happy christmas

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! I went to nky to spend time with the family and it was pretty great. For graduation I received money & was debating about what to use it for. I decided on a Canon Rebel camera. I think it was a good choice. My brother and I found a deal online I couldn't turn down, so I have documented my Christmas with my own pictures. :) treat.
Scott is learning how to speak Russian, so he was studying flash cards all Christmas eve. He got some books about Russian on Christmas, including a Russian/English bible (which came when we were home and our mom was not, so we wrapped it, put it under the tree & labeled it from Santa). It was pretty awesome to see how confused our mom was.
This tree is from my Lexington house :) I just like it. My roommates and I have never had a real tree before, so we decided to do it, and it pretty precious if I do say so myself!
My accomplishment of the Christmas week: finishing my scarf. I started this scarf 4 YEARS ago. I am not exaggerating. It is now complete :) It represents almost my whole college career...started it second semester sophomore year, and finished it after graduation 4 years later. awesome.
I drove back to Lexington today to pack and be productive before I head to sunny Florida in the morning! I wrote some thank you cards and am actually still working on the whole packing/productive thing... the camera is kind of distracting :)
Thought you would all appreciate my brother's gift to me... Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Haha... it is the original text with added sentences about zombies. So funny, had to document it. :)

I hope you all had wonderful Christmases, and I hope even more that you got to reflect on our Savior coming from Heaven to earth to serve and give His life for ours. It really is too good to be true. I will leave you with some of my favorite Christmas lyrics :)

"long lay the world in sin and error pining, till he appeared and the soul felt it's worth...a thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!"

"the first time that you opened your eyes, did you realize that you would be my savior, and the first breath that left your lips, did you know that it would change the world forever...I celebrate the day that you were born to die so I could one day pray for you to save my life"

a jane austen love

so i have to say that outside the realm of christian books, i have a favorite classic. it is pride and prejudice.

i started with the movie featuring keira knightly, and quickly fell in love. i know you aren't supposed to watch the movie before you read the book, but in this case, i think it is better. this is only because if i picked up the book and just went for it i would be SO lost. i am no good at keeping up with old language in books. i need a general idea of what is happening first..

after reading the book, though, i have to say it is 900 times better than the movie, and i still love the movie. that is a good book. my current copy has random people on the front with little random facts throughout the book. it does the job but i have a confession.

have you seen the new Penguin hardcover classics? i love them. they are precious. does a book need to be precious? no.


thought i should confess my need (want?) of a precious copy of my favorite book... :)

graduation in 3 days. FINALLY!







[picture linked to source here ]

crafty girl christmas :)

girl christmas was a success! last year we decided to be crafty, but this year, we decided to each make a craft for every girl, and it was wonderful! i have such crafty friends! i will attempt to tell stories with pictures below.. :)



For my craft, I made little Christmas aprons for all the girls! For the tutorial, go to Darby's blog (which is pretty wonderful in itself) :) Megan let me borrow her sewing machine, so I got to work!
The first time I made an apron from this tutorial, I flew through it and ignored a whole lot of steps like pinning and ironing, but since these were presents, i listened to all the rules, as you can see above..


The finished products are above! Aren't my friends precious?! And Cory is going to have a tiny baby! Love it.
Rachel, who is so crafty that she has her own little jewelry business called Stella Bella Boutique, made us little jewelry gifts, here are my little flower bobby pins! Love them.

Shannon made these precious little tea cup candles! So cute and they smell wonderful! You'll have to click on all of their names, because I'm sure they will explain how on their blogs :)
Cory made a jar of bath salts, a jar of sugar scrub, and a bar of soap (not pictured) that has colored wool wrapped around it like a built in loofa. So creative! (The picture also has a little jar from Katie Howard from when she asked me to help in her wedding that I now use for q-tips)
Jen made these precious tote bags! Each has an initial with a doily design around it in the corner...so cute! I put all my treats in here :) She has a precious picture of all us girls carrying our totes, visit her blog, i bet she'll put it up there :)
Here are all the girls :) It was a fun day. Rachel and I felt pretty sick, but other than that it was wonderful to get to spend the day with good friends. Especially Shannon and Cory who don't live here!

better late than never :)

well, about a month ago, my sweet (and very missed) friend shannon from mynewsweetcarolina passed this little award on to me, and i am just now getting around to it. :)


so now for the rules... (copied & pasted from shan)
~thank the person who nominated me for the award
~copy the logo and place it on my blog
~link to the person who nominated me
~list 7 things people may not know about me
~nominate 7 creative bloggers
~post their links
~leave a comment on each

Well...7 things..
1) I love to read. Love it. I recently sat down with the new donald miller book and read it in the equivalent of less than a day. I just started Pride and Prejudice (my favorite) for a second time, am finishing the new Francis Chan book, and have about 10 books on my shelf I am waiting to get to.

2) I have the greatest friends in the whole world. I really do. I could not be more thankful. They are just super amazing and encouraging people. My bible study is a perfect illustration of that. They are all wonderful :)

3) I am about to graduate in about 9 days from nursing school! I will finally be an RN at a children's hospital. I love kids, and I know this will sound weird, but i especially love sick kids. I don't know why, I just have a special place in my heart for them :)

4) I have been crafty these last few days. I failed to find a tacky christmas sweater for festivities this year, so I made one a couple days ago. You will see pictures on here soon enough :) I also have recently made an apron (photos and blog to come) and am about to make a bunch of crafts for girl christmas. I promise to document all of these things. When I was in high school I was super crafty. I painted and drew and played guitar... where have those days gone?

5) I am a Young Life leader at a local high school. I LOVE it. I get the chance to meet some awesome students and share Christ with them. What could be more awesome?

6) I woke up this morning excited about God's word. I mean, it is literally a love letter to us. It is how God has pursued our hearts from the beginning, and how He continues to do that every day of our lives. How could my heart not beat faster thinking about that?! I mean, really?

7) My brother is pretty awesome. I mean, really. He is super selfless and giving, and although I don't always track with his weird british movie and tv quotes, he is fun to be around. He was most definitely born in the wrong country.


Well, that is all for now. :) I will pass this lovely award on to my best friend in the whole world Shannon Henson, another best friend who has an amazing story, Kristy, and my precious friend angie who just had a tiny PRECIOUS baby boy (don't worry ang, it took me a month to respond) :)

into something beautiful

i have been a blog failure lately. i apologize. i figured i should start with that.

so i laid down about an hour ago to go to bed and tonight is one of those nights that i can't shut my mind off. even after i journaled some of these thoughts. usually i hate when i can't sleep when i want, but tonight i don't mind.

i just have this feeling that the Lord means to make something tremendous of this life i am living. i know he wants to mold me and form me into something that looks more like Him. i think that this past year has been really cool in that i have learned, well, i guess i have come to realize the depth of my need for Him. there was a long stretch of my walk with Christ where i really thought i had it all together for the most part. i was fairly self-sufficient.

i just feel like i am seeing my need daily. i feel like He is showing me the parts of my life that do not glorify him. this isn't in a self-depreciating way. i feel more like it is in a life-giving way. there is so much freedom in need. his grace and love is pushing me onto growth and dependency.

i just want to be refined, pruned, sharpened...molded into who he has in mind for me to be. i don't care about the process, just that it happens. i want life to the full. i don't want to miss out.

i like the jars of clay song "something beautiful". i just feel thankful that 8-somewhat years into this thing with God, i am still learning that there is so much area for growth and so much adventure still ahead.

i maybe should have learned by now that blogging at night when i am thinking too much might be a bad idea. maybe more than people care to read. anyway... its a tool to help me process i guess. :)

...on a very exciting note: tiny silas daniel poston was born yesterday! i want to meet him so bad! i will attempt to do this tomorrow :)

oh how He loves

this past week i have been blown away at the love the Lord has for me.
tonight i am giving the sin & cross talk at our Young Life club. i feel nervous because i am definitely a person who is shy and turns bright red and laughs whenever too much attention is on me, but at the same time, i feel so excited to share the truth of what Christ did for us. definitely more so in light of how God has been showing up lately.
i just want these students to know and experience God like i am this week, i feel like He is right here with me every second. i've noticed that realizing His love pushes us on to love Him back with our lives. i literally do not want any of my plans for my life. i want His plans. with how much He loves me and the amazing thing he means to make my life into, why would i want to control any of it?
His plans are SO MUCH bigger than anything we could ever imagine. I love that. I love his heart for us and that all he wants is for us to live our lives fully the way He created for us to live. i just want to be someone who reveals Christ with my life. what else matters? i feel super thankful.

listen to how he loves by david crowder sometime today :)

27.

ok, so this is a couple days too late, but i just now got a chance to watch the final world series game. it was awesome. lots of things.

1) this is win #27 for the yankees, it's been 9 years since they've won last, and jeter, rivera, posada, and pettite have been there the whole time (with the exception of pettite, but he's back), so I am super pumped for them :) (picture above)
2) i have established that andy pettite loved the Lord. may or may not be true, but I also noticed when they interviewed teixiera, he said he had been praying and praying and praying and that the Lord was faithful in leading him to this team. oh man.
3) AND pettite again attributed his game to a lot of people praying.
4) wow matsui.
well, i just think they are a team full of awesome guys this year, and they deserve it. i feel pumped.

that is it. i promise this is it for the yankees blog posts until next year. :)

picture above :)

its been awhile..

It has been awhile! Since I last blogged, I have worked 2 weeks on my favorite floor ever, been to South Carolina to visit my precious friend Shannon (see picture below..i stole it from Rachel's blog..), set up an interview for a real job next week, and had a glorious Halloween night at the Vogel's last night watching Hocus Pocus and eating homemade chicken noodle soup.

In this time I have also started reading the new Francis Chan book, Forgotten God. I love it already and I am only a chapter in. The book is about our neglect of the Holy Spirit. The whole first chapter explained that the book would not be explaining the Holy Spirit, but looking at how we quench the spirit. It is aimed at the church in America, which is where it should be aimed. When I say that, he is not talking about buildings so much as the people who make up the church. I am so excited to read it. I feel like I quench the spirit all the time. I want to learn to live every moment guided by the spirit. He made a point that if someone lived on an island by themselves with the scriptures, and then found themselves in our Christian culture here in America, they would be expecting to see way more demonstration of the Spirit in our lives.

Anyway, I feel excited about reading that. I am at Panera this morning to spend time with the Lord. I opened my Bible and decided I was going to read Isaiah. I LOVE Isaiah. I just feel like it so perfectly shows us the Lord's heart towards us, even when we make a mess of things. We serve such a gracious, forgiving God. I want to be more aware of the reality of that and more thankful in my daily day-to-day life. I feel excited. :)

Lastly, the World Series is happening, and the boys are up 2-1 games! Last night I am fairly sure they caught Pettite praying in the dugout after an awesome inning. Treat.

Below are some of my most favorite girls ever. I feel so thankful for them. Rach, I want an emailed version of this picture. i love it. :) Happy November!

JOY

tonight i am a bible study skipper. i am okay with that for 2 reasons. 1) i have my LAST final exam ever tomorrow morning, and need to get some good sleep (and a little skimming of notes in) before hand, and 2) i have been in need of some sweet, quality time with the Lord on my own that is not in the morning before school. today i did day one of the beth moore study we are covering in bible study (there are 5 days, i am on 1) and was super encouraged and overwhelmed with gratitude. to sum it up, one of the things beth said was, "If you only understood what grace means and what you have received by way of it, you would never cease to rejoice". how true is that? how sad that i go so many days forgetting what awaits me? and how many times do i get bogged down by so many things that i forget that my name is written in the Lambs book of life? and that it has been since before time?! that is where our joy is found. we have such a gracious Father who loves us so passionately and unfairly. do i live like i do? why is it such a struggle?

with this new chapter of my life about to start, i want to be intentional with my time. these things get said a lot (i know i think about this a lot), but i want to be a do-er and not just a sayer. i will have 4 days a week off of work and i don't want to fill those days with pointless things, or just fill them to fill them. i have every reason to live life joyfully and fully in pursuit of Him and not me.

too many thoughts for the night before a final, but i just feel excited about all the things that the Lord has waiting that i miss out on by being busy and living day-to-day without looking around.

tomorrow brings freedom from the school chapter of my life and hopefully an intentional attitude about seeking first His kingdom and righteousness. :)

..it should be noted that on our last day of lecture yesterday, we had a luncheon afterwards thrown by the alumni association where we had our white coat ceremony. you know, like doctors wear. who knew nurses got those? i have never seen it. i think it is safe to say we won't be wearing them often. here is a picture to leave you with :)

a perfect fall weekend :)

this weekend was full of fall fun. it started with kari gaddie's (now corsi's) wedding! she got married outside at a historical site in louisville, and it was perfect! she looked so beautiful! my camera died after the picture of holly and i, so i have nothing to show for it, but if you look at jen's blog, you'll find some good pictures :).

sunday was a fun-filled fall day at hubers! a bunch of us went to pick apples and pumpkins! the weather could not have been more perfect :) i like in the hayride picture, i left it on color accent for pumpkins, and micah's yellow hat was the only thing that showed up. pretty great.

now i am in nky switching cars with my mom for the week! it is also my LAST WEEK OF SCHOOL EVER! that is exciting. i also just found out donald miller is coming to cinci this friday night! totally want to go. i won't lie.

so yeah, i'm gonna go get some rest for a day full of studying tomorrow! maybe studying at reality tuesdays :) treat. literally.

a yankee victory :)

just a quick post to say that not only did pettite pitch an awesome game tonight, i happened to catch the interview after and he said he had people praying for him, and the Lord calmed his nerves. a yankee that loves the Lord. what a treat.
also...awesome job jorge. i just love posada. if only shannon wheatley were watching with me tonight :) HIP HIP JORGE!!!
i'm ready for some world series, just have to get past the angels now.

new book

i started the new donald miller book last night. it is only 3:20 and in only have 8 chapters left. yes, there are 36 total. i (obviously) am a huge donald miller fan. i don't know how this one compares for me to blue like jazz, or searching for god knows what, but i am definitely enjoying it. i feel like he is challenging the reader to look at what life you're living, and what kind of story your life is telling.

definitely pick it up if you get a chance. i recommend it so far! maybe save it for a rainy day like this :)

the beauty of grace:)

i've been playing this song on repeat this week. this is my cry to the Lord. i feel like sometimes i am so bad at being aware of what my life looks like to the people around me. i want this to be my plea. i have for sure not been super loving lately. there is no excuse for that. so, this is what is on my heart. His grace is amazing. i would have given up on me forever ago. i love the relient k song lyric that says, "the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair" :)

A life you cannot define
A purpose that's benign
They need to see and believe
Be lead to the rugged tree

The one on which He cried
not for His pain but for our debt
The very same tree that He conquered death
It was an unfair deal on the part of Christ
He got my sin I got eternal life

Make me the breath of God
And I'll show them the One
that means the most to me
They'll see the face of love
Be touched by the very One
that died upon the tree
Oh, Make me the breath of God
And I'll show them the One
that means the most to me
They'll see the face of love
Be touched by the very One
that died upon the tree

tomorrow is jen's birthday! happy birthday!! :) tomorrow is also my second to last test of nursing school! all fun things. there will be more posts this week because... KATIE LINDEMAN is coming to lexington for the week :) oh treat. i love her.

good reading :)

i am a fan of devotionals. but not all devotionals. it takes a lot for me to be a fan. the one i am working through right now might be the best one ever. and it's not even a real devotional. maybe that is why i like it so much..

anyway..i am reading The Imitation of Christ by Thomas A. Kempis. the chapters are between 1-3 (very small) pages long, so perfect for a little reading alongside your regular quiet time reading. i am almost through it, so i figured it was time to share my love and recommend it. the thing i love about it most is that everything is scripture based and aligns with the gospel. you really can't read a chapter and not feel encouraged to take a look at your life to see if it holds up to Christ's example.

i hope you all get a chance to read this at one point! the language is old, but if you can bear with that, it is great.

i love you all and hope you are enjoying the beautiful day! :)

fall, pink shoes, and disney club :)

Today is COLD. I am wearing my fleece. The plus of this weather is that I get to wear my seasonally-neglected chuck taylors :) Today I chose the pink ones. (hence the flickr picture).

Today is also a glorious day. Today is Disney Club!! Everything at club will be Disney-themed (except the talk...but who knows what Steve has up his sleeve..) It will be great. I've already had some of the high school students come up to me and tell me they are dressing as characters. Why have we never done this before at TC?

If you read this before then, pray for Steve's talk and for students to show up :)

flicker picture by[ http://www.flickr.com/photos/24535537@N04/]

!

my dream job just posted an opening!!!! prayyy!!! :)

a few things :)

in my beth moore bible study, we have been learning about being filled with the spirit. last week we had a discussion about how you know if you are actually hearing the spirit or if it is just your mind thinking things you want to think. discernment is hard when you aren't used to it. this past week i've been trying to practice this daily and I feel like the Lord has specifically shown up in situations to show me that I am actually hearing his spirit when I think I am. this is a very cool thing. I still wonder sometimes though. especially when you have an opinion about what you want to happen in a certain situation. you could easily think things that could be interpreted as the spirit. its just hard to know where the line is. i suppose that is where scripture comes in.

things i love that have happened lately...

there is a precious girl named nikki, who went to my high school. she was a couple years under me but we soon became friends and bonded over our love for the Lord and donald miller. nikki came down here for college, and it is 4 years later and we JUST went out to eat for the first time! oh man. i miss her. she is great. we went to olive garden and learned a valuable lesson about unlimited meal deals when you have a small stomach, but also found some amazing soup. i am hooked.

love: megan, angie and I are "walking" for the cure on saturday! what a treat. we're not runners. well, angie is, but not with baby silas in her belly :)

speaking of angie, holly, jen, randi, and i threw her a little baby shower last sunday! it was so fun and full of small baby presents! i think she liked it a lot :) jen and i went in on a gift together that i have been keeping a secret until it could be revealed, and now that it is... i will post a picture... this is rocking moose. thank you ikea. how precious?!

the refuge medical clinic. maria and i volunteered there all last semester and did not go at all this past summer. but we went for the first time in a long time yesterday! it was great. i love the clinic and everyone there! its so great to see the patient's reaction to how full of joy it is there. the picture is maria and i with debbie. we LOVE her.

pollen count has been down. oh thank the Lord. i can't handle kentucky allergies much longer. neither can my nose.

on a sad note: it is my last few days with jonah the jetta. i am trying to spend some quality time bonding. man i love jonah. don't worry, there will be an ode-to-jonah post soon. pictures need to be taken before this is possible.

well, i hope the end of the week is treating you well and that the Lord is revealing himself to you in awesome & new ways!

love, jenna

teal ribbons and cut-off ponytails

last night at the tc/dunbar football game was absolutely amazing. there is a girl at tc who was just diagnosed with ovarian cancer and is being such a trooper. she had it arranged to get her head shaved at halftime to raise money for markey cancer center. it was amazing. you would not believe the number of high school guys who joined in and were bald and the number of high school girls who had significantly shorter hair than when they came. (locks of love was there). i think they raised around $1000 for ovarian cancer research. it was really awesome. funny thing is, i didn't know that teal was ovarian cancer's color until last night. stuff like this makes me think i need to have more of a voice. most survivors are out there speaking at things and raising awareness, and i don't do that. so i will be keeping my eyes open for opportunities. below is a picture from halftime when everyone was in the middle of the field getting their hair chopped and shaved. i think the scissors all broke by the end of the night. she is a brave girl. i had the lady that cut my hair come to my house so that nobody could witness the shaving of the head.. and proceed to wear my wig 100% of the time i was around people. she is awesome. ...for your entertainment... i FINALLY turned in my ponytail from 2 years ago when doni cut my hair off hahaha better late than never i guess? now THAT is procrastination :)

empty hands

i feel as though lately i have been running on my own fuel. it has caught up with me (as it always does). i guess it it a blessing that this happens every so often. there is a time where i feel like i am learning a lot and really excited and not too far after is a time where i am just going on fumes. it is times like these where i identify with the israelites wandering so easily to their own ways. you can read that and think how slow they are to realize that He is all they need. then i realize we (i) forget that truth daily.

i can say that i still feel excited about what God is doing around me, but i need to empty my hands so that i can come to Him with a fresh slate. in the last video of our beth moore study that my bible study is doing, she talked about pouring out before pouring in. this idea was that we can't have the spirit come and guide our lives if we haven't poured out to the Lord first the things that get in the way.

i am tired tonight and i feel like i have not been reflecting Christ lately. by His grace, i can see Him using me in little ways here and there, but i feel like i am missing out on being used in the ways He has planned for me.

in leadership the other day the truth was brought up that the more we grow into Christ, the more we are aware of our sin and our falling short. i think this is because we need the gospel daily. we (i) need to know daily my need for Christ. if i don't, i start doing life on my own. it makes sense. if i have no need for redemption or grace or forgiveness, why would my life be dependent? because of this, because of the gospel, i am thankful for the times where i am brought to my knees in surrender. this makes grace real and makes me thankful for it. (how many times should i have to learn this?) i suppose daily.

probably not a coincidence that my bible study's challenge this week was to be the same in whatever situation we find ourselves in. to live lives of integrity that honor the Lord, and to notice the ways we don't so that we can change that. i don't want the people that know me best to see Christ in me less than the people that i don't see on a daily basis.

well i am tired and going to get some sleep :) i apologize for the neglected blog..it was a busy weekend full of wonderful things. lots to update, but that will be for a different post.

Lord, refine me. search me and know my heart. see is there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.

a little chicago trip

for labor day weekend, i decided to take my 4.5 day weekend and head to the windy city! chicago has been on my summer roadtrip list, and i had not succeeded in making it happen, so why not?

it was glorious. first of all, i discovered that i LOVED roadtrips by myself. i really like being able to listen to wonderful playlists and driving with my windows down for long periods of time. :) treat.

i left after class on friday and was in chicago by 9:30 pulling into my wonderful friend stacy's driveway! stacy is one of my friends from my first summer staff. this was 4 years ago, and i can't say a whole group of people have left such a mark on my heart since. when i got there, we just sat on the couch and caught up with each other then went to bed! oh. and i met felty. felty is stacy's family's dog that i have known about forever but never met. felty is great, but gets a little too excited (dogs make me nervous when they get excited)

oh saturday... we did lots of things. we went to caribou coffee and i read while stacy planned campaigners. we went to ikea! i found a little something for a friend i have been searching for and we got ice cream cones, then headed to portillos for lunch. i love portillos. i go every time i am in the chicago area. our friend dan came to say hi! he was on our summer staff too. its so wonderful catching up with people you haven't seen!

we left dan and sped to catch a train into the city (stacy lives in naperville). we went to millenium park, walked down to the water, then down to the john hancock building. our hope was to go to the top to see the view, but there was a long line and we had to catch our train. it was a beautiful day! it was like 76 and sunny.

when we got back, stacy took me to a mexican restaurant in downtown naperville (cutest place ever), and we went to her friend liz's house to hang out with some friends and play scattergories. dan came to that too, so we had a couple mini-reunions.

sunday was a lazy day. it was great. we went to church, went to a coffee house by wheaton college. wheaton is gorgeous. i then went to a team meeting/hangout with stacy's yl team and we went to the last fling in downtown naperville. train (the band that sings meet virginia) was playing and we rode on the viking ship. i love the viking ship. it was a good night. we ended the night by listening to some jj alberhasky and reminiscing about summer staff memories.

i sadly left early the next morning to return to allergy-filled kentucky. i sneezed 3 times in 2 days in chicago, and i believe that just today (its 5:30) i have sneezed 43 times. sad. oh well! it was a glorious weekend! here are some pictures :)on the train :)the bean!
giant statue of american gothic..hilarious. we were the height of the suitcase.
dan, stacy, and i :) it was 2am my time..i was a mess.
on the viking ship! we were excited..

last minute thoughts before bed :)

After a couple hours of learning how to read cardiac rhythm strips (yes, this is now my life), I decided to take a break to check my friends blogs. I think I like doing this more than facebook now. Who would have thought? Anyway, I just want to point out a blog that my friend Jen pointed out to a bunch of us girls today. Its about a girl who picked up her life to follow the Lord's calling her to Uganda. It's amazing. Start with the August 14th entry. I mean, I just feel encouraged about what He is doing and teaching her while she is struggling to be His hands and feet to children and families in Uganda.

Tomorrow is a break from school (for a day) and sadly I need to use a big chunk of that to study for our first exam of the year. On the plus side, it's full-out fall weather outside! I will spend another part of my day tomorrow getting breaks and tires checked on my car... I am considering going to Chicago this weekend because I have a 5 day weekend! :) well...really 4.5 day...but it sounds better. I want to visit my precious friends Stacy and Erin and I hear Kari is there this weekend, so I might get to see her! This is all up in the air... but how often do you get 5 days where you have no prior commitments?

This weekend was beautiful! I got to help Ben & Jen move into their new house (so cute!!), play guitar with a TC girl, see precious Shannon, see Jen's mom and some HC girls get baptized in the pond at southland, along with hundreds of other people. There are no words..it was amazing. Also, last night was all-city campaigners, so I got to take some girls to the YL office to join together with high schoolers from all over lexignton to learn more about the Lord. It was a good weekend.

Alright, I need to go read a little and go to bed. Why do I get so tired so early?! Oh well... I will leave you all with some precious pictures from Carly & Ryans wedding this weekend (which was wonderful).
from top to bottom: carly & ryans wedding programs, the newly wed couple being announced at the reception, my YL team trying to be the brady bunch, its fine, old roommate picture, me and rach, and old-old roommate picture :)

very scattered thoughts :)

So many random things...all my thoughts will be scattered in this post.

School. I only have 20 days of class left in my entire life. This is awesome, but because this is true, and I still have a full semester load in these 20 days, my life is kind of a mess (or is turning into one). I had a quiz today (day 3 of classes) and my first actual exam is one week from today (day 7 of classes). I will be a mess until October 16th.

On a funner note, today I helped my wonderful friends Jen & Ben move into their first ever house! Well, they've lived in a house all last year, but they OWN this one! Treat! It is very precious and I can't wait to see it put together and then go hang out there all the time :)

SHANNON IS HOME!!! Only for a few days, but I feel excited. I didn't get to see her much today, but I'm hoping that will change in the very near future. I just love her a lot.

Randi, Megan, and I went to the TC football game tonight, I was really excited, and then it started raining like crazy & the crowd disappeared...so we went to Cheddars. :) I felt excited though, because at Cheddars we saw 2 of the old YL girls (they're hostesses) and I never get to see them. We had BIG plans to watch the A&E version of Pride & Prejudice (our collective favorite book/movie of all time). Then we realized it was 5 HOURS long! Really?! We are all way too old for things like that. It is 10:40 and I am wondering why I am still awake.

Again, this post is random, but I was driving yesterday and out of nowhere my sunroof decided to crack open and shut all by itself. The controls are on the ceiling. I did nothing. Weird.

Well, this weekend will be a good one because I will (hopefully) get to hang out with Shan, go to Ryan & Carly's wedding (dancing at my friend's receptions is my favorite thing ever), play guitar with a couple TC girls, and we have all-city campaigners! Studying SHOULD be in there somewhere, but that is what Tuesday will be for :)

Lastly, my favorite season ever is approaching...FALL! I love wearing sweaters, chuck taylors, drinking apple cider, eating caramel apples, apple orchards, pumpkin patches, pretty leaves, carving pumpkins (i carve the same one every year...picture provided..), and really just everything that has to do anything with fall. :) The picture of leaves is taken in the town in NJ i lived. That is one of the things I missed most about the Northeast. They have an awesome autumn season.

Sorry if you had trouble hanging in there... I did too... Off to bed for me!
picture provided from flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikejonesphoto/

love that will not let me go :)

O Love that will not let me go,

I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O light that foll’west all my way,
I yield my flick’ring torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.
-O Love That Will Not Let Me Go by George Mattheson

I love this song with everything inside of me. There does not exist a good recording of it, so I only get to enjoy it when it is played corporately for worship. I like that it alludes to our deaths (dying to ourselves) bringing life. Marshall talked about pruning at leadership tonight and I was encouraged. I hope the Lord never stops pruning me. I never want my life to stop bearing fruit. (I guess I hope it is already).
School started today, so blogging might come less and less, but don't worry, even if it is just song lyrics, i'll make it work :)
This picture is on brannon road here in Lexington. :) One of my favorite roads to drive on.

a little blessing!

Well, in order for this post to do any justice, you need to know about my friend Kristy. You should actually click on the link to read her story. She is one of the most faithful women of God I have ever met. If you want to see someone who has incredible faith, read her story on her blog. Preferably from the beginning, and have tissues with you.

Kristy was my Young Life leader when I was in high school and has become one of my best friends. I am so encouraged by her and the way her life points to God. She was constantly there for me, pointing me to a life that is beyond my own, challenging me to live the life the Lord calls us to.

Kristy and her husband Jeff just went through one of the hardest things anyone can ever go through. They lost their baby Samuel. It is a long story, I will tell you again, read it. Through it all, they clung with everything they had to the Lord, and trusted Him. I know it is still painful and hard for them, but they know that our God is a big God and that He is good, even if we don't understand the things that happen. Nobody can say that God is not real because without Him, they would not have made it through this past year or so.

Anyway, all this to say that this little blessing is they are pregnant again! I feel so excited for them and this new little life. They have a little boy named Dawson, who, in my opinion, is the sweetest child ever made. Her blog is called "Seeing Hope in Hopeless", and the hope Kristy and Jeff have in Christ will never fail them, no matter the circumstances.

I just want to write this so that if you read this post, you will pray for them and for the little baby growing in Kristy's belly, and that you would have a chance to read her blog to see for yourself the incredible faith they have.

I promise, you won't be sorry you've read it. I hope you are encouraged by their faith to walk through a life that is not always easy with a God that is beyond more than we could ever need.

picture stolen from kristy's facebook :) the one on top was when she got married...i was a junior in high school

wider eyes

there is a song lyric from a little group called Dividing the Plunder that I really love. I don't even think they go by that name anymore, but I love the song. The song is called Perimeter of Me and it says:

"I want to live with wider eyes, there's far too much to see; to think of nothing else but where I've been and where I'll be. I've been longing for the freedom that is waiting silently in the life that's just beyond the small perimeter of me"

i recently listened to this and i felt like it perfectly expressed where i am right now. i feel really excited about my bible study diving into a study on the spirit in our lives & i just finished reading francis chan's crazy love this afternoon. we live in a culture that is so immersed in the idea that life is about us and what we want. i can't imagine how much of that thinking is part of the foundation of how i live. and more than that, how much of that is keeping me from what the God of the universe is wanting to do through me and in the world of the people i live in?

i know a lot of the ways i have been challenged lately is through francis chan's book, but the cool thing about that is he is just relaying what he has found by reading scripture and really taking a good look at it. if you really look at it, our life is not at all about our comfort or us having plenty and living to meet our own ends.

when i read this book, i sit there thinking things like "what if God tells me to move to Africa?" and it does scare me. why should that scare me? if He wants me there, that is where i will have the fullest life with the most joy and peace because i am in the center of His will. the fact that it scares me makes me think i am holding too tightly to the control of my life and my desires.

i don't know. i guess i just want to move beyond the point where a major change would scare me, and be in a position to welcome it. francis talks about how the times in his life that have been the most meaningful and satisfying have been the times where he has been completely out of control of his own life in situations where God has to come through. how often in my daily life am i so reliant on Him that if He didn't come through, i wouldn't make it through the day? hardly ever.

at the beginning of the summer i read God's Smuggler by Brother Andrew. he talked about how his missionary training was basically training and testing his faith to live off of nothing but prayer, not asking for any of his needs to be met, but relying on a God that meets those needs because we are His children, children of the King. God came through 100% of the time and in amazing ways.

i don't want to miss out on that provision because i am so comfortable.

sorry this is a lot of me mentally wrestling with this. i don't know what this should look like other than keeping my ears and eyes open to His spirit, and living with wider eyes. there is so much more beyond my life that i want so much more than my life.

every decision we make affects His kingdom in one way or the other. i want to start making decisions more based on that than what i want.

i think the part of the song that says "i've been longing for the freedom that is waiting silently in the life that's just beyond the small perimeter of me" is about John 10:10 and Matthew 6:33. If we seek first His kingdom, we will have life to the full, not just life that pursues ourselves.

on a light note (maybe needed at this point) megan and i went to visit one of the old high school girls that just moved into college and then went to a tc football game tonight and it was awesome. lots of faces of old friends we haven't seen all summer :) and some of the girls might just be teaching us the hoe-down throwdown dance (hannah montana..nbd) :)

*photo uploaded from flickr.com (user Ben)