Thank God for Panera

I Wrote this on my way to Illinois two days ago...but considering no one has wireless I couldn't get it off till today! Thank God for Panera!!!!

On my way to Illinois…
I am actually letting my sister drive at this moment (big shocker for me….I always drive) but I became very tired for the third time and I thought it would be best for both of us if she drives. I am not too sure of that at this moment.

I am very excited about this trip. This is the second year my sister (younger) and me have gone to my grandparents. It’s a nice little get away for her and me. Sister bonding time and we get to see our family in the process.

But this trip has been highly anticipated by me. It has been a long three days at work and a long couple days of life. I feel like I kind of just skipped over the past three days or they’ve all blended into one. I’ve had so much to do that I hope I didn’t forget something important.

Please don’t misunderstand me when I say this. I love my house and my job and my life. But sometimes you just need a break from all of them. You need to get away and not think about any of them. You need to be free of the every day responsibilities. You need to be a little kid again.

I have no idea what we are doing tomorrow or the next five days but I do know that I don’t have to wake up at 7:39am or be at work or come home and watch the boys or do my laundry or clean my room. And I do know that I will be getting my praise on. (Which by the way is very difficult. Yesterday was a tuff day and its really hard to get your praise on when your are having a stressful night. How’s it going for you?)

I am not a very fun traveler. I get very antsy and annoying after a couple hours. I love to fly but riding or driving in a car is not very fun for me. Most people can sleep in cars and two hours go by like that. Not me. I couldn’t fall asleep for the life of me. (But yes I felt like I was going to fall asleep…that’s because I got bored…or the fact that I got 5 hours of sleep last night and was on my feet all day. Who knows?) Where was I? I like to be awake to see what’s going on around me, to see where I am going or to see the funny names of streets.

I have these good friends who live in Texas that I have visited a couple of times. They used to live in Cincinnati until almost two years ago when they moved to Houston. Anywise I would go on vacations with them and any time we would go someplace we ended up in the car for hours. And I mean hours. One time when we went to Colorado (Denver) we were just supposed to go someplace not to far away an hour at the most. Yeah right! We ended up being in the car the whole day. And then the next day we got up and drove to Grand Junction, which is on the other side of the state. And the past couple of time I have gone to Houston we have ended up driving around Houston for at least four hours. I am just one of those people who either need to be driving or watching a movie in the car.

I used to lay in the car on trips as a little girl praying, “if I fall asleep God will you please let us be there when I wake up.” Unfortunately it never happened. I never really fell asleep. I was always aware of where we were. I don’t know if I would call that a bad thing or a good thing.

I can’t believe that it is almost Thanksgiving. Three hours away. I almost forgot about Thanksgiving. Really I did. I got so caught up with a set at work that Thanksgiving never crossed my mind. Kind of sad actually. But tomorrow I will get to eat grandma’s (or Mimi…that’s what we call my grandma) cookin! Mhhmm.

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Get your praise on

You know what the best thing in the world is… Having friends that will tell you the truth no matter what. There has been a lot on my mind lately about life, God, and this world. Sometimes I just wish I had a USB port in my head and I could stick a memory stick in it and download everything.


I heard a lot of great things from my friends but two stuck out really good.







1) GET YOUR PRAISE ON!!!
Praising God with everything that you have. Praising him for the money we make. Praising him for the grades we get. Praising him for our things that we normally just don’t even think he sees, to praise God every moment of everyday. Who cares if you look like a zombie or everyone thinks that you’re weird. Instead of worrying everyday let’s get our PRAISE ON! I mean can you imagine how much fun life would be everyday.

2) I am dead to this world.
I have a problem separating God and the world. We see everything from this world and we are supposed to believe in a God that we have to believe in and trust. I guess I just don’t trust God enough with my life. But I have to think that I am dead to this world and live life with God everyday. Just like it’s him and me.

Now I know that those things are very easy to say and I could easily sit here and write all that and not do any of it. But that would not be very good. I want my action to match my words. ;)

So I think it takes twenty-one days to get into the routine of things. So for the next twenty-one days I will be doing those two things everyday, getting my praise on and being dead to this world. So I am asking my friends to help me with this. And if you want to join me feel free. But I know for twenty-one days and there after I will be getting my praise on.

Worries

Worry doesn’t prevent disaster it prevents JOY.

I’m 19 and I worry all the time. I worry about my car, how am I going to pay for all my bills, how am I going to pay for school, and what am I going to do about work and school. I may not show it on the outside but on the inside I feel like I am going to explode.

Recently I have been reminded by family and friends and co-workers that I am only 19 and I should enjoy being young. But the problem is I don’t know what it is like to be 19. I don’t know what 19 year olds do. When I think of 19 year olds I think of kids who don’t care about anything or anybody and who have no responsibilities.

Within the past couple days my car has been acting up. Yesterday I went to go get lunch and I rolled down my window and about a fourth of the way down it stopped. I tried pushing it up (like I normally do because sometimes it would just stick) but that didn’t work. I tried for about fifteen minutes before I stopped because I was so mad that I was afraid I would break it. I eventually got it up with help from a friend.

This morning on my way into work, I was driving enjoying my music (me loves my music) when my CD changed songs and I heard a clinking noise. I thought that it was the car next to me at first but has I passed them and I realized it was my car. I immediately started freaking out. I got to the church and looked under my car and saw that something (I didn’t know what at that time) was dragging. I started crying and then I called my dad.
Luckily (Thank You God) it was only a guard.

But those little things happen and we freak out. I do at least. I start thinking how am I going to pay for this. I have too many things going on this week and next. How am I going to get to work each day? How am I going to get to things beside work? There are all those things and more that go through my head. AND I AM 19. I should be thinking about all those things.

I love my dad so much and he reminded me today, after he told me that I am 19 and that I worry too much, that all those things can be fixed or adjusted. We can take care of all those things. And that those things are small compared to what I will face someday (not that that was encouraging but it was, to know that it was something little).

Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
Matthew 6:33

I’m 19 and I don’t want to spend half my life worry about my money, my cars, or my life. I want to enjoy life and laugh at life. I want JOY!

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Matthew 6:33

Wrap it up

Sunday night I got to do the best thing in the world. Wrap gifts! Each year our church wraps gifts for free at our local mall. Once a year right before Thanksgiving the mall has a night called, Magical Night of Giving. Great discounts at all the stores.

I had never been to one of those before but thought it would be fun. So I signed up to wrap gifts, which meant I got to shop half the time and wrap gifts the other time. I took my sister went with me. I was so excited. I was going to get to shop!

We got to the mall and there were tons of people there. I was shocked I didn’t expect that many people. When we walked in we were handed, I guess you could call it a program. Betsy opened hers up and she won a door prize. We went and clamed her prize (I was mad that she won and not me, I mean I did invite her. But then the gift ended up being a candle so I wasn’t too mad…I don’t like candles). We then proceeded to shop. Now I love to shop anyone that knows me can tell you that, but there is something about big crowds and lines at the mall that just doesn’t motivate me.

We walked from store to store looking at stuff, but then we would see the lines and we were out the door. I was kind of bummed. I wanted to go home with at least something and time was running out before we had to go wrap gifts. Someone we knew in the mall told us that Starbucks were giving away free 8oz cups of their holiday drinks and a $5 dollar gift card. Even if you don’t like Starbucks you should never turn away a gift card. So Betsy got a drink and I got a gift card!

It was then time to WRAP! Now we all know that wrapping is not fun (unless you are one of those few who love it) but wrapping gifts for other people is a blast! Now when I started wrapping gifts a couple years ago I was pretty bad, but after wrapping so many times people have showed me easy was to do them. Previous years I would love it when people said, Thank you! Or this made my holiday better, but not this time. The best part about wrapping was the conversations I had with other people. Now every thing I said I probably repeated 10-20 times but they didn’t know that I had the same conversation with the person before them.

I know that we were with the Vineyard, but I got to tell this lady about the church on the Westside! She was in her mid 50’s and she was asking who was doing this.
I told her, “The Vineyard.”
She said, “There’s a vineyard that opened up by me.”
“Where do you live?”
“On the Westside.”
“Yes”, I said, “They meet in the Danberry Theater on Sunday mornings. You should check it out sometime.”

I then went on to ask her where she goes to church. She explained to me that she and her husband go to St. Vincent and they have just recently got a new minister. They have been talking about checking out other churches. It awesome how you can reach out to people by just wrapping gifts! As she left she said I think we might check it out!

I actually left and was amazed at how much I had opened up to people. I am a pretty shy person and outreaches aren’t normally my thing because I have to “alive” to people. I left and I felt ALIVE! I felt like I was on a high! I wish I could do that every night!

Guilty

Is guilt bad? With out going into any details, I have struggled a lot with guilt this week. Not that I have ever not felt guilty before but this time was different. This time I knew it was wrong and I knew that I contributed a lot to what happened. Are we supposed to feel guilty? Is it supposed to be some kind of punishment?

I guess the thing that I really struggle with is how could God possibly love me? How do we just say, “God I fucked up I’m sorry please forgive me?”, when we don’t feel like we deserve it? I mean yes I can say that and I do. But I don’t want it to be something I say and don’t mean. I don’t want it to become a “saying.” Why do I deserve God’s forgiveness?

Part of me thinks I should feel guilty, I mean I did do something wrong? But the other part of me says No I shouldn’t feel this way. I shouldn’t dwell on it. I just don’t know how I should feel.

I am okay until I think about it and then that’s when I feel all the guilt come back. It would be really easy for me to run away from it right now, and believe me that is exactly what I want to do. But I know I would just be running away from a lot more than just “it.”

It’s different being older and making mistakes. It’s not like when you’re younger. I guess the difference is when I made mistakes as a child my parents would punish me and then hug me afterwards or tell me they love me. Believe me when I say this, I know that God loved me after I messed up, but why? I mean if I was God I don’t know if I could forgive me? (I guess that’s why I am not God)

I don’t know about you but it’s very difficult for me to accept God’s grace.

Why can't I just be me?

So I know it’s a little late after Halloween, but I have been thinking about this a lot this past week. Let me give you a little background of my Halloweens.

My parents never really let us celebrate Halloween. I remember being in school and leaving early on Halloween because my parents didn’t want us to participate. I can only remember going trick or treating once in my whole life. And I think I was a cheerios box. We never passed out candy at our door. I think my parents always took us places on Halloween so we wouldn’t be home.

I don’t remember much of my past Halloweens. I do remember moving down here and our church always had “harvest parties” (nothing wrong with them.) So we always dressed and went to those.

I wasn’t a big fan of Halloweens and I don’t really know why. But this year I think I figured it out. I don’t like to dress up. I don’t like deciding what to be. What’s something good to dress up as? What won’t everyone else be? And then the last part going to a party or trick or treating as that “thing.”

I don’t like dressing up for Halloween because I don’t like to pretend to be something that I am not. I have tried for so long just to be me. So how can I dress as someone else when I don’t even really know who I am? I don’t want to pretend to be someone else. Why can’t I just be me?

I never liked acting in school because I had to be someone else. I don’t like talking in front of people because it isn’t me. I put on this grown-up me.

There is nothing wrong with Halloween. I think it is a great holiday but it is not my favorite and I don’t think it ever will be. And I know that some people love to dress up and get in the spirit for Halloween, but not me. Maybe that comes from not ever getting to experience Halloween as a child…I don’t know. And I think that acting is great too but again not for me.

People have asked me to act or get up in front of people and speak and my immediate response is NO! Now I can get up in front of people and sing but I cannot get up in front of people and speak or act. And people wonder about that? People that act or speak don’t understand how I can get up in front of people and sing but I can’t speak? When I sing I don’t have to be anyone else. I can just be me.

I don’t want to be anyone else. I want to be me. I want to be the person that I was created to be. And I know that I was not created to act or speak or to dress up on Halloween as someone else. I may not know what or who I am but I know that I wasn’t meant to be a beauty queen, an actor or a speaker. I think its good to know that I am not supposed to do those things. Less things I have to try now. :)

The woman's struggle

You have this dream of a perfect man. This man that can live up to everything you’ve ever wanted. This man that you have dreamt about since you were a little girl playing dress up with your friends. Are you putting this man in a box or is there really a guy like that out there? Or is he simply a dream? I don’t know do you?

Or is it simply God that we are searching for? Maybe you have God in your life and you are just simply waiting to be loved by him? Or maybe you know that God is totally in love with you but you feel like you just don’t give enough of yourself to him?

I never feel like I do enough for God. I never feel like I love God enough for him to love me back. I always feel like I like other guys more than I like God. Or I think about other guys when I really should be thinking about God. And through all that I thought I was the only one that ever felt like that. But after talking with different women I’ve realized I’m not alone. I’m not the only one that feels like this? Are you serious? Why in the world does no one ever talk about it?

It’s the struggle that we (women) face everyday. The desire to be full filled by the One and only Himself. It’s the struggle that I am not perfect; I don’t always have the purest thoughts. Someone reminded me that I don’t have to pray twenty-four hours a day for God to love me. Or I don’t have to think about God every single moment of everyday. I am not trying to make an excuse- but we’re all human.

Sometimes I think it’s the enemy trying to tell me lies, “You think about him (a guy) and everything will be okay.” Or when I think about a guy he tells me, “You think about it too much.” It’s a lose lose battle. If I don’t think about him I’m just not normal and if I think about him then I am a bad person because I have those types of thoughts.

It’s kind of like pornography for men. You look at pornography and it makes you feel good. But it also makes you feel very guilty, I shouldn’t be doing this, this is wrong. You think of yourself as a bad person because you look at pornography, you don’t think that God could ever forgive you or even love you. You promise God and yourself that you won’t ever do it again. Until the next time and it starts all over again. Sometimes you can go day’s maybe weeks with out looking at pornography, and that whole time you feel good about it. You have accomplished a big thing. And then something happens and you hit the fan again.

All women struggle with this but no one ever talks about it. Why not? Why are we so afraid to talk about this issue? We all deal with it. I am sick of it. Who are we helping if we don’t speak up? How can we help ourselves if we just keep it to ourselves? We are only hurting ourselves more. So stop keeping it to your self…SPEAK UP!