1 Peter 3:15

"But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect."

May this bless you as it has blessed me today, friends. 

Much love.

11 things @ me so far in 2011...

1. I recently got a stick shift (like a week ago). I have never driven a stick before. Instead of getting better with each day, I think I am getting worse...sigh...

2. I am pretty sure coffee gives me panic attacks. I have been trying to incorporate coffee in to my daily routine and the past two days, approximately fifteen minutes after consumption, I feel like my life is ending & I want to curl in a ball and sob. weird. 

3. I am probably the most excited about the present I got from a family at Matt's school...they gave us grapefruits and oranges from their backyard trees & I think i am seriously in heaven. I forgot how scrumptious freshly squeezed juice could be...sorry simply grapefruit you're not as good as fresh from the squeezer machine.

4. I am currently obsessed with 3 new shows...all since the beginning of 2011! 1) 30Rock. We watched it for the first time on New Year's Eve with my kindred and her husband! (they got married in December so it's still super exciting to get to say that) so hilarious. 2) Intervention on A&E. is it bad if a show about addiction has got me addicted? ...hmmmm....and 3) E! Truly Hollywood Investigates....(insert investigation topic here) Yesterday, I watched E!THI locked up abroad, E!THI husbands who murder and E!THI husbands who kill (or something like that) and I am totally hooked (and also a little freaked that I have a life insurance policy worth far more than my decade's salary...friends, if I go missing...well...ya know...) 

5. I answered the phone yesterday to an unknown number, which I never do, and I saved myself $600 by doing so. Let me tell you why: I recently turned in my old mini cooper for a new one. Upon returning my lease, we agreed that our insurance would cover a small crack in the windshield. After a few attempts of theirs to get ahold of me, they were calling for a third and final time before foregoing my insurance and simply sending me a $600 bill! Thank GOD I answered that call! 

6. I get to make a new friend this month named Tenley Molzahn! She was on the Bachelor when stupid Jake Pavelka was on. She is becoming good friends with one of my cousins and my cousin has decided that she and I would be great friends so she's setting us up on a play date :) 

7. Matt & I have recently began seriously praying about and considering going on a mission trip to Malawi this summer. There are a few trips with an organization or our church is also going and Matt really feels called to go. 

8. I got a library card! First time since I was like eight! I decided I would try to find a few of my books for classes at the local library and turns out there are tons of benefits to having a library card! They have DVD's for free!! so fun :) can't wait til I graduate and I can do serious damage to that place.

9. I made a new year's resolution to cook more this year. I typically am so exhausted from a day's work, classes, driving to and from California, rushing off to youth group, etc etc etc that cooking has been put on the back burner. However, I have cooked every night this week & so far we have spent $24 for the whole entire week! woot woot! I get such a weird sense of pride when I have to run my dishwasher because we have gone through so many dishes from eating at home...i'm weird in 2011...

10. Tomorrow will be Matt's & my 2 year anniversary from our first date. I feel like I'm in junior high still counting our years of dating & being super excited we have made it this far...here's to 60 more years :)  

11. Yesterday, I began my search for grown up jobs. I started emailing department heads of community colleges near us in an attempt to become an adjunct professor! What a hoot. me? a professor? here goes nothing...

5...4...3...2...1...graduation...?

My facebook status currently reads that I am a glass case of emotion.

I realize a lot of my posts lately have probably been a bit emotional and more serious but that's just simply where I am in life. I think I have finally pinpointed why I have been feeling this way...

I am about to graduate.

I remember the past two years, sitting in my classes with the seniors and, when prayer request time came around, they would always say they were stressed about life after grad school. choosing a job. transition. nervousness. scared. unsure. timid. et cetera. et cetera.

And I remember sitting in these classes feeling like, "yeah but...you're graduating! isn't that more exciting than anything?!" 

Now I totally know how all of these seniors who have gone before me have felt. I literally had zero sense of this feeling until 5...4...3...2...1....HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!! and now we are in 2011...aka...the year i graduate...

I cannot tell you the amount of weight that ringing in the new year carried with it.  Because I am still a barista at a coffee shop. For the past six and a half years that is who I have been. A student. and a barista. and I am comfortable with that. I am safe in that position. But now I keep hearing these whispers of "find a job", "where will she work", "what can you do with that degree" and I find myself freaking out.

And this has me doubting my ability. and my call. and my dreams. and my hopes.

I'm sure if there were some support group for second semester senior grad students, I would seriously feel so much better because I wonder if this is what we all feel. I didn't feel this second semester senior year of undergrad because I had a plan. I knew I was already accepted and enrolled in seminary. But now. I am forced to face my fears and the unknown.

and Satan totally has my number.

I haven't snuck this by him at all. Because I have felt so unsure and unstable and emotional and nervous and scared and anything else but confident in who I am as a woman, pastor, leader, mentor, etc. So I keep looking at the women around me who appear to have it all put together. With perfect dinners on the table every night and a well kept household and perfect bodies and beautiful children. and I cannot measure up. But the thing is, I don't think the women I am measuring myself against could measure up to themselves!  (using my measuring stick)

So I refuse to think that way anymore. This is probably the tenth post I have written like this, but this is my blog and really, more like my public journal of thoughts.

And I don't want to feed you some line that now everything is roses and life will be happily ever after, and my facebook status remains the same, but at least I am a bit more aware of why I am feeling what I have been feeling.

It is also interesting that two days ago, Matt & I began to seriously pray about my future after seminary. And merely two days later, I feel such anxiety and nervousness that I just want to crawl in bed and pull the sheets over my head and hide. Because Satan is trying his darndest to cripple me. and it worked for awhile, and it might continue to work after today. But I will be fighting and praying my darndest to combat his attacks.

Baby it's cold outside...

So, this week has been.....cold 

I have lived in Arizona for nearly 11 years and I do not remember a week like this one.  We were at a car dealership in Scottsdale on Thursday and it started snowing. Ok, being from Minnesota, not one Minnesotan in the world that would consider it snow, but us Arizonans definitely saw snow falling from the sky.

My car has a little feature that dings and flashes a snowflake when it is below freezing outside. That little snowflake has been on my dashboard more than it hasn't this past week. I even caught a glimpse of it saying 27 degrees when I was driving to work one morning. twenty seven degrees?!? in the desert?!?!

So yesterday morning at church, I arrive to tons of students walking with mounds of blankets toward the parking lot. I wasn't quite sure what was going on. During our junior high service, I found out that Phoenix Rescue Mission sent out a tweet yesterday morning asking for blankets, jackets, warm clothes, mittens, socks, etc. because their shelter's supply was completely depleted due to the freezing cold weather. Our student ministries director saw the tweet and immediately rented a Uhaul. That is one of my favorite things. He rented a Uhaul because he had no doubt that our church would rise to the occasion in one day to fill that Uhaul.

After service, Matt and I went directly home to our sweater bins that had been completely untouched. We emptied it out, filled trash bags and headed back to church to contribute to the van. I didn't expect the van to be very full yet because people had only just found out about the need (and we had until 5pm to donate...Matt and I headed back around noon). However, this is what I saw when I jumped in to the van...

So beautiful.

I love my church so much. I am reading a book right now called The Hole in the Gospel. The author talks about how many verses in scripture talk about the poor, homeless, and needy and how these verses go completely unnoticed in greater Christianity. I agree with his main premise but I do not see that happening within our church body and I am so proud of that.

Oh yeah, remember this post? Our goal was to reach 1,500 orphans, which would be $60,000. On Christmas Eve, our pastor reported that we did not get $60,000....we got $183,000. That is enough to feed nearly 5,000 orphans for an entire year! I love our church because I see feet to the gospel. I see that our pastors are steering and directing our church in such a way that it allows us as a congregation to bless those in need. It gives us the opportunity to give of our resources and I am so grateful for that.

All over the valley and all over the country there are shelters in need to clothing. Why don't you take the time to clear out your closet and storage bins of clothes that you never wear and drop them off at the nearest shelter and bless a person in need.

2011...

Well I have blogging for ONE YEAR!!! I can't believe it's gone so quickly. Sorry I have been a little MIA lately, but I had pneumonia and did not want to move a muscle!

As I sit here, after working one of the most insane shifts of my life, I ponder where I was at at this exact time last year:

• I was sitting at my parents house, that no longer exists
• I was waiting to see my boyfriend, Matt :) 
• I had finished working at a store I no longer work at
• I drove a car I no longer drive (as of yesterday!)
• My hair had about 17 more inches of length
• I was going to ring in the new year with my Noni, who is now in heaven
• I had a year and a half of grad school left 
• I only had one nephew, Hudson and now I have a niece (Avalynne) and a nephew on the way! (Max)

I am sure there are several more differences between 2009 and 2010 but that's all I can think of at the moment :) I always love welcoming in a new year because I don't know what it will bring. I welcome both the struggles and the success.

I remember sitting in a Francis Chan seminar almost 7 years ago (has it been that long?!)  and he posed this question: What if I told you that, during 2011 (I changed the year) your life would be roses. You would have no one die, no sickness, no sadness but only happiness and good things.  However, you would not grow any closer to God.  Now what if I told you that your 2011 would be wrought with hardship and death and illness and difficulty but your relationship with Christ would be second to none. You would grow so much in your relationship with Christ that you are almost a totally different person. What would you choose?  Would you choose the easy, happy route or would you choose the suffering?

Sadly, most (according to his survey) chose the easy road.  But I pray that we would both choose the suffering because Christ is so worth it.

Adios, 2010. It's been a blast. Now bring on 2011!!!

The Search For Significance

Hey all...

So, I haven't written for awhile because, well to tell you the truth, I don't feel creative enough.

Satan has been doing (trying to do) a work on my self worth lately.  So I chose to read a book called The Search for Significance.  This book is such a gem if you struggle with self esteem, or beauty, or guilt or acceptance that you are God's beloved, or co-dependency, or so many other things.

While I was reading a particular portion, however, I felt so convicted. 

It is the chapter on shame. 

The author mentions that sometimes, shame can result in a loss of creativity.

check.

Lately, I have seriously not felt worthy enough, creative enough, or wise enough to write anything worth your time.  I would spend hours trying to think of something that would be captivating and leave people breathless. and nothing would come. I would open a new post and sit there with an empty head. and close my computer and walk away. feeling worse than I did when I originally sat down.

McGee (author) says, "When we are ashamed of ourselves over a period of time, the cutting edge of our creativity atrophies. We tend to become so preoccupied with our own inferiority that we are unable to come up with new ideas. Often believing that whatever we attempt will fail, we may choose to avoid doing anything that isn't a proven success and relatively risk-free."

So, from now on, I will continue to blog.



ps. thanks for reading

Today...

Today has been...well...rough.

For no reason in particular. But do you ever have one of those days where life just seems to get you down? Well, December 6, you are one of those days for me.

I have hit my 12-week slump of coming out to California and I just desperately miss my husband. The alarm went off this morning at 5:23am and I woke up just wanting to burst in to tears. Because I was so warm and cozy and cuddled up in Matt's arms. And I knew that in two hours I would be saying goodbye. again. Then we got in the car and I realized half way to the airport that I left my phone and charger on my nightstand.

I have been spending the day looking at pictures of myself that are less-than-beautiful. Sitting in classes where I feel out-of-my-league. Looking at blogs of wives who are on-top-of-everything (and realizing that my Christmas decorations consist of one wreath hanging on our door). Staring at a study guide that seems impossible to cram into my brain by next week. I just feel internally beat up. and so tired.

So I remembered a verse that my mom always used to tell me that we should not look at the things God has given others..and I can't even find the reference. And that's bugging me, too.

So anyways, I realize I only have one more week of commuting before a month long hiatus. So I am going to power through. But in the mean time, here is my to do list during break, which I'm already so excited for:


 TO DO OVER CHRISTMAS BREAK:
SAND AND PAINT CABINET
CHRISTMAS/THANK YOU CARDS
COLOR COORDINATE BOOK SHELF
HANG CURTAINS
READ FOR PLEASURE
MAKE HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS DOILIES
MINI APPOINTMENT
HAVE GREAT QUIET TIMES
MAKE SUGAR SCRUB






It is so hard for me to believe that in exactly 7 days, this semester will be over. And I will be a second-semester senior. ahhhhh...