The Emerald Isle

The story begins...


Okay so the story didn't actually begin here but this is the first picture I am posting. Enjoy! More to come...hmmm maybe one a day?

Slan! That is the Irish Gaelic word for goodbye!!!

Are you "starving"?

"I'm Staaaaarving!" It's a phrase used all too often. I didn't know what starving was...

Now I do. The next time my stomach growls I am going think about what I say. I challange you to also.

poverty and world hunger

I just looked up videos of poverty and world hunger on Youtube. It is blight that is so wrong! Some of the images were just...inhuman. It is the most tragic, sad thing I have ever seen. While I eat three meals a day and waste food, there are skeletons walking around. It hurts. It should hurt more. It should hurt so bad that I do everything in my power to make a difference. This is my prayer. Maybe I can't feed a hundred, but I can feed one. If everyone will say that, look at how many people will get fed! Let's make a difference. I am not sure where to start. Well I guess that answers itself. Start with prayer.

"Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your armes for the broken hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me your heart for the ones forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see"
~Brandon Heath

I am sooo excited about God! That is such an amazing feeling! I am so excited about what He is doing and what He has yet to do. The Lord is soooooo good!!!!!!

Please check out the TOM's shoes and the Radical video at the bottom of my blog.

Follow up.

I have not made any commitments to the previous post. I was simply wondering what could happen. It's something to think about and pray about anyway. Even if it makes the slightest difference it would still be a difference. I wrote that post late on night and then as I was typing it out one the computer the next day I felt like it was kind of corny. Anyhow I felt the urge to post it the night I was writing it so I went ahead and did it anyway.

Make A Difference. Drink Water.

In America we are pretty much used to having everything at our fingertips. What is a little pocket change? A coke. It's nothing to us. While it may be very satisfying to the taste buds,think about it. Is it really good for us? No. It is really not. So why do we drink it? Because we can. We have choices. Choices out the wazoo. In our homes we have milk, juice(multiple kinds. Apple, grape orange. Oh and pulp free for the picky one in the house.) tea and sometimes even carbonated beverages. Oh and I forgot to mention clean highly purified water. Sometimes bottled with a nice label or even flavored. We go out to eat and we generally have even more options. Walk through the store and you will find every kind of carbonated beverage filled with sugar, artificial flavoring, color and caffeine. We can afford to be a little unhealthy. Now let's go to a nation stricken with poverty. Let's just say Africa. In poverty stricken areas of Africa, women may walk six miles a day for water. This is not highly purified or flavored water. This water is not even as good as our tap water. No, It is water infected with disease. It probably comes from a stream or a hole in the ground. While we have choice upon choice and the only thing we stop to think about is what will satisfy our current taste bud needs, they only have two choices. In reality both options lead to the same thing. Death. Death by dehydration, or death by disease. They beg, they cry out to the earth for a drop of clean water. We choose to be unhealthy because we can get away with it. Sad but true. Is it not? This leads me to question and I hope you question too. What could we do with that loose change? What if we stopped popping it into the coke machine? What if we threw it in a jar to be used for something bigger? Could others drink clean water because I chose to drink clean water? What do you think? I think we could save the change and be the change.

New video at the bottom!

Amazing Grace

My God and my Savior, my King and my Friend, chose me out of my sin to bring glory to His name. The weight that was placed upon Jesus, His perfect holy Son, in order for this to happen,
was awesome. The Lord gives beautiful meaning to my life and even to my struggles. Although He saved me many years ago, I am growing more now than ever.
Who am I that the Creator of the stars and of ladybugs, of trees and of ants, of bears and of lambs, of you and me, would look down at me, in all of my wretchedness, with love in His
eyes and say “You are my friend. Come follow Me.”? I am not worthy, yet this is what He did for me. He placed upon His Son what I should eternally suffer and die for, yet He gave me eternal life. He called me clean and righteous. All of God’s wrath was poured out onto His perfect, holy Son, because of the world’s sins, because of my sins. I am no longer condemned to hell. Jesus did not just die in my place; He literally took upon Himself my sins. He took upon himself my filth, my baggage and everything the Lord hates and the Lord now sees Jesus’ cleanness in me. He can now look upon my face. Jesus Christ, Son of God, took the beatings and mocking and being spit upon when I deserve to burn in hell for eternity. How could I not love and serve a God like this?
Life has no meaning apart from God. My one purpose for being on this earth is to bring honor and glory to the holy name of the Lord. My struggles and trials even have meaning through Him. He often uses them to teach His children but also to show His power through them and in turn is glorified. If I did not have the Lord to live for, what else would there be? Myself? What a sad life that would be. I am the lowly sinner. He is the perfect savior. I am the creation. He is the creator. When He saved me He brought meaning and purpose to my thoughts, to my actions, to every aspect of my life. If it means going to the most dangerous nation and being tortured or killed in the most cruel way in order to bring praises to His name, then so be it. He deserves the honor and glory. It will only be the closest to hell I will ever get, then I will enter into heaven where I do not deserve to be but by His grace am allowed to live forever. What a day that will be!

Although He saved me at a young age, He is working in my life in such a huge way right now. I have struggled over the years with my salvation and assurance. This past summer was probably the biggest, hardest, worst struggle I have ever had. There were times I felt like giving up on the Lord but He did not give up on me. He has never and will never, ever leave me.
He pulled me through it and now He is giving me a passion and a love for Him like I have never had before. He is teaching me what radical obedience to His word is. He is giving me a heart for the nations, the poor, the hurting and the hopeless. He is showing me why I am here. Over the past few weeks He has shown me the importance of spending dedicated time with Him and how He uses people for his glory. My hope and prayer is that He will continue to work in this way. I have learned and grown so much. I am beginning to take my relationship with Him more seriously and He has opened my eyes in many areas. It is the desire of my heart to do His will and to live in radical obedience to Him.

I cannot begin to fathom why He would choose me. He is a holy, just and perfect God but chose to look down and call a child of darkness into the light. He chose to save and bring meaning to the life of an otherwise hopeless human. Although I did not live in the time of Jesus to see His miraculous works, I see them in my life today. From the time I was a young girl to this very day He has increasingly worked in my heart and in my life. John Newton’s song “Amazing Grace” comes to my mind. “Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see...” I have truly experienced that same amazing grace in my life. I serve an indescribable, incredible and irresistible God.

"The road to success is always under construction"
~Arnold Palmer

God blesses us with stuff so that we can give more not have more.

Red river this weekend! Pictures to come!!! Janae will be returning home tomorrow YAY! I am in college. I don't think I ever mentioned that. um...what else is new? Oh, I got a job as a secretary for my aunt's company. That's super new and scary. A little bit out of the comfort zone but I guess it's exciting. Thats what's up!

PRAY FOR JANAE! My dearest Janae is away on a mission trip to Seattle. Pray for her and the small team that went to share the gospel and to love on and reach out to people. They would all be very greatful for your prayers. You are welcome to post them here if you want. Just keep them in mind this week. They left out on Friday and will be returning this coming Friday. Thanks!

Just got back from camping!!! Maybe pictures to come...? We'll see.

WHOO HOOO!!! 101 POSTS! chyeah baby!

I deleted my facebook and I am hoping to have created more time for blogging. I have not touched this thing in so long and am glad to be back at it. Hopefully I will have stories and pictures and maybe even other things to post. I may even try to set a goal of how much I will blog in a week. Maybe I will even obtain some faithful readers;)

I have been blessed with the privalge of taking a trip to IRELAND!!! I am quite looking forward to it:D My flight leaves October 31st and I will be returning on the 6th of November. There WILL be lots of pictures to come!

The old look is back. Do you like it?

UNDER CONSTRUCTION...again *sigh*

oh geez...I just laughed harder than I think I have ever laughed...really. it hurt like heck I was laughing so hard. my nose is running and tears were running down my face. after glow was AWESOME, good talks, fellowship in Jesus Christ, great food, bball with my amazing and hilarious friends, that I am SOOO stinkin blessed to have,then a car ride home with Elijah that I think I shall NEVER forget with a stop for energy drinks thrown in there:D The whole ride was unforgettable but I think the highlight was when I swear I thought I heard Elijah say this "one time I grabbed my adam's apple and tried to swallow it" then after laughing and then repeating what I thought he said and him spitting his full throttle all over me and my car laughing so crazy hard, i don't know if it's possible to laugh harder. good times! Thank you Lord!

I haven't posted anything in so long and I don't have anything better than this. I guess as a writer, I should put down what is near and dear to me whether or not people read it, so here it is:D

I have heard the Lord is always at work even when we can't see or feel Him working. I guess thats true...however I really do feel like the Lord is working in my life right now. It is always so nice to feel it. To really know it. Praise the Lord!

Totally His Youth Conference

I recently attended the Totally His Youth Conference at the Evangelical Institute of Greenville South Carolina. What a blessing it was! It was a week without any distractions, focused on the Lord and in His word. Team sports were played throughout the week and were incredibly fun! I hope to go back next year. For more info on the Evangelical Institute visit www.eibibleschool.org

Attention!

I am happy to announce that I am the proud sponsor of a beautiful 5 month old baby girl. Her name is Kimberly and she lives in Colombia. Please pray for me that I truly make a difference in her life and the community that she lives in. Also pray for her, pray for her health and that she would grow up to know the Lord. Pray that although I may never physically meet her, that not only would I be a blessing in her life but that she would be a blessing in mine. It has been only minutes since I made that decision and commitment, however I already feel great attachment to her. I feel like she is mine. Pray that I will be faithful! Thank you.

Aspire Blog

I recently became a follower of a blog called Aspire. I entered a drawing that she has on there and I have to post four random things. So here goes...

Hermmmm...

#1: I ran around in the rain today in my reenactment clothes and got soaked!

#2: I am probably better friends with guys than girls.

#3: I have a strange fascination with Ireland.

#4: I am making a blanket that has allegators on it(i'll post pics:).

Yeah nothing interesting but that's what I had to do. I will try to make the 4 on my other blog different.

Photo shoot(s)

I have had several photo-shoots in the past few months. Being a senior and all everyone wants to take my picture! For once in my life I am popular! I even on occasion get special treatment. Ha ha! Not to be vain but I thought I would post a few of the better pictures of me.

This one is from a photo shoot we had done specifically for my senior pictures. We ended up using a combination of pictures from different photo shoots to send to people.

This picture makes me think of Narnia:)

This is my "drape" picture, taken for my grandmother.

This is from the same photo shoot ast the first one. I really like this one!

I randomly asked mom to take this one:)

New look

What do you think about the new look? Please let me know you opinion. Wether you like, dislike or just like the old one better either way.

All my flowers are starting to bloom and I am SOOOO excited!!! I LOVE flowers so much!!! (I am kinda dramatic huh?:) Thank you Lord for the flowers!

Sorry my blog is in shambles at the moment. I will try to get to it soon. Hopefully something interesting enough to post about will happen.

Something to ponder...

I was reading a book the other day when I came across this analogy. I thought it was a really good way to put things into perspective.

"If my mind is the size of a soda can and God is the size of all the oceans, it would be stupid for me to say He is only the small amount of water that I can scoop into my little can."

~ Francis Chan, in his book 'Crazy Love'.

That statement helped me to realize how huge my God is and how our limited minds tend to think "well that is all I can comprehend so that is all God is". He is so much more than I can wrap my mind around. I serve a BIG God!

OH NO!!!

I am so upset, the memory card that was in my camera stopped working. Which means I lost a bunch of pictures. I lost Christmas pictures (which included a picture of a yummy desert I made and was going to post.) and bunch of others. So once again...a post without pictures.:(