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/]

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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..