so tired!

this week has already been exhausting, and it's only tuesday.

9:15 isn't too early to go to bed, is it?

a little something from the daily bread...

"He looks on us and sees the voids and imperfections in our lives, yet lovingly and patiently does His work in us to make us His masterpiece-- a masterpiece that 'conforms to the image of His Son' (Romans 8:29).
What a joy it is to have such a God, who makes us new and never tires of investing His energy and effort into our lives!" -Bill Crowder





love to all...

Trust God from the bottom of your heart;
don't try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;
he's the one who will keep you on track.
Don't assume that you know it all.
Run to God! Run from evil!
Your body will glow with health,
your very bones will vibrate with life!
Honor God with everything you own;
give him the first and the best.
Your barns will burst,
your wine vats will brim over.

-Proverbs 3:5-10 (The Message)

i spent much of today in silence, or at least as close to silence as possible. right now all i can hear is my upstairs neighbor's dryer ( i assume) and the friendly crickets outside.

there's quite a bit going on in my life right now, and this morning i just felt God tell me that i needed to be still and listen for Him. i get so distracted by the "noise" of every day life that sometimes i can't even hear myself think, let alone hear God speak. so today instead of filling the emptiness of my apartment with music or tv, i decided to let God fill it with whatever He wanted me to hear from Him. i have to tell you that i heard a lot. nothing is resolved, but i'm at peace (for the most part, anyway. i'd be lying if i told you that there weren't moments today when i felt the need to escape my own skin). as frustrating as everything that's going on is, i think it's good. i think it's really good...


"be still and know that I am God..." (psalm 46:10)


"for the Lord God is our sun and our shield.
He gives us grace and glory.
the Lord will withhold no good thing
from those who do what is right." (psalm 84:11)


"'for I know the plans I have for you,' says the Lord. 'they are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope." (jeremiah 29:11)

and finally...

"meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. if we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves... and keeps us present before God. that's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good." (romans 8:26-28 --the message)


love to all...

the plight of the only child...

sometimes i get a little bummed out that i don't have siblings. i feel like i'm missing out on things that people who have siblings get, like intimate relationships that are life-long, and (for the most part) unconditional. but i was reminded this weekend that God has blessed me with "siblings". i may not have grown up in the same household as they did, but we have intimate, life-long, unconditional relationships. these friends have been there for me through thick and thin (even at times when we didn't really like each other). not many people are blessed with friends who will stay up late (not to mention get out of bed) when they've had a bad night and just need a hug (and perhaps a huge piece of chocolate cake). i have those kinds of friends.

i am so blessed...

"To say that 'prayer changes things' is not as close to the truth as saying, 'Prayer changes me and then I change things'. God has established things so that prayer, on the basis of redemption, changes the way a person looks at things. Prayer is not a matter of changing things externally, but one of working miracles in a person's inner nature."

-Oswald Chambers

yay! school starts in a week! yay!

a little excerpt from provocative faith...

"Ultimately, we experience lifestyle joy when we become content with who Jesus is. Jesus said, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me' (John 14:6 NLT). Making peace with this statement is a process. Some days I wake up and am completely fine with Jesus being the 'way' or the 'truth' for me. But then there are times when I'm not okay with his way or truth; I want it to be my way or I want to find my own truth. But my rules and my idols and my belief systems only get in the way of Jesus reigning supreme in my life. Joy comes not when we put Jesus first, but when we realize that he's always been first and demands nothing less. We must get ourselves out of the way in order for his purpose of making us like him to transpire.
We will never find our joy in circumstance. We will never find our joy in the 'quickies' culture so often offers. Joy comes to us when we faithfully pursue knowing Jesus more intimately. As you begin to know him more deeply and more passionately, you will see your life becoming more peaceful, more content. You won't be 'happy all the time', but your joy will be a lifestyle and not just a passing feeling."

good stuff, mr. turner, good stuff.

T-R-U-S-T

this word has come up a lot lately. actually, it has come up a lot throughout my life, and yet i am no closer to mastering the concept now than i was years ago.

trust has never come naturally to me, as i'm sure it probably doesn't to many people, but in looking back on my life i can see that my ability to trust has diminished as time has passed. at first glance, this might seem like a natural chain of events... the more a person is disappointed by others, the less able he or she will be to trust. it is true that i've been disappointed and hurt by some people in my life, so perhaps it's logical for me to not trust those individuals anymore. however, it isn't logical for me to mistrust other people who have never given me a reason to believe that they're not trustworthy. what's even more illogical is for me to mistrust God. he has never given me a reason not to trust him, but has given me every reason to trust him. not only did he die on a cross so that i could spend eternity with him (pretty sure if someone does that, he's trustworthy), but he's protected me from a great deal of pain... even though i chose to get myself into painful situations. the thing is, no matter how stupid i am, no matter how incredibly poor the choices i make are, God wants to give me good things. this is a concept that i can't seem to grasp, probably because it seems totally illogical. why would God want to give someone like me--someone who is selfish, impatient, untrusting (etc, etc)-- good things?!? in wordly terms that doesn't make sense. but that's the beauty of who God is. he's not of this world, and therefore does things differently. in this world, we get rewarded when we perform well. but God desires to bless us even though we continually screw up. yes, you read that correctly... he desires to bless us. he wants us to experience all that he has for us (ie., what's best for us). so why is it so difficult to trust him? probably because sometimes what's best for us happens in a painful manner. sometimes in order to learn, God allows us to be hurt, and sometimes we get hurt just because this world isn't perfect. there's risk involved with trust. but another beautiful thing about God is that he knows what that risk is like. when Jesus was on this earth, he experienced that risk. he knows exactly how it feels.

the creator of the universe knows exactly how i feel at this very moment...


what an incredible thought.



love to all...

happy 4th of july!!!

katie's bridal shower was this weekend! it was such fun (and to be honest, i don't usually like girly things like that, so you know it was lovely)! this is probably my favorite picture... the HUGE bow on her butt cracked me up (as you can probably tell from the ridiculous look on my face)...




and now for a more normal picture of me and miss katie...




(thanks to miss laura for taking such fun pictures!)



love to all...

man, it's been a crazy, wonderful couple of weeks!


all i can say is, i'm loving every minute of it...

today i played some music and made a bowl out of plaster. i love that i'm getting 3 credits for this class!!!

in other news, i finally found out that i got the job at fulton! woo! but, i still don't know when i start! i'm getting rather frustrated, but i decided earlier that i was just going to be happy that i have a job. so this is me being happy i have a job...



i hope you're all having a wonderful week!

much love...

here's some goofy pictures from the show tonight...




katie was very excited about the HUGE cookies she brought...




this is laura playing hard to get ;)




and here's me and katie... we're very excited. hehe


good times, kids... good times.

for some reason, i've stumbled upon these verses and others like them several times this week... so i thought i'd share...

"This is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us."
-1 John 5:14

"Whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight."
-1 John 3:22

"Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him."
-Hebrews 11:6

"We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.

He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross."

-Colossians 1:15-20

well, i'm moved in... for the most part, anyway. i still have loads of stuff to put away and all that junk, but the big stuff is done.

i'm totally excited to be here, but i'm also sad. life is so weird and seemingly unfair sometimes. i know i'm supposed to be in lancaster right now, but the events of the past week have made it incredibly difficult to leave bloomsburg. it's all quite confusing and exciting and frustrating all at the same time.

*sigh* i think i need to go to bed...


much love...

3 days! that's right, 3!


i am really excited, but i'm also starting to get a little nervous. the job thing is still up in the air, which is rather frustrating, but i know it'll all work out somehow. i'm also feeling a little sad about leaving bloomsburg. it's home, ya know? however, it will be nice to be living in a bigger town, where i won't see people i know every day. best of all is that i'll be on my own. that's a good thought. what's comforting is knowing that while i may not live here, bloomsburg will always be home, and there will always be people here who care about me, and whom i care about very much.


love to all...

did you ever have one of those days when you felt uncomfortable in your own skin?

that's me today. i'm nervous, anxious, confused, frustrated, and bored. oh, and we mustn't forget lonely. i have so many things to think about, and quite a bit to do in the next few weeks, but i can't do anything about any of it right now (and for some of it, there's nothing i can do ever). i hate feeling helpless and useless, and (here's the crux of it) out of control. i hate to admit it, but i like being in control of things. i like knowing exactly what's going to happen next, and how i'm going to do it. i hate waiting for things to happen. i hate not knowing what's going to happen. i especially hate not knowing what i even want to happen.

what i'd really like is to be settled. just... settled.

i don't think that's too much to ask.

i know some day i will be, and i'll look back at my life and laugh at myself for being so impatient. unfortunately, that doesn't exactly help me out right now. i wish i could be content. i think i was actually doing pretty well with that for a while, but now that i have nothing to do all day but think, i'm back to being discontented.

i know that someday i'll be settled, but today i just don't feel like it's ever going to happen...




forgive my whining...

love to all...



"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" -Jeremiah 29:11

i like motorcycles.