2011. woah.

2011. let me say it again, two-thousand-and-eleven. this is honestly a year that I have looked up to forever. The year I graduate, the year I turn 18, the year I'm an adult.. but now, I'm looking at it with a new perspective. This year will be a year of growth. I am in between deciding what college I want to go to, where God wants me, and drawing close to him amidst the times where i want to make my OWN decision in that area or  rather having him lead me when I'm indecisive. How do we know what's right? Ya, I know what is "right" in the eyes of my parents, myself, and human being, but is what is 'right' necessary 'good?'... talking with a friend the other day, i was reminded of that. God knows what's going to happen, and whatever 'happens' is out of his plan; therefore, it is good. HE is good, and that is all that should be glorified/amplified in our lives.

^ random seriousness, but it's something that has stirred in my heart all year. I am a semester away from being out of high school, and getting into the 'imma-college-student-real-world-business'.. and the level of trust in God and his plan is something that I have never experienced in my life as much as I have this semester. Having confidence in HIS goodness, and the power that that has to affect my decisions has been beyond impact full.

a good message (litterally)

PHILIPIANS 2---> message version.    ***focus on 12-13, but this version is my favorite.

 ^1-4If you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don't push your way to the front; don't sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.  ^5-8Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.
 ^9-11Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.

 ^12-13What I'm getting at, friends, is that you should simply keep on doing what you've done from the beginning. When I was living among you, you lived in responsive obedience. Now that I'm separated from you, keep it up. Better yet, redouble your efforts. Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before God. That energy is God's energy, an energy deep within you, God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure.

sigh no more.

seriously love this vid. great reflection of how we look upon ourselves and how God looks upon us. what a difference.


[sigh no more | a reflection of beauty] from JJ Starr on Vimeo.

thank you. feliz navidad.

thankful for these insane people in my life.

i <3 christmas music videos.

Great.

"It is about the greatness of God, not the significance of man. God made man small and the universe big to say something about himself."

This is one of my favorite quotes. I live my life as if Im significant... and while at some points the world would consider you/me to be significant, our purpose is not to portray that. But it is rather to amplify God's greatness. (amplify has become one of my favorite words if you wanted to know).. but seriously, I can not tell you how many times i am confirmed by my own achievements. I confirm myself that I am "liked", that im "pretty" or whatever else seems cliche, solely based upon if people tell me Im significant. Focusing on the greatness God, and the less(ness) (not a word) of myself is impossible because of how imperfect we are, but having the mindset and the willingness to consider ourselves as someone who "falls short" is important. heisgreaterthani.

freakin excited for Christmas

fun fact: the song "jingle bells" was originally made for Thanksgiving. good.



thats a wrap (ing paper).

love regardless.

Loving regardless is something I strive to focus on. I'm imperfect; therefore, "striving" for it gets ruined by distractions, but God's perfection covers for that. This concept of being joyful goes hand in hand with love. Having a willingness to love  God and love people can only be reached through a kind heart and a joyfulness that come solely from the lord. Something that I will never take forgranted was when a friend told me to 'love w/o expectations.' Hearing that, I kind of shrugged like what the heck do you mean by 'expectations', but really thinking about it made realize how much i expect something back with the love i give. Being nice in the hallways, holding a door open, or whatever it is can be self gratifying but are we doing it to overflow the love that God gives to us, or just to gratify ourselves expecting something from the people with love on?

needto(listen to this)

hmm if you really KNOW me, you know I have a mild obsession with needtobreathe. recently found an older song of theirs.. here it is!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DliS_Eynlaw

love.these.people

call me harry.

we fly high, no lie *

m

e

a

 h

watch. get tissues. be encouraged.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOljzwNVGNY&feature=player_embedded

unstoppable.

@ church this week, our pastor's main topic of choice was the fact that 'You cant freaking stop our God'. I've often heard people talk about the concept of accepting the fact that we have a God, willing to defend us from anything and someone who's omnipotent, but to be honest I never thought of him as being unstoppable. Weird, the first thing I thought of when I heard of 'unstoppable' was a huge semi truck bull dozing a house (i dont know how to spell 'bull dozingg'). God cant be stopped in whatever situation we are thrown into. HE is constantly active in our hearts, it's just a matter of us letting him work in our lives and do what he has planned. At least we have our Lord. unstoppable. perfect. good.

beyond blessed.

McCartney Rufff----beyond blessed for this girl in my life. She turned 18 this week, and im not gonna lie, its rad to say im best friends with an adult. ayoooo. she makes me laugh till im peeing my pants, and I dont know where I would be if it wasn't for her. God definitely chose a great person to throw into my life, especially at times when I needed her most. love YOU. ready to party hardy at her birthday party tonight.

:)------ hume 2010

in sickness & in health.

crazy birds.

(fan)tastic.

random fact #384-- i absolutely love watching games at school and yelling so much for oaks that I lose my voice; therefore, resulting in my voice cracking in my college interview the next day (hypothetically speaking)

alexa,lauren,&kensy


*shoutout to my girl sarah who just won the championships for tennis... ayo.

"where do tennis shoes live?"
... "tennis-ee"--

being forgettable.

This past weekend I was at the all girls conference at Hume Lake. Kind of having an idea of what to expect, I went into the weekend with the mindset that I would just kind of hear the cliche, the 'your made in Gods image, God loves YOU' cliche that we can get so caught up in, but that was not the case. In the first prayer of the conference, Sheri Lewis, prayed for herself to be forgetable. Now while that happened I just thought to myself, why would you WANT people to forget you? we are called to make this mark on the world shining Gods light, yet you are telling me to be forgotten. Further on that day, it hit me. Do we live life to be remembered? Realizing thats how i live my life so often, I was encouraged to change. Living a life for Christ involves portraying to people why you live your life, why you have so much confidence, and why you love the way you do. In a devotional book I read, it said, 'Do you show others that you have confidence in yourself, or confidence in Christ?'--- relating this to being forgettable, radically changed not only my weekend, but also the way I live daily in accordance to what God has called me to do. be forgettable.

oh ya & for Halloween I was a gnome.

why joy?

ok I'm not always about the statistics of things but I decided to look at how many times the bible refers to being joyful--- it is mentioned 244 times.. dang..being joyful according to dictionary.com is known as a person who is delighted. Christ tells us to delight in him (Psalm 37:4) and he will give us the desires of our hearts, but is that how we live out each day. Personally, people consider me a happy person, but is that happiness coming from satisfaction in a God who I deeply delight in? Challenge yourself with that today and live with joy that comes only from the Lord.   :)

hit by humility.

So based upon the title, something hit me about the concept of humility the other day. Obviously humility is directly put with a sense of being humble and it's weird to think how caught up with get in it. I personally struggle with realizing that it is NOT all about me. Ya, I know, so cliche and everyone goes through that, but when I seem to get annoyed by people or struggle with gossiping, I have now been reminded with the question, "what gives me the right to feel that way about them". Realizing that i fall so short so what gives me the right to think that I'm above ANYONE. Overall, this week and this year I'm focusing on living humbly, while at the same time realizing how much greater Christ is than me.

k-money

           meet my sister kimmy. shes 27, looking fine, and she's one of the most inspirational people in my life. her love and desire for life and just to love is out of control. One thing I heard her just say tonight was so rad.. saying "its important to be the best version of yourself wherever you go." yeap. as cliche as that can appear, really made me realize how much i can judge. This quote can go two ways in the sense that WE can always try to be someone we're not, or we can judge thinking that someone HAS  to be a certain way. "The different strengths that people can bring to the table can all affect the dinner as a whole"---be encouraged today and  be the best version of yourself.

Seniors

I'm a senior. wow that's really weird to say. let me say it again I'm a Senior!.. ok now that ive cleared out my ears and actually heard that, im wierded out. Honestly I can not even believe how fast 7 years at Oaks has gone. Im so pumped to have seen our class come together this week at homecoming and cant freaking wait too see how God works in us this year.

class of 2011---A11 we do is W1N

i like funny stuff.

#1- I'm in sd for a wedding and I wanted to be studious and get some hw done so I could party hardy ( you know how I role, jk) so I got the ticket, headed to get my car from valet (to get my backpack out) and all of a sudden the woman next to me belts out a legitimate bird call. I'm not talking like "oh caw caw, I'm a bird" but freaking CAWWW CAWWWW and all of a sudden her husband started rushing towards her to the cab. maybe we should all use bird calls to get each others attention? nope.

#2- oh ya, and remember that one time when I was at dinner @ disneyland and my sister said something hilarious (whats new) and my mom laughed so hard she slammed her head down towards the table and the straw from her drink went up her nose? i do.

#3-- ***collaborating the other funny moments for the next post because there are too many to fit into one. good.

MY community

These are just some of the girls that make up my community. They are my life and i am so grateful for them in ridiculous amounts. Kinda exciting when every time I see one of them I realize Gods little blessings and how much of a freaking HUGE impact they make on my life.

overflow.

"overflow" has been a concept I have struggled with for a few months now. I remember singing a song in church saying, "he loves to come and fill me up, he loves to overflow my cup, he loves to come and bring his love to my heart". weird right? putting our relationship with God in the perspective that he satisfies and fills us is unbelievable. this love that we so easily receive, is meant to overflow in to the lives of the people around us. People i get so irritated with, the ones that make me smile, and those who are just there in our lives deserve our our love that fills us cause we definitely don't deserve it. Rather than embracing the fact that we are filled by the holy spirit, overflow it into those people and see Gods love work in them. overflow.

check it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K-nJuoV3V4

music im also way into--

-mike posner
-frightened rabbit
-old jack's mannequin
-needtobreathe

numbers shmumbers.

 Moses said, "I'm standing here surrounded by 600,000 men on foot and you say, 'I'll give them meat, meat every day for a month.' So where's it coming from? Even if all the flocks and herds were butchered, would that be enough? Even if all the fish in the sea were caught, would that be enough?"
God answered Moses, "So, do you think I can't take care of you? You'll see soon enough whether what I say happens for you or not."

For me, its really easy just to stick with the new testament... having this mind set that the old testment is just boring history that we hear every week at church.. but honestly, hearing this changed my perspective. freshmen year we focused on new testament and all of the history that went along with that, but renewing my perspecitive of that and replacing it with a sense of application, makes me encouraged to read it more often.

This passage is basically God telling moses " are you freaking kidding me, you think that I cant take care of you." haha obviously this is discussing his power to give them the meat they want, but to be honest I question God of a lot of things that I shouldnt. Moses, a strong follower of Christ, was doubting him and his abilities to feed them, do you find yourself guilty of that too? Everyday finding myself unwilling or incapable to get through something or conquer even the little things all lead back to this passage; therefore, confirming Gods capabilities.

plantographic mug. yep.

the creativity is off the charts.

pure inspiration.

awkard family photos .com.... check it.

 

incredible love.

"in my love"- phil wickham

I have looked you in the eyes
I have seen the tears you cried
I have heard you question why you are here
There is a reason, there’s a plan
There is a God Who understands
He’s got your life inside His hands
Have no fear
Cuz He says
In all your hurt and in all your pain
I’ll never leave, I won’t forsake
You’re my child and I’m your God
Come and rest in my love
I know this road is deep
And I know you’re tired and weak
But the God of perfect peace is right here
He is the shelter from the storm
He is the rock forth and secure
He is hope forever more
Have no fear
Cuz He says
In all your hurt and in all your pain
I’ll never leave, I won’t forsake
You’re my child and I’m your God
Come and rest in my love
When everything seems out of control
I’m holding on, I won’t let go
You’re my child and I’m your God
Come and rest in my love
There is hope tonight
There is everlasting life
Dry away your tears
Coz tomorrow is on the rise
Love will never fail
He will never fail


this song gives me hope-- not only in God and his omnipotent power in our lives, but hope in the fact that I wont be alone. God understands, he forgives, and he wont let go and i think a lot of times that is hard for me to personally grasp. realizing that through situations that seem the most impossible, God is always there,  is incredible---unreal yet indescribable.

bold people

boldness is something I strive for in my faith... but i dont know, people like this inspire me to be even bolder.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmnimOoJeJ4

the fam bam.

yep. my fam is rad. my sister dances to "my chick bad" daily in my room, my mom has slippers shaped like german clogs and my dad is just awesome. love.