Everyday Moments

Sunday afternoon we came home from church and the whole family was home (a rare occurance with our crazy schedules). We simply hung out, snacked on our favorite afternoon snack  chips & salsa, talked, joked around had fun making up plans for our futures, watched basketball and simply enjoyed eachothers company and being together. I made delicious strawberry banana smoothies for everyone and we fellowshiped and lingered around the kitchen counter. These are the little everyday moments that I don't want to take for granted and I don't want to forget. I have such an amazing family and such an awesome life! I am one blessed girl and I don't ever want to take these simple moments for granted! I love spending time with my family and as I think about the fact that I will be leaving soon to go off to college it makes these afternoons even more dear to my heart! Real, Simple, Spontaneous moments of life yes those are my favorite! Thanking God for precious moments and memories and for my amazing family!

Insanity Turned into Peace

Soo these past two weeks have been complete chaos!
Literally I've been treading water trying to stay on top of everything and trying to keep a good attitude throught it all, and I'm not gonna lie it was hard! It was hard to smile and be joyful when all I felt was pressure, stress and burdens.
To not complain when it seemed like everyday the teachers just kept pilling even more homework onto my already unreasonable load.
To put God first above everything even when I felt like I had no time to spare for God, there was too much to do and i was gonna have to stay up half the night just to get it all done.
To stop to enjoy my friendships & the beautiful moments of life even when my head was swirling. (it was hard not to ignore my friends when my to-do list was ten feet long)
To trust God that he would give me the strength to complete everything
To see that the end was near and there was light at the tunnel.

Yes all of these things were VERY hard to do! When you in the middle of a trial or overwhelming situation it's hard to look up, out! It's so easy to get caught up in yourself, and to start to throw yourself a little pity party. To sit there and sulk, to complain about all the homework, to complain to your friends about how much you have to do and how unreasonable people are being, to get frustrated with people who are not doing what you want! and quiet frankly its easiest to simply give up and despair.

But that was my problem, I was getting so self-absorbed. I was completely self-focused and ONLY thinking about me! I started to ignore my friends, to push God to the side, and only care about myself!

As much as I hate to admit messing up like that, that's how I learned and how God taught me.

He showed me that it's not all about me (shocking I know)! That my friends were in the same boat as me and instead of tearing them down and tempting them to join in my complaining/selfish/pityparty I needed to look to see how I could encourage and help them instead! To uplift them and help to brighten their day and show them God's love when they needed it!

I also realized that even the most mundane task like taking a quiz is something that God has given me to do, and everything he has given me to do is important. I need to work hard and pursue excellence and do everything for God's glory, to do my best to bring him honor and praise!

I also learned that God pours out so much grace and strength on us! Seeing all that God has allowed me to accomplish and get done even when I was freaking out about it all, is so amazing and I know it is only because of his strength, because on my own I couldn't have done it! This verse has really come alive to me!

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weakness, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ then I am content with insult, hardship, persecutions, calamities, for when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Sometimes this mess in life is the gift that God uses to bring me closer to him. He is enough for me and during these crazy days it is God alone who carries me, and because he carries me alone, only he can receive he glory and all my praise and thankfulness! Today I know deep down that the hard seasons don't minimize God, but they magnify His goodness. Here is where I learn to know Him more.

Crazy Life

The posting on here will be slow for a while, this next week in a half is complete insanity for me! So much stuff to do for graduation, AP exams to study for and a 10 page research paper to research and write! Not to mention soccer, youthgroup, work and prom! needless to say I won't have a life so things will be kind of slow on the blog for a while.....

Gotta finish my senior year strong! Colossians 3:23

and now i'm back to researching

Guatemala

Guatemala....I've been thinking about this post for a while and I just haven't been able to sit down and write it, because there is just so much in my head! So I decided to try and give you a peak into my missions trip with a summary of what we did.

We went to the mission Hope of Life in Llano Verde Guatemala. Immediately I fell in love with their ministry that they have there and all the amazing ways in which they are serving the people in need! All of the staff was amazing they welcomed us with open arms and made us feel at home, the food there was DELICIOUS! We looked forward to the meals everyday because it was just so yummy and the fresh juice was amazing! :) My favorite part was all of the hammocks that they had everywhere made for a great way to relax and perfect place to spend time with God! While being down there it was so awesome to be able to speak in Spanish and interact with the people there. So glad that God helped me to recall my Spanish (I guess those 4 years of classes really did pay off).

The mission has an orphanage where they care for many children, a nutrition center, elderly home, and a school. While we were there we were able to help with building the hospital there, which was hard work, but it was so neat to be apart of such an awesome project that is going to help save so many lives!

There were so many awesome experiences we had, one day we got to go to the dump (which was literally a dump as you'll see below) and we got to do a feeding their and just share God's love with people living in complete destitute. It was definitely a rude awakening to realize how blessed I am and how much I take for granted. I was complaining about a few burns on my hand (that I got from the soup we were distributing) and then it hit me, why am I complaining about such a tiny thing, when these people have nothing and yet they are still full of joy. Made me want to stop focusing on myself and start looking outward. Somehow these people have hope in the midst of awful circumstances and it's an amazing thing.

We also got the privilege of going to a new village called Oasis, Hope of Life had never been there before so we got to be the first to go there and bring bags of food for all the families and it was amazing to see how grateful they were for the little that we were doing and to see how such a small thing like a bag of food could bring them so much hope! I was able to have a conversation with the leader of the village, it was a little choppy since it was in Spanish, but it was so neat to hear his gratitude as he explained to me details about the village and to share with him the joy that God has given me!
                          

Okkay well those were the main things that we did :)  Stay tuned for my next Guatemala post where I will talk about my two favorite parts of the trip  the Spanish Church and Nutrition Center! Thanks for all your prayers and support!

I'm back!

I am back from Guatemala safe and sound! :)

Although it's bittersweet, because I wish I was back there! I loved every minute of it!

This is a quick post, because I'm crazy busy catching up on stuff right now, but I can't wait to post about all the amazing things that God did while I was gone!

GUATEMALA!

This blog will be quite for a while, because in about 4 hours I will be heading to Guatemala!

AHHH sooo exciting!

I have the great oppertunity to go with many other seniors from my school and work with the Hope of Life ministry down in Llana Verde :)

I'm so excited to see a new, culture and be able to serve God and share the love of Jesus! I cannot wait to see all of the amazingly awesome things that God is going to do while we are down there! I am ready for him to blow me away and I can't wait to see what he's going to teach me and them mighty ways that he is going to work in!

Please be praying for me and my team! :) If you want to follow my trip here's our blog

www.seniorsinguatemala2012.blogspot.com

See you in 9 days :) Adios!

Memories

Memories--Recollection, recalling events and moments, remembrance

Memories are such an interesting thing. Remembering joyful memories of the past makes me happy , thinking about funny moments make me laugh, recalling God work in amazing ways strengthens my faith, remembering the moments of tears makes me sad.

It is amazing how many emotions can be brought about by simply remembering the past. I believe God has given us memories for many reasons

-God wants us to remember where we have come from and to see how far God has brought us.To encourage us by seeing the growth and change that has happened.

-He wants us to see that he delights to bring us blessings and joy through friendships and fun times. To remember the laughter in the days of saddness.

-God wants to show us his faithfulness and how he has provided for us in the past, to increase our faith for the future by seeing how God has answered us in the past. Remember his faithfulness to us, gives us faith for the future.

-Memories also keep us humble, increase our faith and encourage our hearts, bring smiles to our faces, give hope for the future and help to teach us lessons and reveal more of God's amazing character to us.

*Genesis 9:16-- remember God's promise

*1 Chronicles 16:5-- remember God's wonders

*Ecclesiastes 12:1-- remember your Creator

*Luke 22:19--communion is for us to remember what Christ has done

*Psalm 105:1-2-- recount God's wonderful deeds

Memories are important to God (he's the one who created them in the first place), he wants us to remember and to tell others of the great deeds that he has done! So that not only will your memories give you hope and faith, they will help others to trust God and see more of his amazing greatness as well! :) So treasure your memories they are a gift from God!