Okay

I'm having this early twenties freak out right now.

My sister is about to graduate from high school and start college to become a teacher. My best friend from high school is graduating in May to become a teacher. My best friend in College Station is going to grad school in the fall and getting married in a year. I'm working full-time at a job with benefits. My best friend who went to school in Florida just moved back and she's going to get engaged this year, and she has a real job. It's crazy to think about.

I'm freaking out.

When did we grow up? When did we become adults? I'm absolutely excited for everyone but it's so scary to think that in a year we'll all be at totally different places because we're finally, for real this time, growing up.

Does this not freak anyone else out? 4 years ago I was about to walk across the stage to get my high school diploma. Now I go to work every morning and earn a paycheck. It's mind blowing how fast the last 4 years have gone by.

I think the friends I have are going to be there forever. I'm absolutely blessed with the people in my life, and I'm excited about all of our futures. My best four friends that I have, I wouldn't have told you that the 3 I met not in high school would be my best friends. But I love it!

I need to step back and write down my life plan, because I need to see where I wanna be in a year, or 5. I have no idea right now. It's changed so much in the last few years.

All I know is I'm loved by a God so much bigger than anyone could. I'm absolutely blessed to have the family and friends in my life.

Insecurity

I think my biggest flaw in life is being insecure. People never would guess this by the way I act, but I know it's my biggest obstacle. But why?

My friends always tell me no need to be insecure, find yourself in Christ, and everything will fall into place. But, let's be serious, when you hear that you're like, "yeah, okay." Sigh. I know I'm absolutely perfect to God, and I'm made in His image but the world sucks. The pressure that women constantly feel is so unnecessary. Except, it affects us so much. When you go to Wal-Mart there's a whole aisle dedicated to weigh loss supplements, and dietary foods etc. While, there's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to be a certain size, obsessing over it is not the way to go. I don't want someone to like me for superficial reasons, because that's not going to last. I want you to like me because I'm me and I have a heart who longs to love someone, as scary as it is.

But who are we? We are in the world not of the world. We are of Christ. But do we actually understand what that means? We were formed in His image, and that means we are beautiful. It's a hard thing to grasp but it's so freeing. To know, that there's nothing to be insecure about, nothing to hide because the only one that we need, loves us so unconditionally it's crazy.

Being insecure is an obstacle, but lately I've been spending time with the one who loves me the most, Jesus, and it's really helping me. It's just amazing to see how in the bible he spells out how much he loves us and how we are his. It's refreshing, really. It's something I'm constantly working on because I do not want to be insecure. I know I'm the daughter of the most high King, and he loves me unconditionally. And that is enough!

Forgiven beloved, hidden in Christ, made in the image of the Giver of Life, righteous and holy, reborn and remade, accepted and worthy this is our new name. This is who we are now.

Something I'm working on, and through Christ all things are possible! :)

Be blessed,

You just know...

God has intricately planned my life, and I don't know what it entails entirely but I do know I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.

Ever just wake-up and realize that it's okay to go against the life plans you've had for years? The industry you thought you'd be in forever, just isn't where you want to be anymore. But, to be honest you had absolutely no idea what job you were going to end up with? I was no longer working in a hotel setting, but I had no job prospects and no idea what I was going to do. It was stressful to say the least. I was applying for jobs everywhere online, forgetting half the time to where I was applying. It'd been about a week and a half and I didn't think I was getting anywhere. Last Wednesday I got a call to come in for an interview at an apartment complex for a full-time leasing agent. I thought this would be absolutely perfect for me, because I've worked in real-estate a little before, while it's different than real-estate it's similar. Well I got offered the job two days later. Can you say, JESUS?! The job pays well and I can get benefits, it's truly a blessing.

So I started yesterday, and I had no idea what to expect. I didn't do a lot because everyone is getting ready for a housing fair at A&M today. I just feel that I'm supposed to be here. I'm supposed to show up to work every day filled with joy. I'm supposed to love my coworkers more than I ever have before. I'm supposed to love all the residents here, and just be full of joy. I just know I'm supposed to be here. I just all of the sudden have this absolutely new attitude on life. I'm so thankful that before we were born God knew where I was going to go in life. He knew I was going to be sitting at this desk just overwhelmed with His presence and love for me and my coworkers. I just know that this is where I'm destined to be at this exact moment, and I'm absolutely okay with it.

I think we, as humans, fail to realize we can't control our future as much as we think we can. God has our lives planned and knows what we will be doing. We need to follow and listen to Him, and TRUST Him.

I went to Passion 2012 in January, and I have been listening to the music and talking to people from it, and I just have realized how my problems fail in comparison to most. 27 million people are in modern day slavery. My problem of not having money fails in comparison to the girls who die because of modern day slavery. God will win this war, and we will help. It's amazing how much human trafficking has been in the news since Passion. It's really awesome how many people have come together to support this cause.

I'm just completely overwhelmed by God's grace and plans for my life.

I absolutely love Ephesians 6:19, Shelley Giglio tweeted it after Passion and I love it.
"Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel."

I just know God's plan for my life is coming together, and I'm absolutely excited about the future. SO excited. <3

27 Million

God had a plan for me to go to Passion 2012, but it didn't come together until the first week of December.

I stumbled upon Beth Moore's Living Proof Ministries blog back in September, and they had a blog up that was Beth's heart to send 1000 women to Passion 2012 who couldn't afford it. There was no way I could afford to pay for Passion to go. I felt like I should apply, not knowing what would happen. I applied, 10 minutes later I got the email saying I received a scholarship. I thought, well okay God if you really want me to go I have to find a hotel, a ride, and people to go with. But I was trusting in Him, well sort of. He was on the back burner. I looked on our Hilton Employee rate website and there's a room at the Hampton about a mile away from the Georgia Dome for $29.00 a night for the EXACT dates I need. "Okay God, I have a hotel, now I need a ride."

So it's October and my best friend and I aren't talking, so she's out of the picture. Another girl I knew was flying with her parents. Great, I have no one to go with. Well my best friend and I work things out in November and she mentions she wants to go to Passion, well we started figuring things out. I have the hotel, one of her friends works for Allstate and got us a rental car for 9.00 a day. (AWESOME!) So it looks like we're going to Passion! God wanted me there, and He made it possible. Well it's second week of December and I'm not getting hours at work, and money is tight in my family so I had no idea how I was going to pay my share of the hotel and parking, and gas. So I send some emails to people in my church asking if they know anyone who can help us. The never responded. I emailed Living Proof, and tell them that I can't find anyone to sponsor our hotel, if you know anyone who can. I sent this email, like middle of November. I got a response December 23rd. The response was Living Proof will pay for your hotel, send me your confirmation and all that. PRAISE THE LORD. He worked that out too! My parents gave me cash for Christmas for gas. God really wanted me at Passion 2012. It's January 1st and we're on the road to Passion with everything worked out, Praise God!

I'm at Passion and I'm loving looking around and there being 44,000 18-25 year olds there worshipping God and proclaiming His Glory. My favorite Christian artists in the world were there: CHRIS TOMLIN! Charlie Hall, Hillsong, Lacrae, Christy Nockles, Matt Redman, Kristian Stanfill, and David Crowder Band. It was amazing. And the speakers, Beth Moore, Francis Chan, John Piper, Christine Cain and Louie Gigilio of course. Seriously so amazing.

Louie opened the conference talking about Luke 7&8 about God stopping our funerals! He really opened my eyes about the power of Christ. God doesn't want us to die, but to live for him! Francis Chan talked about just doing what the Gospel says. His sermon was so simple yet so eye opening. We sometimes think, "Oh they'll do it." NO! Just do it yourself!

And John Piper blew my mind. He talked about the supremacy of Christ. He said that Freedom is being so in love with Christ that you do exactly what you want to do, and it is accords with His will. There will be no struggle in Heaven to obey.

Bam. If we're living in Christ's will, we'll do what we want but it'll be of Christ. How powerful is that?!

Beth Moore, John Piper, Louie and Lecrae read the book of Ephesians one morning and it was powerful. Such an amazing book of the bible.

Our mission, or Do Something Now, was talking about the 27 million slaves that are in existence today. 27 MILLION. more than ever before. Louie's goal for the 44k of us was to raise $1 million dollars for this cause. People were waiting in line for hours to give their money, broke college students. We raised $3.1 million. To God be the glory.

It really opened my eyes of how blessed we are to live the lives we live. How it's our generation that will stop this. Our generation will rise up. We will change the world and create FREEDOM for people.

One of the songs that we heard for the first time at Passion was incredible. It talked about waving our white flag, and the war is OVER, love won. It was so powerful for me. Because God already won the war, we are free.

God moved at PASSION and I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to go! I am searching for a community to get involved with and grow in my faith and learn more about the love of Christ.

Passion 2012, was life changing. I can't wait for Passion 2013, I hope you will join me in praying for those who went, and the world tour Passion is going on. God is so good and moving in our generation!

Blessings and Praise to HIM!

Overcoming Bitterness

Bitterness is poison. You can't hold hate and love in your heart at the same time. Hate and bitterness is poison and toxic.

Ben Stuart's talk from a few weeks ago is really powerful. It's called "Overcoming Bitterness."

A few main points I got from it:

• A proper understanding of God's sovereignty gives you the power to forgive.
• Forgiveness is making the decision to not hurt them
• The reason why you're so bitter at someone in your past who hurt you is because they had a power over you and you don't like the fact that an evil person did that bad thing which has power over your life.
  
• You keep telling me you got past it but you didn't, your bitterness there is ruining your story now.
• That very act you meant for evil, God meant for good.
• The person who hurt you doesn't run your story, God does.
• I have the resources to forgive you because you don't run my story, God does.
• When I get power, I use it to love. I don't use it to hurt people, that's crazy.
• The powerful God forgives and I can forgive that person.
• You can forgive when you realize you have a loving and sovereign God.
• Forgiveness you can do alone, reconciliation takes two.
• Reconciliation comes when two people can speak grace and love.
• Reconciliation happens when you speak truth, "Your hurt me." "Yes I did." And then you extend grace and I'm sorry and I'm not retaliating. You come to them with grace and truth to reconcile.
• Living a life of grace and truth and I can forgive you because of the Sovereign God working in my life.

This podcast was so good. It's definitely life changing... I definitely learned a lot from this one podcast.

There's only so much you can do to repair a relationship. In AA, they say "clean up your side of the street." That's all we can do sometimes. Like it says in the bullet list, it only takes you to forgive someone. But I know that it has to be honest to let this go. If it's not, it's pointless.

I definitely learned a lot.
Thanks Ben..

God bless,

Beginning Again

People make mistakes, and sometimes it seems an apology isn't enough to repair the damage. But, I feel that it should be accepted and you should be able to forgive someone or that shows some bitterness. If someone can get the courage up enough to apologize and mean it because they know they screwed up, you should accept it and move on. Maybe this means that person will never be in your life again, but the least that you can do is end on good terms, rather than hatred.

This happened to me recently and it's changed my view on life, drastically. People walk in and out of my life often, but the people who stay are ones who changed my life. I think time away from people is a good thing. The last week or two all I've had in my memory are the good times, the times I laughed, acted stupid, and was happy. Does that mean I'm unhappy? Not at all. I hate when I know I screwed things up, and apologizing isn't enough for certain people, but I guess that shows me something.

I'm just at this hard spot, because with the people I had a falling out with, all you wanna do is everything in your power to fix it, but sometimes that just screws things up. I guess sometimes saying sorry is all you can do. I know God has this situation under His complete control.

You can't just throw out memories so fast, and maybe that's a good thing. Memories of anything keep us alive. Good memories are essential to life. I'm grateful for those good memories with certain people. Of course, I want nothing more than to fix what happened, but what can I do?

The last couple weeks have been well, different. It's weird not having that one person you can text and just talk about all these things with. It's weird having to almost remake friends. But, it also reminds me how precious friendships are. And how precious new beginnings are. I'm grateful for new beginnings, and new chapters. I'm sad to close old ones, but grateful for new ones. I've learned a lot in the last couple weeks, and I don't regret one thing that happened to bring me to this place, now that's something I didn't think I'd ever say.

Also, everything I've been reading on my Tumblr and Pinterest Quotes relates to this situation right now.. Funny how that always works out.

I'm so blessed, even though I've lost a few friends in the last few weeks, I'm blessed.

Maybe those friendship will be healed in time, because people make mistakes. We're human, which is why Christ had to come to Earth. Thank God for that.

Have a good week,

"Not everything turns into what it’s supposed to be and not everybody is supposed to just walk out of your life. Sometimes surprises and second chances do happen.. And when they do, you’ve gotta not be afraid to let them happen."

"You should never forget about the past, everything happens for a reason. Instead learn from the past, learn from your mistakes and learn from every experience in life. Never forget those that have changed you either for the good or the bad because they have made you who you are. Always remember that life is meant to be tough, to challenge you, and to make you stronger."

Heaven

How can one describe their emotions on that Tuesday morning 10 years ago?

I was merely in 6th grade, and I remember specifically that the principal came over the speaker and told the teachers to turn off the news. As soon as I got home, our family is glued to the TV and news. Seeing the images of the plane crashing into the second tower is forever burned in my memory.

I am fascinated by 09/11, just from the reactions, and the news. Our nation really changed that day. We now have to get to the airport 2 hours before we take off, and we now can't have this and that. Think about how much this day effected our day to day.

Do I feel safe? I think so, but then I start thinking about how close I live to the shore, and the refineries, and that's scary. The people that hate the US, will attack again I believe, but what can you do?

This morning in church we sang Because He Lives, and it's so fitting. Because He Lives I don't have to live in fear. I'm confident that the Lord has a plan and is watching over this great country.

I came across a very touching tribute that keeps up with a girl from a year after the attacks until now...



I can't wait to fly away and meet some of our American Heroes from that day.

Be blessed, and may we never forget 09.11.2001.

Peace and grace,