Good Times...

These picture made me chuckle today! I love my Tasha!! :)

...We were the Sanderson Sisters from Hocus Pocus one year for Halloween... Legit? I think so! haha! We used temporary hair color to make Tasha's hair black! She was a brave soul to do that especially since she has natural blonde hair! I applaud her!

The Miracle of Sugar

I was driving home today and I was thinking about the funniest thing that was said at my sisters weddding. The ring bearer at my sisters wedding was around 2 or 3 years old and when we were starting to take pictures he was not in a good mood. He was really tired and didn't want to cooperate at all. Obviously you have to expect things like that when working with children because they aren't robots or something. If they're in a bad mood then they're in a bad mood.

We were taking pictures at the Scout Lodge, where the reception was going to be held, and then we drove to the church before taking a few more pictures and having the ceremony. Pierce, the ring bearer, stayed with his mom while we all drove to the Church and when we were all at the church taking more pictures Pierce and his mom and aunt and Alyssa, the flower girl, all showed up.

There was a dramatic change in Pierce's behavior. He was happy and willing to take as many pictures as we wanted. It was a total 180 degree transformation. The best part?

I was talking with my cousin and Pierce's aunt, Marci, and she said:

"All we did was pump him with sugar and soda."

That has got to be the best thing I've ever heard! I laughed out loud. I don't know why it was so funny to me but even now thinking about it I chuckle. I guess it's because it really worked! You know you always see kids hyped up on sugar but I don't think I've seen the dramatic transformation that it has on them like physicall right before my eyes! It was great! :) Plus all of the super "health conscious people" say you shouldn't give your kids this, that or the other thing and then they purposely pumped him with sugar and caffeine! :) I love it!!! :)

So yeah that is the story I wanted to share today! hahaha It made me chuckle! :)

This is what happens when you, "pump him with sugar and soda" hahaha Instant transformation!

My Thought During Biology Lecture:

Humans like to try to be god.

Apparently scientists are trying to create artificial life through creating DNA and cell membranes and culminating with the combination of the two... I feel like humans have been trying to be gods all throughout history. It's kinda sad. They deny the one true living God for the theory of evolution and their own creations...

Matters of the Heart

I was reading the other day in my devotional book "Spurgeon's Most Popular Works: Morning and Evening" by Charles Spurgeon and I read something that was really convicting that I wanted to share!

Spurgeon was taking a deeper look at "the iniquities of the holy things" from Exodus 28:38. In this particular devotional passage he quoted a letter written by Dr. Payson who was writing to his brother who said, "My parish, as well as my heart, very much resembles the garden of the sluggard. What is worse is that I find many of the desires for the imporvement of both either proceed from pride, vanity, or laziness. I look at the weeds that overspread my garden and breathe out an earnest wish that they were eradicated. But why? What prompts the wish? It may be that I may walk out and say to myself, 'In what fine order is my garden kept!' This is pride. Or it may be that my neighbors may look over the wall and say 'How finely your garden flourishes!' This is vanity. Or I may wish for the destruction of the weeds because I am weary of pulling them up. This is laziness." Spurgeon went on to explain, "Even our desires after holiness may be polluted by wrong motives."

Isn't that something to think about?! As humans even our desire to be sanctified can be cause by our own selfish-ness. I feel like we can make anything selfish... Isn't that wonderful? Not really, if you're trying to daily deny your self and seek Christ. It's interesting to realize that our desire to walk as Jesus did and to become more holy can be caused by alterior motives. Spurgeon, however, ended on a very positive note leading all things back to Jesus. He wrote, "...While Jesus bears our sin, He presents before His Father's face not our lack of holiness, but His own holiness."

Praise the Lord for that!

After Jesus's sacrifice God looks at us through the lense of the cross. No matter what our motives be, though God desires our motives to be pure, if we are covered in the blood of Jesus, God doesn't see how unholy we are but He sees Christ's holiness when He looks at us! :) That's a great thing to rejoice about!

I thought it was an interesting thing to think about because sometimes I can be so ignorant of my motives. We like to think that the most important thing is doing what God has called us to do no matter if we do it willingly, gladly, or begrudgingly. However, again, God looks right to our heart!

Two days ago the devotional for the evening went along perfectly with God's desire for our hearts to be right and it was so good and convicting that I wanted to share it as well! The verse for the day was "Serve the LORD with gladness" - Psalm 100:2 and Charles Spurgeon wrote:

"Delight in the divine service is a token of acceptance. Those who serve God with a sad countenance, because they do what is unpleasent to them, are not serving Him at all; they bring the form of homage, but the life is absent. Our God requires no slaves to grace His throne. He is the Lord of the empire of love, and He would have His servants dressed in the uniform of joy. The angels of God serve Him with songs, not with groans. A murmur or a sigh would be mutiny in their ranks. Obedience that is not voluntary is disobedience for the Lord looks at the heart, and if He sees that we serve Him from force, and not because we love Him, He will reject our offering. Service coupled with cheerfulness is heart-service and, therefore, true. Take away joyful willingness from the Christian, and you have removed the test of his sincerity. If a man is driven to battle, he is not a patriot; but he who marches into the fray with flashing eye and beaming face, singing, 'It is sweet to die for one's country," proves himself to be sincere in his patriotism. Cheerfulness is the support of our strength; in the joy of the Lord we are strong. It acts as the remover of difficulties... Reader, let me put this question to you: Do you "serve the LORD with gladness"? Let us show the people of the world, who think our religion is slavery, that to us it is a delight and a joy! Let our gladness proclaim that we serve a good Master."

Isn't that amazing and convicting all at the same time?! I can think of so many times where I am being obedient to the Lord but my heart is not right. I do it by force because I have to and not because I want to. But this isn't what God wants. It's interesting that Spurgeon said that if we do it by force then we prove ourselves to be slaves to grace but that God will have no slaves; and if we do it by force we aren't doing it because we love Him and therefore it will be rejected. That is super convicting. This has encouraged me to definitely have the Lord search my heart as I am daily serving Him.

I loved how Spurgeon ended by saying that through our joyful willingness the world will see that our religion is not slavery! That is so awesome! If we are obedient to God with gladness and joy then no one can say that we are slaves because we are enjoying the service we do for the Lord!! :)

(Via)

Shine A Light

Excitement

Right now I am really excited to start the Beth Moore Bible Study that I am doing with Alexis! This past summer Alexis and I did the women's summer bible study where we went through a workbook series by Beth Moore called "Jesus the One and Only"! Let me tell you, it was fantastic! Alexis and I loved it so much and needless to say we fell in love with Beth Moore.

So pretty much ever since the summer we have thought that we wanted to do another Beth Moore study and now we are finally doing it! We have decided to do the "Breaking Free" bible study by Beth Moore! I think it is going to be really good!! I cannot wait to begin! :)

And guess what?! I love Jesus! :) Yup Im just in a really good mood right now! God is so awesome!

______________________________________________________________________ 

(via)

Today I ate one and a half kiwis and Im pretty sure I gave myself an acid burn on my tongue. I don't know if that is possible but if it is then that is definitely what I experienced... My solution? It was stinging... so I brushed my teeth and my tongue... I think it actually helped because it doesn't hurt very much anymore! :)

______________________________________________________________________

I Love:

 Forgiveness

Hope

Dreams

Happiness

Faithfulness

Commitement

 Endurance

Perseverence

Contentment

Weakness

 Strength

Salvation

Life

Purpose

Praise

Worship

Joy

Laughter

Singing

Dancing

Rejoicing

 Love

God

Great Friendships Last a Lifetime!

This post is dedicated to my buddy Becca Kimmell!! We've been friends for  TWELVE YEARS can I get an applause?! That's a long time and it has been quite a good time! :) We've had LOTS of good times throughout the years and it has just been a precious friendship. So that's what this post is about! It's about Becca and how awesome she is!! :) And how awesome our friendship is and how blessed I am to have her as a friend!!

 And this is where the story begins:

This is us in 4th grade when we had our "Oregon Trail Day". Made complete with colonial attire hence the dresses and bonnets, and our very own home-made wagons. Cool, right?!

In 6th grade we went to outdoor school and Rebecca and I got to do an overnighter in a tent that we made by ourselves. Our tent was made complete with hundreds of tiny holes so praise the Lord it didn't rain that night otherwise we would have been drenched. There were a lot of spiders and I don't think anyone slept well that night.

This picture is from 8th Grade when we went on a class field trip to the Rogue River where we camped and went snow shoeing at Crater Lake and even got to go white water rafting! It was a lot of fun... I have a lot more pictures from this trip but I couldn't find them :( There were pretty good, believe me! hahaha

This picture was from the same 8th Grade Field trip... We're matching isn't that fantastic?! Hahaha that is like the epitomy of middle school right? Wanting to wear matching outfits! Oh yes we did do that ;)

Isn't this the most flattering picture in the world?!... I think this was definitely the awkward stage in my development! hahahaha... but this was right before Freshmen year of high school for my birthday. It was a fun day... and as you can see quite crazy but that's what makes our friendship so fun!

Don't you wish you were us?? I mean come on you don't get any better looking than that! hahaha.... Aaaawkwaaaarrrdddd! :)

And as you can see from the Love-O-Meter all together we are merely "Boring"... Clearly those machines don't give accurate readings because I would say we are anything BUT boring! :)

Similar much? We were trying to copy this movie photo but obviously we failed... oh well you get the point! This was a nice little picnic day that we took one time.

Can you tell that we know how to have fun? I think that the photo on the right is a particularly flattering picture of Rebecca... makes you want to get to know her right? Ah yes it is quite good! :) Once again our friendship is anything but normal ;)

Becca is my hero! As you can tell by this picture I am smitten by her cunning wit and amazing good looks! hahaha

And she has always got an amazing ability to look beautiful in pictures! A simple "strike a pose" and this is the beauty that you get! Gaze upon it now... *sigh*... Isn't it beautiful? hehehe

This is like one of my most favorite pictures of all time! It's me and Candice and Becca after winter formal senior year. We always have our "slumber parties" at Mollys house...Good times

Hahaha This was our new years party saying goodbye to 2007 and saying hello to 2008! it was a good night as you can see! :)

We gave ourselves make-overs... Can't you see the sunrise when you look into Becca's eyes. Awesome right?!

We went with a group of people to go see the Sound of Music together

We went to Astoria for Spring Break... we were going to go camping but then they said that you had to be 21 to rent a camp site so we were unable to do that and had to rent a hotel and then go home the next day haha

That didn't stop us from having fun though!

We went to the beach and roasted marshmallows as the sun set!

We got ready for prom together

And doubled to prom! :) ... we were both sporting some really intense tan lines... mine was from swim team I think... nooooooo.... we had had a Relay for Life car wash the weekend before and it was really hot and we both didn't put on sunscreen so that's how we got insanely burned and then it was blotchy and turned into crazy tans! hahaha I remember I put my sunscreen on really poorly and so there were some spots that were still white and some that were red! good times!

We were walking buddies at Graduation which was something that we'd always planned on being! And we always talked about how we were going to have goofy grins on our face when we were walking in and guess what? We did!

The celebratory hug which symbolizes that squeal: "WE DID IT!"

But that's not where the story ends!

Even though we'd graduated it didn't change who we were! We could still find ways to have fun with the simple things in life.

We went hiking on Mary's Peak

We made it a tradition for two summers! The second summer was a lot nicer than the first summer!

Summertime fun! This was our Goodbye picnic to say farewell to the people who were going to college in different states!

Candice, Becca and I celebrated our 19/20th birthdays together at the park! Lots of fun!

We tried our hand at tandem bicycling which was a fun time... we rode all the way to the Corvallis waterfront and then as we were riding we would yell "we don't know how to stop please move!" and then turning around we rode in a gigantic circle in the China Delight parking lot a couple of times before we figured out how to get back on the path and head back to Becca's house. It was quite exciting!

We went to the Real Life Shasta Retreat which was lots and lots of fun in the sun with friends and Jesus! :)

And then:

Becca got married!

And I got to be her Maid of Honor. Which, ironically, was such an honor! :)

It was good!

What a glorious day!!

And that concludes the story of Anna and Becca because I don't have any more pictures of us as of now but Im sure there will be more eventually!... Twelve years is a thing to celebrate so yay to Anna and Becca! It's been a good friendship so far cheers to many more years!

Happy New Year!

Wow I cannot even believe that 2010 is over now! It was an amazing year and I am so blessed by the things that I was able to do and the people I was able to love! God was so faithful last year and looking forward to 2011 I know that He will be faithful again!

2010 was full of a lot of craziness! I completed my year at Cornerstone School of Ministry, determined what I really wanted my major to be in coller (Human Development and Family Science, and Education), Worked my booty off to pay off my school tuition which the Lord was faithful to provide, and saw both my sister and my bud Becca get married! 'Twas great! And my Friend Tasha became engaged... I had to bid farewell to my beloved friend Alisha as she went on to nursing school in Portland (so it wasn't really a farewell farewell but rather a sad day we no longer get to go to the same college and live in the same town farewell... Luckily I still get to see her regularly!), and the end of my beloved Small Group with Tera and Julia and Alisha and Alexis and Eva :(. I started back up at OSU and completed Fall Term successfully and then had an amazing Christmas with my family! Ain't nothin better! :)

Im a little sad that Christmas is over though. The relatives have left and now Im waiting patiently for winter term to begin. I am actually quite excited about this term! I don't know why. Generally school is "blah" to me but the classes Im taking should be interesting and I love knowing that I am getting ever closer to completing school! Yay!

I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas and New Years! I can't wait to see what God has in store for me and the people around me! :)