awesome

okay, so it's been about 145678234 years since my last post, and i am SO truly sorry for that! SO SO much has been happening lately- i finished my first year of COLLEGE (which means i finished all of those stressful projects and long nights of studying for finals!), i started (and in one week will be finished!) a summer school class, and most importantly started my incredible job!

In my last blog, I think I left you hanging with some pretty big news- well I was going to write this huge long post about my summer, and i actually started it, but it wasn't great. Maybe i'll go back and finish it someday.. but for now you'll have to settle for this: I have an incredible job for the summer! I'm one of the children's interns at my wonderful home church. I am SO excited about this job, I don't think I have the words to describe it. Today was my first day, and this morning I tweeted (oh yes, I'm on twitter) about being so excited, I compared it to being like a child on Christmas morning- but even that doesn't do justice to how fully pumped I am to see what God has in store for this summer! I could go on about this for a LONG time, trust me.. but for now I'm going to move on to another topic, but dont worry.. there will be plenty of posts this summer updating you on this summer goes!

Okay, so I finished my freshman year of college- that's a big deal! Such a big deal that I want to dedicate an entire post to that.. I want to take time to think and reflect on all the ways I've grown and changed.. So that's being put on the back burner for right now. I promise, it'll come soon enough- but for now I have something else I want I want to chat about..

So there's this book that my wonderful boss showed us today called The Book of Awesome.

I dont know if you've heard of this before, or maybe you've even read it.. but this book got me so excited! This book is pretty much just a compilation of awesome things in day to day life- simple things that could so easily be taken for granted.. but can be so awesome. Little things like the smell of playdoh, seeing 12:34 on a clock, pushing those little buttons on the soft drink lid, or picking dried glue off the lid.. such little things that don't mean much at all- but can bring so much joy at the same time. That's what life is about.. finding joy in the small things. I know we all have off days- trust me i've had my fair share of them.. but those little things that make you smile- even if it's as simple as spending an afternoon with your mom- those are what are important.

This reminds me of my favorite verse- Matthew 6:34.. Dont worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself- each day has enough trouble of it's own. We don't need to worry about what the future holds- it's all in God's hands- and that's the best place for it to be! I dont know about you, but if there is anyone I want controlling my future- it's the big guy upstairs. We shouldn't worry about the small little things- instead we should find joy in them! Why sweat the things that are out of our control- instead take sometime to appreciate the little things that are just.. awesome.

Here Comes Peter Cottontail..

When did Easter become all about stuff?

Don't get me wrong, I adore the colors, and the poofy dresses with white shoes, the fluffy bunnies, and of course the chocolate eggs are fantastic.. but this is a day about our savior being RISEN! And my goodness, that's surely something to celebrate, and celebrate everyday! But where is the relation between Jesus' great news and hunting for Easter eggs? Maybe I'm just missing some big metaphor or something..

fun fact: if you google-image "easter" this is the first image that comes up. that should say something.

Anywho.. I'm not downing Easter in ANY way, please don't think that. Like I said earlier, i really do love Easter (not as much as I love Christmas.. but nothing tops that time of year!) but nonetheless, I love it. I'm just curious as to when it became all about buying easter baskets and dresses.. Shouldn't we be focusing on what an AWESOME story we have to tell the world?? Maybe our culture has just added the gifts and candy to give even more reason to celebrate.. I'm just hoping the true meaning doesn't get lost.

On a lighter note.. I get to be the easter bunny twice this weekend. Ohhh yea (and on this note.. i have a really big blog with some exciting news coming soon.. its just in the process right now.. but i promise- it's coming!)

Do You Realize?

okay.. this has been on my heart a lot lately.. and Morgan's bugging me for a new blog.. so i thought i'd put my thoughts to paper.. or keyboard rather. Bear with me.. it's gonna be long.

It all started with my last blog. Go ahead, scroll down, take a second to remember. I quoted a very meaningful verse from Romans. Well just after I wrote that blog, we studied the book of Romans in my bible class. And wow, I got a whole new look at that verse. Well, not a WHOLE new meaning.. just a deeper meaning I suppose. The verse says: And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so but we also rejoice in our sufferings, for we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. So I always took it to basically mean that we have hope in our Lord.. we're gonna go through some tough times.. but in the end He's never gonna let us down. Well hearing Mike Cope talk about it gave me some more insight. When Paul was writing this, He was writing to a church he'd never even met before. He was writing to them because they were going through so many hardships-- people were being imprisoned and tortured for their faith.. something I cant even comprehend. He followed up with talking about Romans 8:18- I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.I guess I'd always skimmed over this verse (I know, I'm awful.. I've definitely realized how INCREDIBLE that passage is) But the church in Rome was going through such awful things, things we can't even imagine, and Paul was writing this as encouragement.. the sufferings they were going through were so much greater than my pretty stinky day I had earlier. Were do I get off comparing a bad day to the suffering and persecution Paul was writing about?

Oh but that was just the start. I'm telling ya, I really think God has been putting all of these things in my path lately to teach me a lesson. A lesson on selfishness. The reason I compared my sufferings to that in Romans was because I've got such a big head that of course I just saw it from my perspective. But the story continues.

Invisible Children came to ACU. Wow, can I just say that that is SUCH an amazing program and one I definitely want to hear more about. Invisible Children started with a group of students who raised money and went to Uganda to help with the trafficking wars going on there. Oh my goodness.. what a moving night! They showed a video of the people in Uganda. They have so little, and I just felt so guilty watching it. I was sitting there in my buckle jeans and vera bradley bag and sonic cup in hand.. and they were being forced to live in villages of thousands of tiny huts.. it brought tears to my eyes. I'm so privileged and I take it all for granted. And I just wanna walk up to God and ask him: How come I was born into such a great family and country when children like Lillian were born into that? I do not understand it. But that sad thing is, this isn't the first time I've questioned this.. I've been to Honduras for the two previous summers.. and each time I leave feeling the same way. I feel so blessed by what I have, but I realize that those material possessions are meaningless. But it never sticks. And I dont know why.

But maybe it's because all of our material possessions are just as bad? Hear me out.. People like the one's I've witnessed in Honduras are SO truly happy with so little. I've seen children FULL of joy from playing with just old pieces of wood. And yet, we have SO much.. iphones, macbooks, and designer clothes.. but we're still so unhappy. I definitely think there's a lesson to be learned there..

And continuing on that note.. I'm in environmental science and lately we've been talking about material stuff and how it effects the world around us. We had to take an ecological/carbon footprint quiz online.. now let me defend myself a little bit.. I was sure exactly what I was doing (there were a lot of big words involved..) Well according to my quiz, if everyone on earth lived my lifestyle.. we would need 9.18 earths. Woah. Too bad we only have ONE! Now I'm not writing this to say drop everything and go hug a tree... But I am saying that I will definitely be doing a little bit of soul searching on this topic.. and maybe we all should.

One last thing (Remember, I warned you this was gonna be long..) But I cant take credit for this.. All of the credit goes to Becca Clay. She wrote a note the other day about how our silly little THINGS get in the way of so much- especially our relationship with God. Go read it. Seriously.. heres the link for it. GO READ IT. Woah. That girl is good. I can definitely say I'm guilty of this. I dont know about you, but I have been really distracted in my relationship with God lately. I dont know that technology is the sole reason for that.. but I know it's a huge part of it. So i'll definitely be taking becca's advice and just unplug for a while.

Another thing I'm really struggling with lately? spending money. Gosh I just bought a vera bradley bag online because it was "on sale." And I spend almost $200 on my roomate's birthday gift. And that's just this week. But that's coming to an end. No more careless spending. Not when these things are only temporary.. Matthew 6:19-21.

I definitely think I'll be looking at my life a little bit differently. Hope you do, too.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Did you ever read that book as a kid? Well that's the kind of day I'm having. I'm not trying to complain, really I do have a point. But first.. let me just tell you about my day.

First of all, I'm exhausted. I went home this weekend, which was wonderful and way to short. I got back to campus (unhappily) late last night and I just have not caught up on sleep. So that already put me in a grumpy mood. On top of that, I'm sick. I hate hate hate being sick. I'm groggy and stuffy and I'm losing my voice and my ears are all poppy and it's just stinky. And I have a paper due at 8 in the morning that I'm not happy with. I wrote the paper, but it's definitely not my best work, and I'm so sad about that.. but I just could not figure out a way to make my paper passionate. I had sing song krewe tonight. And every night this week. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE sing song.. I think it's wonderful and I am so fully pumped for this weekend.. it's just the hours and hours or practice that are annoying. Especially when I'm only an usher. I'm in one dance.. I'm not that important. I don't need to be at practice for hours on end. And I ripped a contact while I was washing my face tonight. And I tripped going up (yes, I said up) the stairs to my room. And my roomate, who i love, is currently snoring (sorry jess.. its just a current annoyance on my mind) And I took my nose ring out last Friday (did I mention I got my nose pierced?) which really should be the least of my worries since it's over and done with, but it's still on my mind. And on top of all of this, the stress of career/major decisions always in the back of my mind. And I need a job. And I need a summer job (any ideas??) And I'm sitting in my room, to the point where I'm about to just cry, and I decide to open my sweet little Bible for some Jesus time. And this is what I read:

"And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so but we also rejoice in our sufferings, for we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." Romans 5:2-5

Oh, how I love that verse! It's amazing how God will speak to you through His word in times of need. That verse is such a reminder that, yes, bad things are going to happen. But by persevering we have hope in life with Him!

So after reading that, I turn to my favorite book in the Bible (is it okay to play favorites when it comes to Bible books? ..hope so) which is Philippians, and my favorite chapter of my favorite book.. Philippians 4. Oh there's such good stuff in this book. Such encouragement... "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." Sweet Becca Clay quoted that verse to me last week and it completely made my day... Such a reminder that God's gonna help me through everything.. I've mentioned before how I tend to stress out a little to easily.. but God's going to help me through it.

what a great way to end my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.. :)

sometimes your dreams just aren't what life has planned..

so.. it's been a while since i've updated. I feel horrible about that. I just really dont have much to say.. i've been keeping a private journal alot also, thanks to my sweet cousin Melanie.

I haven't really had much to say either.. Nothing much has happened.. nothing to write about at least. Nothing to bad, nothing to exciting. My life is just kind of bland right now. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but not a good thing either..

Kelly had her senior presentation last weekend.. she looked beautiful, of course. It was really great to be back in Houston and see her in her element.

so anyway, school is going well. Hopefully this semester won't be so stressful, but I'm sure I'll find someway to stress myself out over something. I need to work on that..

I joined a gym today! I'm proud of myself, and I'm definitely going to take initiative and stick with it :)

I'm spending a wonderful evening with three of the sweetest girls i know, morgan, kaci, and my precious roomate.

the new lady antebellum cd comes out in a couple days.. i'm reeeeeeally excited :) hence the title of this post.. :)

i want to be back in honduras. oh i miss that place so much..

I'm sorry this is such a total pointless blog. For real, I have nothing inspirational to say. My relationship with God isn't at its best, so that's probably why I haven't felt like myself lately..

Hopefully the next post will be more worthwhile to read... :)

when you look back on time we've had.. i hope you smile

ah.. december 31, 2009.

the last day of 2009.

as i promised earlier.. heres my "reflecting on 2009" blog..

every year, my sweet parents and i ring in the new year by going to dinner at Outback Steakhouse, seeing a movie, and spending the rest of the evening at one of our friends parties counting down til midnight and shooting fireworks. i love this tradition alot.. last year was our first year since 1999 to change this tradition.. and that kind of makes me sad.. but i had a wonderful new years last year..

we had already decided we wouldn't be seeing a movie last year because there wasnt one we were interested in. we went out to our traditional dinner at Outback, and our wonderful friends, the Donaldson's, joined us :) afterwords my parents headed off to some party.. and i went to a Mormon dance. for real. a mormon dance. every other month or so all the stakes (?) in the area and have a dance. and it was SO much fun.. i went with sarah and james and all of my wonderful other Mormon friends i'd met throughout the year. and we had a wonderful time.. and it was a wonderful start to the new year..

2009 moved on with more of senior year.. only now i was a second semester senior. best thing ever! i'm trying to remember specific things that happened early on in the year.. but i'm not having much luck..

i got the chance to go to washington dc in april with my incredible choir.. such a fun trip! we got to sing at the lincoln memorial and the national cathedral, as well as touring some wonderful museums. however.. best part of the trip was arlington national cemetery. not only was in an incredibly moving trip.. but i also was blessed with the chance to lay a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier along with three of my fellow choir members.. SUCH an incredibly moving experience.

a week after i came home from washington was my senior presentation.. also called The Yellow Rose Ball.. oh man. starting my sophomore year i dealt with the drama that is Junior Guild, especially my senior year. Senior year i was given the great opportunity to be 1st vice president of this organization.. something i thought would be a rewarding experience, but really just took years off mine -and my sweet mother's- life. But yellow rose ball made it all worth it in the end.. i had the huge poofy dress, a fabulous escort, and some sweet friends there to support me.. it was a wonderful evening :)

i guess the next big event after that was june 6... graduation! the day i'd been looking forward to since i first began schooling. i dont really know what all to write about graduation.. i think anything i say will end up sounding cliche.. i mean, it was a wonderful afternoon. i had a lovely dress on, covered up by that hideous blue gown and cap.. and of course, i was a nervous wreck. i was nervous about falling or tripping or just looking stupid. i was nervous because this was truly ending my highschool career.. however.. favorite moment of graduation had to be when i was about to walk on stage. i was in line, right by sweet jackie reyman, and i was shaking and i look out into all my fellow graduates.. and i see sarah and phil. they were in top 10% so they were sitting on the first or second row.. and they got my attention and just grinned at me. i gave a little wave and blew a kiss and breathed a huge sigh of relief. they totally calmed my nerves right before i walked across that stage.. such sweet friends i have! and then i walked across the stage (without falling!!) and that was it. i was done..

moving right along with 2009.. uplift! uplift is the summer camp our church youth group attends every year. i love uplift. love love loveee it! its a great chance to be myself and just experience God in a way i never get to at home. but this year at uplift was definitely special... on june 16 i gave my life to Christ and got baptized! okay.. it was my second time. but i really felt like it was something God was calling me to do.. its not like i didnt think the first time "didnt take" or something like that.. its just.. i feel like i didnt really know what i was doing.. i just did it because it was something i knew i was expected to do. but this summer at uplift, i really felt like God was calling me.. and it was great :)

right after uplift came my absolute favorite week of my year. honduras. every year the juniors and seniors at our church go on a mission trip to tegucigalpa, honduras to build houses and work with some local churches and orphanages. i LOVE this trip more than anything. this year was a bit crazy though.. we spend the first two days of the trip building 6 houses and the rest of the trip doing VBS's and visiting schools and such. well this year, we got a little bit of news one evening. we were having a church service with one of the local churches when one of our chaperone's gets a phone call.. as soon as the sermon is over we were rushed to our buses (such a scary feeling.. everyone was just saying "get to the bus! get to the bus!" and we had no idea why.." and we find out there is a military coup about to take place. and we are right there in the capital city. i dont know exactly what happened government wise, but apparently the prez was doing something he shouldnt have been doing and the military decided to step in. the next day or so was crazy.. we just kept waiting to hear if it was safe for us to stay or if we could even get out if we tried.. we decided to cut the trip short and come home, which i now realize was a very wise decision.. but we were so bummed about it.. but we still had an incredible time while we were there.. i really wish i could go into detail about how much this trip means to me.. but that could literally go on forever.. i really love honduras.. and i really think that God has something planned in my future with Honduras.. guess we'll wait and see :)

after we got home from honduras i spent the rest of my summer at home! i got the chance to work for a company downtown-- such a neat experience! i was the receptionist for the company and i absolutely loved it! but my time there didnt last long, because soon enough it was time for me to head off to abilene!

thats right. i started college. talk about an emotional rollercoaster! my first semester was absolutely CRAZY and i cant believe its already over! my classes were hard, well math was hard. but overall, it was such a wonderful semester. i've made some wonderful new friends, and i really think i've grown up alot. i made a 4.0!! sorry.. i hate hate hate when people brag.. but i'm SO extremely proud of that gpa.. i've NEVER made all a's.. ever! and so i'm pretty stinking proud out of my mind! so.. overall, pretty dang great semester :)

and then i came home... Christmas was wonderful. I'm so so blessed by the people i'm surrounded by. seriously. the donaldson's came over for christmas dinner, along with the family that's always here. it was such a wonderful afternoon/evening. i'm so so blessed..

and that brings us up to date! we went back to our new years traditions-- Outback Steakhouse and a movie. This year we saw The Blindside.. SOO INCREDIBLE! gosh. sandra bullock is incredibly incredible, and oh golly the little boy is just PRECIOUS. i really want to adopt him. and after the movie we went over to a friend's house and rang in the new year by playing games and watching the ball drop :) great evening with great friends..

soo.. it's been a pretty incredible year. hopefully 2010 is just as wonderful, if not even more wonderful! i hope everyone has a safe and wonderful holiday..

Do you remember me? I sat upon you're knee.. I wrote to you with childhood fantasies..

so last night, i went out to coffee with one of my closest friends. i kinda love/hate going to get coffee with him. I love it because he always helps me learn things about myself, i hate it because i always learn things about myself that are really hard to learn.. and tonight wasn't unlike any other night. i learned yet another hard lesson. tonight, my dear friend (who by the way is AMAZING for putting up with my horribly stubborn self) helped me learn that i need to grow up.

it's that simple. i need to grow up.

seriously. if i want God to do something, or anything, incredible in my life, i need to mature and grow up and accept that. I need to accept the fact that life is moving forward everyday.

among my group of friends in high school i was always made fun of for being the "emotional one" aka.. the one who cries to much. especially senior year. i cried ALOT. but that was because i didn't want to see it come to an end. I had the PERFECT senior year, and i knew that it would soon end, and i would be shoved into the "real world" of college and careers. and thats SCARY. but I'm in that "new world," and its wonderful. College has been INCREDIBLE so far. I have a 4.0, wonderful friends, and a lot going for me. i don't know what I was so scared of.. but i braved it, and made it through my first semester of college! and i think that God has done some great stuff so far.. but He could do soo more!

So, that's it. I just need to allow myself to grow up. And I've done a lot of growing up the past semester. But there's a lot more I need to do. And I think that growing up includes getting rid of some friendships, and baggage from those friendships, in order to grow even more. that's a really hard pill to swallow.

I also and talked with Matt Atnip last week when I got home. He's another person that's kind of amazing for always putting up with me. We have these little sessions where he "fixes my life" or whatever is going on at the moment. Usually it revolves around how stressed I am about stupid and silly stuff. I've been stressing a lot about my major and whether or not to change it. But he helped me realize that I'm stressing so much about it, and there isn't a whole lot I can do about it right now. And it's getting to a point where it's controlling what I do. And I really don't need to be dealing with that, especially during vacation. He helped me realize I seriously need to just let go of all of it, and let God take care of it in His own time- yet another lesson that's pretty tough to learn.

so.. that's what I'm working on right now: growing up and letting God fully take control of my life and whatever he wants to do with it. That's tough.

im currently listening to Grown-up Christmas List, sung by the Klein High School Chamber Choir :) hence the title of this post..

On a lighter note, it's almost christmas! I really really really love christmas. I wish i could add pictures of what's been going on lately.. but i left my usb cord in abilene..