It's happening fast!

The pages in my story seem to be turning quicker as I get older, I'm reaching the plot twists faster, getting introduced to new characters more frequently, hitting the trials and learning the hard lessons that give the book meaning regularly. And although it started out slow, kind of hard to get into...Its become quite an exciting tale and now all of the sudden it's 2013! So grateful that God's still writing, I can't wait to see what happens next. HAPPY NEW YEARS EVE!

Share Joy

As anyone who knows me, knows...I love sports. All kinds of sports. Lately I've been getting more into surfing and rock climbing. My school schedule was EXACTLY how I wanted it. German, Statistics, Soccer, Karate, and Surfing. It was glorious. I was able to run, swim, and climb outside of school and get credit for surfing, soccer, and karate. Life was GREAT!

Then one day at soccer I was playing goalie and broke my little pinky! I broke it so badly that I needed to have surgery. This is where I learned an important life lesson.

A pinky is small and seemingly insignificant. Just like one person is seemingly insignificant in respect to the size of the earth. However, my pinky has had such a big affect on all aspects of my life; School, work, hobbies, etc..and just like my pinky unexpectedly affected other aspects of my life, maybe you will unexpectedly have a huge impact on someone else's life. Don't assume you won't be remembered. Assume that you are going to positively impact a beautiful life. Share love, encouragement, honesty, excitement. Share the gifts that God has given you. Share joy!

Swimming!

Looking through the water is like looking through a brilliant crystal with the suns rays shining through. As I glide through the water it brushes over my skin refreshing me while all the H2O molecules together challenge my muscles and lungs with every stroke, and when I finally finish I feel such a sense of accomplishment.

To me, this is such an encouragement! It makes me think of everyday life. It looks beautiful, the gigantic trees, the vast blue sky, the rolling green meadows, the fluttering butterflies and buzzing bees! As you walk through life however, you are faced with many challenging choices, many circumstances that you can't control. But God is always there to refresh you and encourage you, offering timely advice and alternate choices. And when you finish, He will be there with open arms, ready to welcome you home.

Kerri Kimmel!

A few years ago I started working with Wyldlife, the Junior High version of Younglife. One of my fellow leaders was Kerri! We became friends and her sweet smile, infectious laughter, and love for the kids always rekindles my passion for Younglife. An organization that is focused on reaching out to the furthest out kid, forming relationships with them, and walking through life with them, all the while showing them God's love.

Kerri is just about to graduate college and asked me to take her senior portraits. We had a lot of fun and i just wanted to share a few of the shots!

Such a beautiful heart to match her beautiful smile!

Trip around the WORLD!

TRIP UPDATE!
As you know, Lindsay has joined the movement and so, Sara, Lindsay and I are together planning this massive trip around the world. When I say planning, I mean that we are planning to go, but have no idea all the details yet. This trip won't be going underway until we graduate college. (so about 2 years) BUT we are going to start doing some fundraising soon!

At first we were just going to have a personal adventure trip but then over the course of a few months God started making it very clear to each of us separately that he had a bigger vision for this trip. So now, we are beyond stoked to set out discipling and loving on people all over the world in the name of Jesus Christ. We are all super excited for the way he is already preparing our hearts for this and the lessons we are learning. SO COOL!

So this is us, plus our other friend Jackie 

It will just be me and the brunettes on the trip though =)

A little side update:

Last night I got the pleasure of visiting with some of my friends from my DTS!

Amanda and Matt are on tour with some other organizations and a few bands promoting their non-profit, Pick a Pocket! (Amanda is in the black sweatshirt and matt is on the right) David works with Pick a Pocket too, but is living in San Diego now, He's the guy in the maroon shirt. My friend Josh and I drove down to see them and it was SUCH A GREAT NIGHT! So good to see them! 

Keep them in your prayers they will still be on tour for another month or so! 

It's been a while...

I realize it's been about a gazillion years since i posted last, but that does not by any means mean that nothing worth posting about has been happening!

These past few months have been a whirlwind! My schedule has been chaos and school is crazy and everything is just going by so fast! Everything about me is getting stretched and molded and to be honest, I'm not enjoying it too much! Of course I'm enjoying spending time with my friends and learning about the subjects I'm taking at school; but the stretching and growing part has been hard.

I got home from church tonight feeling flustered and a little uneasy and I didn't really know why! I had a fantastic day at the beach with my friend Lindsay and at our Life Group and then saw so many friends at church it was just a great day! So why was I feeling like this, one might ask.

Well I did ask. GOD! WHY DO I FEEL LIKE THIS!? It has kind of been a reoccurring feeling throughout the past week or so. "Please reveal to me things i need to deal with or bring before you because I DONT KNOW" I prayed in desperation. (I hate feeling any way other than happy, so i'm always pretty eager to figure out problems and get rid of them) Finally I realized that every single day this week i've had a conversation with someone about spreading yourself too thin. EVERY SINGLE DAY!

and what am i doing...? i'm spreading myself too thin. I say yes to everything even when there really is no time on the clock to do these things and with so many commitments and so little time i'm really sucking at everything and doing nothing well. and because of this i'm tired and worn out and unmotivated and wanting to escape. Which puts me in my favorite place, dream land. I escape to my head planning adventures and places I have to go! It's really great, my ideal life. But that is not the plan God has for me and it's taking me out of the here and now that I need to deal with and learn from. There is SO MUCH I could be doing if i was present. and also, if i didn't already have 98349823 commitments.


and after all that I'm going to share the obscure lesson i learned from all this.
I need to sit still and listen to God with a ready heart and my mouth closed. With his gentle cues and gracious reminders, he guides us through day to day life. Had I been doing that EVERY DAY I would have realized all this forever ago and possibly avoided all the frustration.
God is good. Alllll the time.

When life gives you lemons...

Man I really hate that phrase....
First of all, who decided that lemons needed to be bad things?! Lemons are filled with vitamin C which prevents scurvy! And they add excellent flavoring to food dishes and I love lemon sorbet! and Lemon bars...Lemons are a perfectly wonderful creation!

Second of all, It's just dumb. That is all. There doesn't need to be a second point. My first point is valid enough. On with my post now...


ab-so-lute val-ue:
            The positive real number equal to the given real number but disregarding its sign. Absolute value is always positive or zero, but never negative.

^ This is the real phrase. "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade". Think about it, The stupid phrase is trying to say, when tough times come your way take something positive away from it.

I think that in life difficult times are bound to happen! There are always always ups and downs but having a positive outlook helps one get through said tough time and on with life. There is invariably something to learn from every situation in life.

if  a = bad (-) then |bad| = bad^2 

since two negatives make a positive, then bad^2 = good (+) and when you take the square root of the new good, you are left with a positive!!

Personally, I am striving to live my life after the example Jesus set, He took bad and made it good (the absolute value method) and so I have decided to plant this same theory into my life. I am determined to learn and thank God for the junky times as that is a perfect opportunity for Him to shine and bring revelation and give wisdom.

ps: my  mom said a cool thing "Mathematics is an expression of God's perfection". Consider it.