Well I'm back again... still quite excited about the semester and with a few more realizations about my life. (I know you're really excited.) When you love God and seek him whole heartedly than loving people will just happen. God will fill you with love and energy and willingness to pour out HIS love on everyone you come across. In an effort to be completely honest, I must tell you that I am not always the most committed person when it comes to reading my Bible and intentionally spending time alone with God everyday. However, for the past two weeks I have been very intentional in seeking out God and looking for times to read my Bible, pray, and simply spend time in the presence of my magnificent God. Because of this I have been a much happier and more pleasant person. This is another one of those things that I know will happen, I've done it before, I've seen the results, but I am so often caught up in the busyness of my life that I simply don't do it. And that is just stupid. Really really stupid. I am so greatful (I realize this is wrong) to my God, my beautiful precious Savior who continues to pursue me even when I am doing nothing to show my love. My hope and prayer is that I will never forget that my God is great, my God is big, and my God is love. I pray that I will be able to live these things out and show them to everyone around me through the strength that God gives me.
I have been very encouraged by the life of a dear friend of mine who past away yesterday. Christian Schmidt was an amazing man of God who lived his life for God until the very end. He praised our God through pain and suffering he used every bit of energy given to him to spread the good news of a precious Savior. He fought the good fight and is now praising God without hindrance, without pain, He is happier than ever worshiping our brilliant Creator. How willing am I to live this same kind of life to spend myself, every last ounce of energy I have, to bring good news to a hurting world?
MY GOD IS SO GOOD I DO NOT EVEN HAVE THE WORDS TO EXPRESS MY LOVE!

LOVE IS BRILLIANT!

So the semester has been shaping up quite nicely, and I'm very excited about it. God is so cool. There are so many things that I started learning this summer that are finally beginning to make sense. Some of it is not so easy, and some of it is just good reminders that of God has already done for me, and things that I have already learned.
Coming back to something always brings special events, activities, and situations. There are the same people that were there last time, but some of them are gone and there are new people who we are often unsure of where they even came from. We quickly realize though that all of the people have been placed in our lives for a reason, and we are called to love them and care about them, we are simply called to be their friend. All of it is really really fun.
We also come back with new experiences. We all spent the summer apart, learning and experiencing different things, and we some how have to figure out how to live in old situations with new experiences... At this point many of us have done this over and over again, but it never really gets any easier.
I personally have been struggling with several things that God has been teaching me. Learning how to love new people while still loving the old ones isn't always easy, and not always something that I really want to do. Investing so much time into situations I won't be in for long is not something that really makes me excited. Fortunately, I have learned through experiences that running from the things that God has called you to will only get you chased by whales. SO lets just not do that right? Loving people is hard, people are messy and complicated, people have problems and lives and baggage, and its just not pretty. But people are beautiful. People are created by God IN HIS IMAGE! Everyone you know... think about even the crazy people. God wants people to know about his love and the abundant life that is found only in Him... We need to be willing, I need to be willing, to love people that are hard to love. God is working in me, God is working in my friends (the new ones and the old ones), God is moving on our campus, God is moving in our city and it is BRILLIANT!

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." John 13:34-35

Well, its been a while...

So I realized the other day that it has been quite some time since I had posted anything here... Honestly it feels like it's only been about a day, but really it's been a very very very long time.... Basically school is wonderful.... I was so so so so so so so excited when I got home and saw my family!! They're beautiful and happy and fabulous and it was great! AND THEN I got to see my friends and I just REALLY love my friends. We have done so many CRAZY things already this semester... basically every weekend has been filled with insanity.. Random trips to the mall, Roller derby, homework, Resident Evil 4, more roller derby... NOSE PIERCING!, A random concert something something something, VOTN conference.. it was all just fabulous, and I pretty sure that it's never going to calm down ever again, and I am very okay with all of this. I realized every day that I am still processing bits and pieces of the summer, and figuring how those things fit in my life now, and that is just really great, but also really scary... I'm still learning a lot about myself, and learning that God uses me in my weaknesses which is just GRRREEAAAAAAAAAAAT! .... well, hopefully I'll be back again very very soon with some fabulous new realization.

:)

Emotions are weird.

Why is it that the end of something is always accompanied by such a mix of emotions and feelings. I think Relient K was right when they said emotional girls should all wear mood rings, I could use some help myself. This is my last week here in Ohio for the summer. It has been such an amazing experience. I have learned a lot about ministry, about kids, about myself, quite honestly I feel like my brain is over drive and I will probably need about 6 years to process all of this, but will have to make do with about 6 days. Anyway, I'm really truly sad about leaving next week, which is not really a new emotion, but maybe it is a little. Usually when big things are over I'm just happy to be done. I'm a very strange person we all know this. SO yeah, I'm sad to go, but I'm also really looking forward to being home. I'm sure I've mentioned before that I REALLY LIKE MY FAMILY A LOT! and as irritating and loud and crazy and despite the fact that my dad won't let my pierce my nose (some one make sure he reads this okay?) I really missed spending the summer with them. It's always an experience, like relearning how to live with people again of course then I just go back to school and I have to relearn how to live with those people. OH life is crazy and wonderful and just... So along with being sad and happy comes this weird feeling that time is like going a little bit wacky. Sometimes a minute can feel like an hour and other times and hour feels like a minute, and sometimes I just really want the time to pass so I can go home and others I want the time to last so I can stay and enjoy the things I've done here this summer. I really really don't like this at all!!!! emotions are really not a good thing for people who like to feel that they are in control. Not that I have any trouble showing my emotions, just ask anyone who has spent any amount of time in the Caf on macncheese day. Sometimes it just really doesn't end well. But I would really just like to have one emotion a good one or a not so good one I don't really mind but the weird mix is just freaking me out and I have worked very hard at not being a freak out... well mostly. So yeah I don't really know how I feel about any of this. I'm going to listen to relient k and maybe figure something out.... probably not it'll just confirm the fact that I think this is all very frustrating. Well there ya go.

until next time.

SO MANY TREASURES!

Well, as most of you know (I think...) Last weekend my gramma's basement got some water in it because of the RAIIIINNNN! Ugh, I also think most of you know how I feel about the rain. Well anyway we've been spending some time cleaning up water and cleaning different things up. and there is SOO much crazy stuff down there. Like this rock with a bunch of little rocks with eyes glued on it with a sign that says "rock concert" that's just really good times. and REALLY old pictures of my dad along with tons of other things that are just too great to be described with words. I'm sad that no one was here to enjoy it with me. However, along with the great things there are some not so great things like 50 jillion year old carpet soaked in rain water... GROSS! And the smell oh the smell is horrid! But I think we're making progress. I was able to put some of my fabulous treasure hunting skills to good use when we were trying to find and extension cord with the third hole OR the nose as I like to call it among all of the other fabulous things in the basement. I found one. I was excited. Maybe too excited. Oh well. Also I found out who my new room mate is! Ahhh! I am so excited. Her name is Sooyeon Song, she's gorgeous I'm excited. In other news I have no other news. I'm excited and sad about going home. Okay

Until next time.

They didn't sleep...

Well, it has been quite some time not really only a couple of days, but whatever. I would like to start by telling you all about my weekend. This weekend was the youth lock-in-event-funness-thing at the church here which I have been looking forward to for quite some time. And it was a lot of fun. We started with a little nerf war which can only mean good things, I think? anyway. After that we play tons of super fun games that no really things are fun, but they play them anyway. Well, I really think they're fun, and its just really really great. We also ate hot dogs and vanilla ice cream because it was hot dog and vanilla ice cream day! Delicious!! And they we split up for devos, and wonderfulness that can only happen when genders are separated. Rumor has it that the boys went to bed rather early. We girls, however, still had many many things to do. We gave each other facials, and painted nails, and ate food, and watched movies, and laughed and giggled and just did wonderful girl things. Now it has been my experience at EVERY event I have been to (until now) that everyone will fall asleep by 5am. It just happens at some point the sugar runs out and people just crash. NOT this is time. They didn't sleep... not at all. Well, one girl did sleep but the other 5 were still going strong when their parents came this morning. I had no idea that that was even possible. Because of this experience I have new found respect for people who do not like mornings. I was a bit foul (a bit may be giving myself too much credit). But I survived and I had a great time I really do have this strange love for preteens they're just so stinkin' funny and great I can't help it. OH man so much goodness.

The rest of my life is relatively uneventful which I am perfectly okay with. I have been celebrating fabulous holidays however. Sunday was Ice cream sundae (haaa!.) and so we had ice cream and greatness after church (thank you Mrs. Kim) and Tuesday was Celebrate your big-ugly truck day AND moon day. I wasn't really sure what to do so I just counted lots of big-ugly trucks... like 50 and made sure I spent time looking at the moon (hahahahahaha!) and enjoying it. Wednesday was junk food day which I celebrated a little bit of all week... especially this weekend oh man so much much junk it wasn't even funny. and of course vanilla ice cream and hot dog day. It's all so exciting.

Well, my time here in OH is quickly coming to an end. The summer has really just flown by.. its crazy I have my ticket booked and I'll be leaving August 9Th sometime in the evening (secretly I know the exact time, but I'm trying really hard not to be a planing freak... OGLES!) I will be sad to go, but I have enjoyed my time here so much, and I'm really excited to see what God has in store.

Ahhh!

Because everyone is dying to know...

Okay well maybe my head is a bit to big today, well most days for that matter. But after my brush with the geekier side of myself I just needed a little pick me up. Okay really none of that is true but several (and my several I mean at least 3) people have asked me what I did for pandemonium day and cow appreciation day. So I'm sad to report that my day was not filled with as much pandemonium as I know it's capable of holding, but its been a long week so maybe that was for the best. It's been VBS week here in Ohio. So lets just say from 6-8 the pandemonium was in full swing. I also had some a few pandemonium laden moments on my drive home. Really I just thought I was on the wrong rode, and then the music got loud all by itself and my phone was ringing with an unknown number, but I was on the right road.. and apparently if you spin the ipod thing the volume goes up, and one push of a button silences the cell phone with little effort. So basically nothing a good scream can't fix, right?

As far as cows go I was really unsure of weather I should have eaten all things cow related or if I should steer clear... so since I don't really like most products from cows any way I just didn't eat any. Not even ice cream... clearly this dilemma left me more confused than I originally thought. So I just decided to celebrate cows with and outfit devoted to their greatness. An adorable shirt with cows on it, paired with a wonderful black skirt, and a phenomenal black and white cow bow! I was adorable. (Maybe that's what got into me.)

So there you have it I have been celebrating like its not anybody's business. And so now as far as my todo list goes I'm all caught up... or at least as well as can be expected, some things just take longer than others. Also I think lists are bad for me they only enable my dominant type A personality. I've been fighting off the urge to go back through my planner and add in things that I did, but didn't right down and continue planning the rest of the summer down to every last second. Like I said fighting off this urge. Its a struggle, but now people will be asking me and I don't want to have to say that I did it so maybe that will help me resist. mmmm

until next time.