to start Lent tomorrow! I hope you're participating, too! Click here to read last year's Lent blog. Click here to read last year's Lent results blog.

          Everyone knows 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, 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 truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." NIV "Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn't want what it doesn't have. Love doesn't strut, doesn't have a swelled head, doesn't force itself on others, isn't always "me first," doesn't fly off the handle, doesn't keep score of the sins of others, doesn't revel when others grovel, takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything, trusts God always, never looks back, but keeps going to the end. Love never dies." MSG            I read an article a while back about putting a perso

          This past week has been full of excitement.           On December 29, my blog turned 1 year old. Over the course of the year, I posted 33 blogs, had 2,529 pageviews, and had readers from 10 different countries. I've made it further than I thought I could in a year and I can't wait to see how my blog will continue to grow. I can't thank my readers enough for helping me get where I am now.            January 1 was the start of a new year. And i believe I ended 2015 and began 2016 in the best way possible.            I spent the past 7 days at UM ARMY. For those of you who don't know, UM ARMY stands for United Methodist Action Reach-Out Mission by Youth. High school and college students and adults spend a week going into communities to work on projects at the houses of people who can't fix the problems themselves or don't have the money to do so.            My shower home family brought something to my mind one night that I had never really thought about.