College...what???

I AM EFFERVESCENT!!!!! (psh... i got that from thesaurus.com. pretty dern sweet i think!)

We leave tomorrow and we move in saturday... 

I didn't realize how much crap i had... I filled up two cars but i swear i only packed necessities! I am so ready to go. It's so wierd because i really didn't think i was going to be able to go. God is so funny! Anyway... Ill be sure to write about what's happening later. 

~peace. 

AHHHHHH IM GOING TO COLLEGE!!!!! YAY!!!

Dirty

July 21, 2008

Today we went to the orphanage. I was sitting on the veranda with some of the girls from the other church and this autistic girl runs in screaming bloody murder and jumps into my lap. I couldn't catch her so she just threw herself in a corner and continued sobbing and throwing her head back and forth. All i could do was go over and put my hand on her head and whisper to her until she calmed down. Slowly her breathing steadied and she crawled into my lap. It was one of those times when i had to mentally record the moment. The whole day at the orphanage was filled with those. When i held the babies as i was feeding them i tried to record in my mind how precious and content she looked. I love those times when i am fully present somewhere. It just feels like it fits. I know it's a mother/girl thing but there is so much peace in holding someone. Even if you are consoling someone it brings you peace. Those kids were filthy but i couldn't help but hold them. Maybe that's why God wants us to enter into people's lives. To get involved with the nitty gritty parts of people's lives. If i stand on the outside and think that charity checks do the job then i and the other person completely miss out on the connection and peace in a hug. I think God knew what He was doing when He brought Jesus into the world in poverty. God wanted Him to be intertwined with the lives of the poor. Not just for their benefit but for ours as well. This whole new concept i'm learning called the Kingdom of God is indescribable. It's beauty captivates me and i cant help but pursue this new way of life. But i can tell you one thing. This kingdom isn't at all clean. 

And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed [be ye] poor: for yours is the kingdom of God.

Luke 6:20

Sand Dollars

So do you ever have those moments when you say something and think "Ok God just totally possessed my body there for a second and said that"  haha. I had that yesterday. 

I'm on vacation with my mom and family in Hilton Head. Yesterday my mom and I went walking on the beach to collect sand dollars. Yeah, my mom is most likely going to make jewelry out of them. (surprise surprise haha) As we were walking i noticed that my mom was collecting a lot more than me. The competitiveness came out in me all of a sudden. So i separated from them so i could find more than them. ha! I only found a few and i saw that they were collecting tons. So i just caught back up with them. 

As i was walking with them i said, "I think the reason i can't find as many is because i keep looking ahead of me instead of looking right at my feet." 

I think i do that with a lot of things. 

Sometimes i try so hard to look for God so that i can help others. I almost get burnt out trying to learn something. But i've been thinking lately that it's a lot easier than that. Maybe God is right at my feet. 

Fried Chicken

So im at Walgreens on break and the lame music cuts off. It was great but i wondered why and i walked outside of the break room and half the power was out. My friend walks in and says a lot of people are surrounding a dead buzzard in the middle of the road. We don't know if big bird is the cause but i still think it's stinkin' hilarious because IT IS SWEET REVENGE ON THOSE BLASTED BIRDS! 

Attacked

I just had the most terrifying and hilarious thing happen to me...

OK so i am taking my morning walk as usual and i spotted this big black crow in the middle of the road feasting on some fresh squirrel carcass... perfect time to take a picture right? I took a couple on my phone and kept walking. And then it happened...

This little brown bird swoops down and pecks me in the head and almost takes my ponytail out! I turned around to see if it was the crow and this little bird is flying right in front of my face like staring me down!!!

I guess he was like the crow's side-kick hit-man or something. He had about three more hovering above him in case some idiot dared to take another picture. 

Needless to say i screamed for dear life and ran all the way home. 

Yes you better believe there will be pictures... I just have to figure out how to get them on here off my cell phone.

I guess Canada Day is making those birds loopy...

Balloons

When you were a little kid didn't you just love to get balloons? One night when i was working at "the wal" (walgreens lol) there was this little kid riding around in the buggy and he had a balloon in his hand. I just knew what was about to happen though... and sure enough it did. He let it go. It wasn't a big deal because we got him another one, but i just thought to myself, "Now how many more times am i going to have to do that?" Sometimes when i was little i would just forget that the balloon was in my hand and it would float away. That was always a bummer.

 

I have been learning some really cool stuff lately and a few of my thousand plus questions have been being answered in the coolest ways. I love how God is working in my life right now. But to be completely honest, the better it gets the more paranoid i become. Sometimes i feel like i have to hold on to God so tight. I am so scared of losing sight of Him.

It's like im holding a balloon. I want to hold on to it because it's pretty and fun to play with, but sometimes i want to use that hand for something else. I dont want to let go though because i might not be able to reach it again. So i hold on to it. But what if i just forget that it's in my hand and i let it go? What if i don't notice that i've lost it?

 

All of these thoughts came to me last night (June 18) as i was writing to God. I have a really pretty journal that has verses on the bottom of each page. It's kind of funny how each verse somehow fits with what i was saying on that page (Very cool God!) So yesterday's verse was Matthew 28:20 "Surely I am with you always, to the very end of this age."

I cant really tell you this cool analogy that i made up to answer my question. All i know is that i have to trust the Bible. That is what it says and that is what im hanging on to until God decides to give me a further explanation. 

I dont know if anyone has ever felt like this. Heck, i might just be making a complete fool of myself. But this isnt about me. I want to help other people but im not going to write about what i think other people need.  I have to write about what is true in my own life because that is all i can do. I am the only person i can speak for. Maybe someone can learn something from it. This is what God is doing right now and that has to have some weight.

~peace.

My Serendipity

...Wow... My day was just that. 

So I love thesaurus.com. It makes me sound so smart in my term papers. :) I was looking for a word to perfectly describe today, and I found the perfect one. 

 

Serendipitous: the faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident.

 

Let me elaborate...

So my day started about 12:30 this morning. I woke up in a sweat. Not because of a scary dream or anything, but because it was actually like 90 degrees in my house. Why? I’m glad you asked... MY ELECTRICITY WENT OUT! Ugh! And for the most ridiculous reason i've ever heard... a woodpecker... yeah... Having the electricity out is only fun when it’s on a cold night and you get to have fun with flashlights. But that was not the case today... You see last night we had fajitas for dinner. They were delicious! But this morning the whole house smelled like hot raunchy onions. So here I was annoyed and sweaty and bored. So I decided to check my facebook mail...HA!!! 

So after that I just figured that the hot outside was better than the hot oniony inside of my house and I decided to go for my morning walk. There was nothing better to do so I walked farther than I usually do this morning. I always love going into this neighborhood called Sapphire Island. No, not because it's a magical land with roads made of sapphire...ha-ha. It's has just always been a beautiful place to me. Every house or mansion I should say, has a dock that overlooks Betz Creek. The neighborhood always has the most colorful flowers on every lawn and the sides of the streets are covered with tall palm trees. But today when I walked through the neighborhood it was different or maybe it was always this way and I never really noticed it. It was really quiet. I was greeted only once with a head nod and half of a wave. As I walked farther I noticed I was alone. No one was outside. The only other greeting I received was from a whiny cat who I think had rabies or something. Maybe there was no one else outside because everyone was at work; or maybe because the power was out and everybody else's house smelled tolerable enough to stay inside. I don’t know. It just felt eerie. Every single house had beautiful homely porches with two or three rocking chairs but I never saw anybody sitting in them. I saw picnic tables and baseball toy games in the yard but nobody was out there to use them.

I remember when we were in the Dominican Republic. When we went horseback riding through the villages we had to make sure we didn’t run over people because everyone was outside. There were dozens of people sitting around the streets just talking and laughing with each other. We saw old ladies fixing soup for anyone to have as they came to visit. We saw a huge game of baseball going on. It seemed like all the guys from the village were either playing or cheering them on. These people were really living.

I think that it’s ironic that the Dominican people had next to nothing yet they were the most giving people I have ever met. Maybe we are different because we have so much. Maybe if we didn’t put so much worth into our possessions they’d be easier to give away. Maybe the reason Christ tells us to sell our stuff and give to the poor is not just for their benefit but for ours as well.

Maybe this all sounds cliché to you, but all of this has really rocked my world this week. I don’t have a deeply profound little slogan to explain my thoughts. I don’t have a three-point lesson. I don’t even think I have final point. My purpose in doing this blog is to tell other people how I am recognizing God in our world with hopes that they will be inspired to do the same. I know all of this sounds random. So maybe all I want to say in closing is that today I saw huge beautiful houses with unfriendly and closed off people living in them and in the Dominican Republic I saw run down shacks with some of the most giving, genuine, and wonderful people in the world living in them. Maybe someone can learn something from this. Comment if you did.

~Peace 

"I, therefore, a prisoner in the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience accepting one another in love, diligently keeping the unity of the spirit with the peace that binds us. There is one body and one Spirit just as you were called to one hope at your calling; one Lord, on faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all"           Ephesians 4:1-6