kamp is kool

OH MY GOSH. this weekend was so amazing. I mean of course. can't expect anything less than amazing considering the fact that I was at camp. just saying. this summer is going to be sooo awesome in so many ways.

Brandie is going to be my program specialist yet again.

I am going to be roommates with my best friend again.

I am going to be getting my tan on at the pool.

My program area is all girlz which is crazay fun.

The staff is amazing and we have great ideas.

Camp this summer is going to be balling.

The list could go on and on... but I won't bore you.

So on Friday Hunter and I left for camp and when we got there some of the staff got the dining hall ready for leadership. Then we ate dinner at Angie's with most of the other staff. Then the new leaders arrived!!! We had a little introduction session, then it was time for us to leave! Veronica and I went to the Buerhaus' to play Canasta with Gaines, Brandie, Chris, Mark, and Sharon! It was so much fun! Hunter came and got us and we went to a bonfire with the staff which was just buckets of fun.

Saturday we got up and went to breakfast. Then we had meetings. Then it was lunch time. Then my group worked on the gym walls to get the spots somewhat sanded down-ish? I don't really know what we did. we just did it. ha. Then I went and visited with Mrs. Irene, Mrs. Beth, and Ms. Jann in the directors hut. Then I hung out with Angie and Rachel. Then shower time. Then meeting. Then dinner time. Then chapel time. Then bonfire with leaders. AV and I sat in the truck and creeped on people. Some people left to go to Sonic. Then Richard killed the blackfoot truck so I got Macy to go get gas with me and take it up to the boys. Then we had hang out time until the boys came back. Tried to go to sleep before they came back, but of course that didn't work.

Sunday we got up and had breakfast. We had a staff meeting. Everyone left. Me and Vron hung out at CPR training while people got certified. Then Angie, Vron, Hunter, and I went to Milo's for lunch! We came back and then took a little tour around camp. Blake followed along. We went to KAP rock, old high ropes course, winwood, and then of course my favorite place... the back pasture!! We then visited and headed back to Auburn! I went to bed so early last night and got twelve hours of sleep... it was quite glorious!

I think this is a really interesting definition of camp...
camp (n) - a group of people favoring the same ideals, doctrines, etc.
It's not the definition of the type of camp Winnataska is but I really like it and I think it is very fitting.

Also at chapel this weekend Ms. Harlan asked me to read Psalms 23. So here's my favorite verse from it, although it's really hard to just choose one because I really like the whole chapter!
"Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." -Psalms 23:6

all these moments. killin' me.

Okay God... I love your moments... but you're killing me.
Here's the prayer to my devotions this week.

Dear Lord Jesus,
I am still so divided. I truly want to follow you, but I also want to follow my own desires and lend an ear to the voices that speak about prestige, success, popularity, pleasure, power, and influence. Help me to become deaf to those voices and more attentive to your voice, which calls me to choose the narrow road to life. I know this will be a very hard road for me. The choice for your way has to be made every moment of my life. I have to choose thoughts that are your thoughts, words that are your words, and actions that are your actions. There are no times and places without choices. And I know how deeply I resist choosing you. Please, Lord, be with me at every moment and in every place. Give me the strength and courage to live my life faithfully, so that I will be able to taste with joy the new life which you have prepared for me. Amen.
from The Road to Daybreak by Henri J.M. Nouwen

wow... that prayer blew me away.

not only is that awesome, but the song for the week is Prince of Peace, which is one of my favorite songs we sing at camp. thank you God for constantly keeping me on my feet and always loving me. thank you for the people you have put in my life. thank you for the good and bad influences. thank you for being you.

you're a waterfall washing over me

Happy Monday!  Today I'm going to blog about what my devotions have been on the past couple of days because they're very fitting for my life right now. So anyway my devotions have been to read all these passages in Luke about "The Story" of Jesus and then Pslams 107:1-43.  It's kind of cool how these go together but not purposely, they just support each other.  Pslams 107 is mainly about giving thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love.  Which... the Lord's unfailing love is so so good.  It gets me through the good days and the bad days, and is an awesome reassurance in my life.  So I'm going to share some verses. enjoy!

Then Jesus said to his disciples: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. 

Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes."

- Luke 12:22-23

This really puts things into perspective for me, because I worry ALL the time. I can worry about the smallest thing, like what am I going to wear tomorrow to a big thing like what does my life have in store for me. Thinking I have to know things about my future is something I struggle with. A lot of people worry daily with how they're going to pay for things or how they're going to raise yet another child, but with the Lord all is possible. Fully relying on him gets us through. Here's a quote from the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan that I always read when I'm worrying about something, it puts me at ease:

"Worry implies that we don't quite trust that God is big enough, powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what's happening in our lives."

some of my favorites from

Pslams 107

1 "Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; his love endures forever." 

8 "Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men, 

9 for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things."

28 "Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out of distress."

so basically, let's give thanks to the Lord.  He has unfailing love for us.  When you cry out to Him, He will be there for you, He will listen to you, and He will relieve you.

The name of my blog post comes from the song Where You Are by Rascal Flatts. go listen!

I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

peace. and blessings.

happy hump day y'all

today my day consisted of:

sleeping in

going to Auburn Jr. High to eat lunch with cool kids

going on a picnic with Mo and Jen

going to the dog park 

GiGi's cupcakes

getting lost

finding Gene Chizik's house only to find out it's a private drive

almost running out of gas

finding out some dummy poisoned the Toomer's trees

going to an advising meeting

meeting a new friend via skype

eating din din with my loves

hanging with my loves

my day was a very love filled day

with beautiful weather

and beautiful friends

such a beautiful life

peace. and blessings.

true life 1

true life: I rarely cry. It takes a lot for me to cry. However, if I see someone cry, especially someone I care about I will cry. 

(so I'm going to start doing these... where I think of something about me that I think you should know.)

everything looks perfect from far away

This Weekend...

or all the important stuff anyway

Friday:

lunch with Hunter

drove to the lake with Pressler

got creeped on by prisoners in a correctional facilities van

not being able to unlock the door of my own lake house

2 loads of laundry

had an adventure in Pell City Wal-Mart with Veronica

dinner

2 more loads of laundry

Pressler taking way too many pictures of Carter

crafting with Pressler and Vron

making a late night trip to Winn Dixie

paying $5 for a freaking lighter

Saturday:

waking up a bit too early

fixing cinnamon rolls

going to camp

seeing some of my favorite people

high stress moments

lunch at Milo's

seeing the Buerhaus'

cooking a very delicious dinner

Pressler jumping in bed with me and Vron due to Mr. Mouse

sleeping on the couch

Sunday:

getting woken up by the sun

waking Press and Vron up

Sonic

listening to Hunter nearly die in the bathroom killing wasps

taking a bath

(this is a privilege... I don't have a bath tub in the Villagio)

having to say goodbye to Vron :(

driving back to Auburn

talking to Pressler about interesting things

(shower. pool. truck. kitchen island. dining room table.)

hanging out with Pressler at her apartment

dinner at Zaxby's

meeting new friends

Leadership

the last 30 minutes of the Grammy's at Mo & Jen's

Monday:

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

slept in

watched Grey's

went to Copper Beech with Jen, Marie, & Mo

lunch with Davis & Alex

typed a little bit of my paper

met with english professor

went to Winn Dixie to buy my best friends sunflowers and their favorite ice cream

got to Mo & Jen's

went to Panda

typed more of my paper

watched Where The Heart Is

typed more of my paper

hung out

went home

Well that's what my weekend consisted of... I hope everyone had as good of a weekend as me, if not better :) I am ready to have a great week. So far it's been good... so it can only go up from here!

This morning in my bible study with the amazing girls on my YoungLife team we talked about insecurity... from Beth Moore's book.  Insecurity... it's such an interesting thing.  Everyone has insecurities and I think that a lot of people think they are alone, when in reality you are not alone!  Insecurity is something everyone deals with and can easily be tackled.  Although it's a part of life, I also feel like it's evil trying to get us.  One of my major insecurities is thinking that I'm never going to get married and have children.  As I ALWAYS blog about this, I know that God has His plan for me.  So instead of being insecure about this I need to move past it and even come up with a "back-up plan" in case my plan does not go the way I want it.  What a selfish thing, to want things the way I want them.  Anyway... I want to blog more about this later, but for now I'm going to leave it with what I've said.

"Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; 

he rises to show you compassion.

For the Lord is a God of justice.

Blessed are all who wait for him!"

-Isaiah 30:18 

(title of my blog is from the song Such Great Heights by Iron & Wine)

here's to a great week and to my guh Jen! luh you!

peace. and blessings.

by faith

Apparently getting behind on my devotions this week was a good thing. I just read my devotions for Monday, Tuesday, and today, because as usual I have been a slacker. I have got to get better!  But... why was it a good thing? Well you see Monday's reading was Hebrews 11:1-6 Tuesday's reading was 11:7-28 and Today's reading was Hebrews 11:29-40. So instead of reading those all individually I got to read ALL of Hebrews 11 today in one sitting, which I'm kind of happy about. It was good to read it all at once, because it was intriguing and I would have wanted to keep reading if I started on Monday. Okay, so maybe God did this on purpose and maybe I was meant to get behind and read it all at once. Well, whatever either way it turned out for the best, even if it's not what I originally had planned. But yet again I remind myself, God is writing my story not me, so STOP being so controlling. And indeed God is writing my story and continues to write it, as I can see in this instance. Because although I should have read my devotions on the days they were meant to be read, it turned out for the best that I didn't! Well that's enough rambling... onto the good part of this post!

Obviously, knowing by the title of this post and Hebrews 11 this post is going to be about FAITH. 

God just keeps doing this crazy awesome things in my life... Because the past two weeks have been very up and down for me, my faith has been weak and my faith has been renewed. I also have recently gotten overwhelmed about writing devotions for this summer, so I need to remember to have faith in Christ and He will lead me to what I need to write! Okay so as God always does these little things I call "God moments" in my life... He has done one yet again. As I start reading my devotions entitled "By Faith" this song I Still Believe by Jeremy Camp comes on... and this song is SO PERFECT for these devotions. Anyway. God is really cool. Get to know Him better if you don't, because He will give you these amazing "God moments" and they're just way too cool!

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."

-Hebrews 11:1

Okay well there you go, the definition of faith is right there in front of you. You don't know what faith is? It's spelt out for you in the Bible right there. Forget the dictionary, because the Bible's definition is way better!

"By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible."

-Hebrews 11:3

This verse explains (in my opinion) how that although God is not always visible to us we have to have faith in order for things to be visible to us. We didn't see the universe be created, however we have faith that God created it for us. That's why I rely on my "God moments" because that is my way of God being visible in my life!

"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him."

-Hebrews 11:6

Although everyone has their doubts and has those days when our faith is just a small thread holding on, we obviously believe in God, or else there would be no faith at all. God helps us with our faith and when we seek him BOOM he gives us that extra boost of faith we need. 

"God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect." 

-Hebrews 11:40

So this is my last little reassurance in my devotion. Because as I'm always trying to write my own story when it's really up to God, this just explains to me that God has better plans for me than I could ever imagine.

"Faith is the word that best describes the direction our feet start moving when we find that we are loved. Faith is stepping out into the unknown with nothing to guide us but a hand just beyond our grasp."
-Frederick Buechner

Peace. and. Blessings.

ten facts about me

1. Camp Winnataska is my favorite place.

2. I love children.

3. I look at wedding blogs like it's my job.

4. I don't drink regular milk... because I think it's weird to drink another mammals milk.

5. I am a younglife leader and love it.

6. Jesus Christ is my main man in my life and always will be. (corny but true)

7. I like to talk "ghetto"... if you think it's annoying sorry but I know you secretly like it.

8. I go to Auburn University and bleed orange and blue. WDE

9. I want to go on a mission trip so bad it's not even funny.

10. If I could wear chacos every day of my life I would.

scue me. eat drink and be marry.

So my best friend/twin/summer roomie/love... better known as Veronica/Cuddles/Ronald, came to visit me this weekend in Auburn... It was awesome and I did not want her to leave. CANNOT wait until this summer. Well I guess I can because I have too... but if I didn't have too then I wouldn't. I would easily fast forward... by the way about 110 days till camp :)

Friday - went to the gymnastics meet with Alex Boyd, Marie, Whitney, Mo, Jen, then Alex Sager, DP, Kevin, and Porter came to join us :) I also saw Jenni!  What a great way to start off the weekend. Then Vron finally got here YAY! Me, Mo, and Jen left the meet and went to meet Hunter at Cheeburger Cheeburger. It was real nom, as usual. Then we came back to the Villagio (a.k.a. The Village) and hung out with Alex, Whitney, and Marie. That was fun as well. Elizabeth Sherman decided to make a visit after a peep in and escape. Which was real funny. Then we went to Sonic... what a trip haha. Then Veronica, Hunter, and I sat in my car for a good hour and a half talking.

Saturday - we slept late and then woke up and went to The Barbecue House and crashed Hunter, Richard, and Wilson's blackfoot lunch. hehe :) It was real good though and we got to help plan things for this summer which was awesome. I know they secretly liked it as much as they try to say they were annoyed. typical boys. then we came back to the Villagio and hung out. I took Vron to get a shirt at Tiger Rags! so she now has her first official Auburn shirt... that doesn't even say Auburn anywhere on it... it says I heart Hot Tigers, it's real presh! Then we went and picked little miss Abby up and went to Tigertown to meet Mrs. Irene at Marble Slab for ice cream! It was great getting to catch up and plan yet more for this summer... Have I mentioned this summer is going to be amazing? well yeah... it is. Then we went to dinner with "boy" and his roommate at Tino's. It was tons o fun despite the fact that they're a bunch of haters... haters gon hate. Then we picked Hunter up and went to Mo and Jen's. Jen made cookies. Thomas and Matt Cameron were over. I got a Millie Harrison tshirt from Augustine. VOTE MILLIE HARRISON FOR MISS AUBURN. k thanks! The night was quite glorious.

Sunday - woke up real late... missed church. but we didn't go to sleep till around 2:30. thennnn we went to Denny's with Davis and Marie. The line was RIDICULOUS and it took about 45 minutes. Oh well... it was kind of worth it. Then we came back and brainstormed ideas for camp this summer. We are pretty much the bomb at that to say the least. Then we showered (not together) and got ready. We went to Sonic... it was Happy Hour and we got real excited about that. I got a sweet tea that was so ridiculously sweet I couldn't even drink it. There was sugar coming out of the straw. like legit. eh eh boo boo. We went over to "boy's" and hung with him and his roomie for a while. Then we came back and Hunter came over to watch the game... although I'm not too sure why because neither one of us were interested and only really watched the half time show that sucked. oh yeah Vron left :( and now I'm studying for bio... well obviously taking a break to blog. Can't wait for Glee to come on!

oh yeah the most ridiculous thing about this weekend is we have NO pictures from it. dumb.

LOVE A LITTLE STRONGER. 

DIG A LITTLE DEEPER. 

GO A LITTLE FARTHER.

Peace and Blessings.

Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend.

Here's to: missing my best friend, being easily annoyed, a terrible Super Bowl halftime show, listening to Amos Lee, waiting for Glee to come on, studying for biology, and wanting summer to hurry the freak up and get here.

my friend Amanda

So I have this friend. 

Her name is Amanda. 

She isn't a panda. 

Instead she's granda. 

Ok that's as far as my creative abilities will go.

But my friend Amanda is awesome. We met in Theta last years as the new girls. I found out that she's from Birmingham too. Somehow I always get connected with Bham people. So cool. Anyway I love her. We have American government together this semester and we sit together. I love seeing her every Tuesday and Thursday! So where am I going with this... well she made this blog post about me... that is truly amazing. I am so thankful for her and for our friendship. I am so thankful that she sees me as such an influence in her life because my heavens I have a long way to go! But... I am thankful and blessed that Christ has used me to influence her... because it is all Him, not me one single bit! Anyway I'm going to show you what she wrote about me because it brought me to tears it was so sweet! So thank you Amanda for being you and being in my life. You make me smile. And you my dear are gorgeous inside and out!

(If you click on the picture it will enlarge it so you can read it)