Distractions; some you need to give into

My last post was on May 11th, which is almost about three months ago. It seems so weird because it's not like me at all to go three months with out writing. There has just been so many things going on in my world I guess, that have distracted me from sitting down and just thinking about things, which is what I haven't really realized until this week, when my boyfriend, my best friend, didn't even really know what was going on in each other lives.
Summer can do that to you apparently, though, since I spent the entire summer at camp last year, it seems that I have forgotten what a real summer is. It's kind of boring, but since this is my last real summer of being in high school, it's somewhat of a rush with all the feelings it creates.
There's stress of visiting, picking, applying to colleges, and since I am a photography major, I've been working rigorously on my portfolio to send to colleges.
Excitement, I'm in my first real exhibit tomorrow night in Boston, at the Art Institute of Boston, along with many other talented kids who did their AIR program this summer.
Mixed feelings. There are many adjustments that have had to be made; my boyfriend moving 3 and a half hours away, instead of being a mere hour away. My father, being away all week every week since he took a new job, leaving my mom basically a single parent. Making many life decisions over the past school year, which have left me with nowhere nearly as many friend, which has been extremely hard. I pretty much stay home every day with my mom and sister, and don't really get out much at all, which is a HUGE change from last summer.
Sadness, because I miss all my friends at camp, and also knowing that this is my last full year at home, but not really because this time next year I will be already be packing for college.
Nervousness since I will be leaving home oh so soon.
Happiness, because I will be leaving home so soon.
There have been so many things distracting me this summer, but it doesn't make it acceptable. I'm not just talking about my lack of blogging, more my lack of looking at my life. I honestly have been ignoring all the things beneath all the emotions, including myself. I have just been trying to deal with all these NEW things, that I have been ignoring things that I should have been dealing with before, struggles I have had, and still need to pay attention to.
So, this is more or less, my letter to myself to snap out of it, and come back to reality. You are not the only one going through these things, and many others have gone through it before you.
But you do have the ones that will always be there for you, so look to them, and try not to get distracted anymore.

Love; it's unstoppable

My mom and sister are very into country music, I mean, obsessed. I on the other hand, I like it, but I am not like them with this obsession.

One of the reasons I do like country music though is because of the lyrics. Most country stars actually write their own music, unlike most pop stars, it comes from the heart, something that we can all relate to, not any of this “I kissed a girl” crap. They’re stories, that make you play out the song in your head, relate to it. Think of Taylor Swift; I know for a fact there is a group on facebook called “There’s a Taylor Swift song for that…” a lot of teenage girls say that they can relate to her music, that’s because SHE writes her songs about things that happen to all of us, heartbreak, happiness, childbirth, marriage, love, everything.

Now, this isn’t a blog to defend country music and ask people to support it, no, as I said in the beginning, I’m not a obsessed country fan, I’m more of an alternative/indie type girl. No, this blog is about love.

That probably surprised you, not really the direction I started with. Here’s the “answer”. There’s a song by the band Rascal Flatts called Unstoppable, it’s about someone who has “walked the road a little sideways”, but they find love, and realize how it can fix anything, and I truly believe that. Though, there is only one kind of love, God’s love. Sure, you can get love from another person, but it is God’s love shining through them to you.

This past year I have had that happened to me. This time last year I was on the path to nowhere; I had bad grades, bad friends, and had made a lot of bad decisions. I’m a teenager, so I’m sure that you can figure out what those decisions were. Though, in the eighth grade, I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior, so He was still living in me, even if I wasn’t living for him. But nevertheless, I spent my entire sophomore year trying to push Him away, and I did a really good job of it. I blocked Him out to the point where I couldn’t hear Him anymore, and the decisions I made didn’t even bother me anymore. But last summer, when I was away from that all in the middle of nowhere New Hampshire, somehow God shone through to me, and that was the breaking point, and everything changed. I got rid of all those things in my life and started over. Completely over, and the friends that I had made were there to help me along the way, and they still are. Their love (God’s love) shone through to me, and it conquered all, it was unstoppable.

So here’s my closing; one, don’t be afraid to love someone, because chances are, they need some, and two, don’t be afraid to love someone back, because love is unstoppable.

Unstoppable, by Rascal Flatts

So, you made a lot of mistakes
Walked down the road a little sideways
Cracked a brick when you hit the wall
Yeah, you've had a pocket full of regrets
Pull you down faster than a sunset
Hey, it happens to us all

When the cold hard rain just won't quit
And you can't see your way out of it

You find your faith has been lost and shaken
You take back what's been taken
Get on your knees and dig down deep
You can do what you think is impossible
Keep on believing, don't give in
It'll come and make you whole again
It always will, it always does
Love is unstoppable

Love, it can weather any storm,
Bring you back to being born, again
oh, it's a helping hand when you need it most
A lighthouse shining on the coast
That never goes dim

When your heart is full of doubt
And you think that there's no way out

You find your faith has been lost and shaken
You take back what's been taken
Get on your knees and dig down deep
You can do what you think is impossible
Keep on believing, don't give in
It'll come and make you whole again
It always will, it always does
Love is unstoppable

Like a river keeps on rolling
Like the north wind blowing
Don't it feel good knowing

You find your faith has been lost and shaken
You take back what's been taken
Get on your knees and dig down deep
You can do what you think is impossible
Keep on believing, don't give in
It'll come and make you whole again
It always will, it always does
Love is unstoppable

Love is unstoppable
So you made a lot of mistakes
Walked down the road a little sideways
Love, love is unstoppable

Sort of a "life update"

I have so much I want to write, but so little time, because I have to do my run soon.

I just started running last week because I finally got my PROM dress, and it's so beautiful, but if I don't keep in shape for the next two and a half weeks, I might not be able to fit into it. And because it is so "slimming" in a sense, I can't really have a bulge, or you will see it. This is my first (and probably only, since I'm homeschooled) prom that I will get to go to, but I am okay with that. My boyfriend is a senior, and it is going to be a really special night for the both of us. Sort of the last night that things will be the way they are right now, because that is never going to come back.

We were talking about that last night, how after he graduates, things are going to be so much different. He will be going off to camp, I wont be, which is the first hard obstacle. He's going to be there, and I will be here, and not even just for the summer, but he is going to be living there for the rest of the year/however long God wants to keep him there, and it's not that he is just my boyfriend, he is my best friend, so imagine having your best friend living three and a half hours away, with possibly no car, and not a lot of vacation. Of course it's not like I see alot of him right now, because I don't, but, while he is there, I probably will be seeing even less of him, as well as talk.

But that's not the only thing "freaking" me out. He is going to be in college, and I am still going to be in high school. MY senior year. Which, of course, I have been looking foward to for twelve years, but also, at the same time, I am very scared. I have to start applying to schools, then pick one, and get all of that stuff done. But before I even get to do that, I have to get my portfolio ready.

Because I want to be a photographer, all the art schools that I am applying to require you to submit a portfolio, and some of the more prestigious schools I would like to apply to, require some things in those portfolios that I don't know how to do. So over the summer I will have to work on/learn how to do those things, which is nerve-wracking because my future depends on weather I can get these things or not!

But through all of this somehow I am still hearing really great things from God, in really weird places and times though, which sometimes amuses me, but I think that is His point, that I shouldn't be stressed out, I should just be trusting Him and going with what He wants for me, so I guess we will have to see what that is!

Love never gives up, never loses faith

I haven’t posted in a little over a week now, even though I said that I was going to work on doing it more often, I also said that I was going to spend more time with the Lord, but am still working on that too. Yesterday I had something happen that helped me realize why He is so amazing, and why I need and want to spend more time with him.

My boyfriend came to visit on Wednesday, the first time that I had seen him since New Year’s Day. We had an amazing day; filled with a picnic, friends, and sunburns from laying out in the sun all day. I had been planning that day for about a month, and then all of a sudden it was over just like it had started. Thursday morning I was a wreck, he had been here for such a short time, and I didn’t know what to do now that it was over. So I did the thing that most seventeen year old girls did, I went to my room and cried. But after thinking for a while, I realized that crying never actually solves everything, but He does. So, I got off my bed, went and got my Bible, and talked to my “Dad” for a while. I just asked Him what to do, and how I was going to get through this. Because I knew there was a reason that he lived so far away, but I needed a little encouragement. This is what He showed me;


1 Corinthians 13:7
“Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.”


I knew right away that everything was going to be okay. I got that feeling that He was with me, and in control.
I’m hoping that yesterday will start to sink into my head and I will be back to spending more time with my Heavenly Father, please pray for me, I think I’m going to need it.

This is such a short post for me, I’m not sure, but I have this feeling that the next one will be longer.

Do Over; Don'tcha want one?

Today is Easter, probably the most important day of the year for most believers.
There are so many things that it means to the world. The fact that Jesus came to save us; born of a virgin, and lived a sinless life, but then gave His life for everyone (yes, everyone), and then rose again to show that we would (and can if we take it) have eternal life.

That’s pretty cool to me honestly, and I can’t understand how anyone could not want to take that. It took me a while (about 14 years) to fully understand that this is what everyone needed before I would take it, and I still don’t even know why I didn’t want that. I will never understand. A lot of this “stuff” is what we talked about today in church, though there was something else, two words, my pastor kept saying over and over that really struck me.

Do Over.

That’s really what he gave us. He gave us a chance to have a “do over”. Whenever we need one; because, let’s face it; we need a lot of “do over’s” in life. That’s what I realized that I needed this morning, a do over.

I woke up this morning with a fire inside that I haven’t felt in a while, I didn’t know exactly why, and still don’t, but it felt really good. I got up at about seven (pretty early for a Sunday I guess), made my coffee, and went outside to do my devotions. When I went to go and write in my journal (which I usually do when I really want to have a big discussion with Him), I realized that I hadn’t written in it in about almost a whole month, and the whole last entry was about how I needed to spend more time with Him. Well, we can see THAT didn’t happen.

I don’t even know why, and it really upsets me. It upsets me even more that in my last blog (which was written over a month ago) I said that I would be writing more and more often than I already did, and THAT didn’t happen either. And while I took these long “breaks” from REALLY communicating with God, a lot of things happened in my life, and not great things at that. My cat died, my great grandma died, I didn’t get re-hired at camp for this summer, my basement flooded. Those are just a few things, and all along I did ask God what this was for, what he wanted me to see. Now it’s obvious that he wanted me to spend more time with Him. I was trusting Him, and still running to Him, but I wasn’t trying to keep our relationship a two way street, it was more like a one way because the other lane had an accident blocking traffic from flowing correctly.

So today I’m taking a do over. Because I know that he will give it to me, He doesn’t care what I’ve done, because it’s in the past. And the only thing that matters to him is the present, and that I do my best to shine for Him, and that’s what He needed me to see. I don’t have the greatest past, but He doesn’t care about that because I am forever changed. Today my boyfriend approached me about how he wants to write a book, a book on purity and love from a teen male’s perspective, and how he wants me to help him with it, and maybe even put some input into it. The topic of purity has always been a “pressure point” for me, so to speak, because I haven’t been one of the purist of Christians that you could meet. But that has changed, and I am working to make myself better in this area, and today in church I realized that was what I wanted my “do over” to be about. To do what He has commanded, but to also use my “experiences” to help other people, and that was what He had for me when I got home, a chance to help myself, and other people. A chance for a do over. A chance to show people that there is another way, a truth, a light. And he died for us so we can HAVE that way.

What did I tell you? Easter has a lot of meanings.


Happy Easter, he is risen.

Two Weeks; shall be interesting...

So today is the start of an interesting “journey” for me, so to speak.

Yesterday morning I woke up, thinking it would be a normal everyday Sunday, though it already wasn’t because my dad was working, therefore we weren’t going to church. I grabbed my cup of coffee like I do every morning, sat down on the couch, and began to watch the morning news with my mom, like I do almost every day, completely normal.

Though, this was not going to be a normal day. After about an hour of watching the news, I got up, to I think get my breakfast, though I’m not totally sure because I never ended up doing it. My mom came out of the dining room, which is where we keep all of our school stuff (my little sister and I are home schooled if you didn’t know), clutching my “planner” in her hand, and I knew I was in trouble.

The night before I went out to dinner with my best friend and her parents, but before I had left, my mom has asked me if all my “homework” was done, immediately I answered yes (because indeed I thought it was). So I went off with my friend and her family, and had a grand ol’ time, while my mom, at home, found that I had not, as I said that I had, finished all my school work.

If you know me, you know how far behind I am in school right now because; I started at a school this year, and then decided to return home, then had to repeat the whole first term anyway, and my books came about a month late. So yeah, I’m really REALLY far behind. And as I have written before, school is a big issue for me; I despise it, though I have never figured out why, because I do love to learn. My brain is a complicated subject matter, just ask my boyfriend.

So there my mother stood with my planner in her hand, and a look on her face I know all too well, though haven’t seen much of lately (thankfully, I have learned my lessons on a lot of things in the past year). She showed me all the work that I was supposed to have had done that I had not done, (it was a lot let me tell you. Can you say whoops?) and told me that I was to have it on her “desk” by Monday morning (today). It was about forty-five, give or take a few, pages of work, and not easy work at that. She continued to go on and tell me that I have no computer or phone privileges for two weeks (if you’re wondering how I am writing this, I do still have to do some school work on the computer), starting Monday.

After I pondered it during the day while I did my extensive amount of work, I found that I was troubled by my actions when she first gave me the verdict. The only thing that came out of my mouth was this “will I be able to use the house phone?”. I had no regards as to why I was really in trouble. Because yes, I was in “trouble” by my parents, but I am in TROUBLE right now, if I don’t get caught up, I might have to stay back a year. That would mean that I would be 19 years old at the start of my senior year. I do NOT want that to happen, I want to get out of here, and be who I am supposed to be. But the only thing that worried me was that I wouldn’t be able to talk to my boyfriend for two weeks. Is there something wrong with that? I wasn’t prioritizing correctly AT ALL. I always tell him that school always comes before me, or anything (except God), but I wasn’t willing to follow my own rule, why?

So I told him of the two week thing, and this is what he said “it’s okay, we’ll get through it, and we’ll be so much stronger in the end”. That’s it. No “man this is retarded!” or “I don’t know what I am going to do without you”. He knew this was what I needed to do; he accepted it, something that apparently, I wasn’t willing to do, for myself.

So I end by saying what I started with. Today is the start of an interesting “journey” for me. I am going to learn that you don’t need to completely fill your life with one person to the point where you can’t see what’s important anymore, and that one person shouldn’t be your whole identity. I will learn that I can survive without modern technology (maybe), and also that I can fend for myself. I don’t need people to “fix” every little single problem in my life, some things I need to do for myself. So this shall be interesting. I probably will write a couple of times during the two weeks, let people know how I am doing, let my thoughts out and see them for myself. So, pray for me that; I use this time wisely, I get things done, focus more on Him and learn to rely on Him instead of people, and learn to appreciate what I have and not take advantage of it.
Wish me luck!

Your log; doesn't mean pick on someone elses speck

"Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, 'Let me wash your face for you,' when your own face is distorted by contempt? It's this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.” Matthew 7:1-5 (The Message)


I love this, and I love this version, though I wish lately that I had been taking it a lot more seriously, and actually taking action.

I have this friend in my life, someone who is so much more than a friend. They are my other half as some people say, and I agree completely. We laugh together, cry, when they hurts, I hurt. But I hadn’t realized how much I had been hurting them lately.

Something has been going on with me lately, something that I refused even to acknowledge. I had been convinced that all the “problems” we were having was because the other person changed, changed too much for the “bad”. Yes, they had changed, but this person could never change for the “bad”, they have Him, therefore, it’s not even possible. But while I was all along “criticizing” them, telling them they needed to go back to the way they were, I didn’t even notice, I refused to watch myself change the exact way that I was accusing them of changing, if that makes sense.

I was the one that was changing, and needed to watch myself more, and question what was going on with me, and my attitude, because my attitude has grown, in a five year old temper tantrum way. This is what I have understood what I had been doing. I had been blowing up everything this person said into something way bigger and unneeded. I was doing this because then if everything was their fault, then we wouldn’t have to look at my “problems”, the REAL reason that all of this useless fighting was happening. I was letting my guard down too much, letting myself get hurt by stupid things that I would never in my right mind let hurt me before. But I certainly wouldn’t be such a jerk about it.

This person finally brought this to my attention this morning, Valentine’s Day, and I believe this to be the best Valentine’s Day present that I could have ever received. What more could I want then honesty? Because honesty, in the deepest way is LOVE. And isn’t that what this whole day is about? Love in the deepest level? Not culturally it isn’t, but it SHOULD BE! This morning we had the stupidest fight ever. It was about why Valentine’s Day is stupid, and now I am realizing that I was so wrong. My whole argument was stupid, and they were completely and entirely right. Everyday should be Valentine’s Day.

You shouldn’t love someone more just because Hallmark designates a day for it, you should love someone as much as you can. every. single. day. I am a Christian, and I’m not afraid to say it, not at all, and I should be loving as possible, to everyone. every. single. day. But I haven’t been. I’ve been hurtful. Nobody has been hurting me, only myself. I have been getting hurt because of myself. All this person has been giving me since we met is love. UnCONDITIONAL love! I have messed up a lot since we met, but no matter what, they are always still there, loving me more than they did five minutes before I messed up. And what this verse is saying is this; you should treat this person the way you want to be treated, and that’s what I’ve been getting. I’ve been treating them like crap, though I’ve only been getting a taste of it back. I can only imagine what it is like to be this person, and hurt like they have been hurting because of me. Because I refused to look at the log in my own eye, they have been hurting, and I will never be able to fix that.

I don’t want to make this a “public apology” because I have done that, and I don’t want to use this place for those kinds of things. Everything that we do should be for Him, and that is what I try to use this blog for, for the glory of Him, through me. Writing stuff down and letting all my thoughts out, has always helped me see how I need to changed to glorify the Lord more. This has been a really hard blog for me to write, I think mostly because I have had to admit that I am wrong, but this is something I need to get better at, this is one of the things I used to be better at, and am now refusing to do. So this will be my starting point to change, today, February 14th 2010, I am going to work harder to see the things that I need to work on, and not tell others to look at themselves before I examine myself.

This was really long, and I can now see, it was another blog mostly for me, but I haven’t written one in a long time, and so maybe I need to look into myself, and what I need to change more, and dissect it like this. We’ll see where it goes.

Holding on; the time to LET GO

People are interesting creations.
There are so many things that we do that are just so hard to comprehend! We talk, we love, we hate, we worship, we connect, we have RELATIONSHIPS.

Relationships are tricky things. And I’m not talking JUST about your significant other type of relationships, any kind of relationship can be tricky. Some are hard to hold on to no matter how hard you work, some are hard to let go, no matter how hard you try. Some come and go without you even realizing it, and some do stay forever.

Recently I have cut a lot of people out of my life that have just been a burden, not helping me in my walk with Him, and just plain mean! But there was one person that I refused to let go of, and now I am not even really sure why I wanted to keep them there. We had gone through a lot together yes, but most of the turmoil that we went through was caused by our own actions, immaturity, and refusal to see what we were doing was not going to help us in the long run. I think this was caused by my own insecurity. What would happen if I let this person go? Would things be different? If so, how? This person did mean a lot to me, and they will forever hold a place in my heart, even though they took what wasn’t there’s to take. But I had to learn that I needed to stop blaming only them and take some of the blame, and take responsibility for my own actions, which I had been refusing to do.

Things went too far out of control recently with this person, and I was forced to come to a realization, that I needed them to be cut out too. It was really really hard to tell them that. And I miss them already, they were one of my best friends. I could go to them about anything, and know that they would be behind me, always. And I know that if I ever need them, they will still be there, I have no doubt. But sometimes these people, the ones that mean the most, are the ones that you need to let go of in order for both parties to move on. I believe that I made the right choice, and yes it is hard, but whoever said that walking hand in hand with Jesus Christ was going to be easy?

I have been dealing with people a lot these past couple of months, all kinds of people and their relationships with me. My best friend called me up today. I haven’t really talked with him in a while so I had a lot to tell him. But I realized that a true friend you don’t need to talk to every single day to keep the relationship going. We’re still best friends, and have been since the 5th grade, and we don’t talk all that much, at least not as much as we used to. But we are still best friends.

So this is what I have learned; you don’t need to be friends with everyone. It’s not going to matter when you leave this place. No matter what, your only TRUE friend is Jesus, everyone else is still going to disappoint you at some point in your life, always. You don’t need to hold onto someone just because you have a past with them, let them go. You are not always going to have a future with them. Some people bring you down, don’t associate yourself with them! Friends are supposed to be uplifting, not bringing you down. And no matter how good of a “friend” they are, if they are causing you to stumble, you need to let them go, and yeah, it’s hard, but in a few years time, you will forget that they even existed, and God heals wounds like no tomorrow. So, no matter what they did to you, he can always take care of it, the end.

Life; not another word for "movie"

Sometimes I just get all confused and jumbled inside when things start to go wrong. I feel like I have no control over what I say, and if I’m angry, it comes out, if I’m sad, it comes out, if I don’t care at all, it comes out! So why is this? Why can’t I just learn to control my emotions? Is it not humanly possible? Do I just not try hard enough? What is it, I’m confused, and I wish I could find the answer.

Sometimes I feel like my life is like a never ending movie. The boy who is in love with you, and won’t leave you alone, going to college, the amazing boyfriend she already has, but she can’t get over how the other boy who loves hurt her so badly. Like why does this happen to certain people, and not others? Because I feel like a lot of my friends think that their lives are quite boring. And maybe possibly they are!

This morning, even before nine o’clock, I got into a fight with my boyfriend, and we almost never ever fight. Especially the way we were fighting this morning. I was really hurt by something he said, and then by the fact he said that he was hurt too. But I never let him actually tell me why, I just kept going on and on about how he hurt me. Is there something wrong with this picture?

This is what I have discovered. The world is NOT like a movie, whether or not your life seems like it at times or not. You can’t base your life on things that you see, because in reality, life is not a movie, so what works in a movie, probably isn’t going to work in real life. The same situations might happen, but they aren’t going to end the same way. And I write about this all the time, women wanting lives like the movies, or books or whatever. And I’m so sorry for being so hypocritical about the way I feel about this, because I was the biggest offender of them all. And I want to publically say I’m sorry to Nathanael Joseph Maloney, because you were right, and I didn’t give you a chance to say sorry, and for that, I’M sorry.

I don’t really know why I needed to get this out there, I guess just as a warning to people. Don’t try to run your life on what you see in the movies, or read in books. This is your life, you don’t even control it! He does, so just let him do his will, and don’t try to make it something else that it is not, because 110% of the time, his way is going to be better.

AWEsome; a word reserved for the Awesome One!

My last post was kind of depressing in a way, but not at the same time. And I’m not really sure as to why that was.

So anyway, this past weekend I went “home” to Camp Berea (yay!) and I have to say that it was a lot more than I expected it to be. I worked from when I got there until 7 on Saturday night, going to as many chapel sessions as I could in between, because I did have this pull the whole time I was there, that something was supposed to happen, though I had no idea what it was!

I wasn’t working until 10:30 on Saturday morning, so I got up early and did my devos when everything was still quite, and everyone else in my cabin had to work (sorry girls). One thing that God has really been putting on my heart was my friend Lindsay, who is a lot like me in many ways. And she (to everyone’s surprise, though was apparently forced by her parents to come) came this weekend! And even just that made me so excited, because I knew, that even if she didn’t come back to Christ, SOMEthing would stir in her. And stir it did.

Saturday night came, and it was such an amazing night. I don’t think I have ever been so tired in my life, though somehow God kept me awake for the whole service and showed me wonderful things. Somehow, during the songs played by none other than the Mark White Band, the words finally sunk into my brain, and I finally realized how truly AMAZING God is! I remember just thinking “WHY did it take me this long to understand?!”, and I just broke down because of how HAPPY I was that I was his, and that I had finally made this connection!

Now the speaker, whose name was Jason Ostrander, was amazing. Very straight to the point, no completely pointless stories that went nowhere, or was the only thing that you really remembered. And that was so great. And he wasn’t all fluffy being like “if you except Christ, you’re life is going to be amazing”, no he explained how, people are going to hate you. The Enemy is going to try and attack you, that it’s NOT easy, but he went about in a way that spoke to so many people. Now, not too many people actually excepted Christ that night, but about 200 hundred came back to him. Including Lindsay! When I saw her stand up, I couldn’t help it, but I just started balling my eyes out. I went over to where she was sitting and gave her the biggest hug I could and through the tears I just said “I’ve been praying so hard for you!” it was such an amazing moment, and I truly realized how GREAT God really is.

This isn’t really a normal post for me, more just like an update. But I really just wanted to share that story with people, because I find it truly amazing. When I got home (yesterday) my mom challenged me to join the Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC in reading the New Testament in 30 days. At first I was like “uhh, hm.” But then I thought about it, and I got really excited because I thought back to what I had learned this weekend. And today I started reading, and so far I can’t get enough! I’m probably going to finish in less than 30 days! Somehow God is just opening my eyes to him in ways I never expected, nor thought I truly needed, turns out, you can never learn too much from Him. So I leave you with this; lyrics to one of the songs that the Mark White Band played this weekend that I have sung a million times, though somehow it finally helped me realize how Awesome God is.

How He Loves, by John Mark McMillan

He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realize just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

And oh, how He loves us so,
Oh how He loves us,
How He loves us so

Yeah, He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.
Yeah, He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.

We are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.
So Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss,
And the heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way…

He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.
Yeah, He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.

Life; does it really matter?

On Sunday I was driving to a restaurant after church, doing what I always do on longish car rides (over 20 minutes), listening to my mp3 player. I was listening to a new playlist that I had just made the night before, filled with “new” songs that I had just downloaded. And as I listened to them, I started to realize a pattern; they were all about living life like it was your last day, or living it without regrets. And this struck me, because that was kind of like what my pastor was talking about in church about forty five minutes before hand, except what he was saying was a little different.

What Pastor Neal was saying it this; we do a lot of things in this life, some good, some bad, but is it all really going to matter in an eternal life?

Basically this is what I got from it; we have freedom of choice in this life, to either follow God, or to not. That is really the only thing that matters in this and the next life. Not living your life to the fullest, not accomplishing “your” dreams, not any of that. The only things that matter are fulfilling God’s plan for you, and accepting Him as your Lord and Savior! Those are the only things that are going to carry on into this next life that, if we so choose, to accept! So my question is this; why do we always think that we have to have the best life? This isn’t a competition here. And when we get to Heaven, it’s not even going to matter anyway. I mean sure it is exciting to do things that we have always wanted to try and whatnot, and there is NOTHING wrong with that, but I think people make too big a deal of it; like in all of those ghost stories of about how they didn’t move on because they had “unfinished business”. That’s not going to happen. God has a plan for everyone, and everyone is going to die when he plans, and everyone is going to do what he plans. And supposedly people know that, but what I will never understand is why people still think that if they do this one thing, their life will be “complete”. If they have Jesus, their life is ALREADY complete, and anyway, that’s the only thing that’s going to matter later right?

Drama; need I say more?

Drama.

The one word in the English dictionary that I can honestly say drive me crazy, I mean, who doesn’t it drive crazy? Who in their right mind honestly say that they enjoy drama (well, I mean if they are involved. We live in a sad society where we enjoy watching other people fight). I do enjoy a good soap opera, I have to admit that my favorite show is One Tree Hill, but my least favorite thing in the world to deal with is DRAMA. And dramatic PEOPLE. And man, I have A LOT of those in my life. And I don’t even go to school! Goes to show that it follows you everywhere…

This past week has been filled with drama for me, I think I am safe to say that it has been the worst that I have ever had to deal with, the sad thing is, it was about nothing. Everything was a “joke” so to say, most of the thing being spread around were made up, fake, never even said or even happened. See what people do for fun? They like to hurt other people, just from “misunderstandings” or faults of their own. I mean come on, if you really like someone (and they want to date you), don’t go around telling their friends you don’t like them, and expect them not to find out. And when they do, are you seriously going to get mad at the one who told them? That’s completely your own fault here. But I have found that people do things like this all the time. And then they do their best to tear that person limb from limb in whatever way possible, usually by words.

I was called a lot of nasty things this week and at one point I was told that I had to fight some girl! At first I was like “whatever”, and then I was pissed, and then confused, sad, painfully hurt, and now I’m just coming to realize that I really just don’t actually care! What they were saying isn’t true, and I know it, so if they want to say those things, and I know they aren’t true, why should I care? Jesus taught us to love each other no matter what they say or do to us, and to turn the other cheek. And that is what I am going to do. But I am also learning not to get into other people’s business anymore. If they are going to talk about their personal life in ways I don’t really feel comfortable hearing about, I am going to tell them, and walk away. I mean I don’t really tell people stuff about my boyfriend and I, so why should I listen to other people talk about theirs? I am starting to realize I wish I had figured out this a long time ago; you can’t care what the world thinks about you, it’s only going to bring you down, no matter what it is, it is going to bring you down into places that you will never get out of without the help if Him

So last night I was telling my stories of the week to one of my best friends in the whole world and she gave me these verses to read and told me that I should listen to the truth. And she is right these verses are perfect;

“Do you think I speak this strongly in order to manipulate crowds? Or curry favor with God? Or get popular applause? If my goal was popularity, I wouldn't bother being Christ's slave. Know this—I am most emphatic here, friends—this great Message I delivered to you is not mere human optimism. I didn't receive it through the traditions, and I wasn't taught it in some school. I got it straight from God, received the Message directly from Jesus Christ.” Galatians 1:10 (The Message)

"If you find the godless world is hating you, remember it got its start hating me. If you lived on the world's terms, the world would love you as one of its own. But since I picked you to live on God's terms and no longer on the world's terms, the world is going to hate you.” John 15:18-19 (The Message)

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” Psalm 139:13-14 (NIV)

I like The Message version of the first two verses because it is very straightforward, and powerful. When I first read these versions I felt so much stronger and ready to face the world and the people in it and say “You can say what you want, but my God still loves me, and that is that.” But I like the more formal NIV version of Psalm 139:13-14 because I feel like it shows more love towards God, showing how grateful we are towards him for making us the way we are; in His image.

So I know there are people out there that have this everyday struggle to conform to the world, I know I do. When people are creating drama just remember this; “it doesn’t deal with you, we are not supposed to indulge in this type of behavior, and no matter what, you will always get hurt”. So just leave it be, and remember, the world hated Him first, that’s why it hates you. You will always be hated, get used to it! :)

Woman Porn; a reality check?

So I’ve used all my strength not to write about this topic, but I don’t believe that I can do it anymore. I feel like writing is going to make me sound like a hypocrite, and that’s one things I am not okay with being, but aren’t we all a bit hypocritical at some point in our lives? I believe so, so that is why I am writing this.

Last night I was listening to one of my favorite songs of all time; Your Guardian Angel by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. Now some may argue, but I believe that is a truly beautiful song. The song is the perspective of a person so madly in love with another, that they would do anything for that one person, even die. They are desperate for them; they need them to survive, and they can do whatever they would like to them, as long as they stay. (Just a little side note, I am reading the book Captivating by John and Stasi Eldridge, and I feel like this song has very close similarities to what they say about God and his relationship with us, now you know what my next post will be about). Before I continue, here are the lyrics;

When I see your smile
Tears run down my face I can't replace
And now that I'm strong I have figured out
How this world turns cold and it breaks through my soul
And I know I'll find deep inside me I can be the one

I will never let you fall
I'll stand up with you forever
I'll be there for you through it all
Even if saving you sends me to heaven

It's okay. It's okay. It's okay.
Seasons are changing
And waves are crashing
And stars are falling all for us
Days grow longer and nights grow shorter
I can show you I'll be the one

I will never let you fall
I'll stand up with you forever
I'll be there for you through it all
Even if saving you sends me to heaven

‘Cause you're my, you're my, true love, my whole heart
Please don't throw that away
‘Cause I'm here for you
Please don't walk away and
Please tell me you'll stay, stay

Use me as you will
Pull my strings just for a thrill
And I know I'll be okay
Though my skies are turning gray

I will never let you fall
I'll stand up with you forever
I'll be there for you through it all
Even if saving you sends me to heaven

Now, I kind of have forgotten what I wanted to talk about, because I feel sad. Sad because this is what we do to ourselves; I feel that people (mainly women I suppose) write these kinds of songs, and listen to them over and over, desperate to create a fantasy of some sort that will fill the “emptiness” in their heart. In a previous post I called it “woman porn” and it saddens me, but that is exactly what it is. The create a fairytale land inside their head, thinking that one day this will happen to them, that someone will come and sweep them off their feet in this EXACT way, and everything will happen like “this”, and then when it doesn’t happen, they are left disappointed with whatever wonderful thing that they are given. This saddens me greatly, and I’m not going to say I have never done this, but I mourn for everyone that has, because will they ever truly be happy? Think of all the girls and women who (myself included, though I am happy to say I have never wish for any of it to happen) have read the Twilight Saga. Think of how many girls think that there are men out there like Edward Cullen and Jacob Black. THERE AREN’T. But they make themselves believe that there are! What happens when they realize that many men are pigs, and not perfect? They are left disappointed, right where they left off.

I feel badly, because this is not the happiest post to start the New Year off with, but I needed to get this off my chest and out into the open. I hope that in this new year of 2010, people will come back to reality, though the sad thing is, I know they won’t.