I'm going off a medication, and already feeling a little out of wack. I trust God through this and IN HIS NAME I'll will be okay. I feel that this is His timing and part of His will. I was prayed over in church and I believe God will help me.
With school. I was accepted into Liberty in Virginia, and that's the plan right now. Finances are a big burden right now though. And if I can't come up with the money, I can't attend. I believe that if I'm supposed to be there, that God will provide. I'm just trying to lean on that. Still scared though.

"I will not live with a spirit of fear, but of POWER, LOVE, and a SOUND MIND!!!!"

yummy Special K Granola!!!

So, I've been reading and studying Lamentations, mainly out of The Message. And I'm getting so much out of it. It's so encouraging. When the exile happened people were in deeper suffering than we can imagine, there was cannibalism and they were even eating their own children. Sad, eh? Lamentations does a great job at displaying what it really feels like to suffer. How bad it hurts and how much you just want to die, when you're at the pit of your life. BUT it always brings it back to God and a hope in Him. So cool. I'm gonna share some versus that really spoke to me, and let you interpret them yourselves.

"...she's now a drudge. (ch1vs1) She cries herself to sleep each night, tears soaking her pillow. No one's left among her lovers to sit and hold her hand. Her friends have all dumped her. (ch1vs2)...never fees at home...stuck between a rock and a hard place. (ch1vs3)...Her enemies have become her masters. Her foes are living it up because God laid her low, punishing her repeated rebellions. (ch1vs5)...All beauty has drained from Daughter Zion's face. (ch1vs6)...she lost everything. (ch1vs7)...is an outcast. (ch1vs8)...She played fast and loose with life, she never considered tomorrow, and now she's crashed royally, with no one to hold her hand. 'Look at my pain, O God! And how the enemy cruelly struts.' The enemy reached out to take all her favorite things. (ch1vs9-10)...Have you ever seen anything like this?...my pain, seen what he did to me, what God did to me in his rage? (ch1vs12)...He left me with nothing-left me sick, and sick of living. (ch1vs13)...For all this I weep, weep buckets of tears, and not a soul within miles around cares for my soul. (ch1vs16)...God has right on his side. I'm the one who did wrong....Look at what I'm going through! (ch1vs18)...I called to my friends; they betrayed me. (ch1vs19)...'O God, look at the trouble I'm in! My stomach in knots, my heart wrecked by a life of rebellion.' (ch1vs20)...No one listens, no one cares. (ch1vs21)...Total demolition! (ch2vs8)...My eyes are blind with tears, my stomach in a knot. My insides have turned to jelly over my people's fate. (ch2vs11)...Keep t hose tears flowing! As each night watch begins, get up and cry out in prayer. Pour your heart out face-to-face with the Master. Lift high your hands. Beg for the lives of your children who are starving to death out on the streets. (ch2vs18-19)I gave up on life altogether. I've forgotten what the good life is like. I said to myself, 'This is it. I'm finished. God is a lost cause.' (ch3vs17-18)... I remember it all-oh, how well I remember-the feeling of hitting the bottom. But there's one other thing I remember, and remembering, I keep a grip on hope. God's loyal love couldn't of run out, his merciful love couldn't have dried up. They're created new every morning. How great your faithfulness! I'm sticking with God (I say it over and over.) He's all I got left. God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, to the woman who diligently seeks. It's a good thing to quietly hope, quietly hope for help from God. It's a good thing when you're young to stick it out through the hard times. When life is heavy and hard to take, go off my yourself. Enter the silence. Bow in prayer. Don't ask questions. Wait for hope to appear. Don't run from trouble. Take it full-face. The 'worst' is never the worst. Why? Because the Master won't ever walk out and fail to return. If he works severely, he also works tenderly. His stockpiles of loyal love are immense. He takes no pleasure in making life hard, in throwing roadblocks in the way. (ch3vs19-33)...Let's take a good look at the way we're living and reorder our lives under God. Let's lift our hearts and hands at one and the same time, praying to God in heaven. (ch3vs40-41)...We've been to hell and back...River of tears pour from my eyes. (ch3vs48)...The tears stream from my eyes, an artesian well of tears. Until you, God, look down on high, look and see my tears. When I see what's happened to the young women in the city, the pain breaks my heart. (ch3vs49-51)...'I called out your name, O God, called from the bottom of the pit. You listened. (ch3vs55-56)...Get me out of here! Save me!'...You said, 'It's going to be all right.' (ch3vs57)...you brought me back alive! (ch3vs58)...We are doomed. (ch4vs18)...'Remember, God, all we've been through. (ch5vs1)...All the joy is gone from our hearts. Our dances have turned into dirges. (ch5vs15)...we can't see through the tears. (ch5vs17)...And yet, God, you're sovereign still, your throne intact and eternal. (ch5vs19)...Bring us back to you, God-we're ready to come back. Give us a fresh start. (ch5vs21)"

midterms completo!

its done its done its dooooone! besides a math quiz after lunch i'm home free!

i went shopping last night and had a pretty hard time dealing with getting different size jeans than I've ever bought. it was hard to accept that what i am is healthy. but it was still good. i had fun with my mom and got some good buys! praise God for $10 Pacsun jeans! Whoot whoot!

on another note, i'm chilling here in the halls of UW-Fox Valley. people-watching and easedropping on people's conversations and debates of Philosophy. Don't people have anything better to talk about than "smart-people" stuff. Hahahaha. I just can't wait to get home, shower and pack, and head up north for a weekend of Bible Study and prayer with my middle school friends!

Our school is FULL of cops today, I'm so curious of what is going on, but don't know. I'm such a "snoopy snooper". (that was for you Noelle!)

Alright, I have to go just listen to people's speeches for class.

Love Life!!!

Just one of the many fun photo's from our photo shoot for Noelle's Photography Class project. More to come!!!!

midterms.

totally no time. midterms next week.

It was a not so eventful weekend!
Saturday I went to the Library with Abby and did homework for a long time. Then we picked out a few movies and ended up back at my house. We watched "Airplane" (Hilarious but soooo stupid) and "The Secret Life of Bees" (Sooo sad and good!). It was a good productive day.
Sunday I went to church, and my parents came too to check out where I was going. Haha. They liked it. We went out to eat and then I went to Casey's. At Casey's we went in the hot tub. We were so warm we put on tshirts and washed our cars barefoot. (Only in WI :-P) Then I came home, did homework, went tanning (FRYING; I look like a cherry), and watched some of the oscars.
Today I'm awake early because I'm "doing homework". And then it's school. And homework tonight, because I can't put it off to tomorrow night due to a staff meeting at work.
So that's all folks.
(PICTURE: Me and Katie Peterson before prom.)

A friend of mine once blogged about the Beatitudes, thus inspiring me to want to memorize them....and I didn't, but now I am....here they are in The Message version...

"You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.
You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.
You're blessed when you're content with just who you are-no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.
You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat.
You're blessed when you care. At the moment of 'care-full,' you find yourselves cared for.
You're blessed when you get your inside world-your mind and heart-put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.
You're blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God's kingdom."
Matthew 5:3-10 (The Message)
(PICTURE: Me and a pretty horse I rode at Silver Birch Ranch; Winter 2009)

$$$

I'm sick of people being so worried about money. If you are serving God, He will provide if you are doing His will and His work. It's nothing worth obsessing over. And I guess I wouldn't say obsessing, more just commenting whenever money is being wasted. Like it's precious and we couldn't live without it. I don't know. Of course it's wrong to just run gas through your car when you don't need to be driving all over when you can't afford it, or leaving a light on, yea just turn it off. But the pressure and feelings that come along with it are ridiculous. Every time I spend money I'm so selfconcious if it's worth it, or how much, or what about college, I can't miss work,etc. All the emotions just have built up over the years where I'm seriously scared to spend money sometimes. And I trust God. Wherever He takes me this summer, for school, or lack there of, it'll be to serve Him, and HE WILL PROVIDE! I need to lean on that, not what other people tell me.
(PICTURE: Me, Choronzy, and Ben down hill skiing a whole new way. ;))

first official plan for the future!

I think i just made an official commitment to spend next summer in Tennessee working with underprivileged children and counseling! Soooo excited, but soooo needing to trust God with money and college situations. He told me to go, so I am. I love what Nancy Alcorn said in her book Echos of Mercy: "Provide God, and I'll go!" But he said, "No, GO and I'll provide!"
(PICTURE: View from the dining hall at Lighthouse Christian Camp!)

I don't have much to say about my life lately. God's working in it! Church yesterday was very powerful and God really spoke to me. I felt Him tell me to share my testimony. Now...it's a matter of if it's sooner or later, and where. And whether or not to advocate Mercy, or just to share what God has done. Or to a large group, or just one hurting girl that the Lord puts in my path. We'll see where he takes me!