Life has been pretty crazy since Jan. when I last updated. A lot of heart break, sad times, and stress has happened in the time period between now and then. But also, a lot of really really great things the Lord has blessed me with. In August, I came back from working in the kitchen at Word of Life Florida. I really felt as if I grew sooo much in my faith during the summer there. I made soo many great friends and I can’t even describe to you the great time that I had while I was there.

The Lord just continues to reveal new things to me every single day. One of the things I have been reminded of (lately) is how much I really don’t deserve God’s grace. I have been reading A Call to Die by Nassar and this book has changed my outlook on a lot of things. How can I be so naive and stupid and not realize how important the cross is? How can I not use the cross to increase my faith and change my scope on things? The Lord has just been revealing soooo much to me.. it would take way too long for me to explain to you all of the things He has been revealing to me.

I just started my senior year in August, and my class schedule is pretty easy. I have English (senior project is pretty brutal), Forensics, AFM, and orchestra. I don’t have a whole lot of homework which is really nice I’m so ready to graduate from high school it is INSANE.. haha. Yeah..

Changing the subject… it’s really awesome and cool how God brings people into our lives. For instance, this past summer I would have never thought that I would make so many best friends like I did. I would have never guessed that He would put wonderful girls in my room and around me to show me the love of Christ which I desperately needed when I got there. I would have never imagined that at all. It’s crazy how God can show you so many things you don’t expect And also, I think it’s sooo cool how God can have someone in front of you for so many years, but you don’t realize how super duper awesome they are until like.. 10 years later. Ahh.. lemme tell ya, I can’t even describe some feelings that I have knowing that fact. But I am glad that God brought this person into my life I can’t wait to see what the future holds.

I promise to update more often..

Also, I’m thinking of applying for a job, since I need money for the summer, and right now actually. I’m tired of asking my parents or just waiting till Christmas rolls around. It’d be nice to earn it for myself.

Anyway, life is… interesting. Many adventures- or lack of- everyday.

“Give us clean hands
Give us pure hearts
Let us not lift our souls to another.”

Sooo much has happened over the past few months, it’s not even funny!

Not sure how to start this..

except right now I’m in this state of confusion, and have been for quite a while now.  Hoping things will get better soon. Very soon. Praying..

“I need You, Jesus

I need You, Jesus

I need clean hands

I can’t, You can

I need You, Jesus”

It’s summer. woo. and it’s… almost over, unfourtunately.

A lot has been going on recently. Such as New Jersey in June, and WOL Camp this past month, which was completely awesome.. I learned so much about God and my relationship with Him. and then a week from today I’m leaving for Ohio. Yay? ha. funny.

Anyway, today was pretty interesting. I went to babysit the Johnson’s today, (their kids are adorable.. blonde hair, big blue eyes) and it was pretty fun. I’m really tired though ’cause I had to wake up early. Then I went to the mall, and met up with Katherine. We went to Belk and David, her brother, decided to try on a black and pink tutu in the little girls section. With a pink shirt. It was probably one of the most supprising and funniest things I have ever seen. I have pictures. hahaha. Then, I went to get lunch with Katherine, and she started to feel bad… :/ and she felt like she was going to faint. so her mom picked us both up and she dropped me off at my house. Comes to find out that my parents weren’t home, because they were getting the car worked on, and I had no key to get in the door. So I called Rach, and asked her if she happened to be kind of on my side of town (my house is a while away from hers) but she was awesome enough to come and pick me up I was so thankful. Haha. So, I went to a couple of stores with her, then I met up with my parents.  Once again, Panda saves the day hahahah.

So… yeah. that was just today. Yesterday was fun too, I tried to dye Rachel’s hair and it didn’t exactly work… and we watched 13 going on 30.. I love that movie

My summer has been going pretty well, I guess. I mean, compared to last summer I haven’t hung out with friends that much at all. All of the extra time I have has given me a lot of time to think and such, and to read. and to volunteer at the hospital. woo. I really don’t want summer to end, but I know it has too eventually. I’m ready to see what God has planned for me after senior year anyway, I’m talking to Elizabeth (she’s in Florida) so I will type more some other time. God bless!

This week has been nothing but doing the same thing every single day. It has been cloudy every single day. I have tried to hang out with some people, but things just don’t seem to be working out. The weather isn’t helping my mood, either :/ I just really want to get out of this house and look forward to something BESIDES my orthodontist appointment today JUST so I can get out of the house and go somewhere. geez.

I just really need my friends..

Do you know what’s really getting annoying?

The lack of ‘excitement’ we have at Word of Life. What I mean by ‘excitement’ is how fire our youth group truly is on for God. Honestly, I love my youth group, the youth leaders, and everyone in it… but I would really like to see some more energy in our praise and worship and the way we feel about our awesome Savior. Yes, I do understand that it’s a Baptist Church, and as you probably know that Baptists are supposedly ‘not supposed to have fun’. But, from the way our camp is in Florida and how pumped we all get, I know we can get more excited about our praise and worship. No, I’m not saying that I’m always the most energetic myself… but I would like to see more from our youth group. I really really want so badly to grow in my relationship with God, and I’m going to try my best to do that. It would be awesome for just once for everyone (or most people) in our youth group to be singing our lungs out (no matter how bad we sound) to praise our God. I mean, He does deserve all of our praise, correct? I just thought I’d put that out there.

Sorry for that. I just thought that I needed to get it out to someone.

I need something productive to do this summer. I really want to learn how to play the guitar (which is hard…), and [possibly] get a job, like babysitting or something. I’m trying my best to do that. This Saturday I’m leaving for New Jersey and my aunt’s house there.. I’m pretty pumped for that. Most of my youth group is going on a missions trip to St. Martin’s (which I’m sadly not going on…for certain reasons) which hopefully will bring back awesome results! Anyway… anyone have any ideas that I can do this summer until NJ and Word of Life Camp in July?! thanks for your suggestions.

I will be updating a lot more this summer, by the way..

Thinking… well I have been doing some of that lately. And the future, which I shouldn’t be worrying about, but I have just been thinking about it lately.. anyway.

Last night I was doing a devotional and the title of it was called ‘The Future.’ It was out of this book.. and it was really awesome.

It talked about how Jeremiah was called the ‘weeping prophet’ because he was always crying. Where he lived had gone through so much turmoil, and yet God still wanted him to do something for His glory. Jeremiah wiped his eyes and did what God called him to do. He told the people that God had a future and a hope for them. (Jeremiah 29:11)

The popular verses from Proverbs 3:5-6 were mentioned:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart
       and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, 
       and he will make your paths straight.”

Also during the devotional it mentioned how in Hebrews 11 it talked about how the different prophets in this chapter and how they had faith in God and what kind of plans He had for their lives. Heb

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” -Hebrews 11:1

Thinking about the future, I have nothing going on in my life like what Jeremiah was going through, obviously, so shouldn’t I easily do what God wants me to do? I was created for God’s glory, and not my own. After I read this I realized once again that God does have a plan for my life- an awesome one at that. And I shouldn’t be worried about tomorrow.

Well, there is a reason for that.

I have been consumed with school, basketball, church, and soccer. And they rotate over and over again. We just ended basketball on the 13th of Feb., (we were the conference champs!) then we started soccer tryouts this past Monday. You have no idea how happy I WAS when we finished basketball. I mean, I love the sport so much, but the team is discouraging. I have one person in particular who didn’t like me, and a coach who didn’t put me in the game very much. It got so frustrating, the game before the last game, I just started crying. Yes, I started crying.
Am I really that big of a wimp?… I really hope not, but I do let my emotions get to me so easily. And most of the time, it’s not a good thing. Trust me.
Anyway, yeah… I was happy, but then I wasn’t. I then was soon to realize that I had soccer tryouts on Monday and I hadn’t kicked a soccer ball around seriously in months. So, I practiced the whole weekend. On Monday the tryouts were soo cold, I was about to freeze. Plus I had to run the mile and a half in under 12 minutes two days in a row… which wasn’t fun.
Well, I ulitmately ended up making the varsity team. Which is really supprising. But we only had one team this year because people kept quitting. Bleh. Which means I won’t get much playing time this year since I’m not all that great..

Mhm. But, I have been pretty busy lately. And tired. Teens Involved for church is coming up… in three weeks from tomorrow. Ah! BUT we have to present it in front of the church in two weeks from Sunday. Which is even more scary to me.

Wanna know the things I have to do… before March 8th? Well, you probably don’t, but I’ll list them anyway.

• Get my solo piece for violin (“Be Thou my Vision”) arranged and actually practice it.
• Somehow get Lydia and I’s duet piece arranged and practice.
• Write an interesting prose. Which will take me a while, because it’s going to be long…
• Get together with Elizabeth and make our gospel tract. And she had eye surgery TODAY!
• Go to drama/puppet practice every Thursday after soccer and try and get our mime correct. I have to act evil and like a demon which is kind of hard for me… But it’s an awesome drama!
• Somehow get music for the song “All in All” for praise band.
• And finally, study my but off for quizzing.

And I don’t even know if I have anything else to do. Blah. I’m trying to do all of this stuff while trying to manage a good grade in Chemistry, and my other classes, and being so tired from soccer practice everyday for about two hours in the freezing cold.

OH and one of my bestiezz Rachh is coming back from college on TI day. Wahoo!

I know all of these TI events are for God’s glory, which is what my aim is right now. Lately, I haven’t been feeling… ‘spiritually strong’?… So that’s what I’m trying to work on most. I know Christ will get me through all of this because He is my strength! Phillipians 4:13 <3

Anywho… I’m going to quit rambling. I’ll try and update more often

 Well, yesterday it snowed about 5-6″ here, which is really supprising since it never does. Everyone was really shocked to actually see the white stuff come from the sky. I was, too. It was about 30 degrees all day, and moisture was in the air.. so I guess that’s what happens when you mix those to together. So yeah.. it was pretty exciting. I made snow cream and it was quite yummy

We just had a six day break and do you know what I did? Basically nothing. Except basketball, and church. The usual. All of my friends seemed to be out of town.. or doing something else. One of them went to Disney World, one of them went back to college (boo. one of them had eye surgery, the others are all homeschooled and were doing school… So I’ve been pretty bored over this little break. I’m ready for something exciting to happen… But guess what?! I have been pretty productive, I’ve actually been studying for quzzing! Woop!

Did I mention Teens Involved is coming up in a couple of months? Oh. crap. Great.

Anyways, tomorrow we start back school again– second semester. I’m just a little worried about it since I have chemistry which I heard was pretty hard, and I also have Civics, which I heard you had to take a lot of notes, which should be a lot of fun since I hate taking notes, I mean.. who does? But, we do have a two hour delay, which means I get to sleep in a little. Hooray!

So now tomorrow back to the regular routine. School, School, and more school, basketball, then coming home for a couple of hours and doing the same thing over again. Woopdeedoo…

Everything bad seems to be happening today. All at the same time, it seems like.

One of my good friends’ house was burning as he got home from school, so he called the fire department. He said that he hopes that there isn’t too much damage. I really love how he and his family think so positively about every situation. But me, I don’t think that I would be able to do that.

After I dropped my friend off at her house, her dad calls her and tells her that her mom got in a car wreck. I think it’s semi-ironic since a girl from one of the highschool’s nearby just died in a car crash yesterday morning, and my friend actually knew her. It was all a pretty sad situation, since the girl is actually my age and it could happen to anyone.So, I think it’s pretty ironic. But, it’s good that her mom is okay, though. It was just a popped tire. On the highway. But thankfully, nothing terrible happened.

Also, one of my very good friends is having eye surgery tomorrow. It’s actually going to be a corrective eye surgery, which will make her eye sight even better. Which is awesome, and she’s really happy about it. Her family is just really stressed about it, so, hopefully everything will work out.

Whew. That was a lot. To top it all off we had to practice basketball today with the varsity team. It was pretty killer, since I’m not usually used to all of the running and stuff that they do in varsity. It’s a lot harder. And guess what? Clumsy old me fell on her knees again. And when I say I fell, I hit the deck pretty hard. So, they hurt, just a little. Ha ha. OH! and we finished our exams today. It was pretty exciting… Wow, I’m really bad at blogging, I ramble too much. Anyways…

Today I guess I just came to the realization once again, that God makes everything happen for a reason. He really does, and now I believe that with my heart 100 %.

Now, it’s time to just wind down and relax. And, hopefully, I’ll be able to hang out with my friend tomorrow who leaves to go back to Indiana on Saturday. If I do, that should be fun. It always is.

By the way, please keep all the people that I listed above in your prayers. Thank you!