Back Again

 

Guess who's back at trying to blog again: This Girl. 

I don't know why I have had such a hard time keeping up with blogging and making it a priority but it is one of my goals this next month to blog at least once a week so hopefully I can hold myself accountable and write some decent posts. Here we go.

This week I had the amazing opportunity spend my spring break at the beach with twelve of my best friends and ADPi sisters. Our week was filled with laughter, sunburns, movie nights, Kilwins runs (toasted coconut ice cream is literally the best thing ever) and relaxing. Our sweet BYX (a Christian fraternity) friends also came to visit us twice and we had a blast getting to laugh and be dumb with them. I am so overwhelmed with how the Lord has blessed me and how He continues to place such awesome people in my life since starting college. I am so expectant to grow in these friendships in the next three years.

I just feel alive lately with the expectancy of what the Lord is doing in my life. I know he has me where I am for a very specific purpose and I am eager to grow into the mold of who he has planned for me to be. It never fails that when I feel this way, words of any shape or form make me feel even more alive. So tonight I leave you with a quote from my favorite author in one of my favorite books. This quote has kept me moving since college and I hope that it will stir a dream in your heart to venture out onto the road on which you are traveling.

“And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?

It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.

I want to repeat one word for you:
Leave.

Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed.”
― Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road

Be blessed friends.

Happy Easter. 

Today

Today I am dreaming of quiet spots where I can breathe crisp, fresh air, be created and rest. The desire to write is consuming me but I just don't know what to write on. So for now, enjoy these pictures. What are you dreaming of today?

xoxo

** These are not my photos but were found on Pinterest.

Two Months Later

So I'm a college student now.. give me a break. Oh who am I kidding, I'm just a slacker. I have plenty of college friends who manage awesome blogs and I just put it off forever and end up writing posts every couple months. Yikes.

Life at college is so wonderful. Yes it's hard and I haven't had many healthy home-cooked meals. At all. And yes I stay up much later and have to cook, brush my teeth and wash my dishes all in the same sink. And my room is always hot and sometimes has an odor. But my gosh, I wouldn't trade where I am for anything. I am learning and growing and the Lord is blessing me over and over again. All summer I prayed for a strong group of girl friends to come my way and college and the Lord is so faithful and has blessed me with more precious friends that I could have ever imagined. He's placed groups like my bible study group and the church I've started going to in my life and I'm being filled. The first couple weeks of school were so busy and I hadn't found a church where I felt like I belonged and man I was thirsty. Thirstier than I have been in a very long time. God has just shown me over and over since I've been at school that He is kind and He wants me to know His love and His kindness. Man, He's good. College is good. Life is beautiful.

More to come (I promise).

Lasts

So I leave for college this coming Friday. So crazy, my gosh. As time gets shorter and the days closer, I'm experiencing a lot of lasts. My last Disciple Now (youth group retreat), my last Sunday at the church I've grown up both physically and spiritually the last fourteen years, my last youth event as a student. But the awesome and encouraging thing is it isn't goodbye, merely see you later.

This is just a new chapter of my life.
I think I'm ready.

How Great He Is

Goodness I can't get over how much Jesus STILL loves me when I'm frustrated and covered in sin and don't make the time to sit and talk with Him. That He STILL pursues me and woos me to His presence. That I can still be Confident and Radiant and WHOLE in His presence. Man, there is so greater God and I can't even comprehend great his love is for ME. Thank you Jesus.

Mmmm to rest in His presence is more delightful than anything of this world.

What God is Teaching Me

This summer has been one full of adventure but with the adventures I have had, God has been teaching me over and over to be humble. And I don't just me the sweet person humble. I'm talkin' biblical humbleness: that NOTHING I do if for my own glory. That my works don't make an ounce of difference in how God sees me. I like to think that I don't have a pride issue but obviously I do because every time I think I will get even a tiny amount of glory from something I've done (today it was being interviewed by the local news for our S.A.V.E. 5k- S.A.V.E. is a whole different blog post in itself) He takes the glory away from me (my part of the interview being cut). I know that's a silly thing and although it stinks I'm so thankful that God would keep reminding me and disciplining me to know that everything I do should bring glory to HIM: NOT TO MYSELF. God is so good. All the time He is good.

Less Than One Month

I decided to start this blog about a year ago so that I could write about my senior year and then proceed to write about my upcoming years of college.. And I barely wrote my senior year. At all. But it's never to late to start right?! Especially since I am t-minus 27 DAYS away from moving into my dorm! THIS IS INSANE. I want to be alright, to feel content in who I am before I head off on this adventure and lately this has been a dreadful task. I don't want to worry about fitting in and not being enough anymore. I AM enough. I am completely WHOLE in Jesus Christ and I can laugh at the days to come because He has already won. He is stronger than any of my doubts, worries and fears. He already has friends and passions and adventures laid out for my on campus. He knows the life were going to walk together through the next four years (and I'm sure he already knows how often he's going to have to pick me up and carry me). I'm ready for this moment even though most of the time I feel ready to go crawl under my bed and have a good cry. I can do this. I WILL do this. It's going to be the adventure of a lifetime. Here we go.


Also, I have found great encouragement in the song "Age of Worry" by John Mayer (Born and Raised). Here are the lyrics:


Close your eyes and close yourself
Danger hiding in all the world
Soothe your tears, your innocence
While you do everything wrong

Don't be scared to walk alone
Don't be scared to like it
There's no time that you must be home
So sleep where your darkness falls

Alive in the age of worry
Smile in the age of worry
Go wild in the age of worry
And sing Worry, why should I care?

No you fight is not within
Yours is with your timing
Dream your dreams but don't pretend
Be friends with what you are
Give your heart then change your mind
You're allowed to (throw) it
Cause God knows it's been done to you
And somehow you got through it

Alive in the age of worry
Rage in the age of worry
Sing out in the age of worry
And sing Worry, why should I care?

Rage in the age of worry
Act your age in the age of worry
And sing Worry, get out of here!


*Lyrics copied from Elyrics.net
**The bold phrases are those which have brought the most inspiration