"Hi, my name is Halley Hill. I'm going to be a junior at North Little Rock High School and I just want to share with you about my walk with Christ. I've always grown up in a Christian household. My mom and dad love The Lord more than any people I know and I'm definitely blessed to have them. They support me in everything I do and I know that no matter what, they're going to push me to be the best I can be. Especially spiritually. Ever since I was young, they've read the bible to me and always shared Jesus with me. We pray together as a family all the time and there's nothing stronger than a family based on Christ. When I was 6-7 years old, I went to my parents and asked if they would help me ask Jesus into my heart. They said of course and that's when I started believing in God. It wasn't until I was 11, that I was baptized. I wanted to make sure I knew what it meant, and how to live out a Godly life. That was still a young age and God wasn't quite my #1 focus. In 2011, I had the opportunity to go to Africa on a mission trip with my church. Let me tell you something, if you ever feel like you don't have anything...take a look at the kids over there. They have no clothes, no families, and no access to schools. Our church is a part of an orphanage called Kenya relief and it has about 115 kids in it. Churches all around donate to this one orphanage providing these kids with food, school supplies, clothes, and also money. While I was there, being a Christian really hit another level for me. I realized how blessed I was and how I never thanked The Lord for having a bed to sleep in, a house to live in, or even parents that love me and do so much for me. That trip has changed my life forever. God definitely did work while I was there and I could not be more thankful I got to experience what I did. If any of you know me, I'm an athlete. I play basketball at NLR and I also play AAU for an organization called Team AR Elite. I used to play every sport possible, but I realized basketball was the one for me. I don't just play basketball because I love it. I don't just play to stay in shape. I don't just play to have fun. I play to glorify Christ and spread His word. I use basketball as a platform to tell others about Jesus and what He did for us. I've made so many friendships and spread the gospel so much more once I started playing for Him. There's not a game that goes by that I don't pray before. It doesn't give me an edge over any other players or even make me better, it gives me peace knowing that He doesn't care how well I play as long as I give Him my best effort and glorify him through the goods and the bads. I always pray that God will be strong where I am weak. I'm not the quickest kid, but I pray that God will be strong in me through that. I also pray that God will steal my show. I don't want any glory to me. I want it all to go to Him because he's the one who gave me the talent. Once you start playing for God, and glorify Him through your sport, you have a complete different mentality than you did before. You just want to honor Him. I have this saying that I say a lot. G3. It means Give God Glory. I'm not sure who made it up, but I do know my friend Jack Thomas from CAC introduced me to it. I have it everywhere. It's on my license plate, it's on my basketball shoes, it's on my folders at school. I also use this saying as a platform to tell others about Jesus. People ask me all the time what it means, and that just a gateway for me to start talking to them about what Jesus did for us. To glorify God means to bring Him honor through what we say, how we act, and how we think. To glorify God means to acknowledge His glory and to value it above all things. To glorify God means we make it known to others. To glorify God means we have a heart felt gratitude. We glorify God through our Faith. We glorify God through our love. We glorify God through our desire to obey Him. We glorify God with our desire to know Him. Whether I'm on the court, the classroom, with friends, or by myself, I just want to glorify God in everything I do. I'm not a kid who's grown up with a hard life. I'm not a kid who's parents are divorced. To say the least, I'm so blessed. My parents give all they have for me to succeed in sports and in the classroom. They take me from workouts to practices all the time, and are always there to help me with school work or study for tests. Here recently, two weeks ago, my dad had a surgery called gastric sleeve. It's where they take out a significant amount of your stomach for weight loss. My dads surgery went well. He came home the next day and started feeling terrible pain. A staple had ripped in his stomach and so it caused a hole. This meant acid, fluids, medicine, everything was flowing all through my dads body because there was a hole. He had to go in for emergency surgery. The likelihood of me loosing my dad last Saturday, was very high. My mom, my dad, and I sat in his room before surgery and he started trying to say his goodbyes to me. If that's not hard, knowing you could possibly lose your dad within the next hour, then I don't know what is. We all grabbed each other and started praying. God protected my dad in surgery that day, but more was left to come. The next day, my dad ripped another hole in his stomach....but luckily, after many tests, he did not have to go into surgery again. The body is healing itself. As of August 13, he's still in the hospital and most likely gets out today. So God showed a miracle through that these past 12 days and I really learned that I had to rely on Him and not others. For my future. I want to play college basketball. I do not care where. I don't care if it's D1, D2, D3 or even NAIA. I just want to go where I can make the biggest impact on the court, and the biggest impact spiritually. There's things about being a Christian that makes life so much harder, but it is so worth it. God is someone who never leaves you; He's there when no one else is. He loves us so much that He sent His one and only son to come and die the worst death possible for us. For me and you. Just so we could have the opportunity to have an intimate relationship with Jesus. I promise, once you choose to follow Jesus and really start living it out, your life will be changed forever. G3" Age: 16 years old Attends: North Little Rock, Arkansas North Little Rock, Arkansas
1 Comment
madison lawson
9/15/2013 09:31:45 am
Awesome story Halley!!!
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