Some Days...

Some days, I'd just be happy to have some answers.

I was exhausted yesterday...like, com.plete.ly exhausted. I had to force myself out of bed...and I was fighting to keep my eyes open by 3pm. I ended up taking a nap for about an hour. And, the only thing I could think of was, "Wouldn't it be nice if I was pregnant so I would have a reason for being so tired?"

Of course, that is not the case.

But, it still would have been nice to be able to use that as an excuse.

Then, there was last night.

I couldn't fall asleep. I was trying so hard...but I probably didn't fall asleep until about 3am...and continued tossing and turning the rest of the night.

You'd think I'd be exhausted today.

But no...of course not. It's after midnight and I'm still wide awake.

Some days, I'd really like to use pregnancy as the reason for abnormal things.

Such is life...



Some days, I'd also really like to be superwoman.

I want to be the type of woman that actually enjoys cooking dinner for her husband...because I don't enjoy it. Thank goodness he likes to cook!



Some days, I'd also like to have a laundry folding fairy.

(Come on, you know you want one, too)



But, most of all, some days, I'd like to wake up, eager to spend some time in the Word.

Scratch that...

I'd like that to be my desire every morning.


Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."
(John 6:35, NIV)

This is what I want to long for each day...

On My Heart...Baptism

I spent the majority of my day yesterday doing a lot of this:


I went to the beach with some people from church to worship and cheer on some dear friends getting baptized. I was super excited...because two of our college group peeps got baptized! It was a beautiful day and a wonderful time of worshiping our God for who He is and what He's done/doing for us.

A lot of tears were shed as people gave us their testimonies. It reminded me of just how much God truly loves us...to pull us up out of our miry pits.

What a blessing to live in a country where we can go to the beach and worship our God out in the open!

Here are some other pics from the day:

(College group pic! At least, those of us who were there)

(Linking up with Gussy and Casey)

My Inspiration

I'm linking up again with Gussy and her Inspiration Workshop.

This week, the prompt was YOUR inspiration.

I am very excited to share where I get some of my inspiration from.



If I need blog writing inspiration, I visit the following blogs:

Family Osburn (our real life dear friends)

From the Heart of Casey (a beautiful blogger friend)

Top of the Page (amazing woman with tons of wisdom)

Take Heart (the very sweet woman that came up with the wonderful Beauty Book Project)

Of course, I follow lots of other blogs...but these people just have wonderful things to say...and inspire me to write from my heart.



If I need creative inspiration, I go to the following people/places:

My beautiful friend, E.H. She is the one that got me started on making jewelry...and she has the most amazing fashion sense. Plus, her heart is HUGE and her love for other people is so evident in all she does...even the things that might be very hard for her to do.

The Pleated Poppy - I have loved her house tour that she's been doing recently. It gives me wonderful ideas for when we have a home of our own (someday...if it's what God wants for us, of course).

Pinterest - Umm...need I say more? If you haven't checked it out, do it. Then you'll understand where I'm coming from. And, if you need an invite...just email me and I will send you one!

Just.Lovely.Things - the maker of my beloved headbands (I now own four of them. I need to post pics of all of them so you can see how wonderful they are). She is so creative in her photography and with the things she sells in her shop. I love reading her blog.

And again, I find creative inspiration in lots of places...but these are just a few.

Where do you get YOUR inspiration?

Live Together or Die Alone

What is it about fictional characters that tug on our heart strings so much?

I went to see Harry Potter last weekend with the dear friend who got me reading the books. Even though I became a Harry Potter fan much later than most (I read the books at the end of 2009/beginning of 2010), I love the books dearly. There is something about the books that pulled at my very being and sucked me into this world and this story.

The final installment of the movies was very emotional for me. Yes, I knew what was coming...and yes, I knew who was going to die and who was going to live...but seeing it acted out was another thing altogether.

I feel the same attachment to L O S T. The hubby and I started watching L O S T later than most as well (we watched the first four seasons about 5 months before the fifth season came on TV). But, we connected with the characters and had to know what happened to them...as well as get some of our questions answered.

The final episode of that show was very emotional for me as well. We watched it with some good friends and the majority of us were definitely shedding some tears. Not all of our questions were answered, but I loved how the show ended. I loved the way they were all so connected to each other...and that connection is what brought them all back together in "the end".

Both Harry Potter and L O S T received quite a bit of criticism for the way they ended. You either loved it or you hated it...there was no in-between. For being on the love side, I began to wonder how people could hate it...and then it dawned on me...

The ones that hated the endings seemed to like them for amusement purposes...or just had the curiosity to find out what happened...and were disappointed they didn't turn out "the way they wanted".

My love for both stems from the relational aspect (as well as good vs. evil). My sweet friend from CO said that when L O S T was over, she missed her "friends". That, to me, is the perfect way to word it. I truly feel like I made a connection with Harry and Ron and Hermione...and Jack and Kate and Hurley. Their stories felt real to me.

We, as humans, need real relationships, with real people.

You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."
(Galatians 5:13-14, NIV)

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
(Hebrews 10:23-25, NIV)

Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us.
(Romans 12:4-6a, NIV)

I love that verse in Romans. We NEED each other to be complete. We are not supposed to function on our own.

I think that is what makes up the characters of Harry Potter and L O S T. Though Harry is always pushing away those closest to him, to protect them, they continually follow him anyway. Though many of the characters on L O S T tried to do things their own way, they failed...until someone came along and stood by them.

God never meant for us to live out this life alone.

One of Jack's (from L O S T) most well-known quotes was, "...If we can't live together—we're gonna die alone."

That is why I am so passionate about the things I do: the college group, my women's Bible study, our Wednesday night Bible study, blogging...because no one should have to walk this life alone.

My prayer is that you have someone or many someones in your life that are walking with you, holding you up, and leading you closer to Christ. If you don't, please feel free to email me (see right side bar).

And, remember most of all, you are LOVED.

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
(1 John 4:9-12, NIV)

Cling to that, my friends.

Moments

Life is all about moments...

Moments that take our breath away.
Moments that change and mold us.
Moments we wish we could forget.
Moments we hope to hold onto forever.

And yet, we take these moments...all of our moments...for granted, all the time. We think we have so much time to do this or that...we always think we have a tomorrow...and we never realize, until it's too late, how important it is to appreciate what we have in our lives.

I've been struggling a lot this week with different moments...what they mean, what they could mean, and what I'm going to do in response to them.

I'm in a hard place...and I don't really know what tomorrow is going to look like.

Someone very dear to me is losing the reality of her moments. The moments she thinks she's living in are very different than the moments she's actually living in...and it breaks my heart. And, the hardest part about it is that she doesn't even know what's going on. She thinks we are all crazy and making things up...and it's just so sad.

It's been making me realize how very important my moments are...and how I should value them, not take them for granted.

As we are almost done going through Crazy Love in our Wednesday night Bible study, I'm reminded of a story Francis Chan tells about his mother's grandma...who did not want Jesus to find her in a theater if He were to come back in that moment.

With that story...and the reality I'm living in with this very dear person...I want to make my moments count. I want the things I choose to spend my time doing to be important things, things that matter, things that will bring glory to God.

That is what is on my heart.

(Linking up with Casey)

Blog Lovin'

I jumped on the Blog.Lovin bandwagon...

And, I'm very glad I did.

If you don't currently use blog.lovin to follow your favorite blogs, I highly suggest doing so. It has such a nicer layout than Blogger itself or Google Reader.

If you wanna follow me, do so here:
Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Sunshine

I'm linking up with Gussy and her Inspiration Workshop again this week.

This week's prompt was Sunshine.

Unfortunately, I'm not feeling very sunshine-y today...and it's been much cooler here than it's been in a couple of weeks...so I'm pulling out some old photos to show some of my favorite sunshine.

These are from our honeymoon in Hawaii!



We really want to go back someday...and I hope someday we'll be able to!

Princesses and Happily Ever After

I had such a wonderful weekend.

In my last post, I talked about the Princess Day we were having for the college girls. It was so much fun! We did makeovers and watched Princess Diaries, Enchanted, and Tangled. We ate a fabulous meal and enjoyed super yummy pink cupcakes. And, we talked about how God sees us as princesses and how we should find our value in that. (Unfortunately, we had to rush that part a little...because we didn't realize how late it was getting!)

Here are some pics of our night:




On Saturday, we attended a wedding for some friends of ours. It was a beautiful ceremony. It is so obvious that their relationship is centered around Christ. Everything they said and did during the ceremony was all about their love for God, and their love for each other. It was so sweet!

Here are some pics from the reception:

(Me and the cute hubby with his short hair)

(Me and E.H.)

(Aren't they so cute?)

(Me and S.S.)

(Cheers!)

(My sweet friend and her beautiful family)

How was your weekend?

Princess

There are many things I enjoy doing with my life.

One of those things is spending time with beautiful girls who need to be reminded they are beautiful.

My wonderful friend E.H. and I are hosting a Princess Day tomorrow with our college girls. We are going to spend our evening watching princess movies (think Enchanted, Princess Diaries, Ever After, Cinderella), giving each other make overs, doing our nails, eating yummy food, and talking about how we are daughters of the King.

I am very excited about it.

I hope to have some wonderful pics to post...if I remember to take them!

One of the verses we will be sharing with them is the following:

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
(John 1:10-13, NIV)

I can't wait to spend some time pampering these girls and helping them know how much their Daddy God loves them.

(Linking up with Casey)

Inspiration Workshop - Pampering

I am linking up with Gussy and her Inspiration Workshop again this week.

This week's prompt was Pamper Yourself.

I did two things this week to "pamper" myself.

I actually put on makeup for the first time in quite awhile.



It felt good.


I also painted my toenails. The color was majorly chipping, so I was in desperate need of a pedicure. But, I just haven't made the time to go get one, so I decided to paint them myself.

(The brand name for this nail polish is Sinful. It's probably one of the longest lasting nail polishes I've ever used. I got it at Target)

(I always get the worst tan lines from my favorite flip flops. If you want to try some super comfortable flip flops, I would suggest you try on a pair of Tevas. Just know you will end up with these lovely tan lines)

They look much happier now, don't you think?

Sometimes a girl just needs a little happy pampering in her life.

4th of July...or should I say 3rd?

So, the city we live in does their fireworks show on the 3rd of July every year.

Their reasoning?

That way, they don't have to pay the city workers holiday pay to be out there.

Yet...

They had the parade this morning...so they still had to pay people holiday pay.

Doesn't make sense to me at all...

Anyway, we went and watched the fireworks last night. We have a special spot that we've sat the past three years where we have an amazing view of the fireworks. We always try to get a group of people to come with us, so they can enjoy our special spot, too. We had a lot of fun with our friends this year watching the fireworks. Unfortunately, I didn't think to pull out my camera until the fireworks actually started...so there are no pics of us.


I hope you are enjoying your festivities today...and remembering where our ultimate freedom lies...



Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom...

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

I love long weekends.

We went to a minor league baseball game with my sister and her hubby on Saturday. It was a double hitter, and the team we were rooting for won both games! It was quite warm for the first game (102 degrees, to be exact)...and we were in the sun the whole game...but the sun went down in the beginning of the second game, which was much more pleasant.

Here are some pics of our time there:

(The hubs, bro-in-law, and sis)

(We were melting in the sun)

(This was after our snow cones. Like the colors of our tongues?)

(This guy chose Ooh Aah by Grits to bat to. I was pretty excited about that)

(This was right in front of us. There was nothing keeping the balls from hitting our heads. Thankfully, none came our way)

It was a wonderful way to spend an evening!