Something Heavenly

It's time for healing, time to move on
It's time to fix what's been broken too long
Time to make right what has been wrong
It's time to find my way to where I belong
There's a wave that's crashing over me
All I can do is surrender

Whatever you're doing inside of me
It feels like chaos but somehow there's peace
It's hard to surrender to what I can't see
but I'm giving in to something heavenly

Time for a milestone
Time to begin again
Revaluate who I really am
Am I doing everything to follow your will
or just climbing aimlessly over these hills
So show me what it is you want from me
I give everything I surrender...

Time to face up
Clean this old house
Time to breathe in and let everything out
That I've wanted to say for so many years
Time to to release all my held back tears

Whatever you're doing inside of me
It feels like chaos but I believe
You're up to something bigger than me
Larger than life something heavenly

Friends

I went to a reunion in Dallas with all my best friends from college this weekend.  I realized how extremely valuable and rare friendships like these exist.  There are those friends that are around for a season of your life and then those who are friends forever.  These girls are definitely eternal friends.  They are the friends that encourage and speak truth into my life. We were able to sit around and share stories of the past year, and it was amazing that through hearing of their victories and heartache it brought healing to my own situations.  Some of them are going through the exact same things and it is great to just sit there and have someone know exactly what you are feeling and be able to walk with you through it.  I am so glad to have amazing women of God surrounding me, to remind me of the gospel and encourage me when I fall short. I love seeing Christ shine through them. They definitely bring out the best in me.  They are my iron sharpeners!  Beside the hours and hours of great conversation, I am still laughing at some of the ridiculous things we did.  We didn’t have to sit around and remember the memories from college, we just took off and started making new memories!  I am free to be me with these girls! Dang, I’m blessed to have the friends I have, and I don’t think reunion 2010

can come fast enough!

My Life in 2009.

A preview of the craziness of my life in 2009! What a crazy year it has been.

World's Apart

I look beyond the empty cross
forgetting what my life has cost
and wipe away the crimson stains
"dull the nails that still remain"

More and more I need you now,
I owe you more each passing hour
the battle between grace and pride
I gave up not so long ago

So steal my heart and take the pain
and wash the feet and cleanse my pride
take the selfish, take the weak,
and all the things I cannot hide


take the beauty, take my tears
the sin-soaked heart and make it yours
take my world all apart
take it now, take it now
I am broken on my knees

Take my world apart

Hope Now

If everything comes down to love
Then just what am I afraid of?
When I call out Your name
Something inside awakes in my soul
How quickly I forget I'm Yours

Everything rides on hope now
Everything rides on faith somehow
When the world has broken me down
Your love sets me free

When my life is like a storm
Rising waters all I want is the shore
You say I'll be ok and
Make it through the rain
You are my shelter from the storm

You've become my hearts desire
I will sing Your praises higher
Cause Your love sets me free

I'm not my own
I've been carried by you all my life

Warrior King

There is a strong drift toward the hard theological left. some emergent types want to recast Jesus as a limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in His hair, who drank decaf and made pithy zen statements about life while shopping for the perfect pair of shoes. In Revelation, Jesus is a prize fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. that is a guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up. I fear some are becoming more cultural than christian, and without a big Jesus who has authority and hates sin as revealed in the bible, we will have less and less christians, and more and more confused, spiritually self-righteous blogger critics of christianity.' I love how Mark Driscoll says this.  It is becoming so true, because a lot of people have grown up in church and so we are use to hearing cliche sayings like "Jesus loves you" that we become numb to what that really means.  We think of God as loving and gracious and merciful and wonderful and this good sky fairy who runs a day care in the sky and has a bucket of suckers for everyone because we're all good people.  That is a lie...God looks down and hates sin. He says "you are my enemy and I will crush you" and we say that is deserved, just and right, and then God says "Because of Jesus I will love you and forgive you." What a miracle that is! We deserved this wrath and then Jesus loved us so much that he took it on himself.  He is a leader of the Army's, He is a Rebel, He is so different from the paintings of him petting Lambs.  He is so Holy and what he did on the cross is so incredible.  I just feel like I have barely even seen the beginning of what this looks like, but as I continue to study his word and find out more about him I am realizing that he is so much greater than I thought before!  He is completely Just and Righteous and completely loving and gracious all at the same time! He is the Lion and the Lamb.  I just can't get enough...and the great thing is there is always more to be had..He never runs out..He is infinate...

What do I know of Holy?

I made You promises a thousand times
I tried to hear from Heaven
But I talked the whole time
I think I made You too small
I never feared You at all
If You touched my face would I know You?
Looked into my eyes could I behold You?

What do I know of You
Who spoke me into motion?
Where have I even stood
But the shore along Your ocean?
Are You fire? Are You fury?
Are You sacred? Are You beautiful?
What do I know? What do I know of Holy?

I guess I thought that I had figured You out
I knew all the stories and I learned to talk about
How You were mighty to save
Those were only empty words on a page
Then I caught a glimpse of who You might be
The slightest hint of You brought me down to my knees

What do I know of Holy?
What do I know of wounds that will heal my shame?
And a God who gave life "its" name?
What do I know of Holy?
Of the One who the angels praise?
All creation knows Your name
On earth and heaven above
What do I know of this love?

What do I know of Holy?

T minus 2 months and counting!

2 more months and I will be out on my adventure around the world!  I couldn't help but think this year during Thanksgiving about how different my life is going to be in a year from now.  It is so exciting to think about what God will do in me and through me.  The people I will meet, the friends I'll make, the experiences he has planned and the encounters of getting to see him in a new way.  It gets me excited thinking that I am just a loved bit player in this divine epic he is creating.  The greatest thing is that I already know I am on the winning side.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love Texas Tech, and no matter who they are playing I am convinced that we are going to win.  Obviously, I would never bet my life on a Tech football game because if you have been up to date with Tech Football this season or any season for the last 30 years you would know that it is frustrating being a Red Raider at times.  We are so unpredictable and the games we are suppose to lose, we win and those darn games we are suppose to win (cough, cough A&M and Houston) we lose.  Going into each game, you can never be 100% sure that we have the game locked up.  What if, somehow it could be a fact and proven that Texas Tech was going to win every national championship in every sport, every year?  I would think that Tech would have a lot more then just t-shirt fans.  What would be the point in routing for another team if you knew for a fact Tech was going to win?  Me being the Tech recruiter that I am, I would be all over that!  I would be so pumped up and make sure everyone I knew around me would go to school there and get to apart of this national champion power house! I was sitting at the AWESOME Cowboy Stadium last night and I was just thinking about how great it is that my hope is not in Tech football and what I have chosen to put my hope in ultimately wins in the end.  It's like I'm on that dream team that wins every national championship.  We have a star player...He's our QB, Running Back, Lineman, Reciever, Defensive Back, punter and ball boy all at once, and he is even letting us play a little tight end every once in awhile.   I think it's our job to invite the world to join this team and get excited about playing the game.  How great is it that no matter how bad you mess up in the game, your team still wins!  I've been learning alot this week, and ultimately Texas Tech, John Mayer, and The Office all lose.  These are things that I sometimes find myself rooting on their team, but they lose in the end. If we know with all our hearts that in the end, the lamb wins, why not give our devotion, our worship, our lives, our hope to bringing that victory to completion!  God has said that every tribe, tongue and nation is going to join together in the end, and I'm pumped to get to apart of that among the nations.

If anyone would like to donate to my YWAM experience please make a check to:
 Dondi Carter with YWAM Missions in the memo line. send it to
First Methodist Midland
c/o Dondi Carter
300 N. Main
Midland, Tx 79701

25 things you should know

you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you.

• 1. The Greatest football player in the world is Mr. Wes Welker
• 2. The number of times I voted for David Archuleta on American Idol should not be repeated, and I have actually met the kid! Don't hate, He should have won!
• 3. I want to thank the inventer of Dr. Pepper some day
• 4. Reality TV makes me happy..I'm addicted to American Idol and want to win the Amazing Race someday. My life is pretty drama free, so I get my drama fix from Big Brother
• 5. I own all the seasons to the office and still laugh and quote all the great moments through out the 5 seasons, daily! And The Ellen Show is a guarenteed laugh in my day.
• 6. I've spent a summer in China, and it was a place God changed me forever.
• 7. I miss my 1208B girls (and nat) so much...even stupid nash ROOMMATES FOR LIFE!
• 8. I now have the greatest Job in the world, and I think the youth in my youth group are some of the funniest people ever, but I am about to move to Australia to do a YWAM DTS.
• 9. I just graduated from Texas Tech and I can't wait to win the National Championship next year! (oh yeah and I am probably the most biased Tech fan in the world, even when our volleyball team is 0-50, I still know we are going to come back and take the NCAA by storm!)
• 10. I really like Brazil and have some really cool Brazilian friends! I'm starting to get into soccer/futbol thanks to them!
• 11. I have a weird sneezing problem...its complicated
• 12. I love quoting movies...Jack Black, Jim Carry, and Will Farrell are Comic Genis's
• 13. Once you go MAC, you never go back! I love my Macbook!
• 14. I believe you can never really know the scriptures unless you are willing to be changed by them
• 15. I believe God's heart is to be known in every nation, tribe, and tongue. I love missions.
• 16. At Tech, I played the suduko everyday in class, and I miss it!
• 17. Matt Chandler and John Piper are on Point!
• 18. I hate snakes alot!
• 19. I am a book nerd and enjoy reading! I actually just read the twilight series and I'm not gonna lie...I'm hooked!
• 20. John Mayer could sing and play the guitar to every song in the world and I would be okay with it.
• 21. Skiing is my favorite sport
• 22. I enjoy running and hiking through nature.  There is not one square inch of the entire creation where Christ does not cry out "This is Mine!, This belongs to Me!
• 23. I once wanted to go by the name Dondiatello like the ninja turtles and the name Tiffany????
• 24. My family is the greatest and my dad is the funniest guy in the world
• 25. I broke all my ribs in high school (good story) and now my ribs are deformed and still hurt every once in awhile. Also, I have no gallbladder or spleen.

Missions

If the gospel is simply about individual conversion, then all you get is this self-seeking, selfcentered faith that says, “Fix me...make much of me...heal me...make me right.” But the good news of the resurrection is that we’ve been called to greater purposes, greater glories. We’ve been called to the mission? Of what? Well He already said. Remember? He takes them up to the hill, He’s about to ascend and He goes, “You go and tell everyone that injustice, sorrow and death are over. And you tell them everywhere that I have saved them from, and now I save them to.” And so our lives and our wallets and our houses and our cars and our jobs, it all flows through that lens. And I think this is why Christianity gets a little goofy, because I think it becomes self-help to most of us.  If you’re waiting until you’re perfect to live life on mission, you’re going to die without much mission. It’s coming. Do you get this? Do you get that 6000 years ago He told Abram, “This is how it’s going down,” and it has stayed true to the line right up until now where a massive portion of Africa has become believers, a massive portion of China has become believers, South America is blowing up with the gospel? Do you get that the gospel is penetrating the world? Do you know how this ends? With you and me in front of Him, with the kingdom of God, new heaven, new earth coming down, no more injustice, no more pain, no more sorrow, God’s redeemed, God’s elect, the kingdom of God established.

g'day mate!

Australia...put another shrimp on the barbie..wake up for some breaky...g'day mate!  In a year from now, I fully expect to use these terms in everyday life! If I can come out of Australia with an accent my life will be complete haha!  You may see this picture and think hey that is a kangaroo on a beach, but I look at this picture and say hey that is a kangaroo on a beach...the only differnce is that I will be living near this kangaroo for the next 3-6 months whoo hooo!  I have officially been accepted to YWAM Brisbane Sports DTS!  I'm so pumped to see what God is going to do and excited that I get to be apart of His story....His story of redeeming every tribe, tongue and nation to himself!  It's going to be one crazy adventure.  In Esther, Mordecai tells Esther (paraphraised) 'You have been placed here for such a time as this, and if you remain silent then God will raise someone else up to do it.'  I know that such a time is this to go, and if I don't go then God will send someone else, and I will miss out on the blessing to be his hands and feet!  "for such a time is this!" Go, Fight, Win, BREAK.

Ruin My Life

Ruin my life the plans I have made
Ruin desires for my own selfish gain
Destroy the idols that have taken Your place
'Till its You alone I live for

I wondered what my life would look like if I ever prayed this and really meant it.  So I started to make the lyrics my prayer...Ruin me, God. Take all the plans that have laid out for my life and make them yours.  All my selfishness and idols I have placed before you, destroy them and make it where you are all that I live for.  I want to be able to say as Paul says in Phillipians "To live is Christ, and to die is gain."  While I live, my hope, my trust, my refuge, my help, my comfort, my joy is in Christ, and knowing at the same time that this world has nothing for me, so to die is my gain.

Mission exist because worship doesn't.

"Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't."
- John Piper

covered in dust

The title of my blog is "covered in dust." During the first century many people would be sent out with the blessing "may you be covered in the dust of your rabbi." The idea is that followers followed so closely that they would be covered by the dust kicked up by the rabbi's feet. My prayer through out this journey I am about to venture into is that I am following and seeking and listening to Jesus so intently and so closely that I am covered in his dust. I am putting my "yes, I am ready to follow" on the table and with an open hand preparing to be ruined for the nations. I am anxious and excited to see what this life as a "vagabond" has for me.