I get it

So...I'm sick again. Haha. This is the third time this year (and it's only been 2011 for a month and a half). So I've come to the realization that God has to be telling me to slow down, and rest. I do admit that I have been going and going and going a lot lately but I didn't really realize that my body does need rest, more than I give it. I'm deciding to go to bed earlier, not go on the computer as often, and every little down time I have will spend relaxing with my big Man upstairs. It shalll be wonderful :)

Aside from being sick, today was one of those really great days. The ones where nothing GREAT happened per say, but it was just good. In all my classes I found myself laughing and enjoying the people around me and just listening to their stories (good and bad)..and realizing that we all have something that we're hiding. A little something that we're either keeping from someone to spare their feelings, or to spare our own. And I was just thinking that we all need to give each other a fair chance. I feel like so many times in life we judge people based on how they talk, walk, present themselves, who they hang out with, and so on. But that's obviously not fair. That's not how we would want people to think of us so why on earth would we do that to others? I heard someone say how annoying this one kid in my english class was, and I too, agree that sometimes this person can be frustrating, but it's not fair..because I know something about this person that it is eating them alive but they don't show it. That is a STRONG person if you ask me. To hold their head high despite everything their going through...I envy people like that. They amaze me. Basically, what I'm trying to say is wait until you know someone's full personality and life before you make your opinions..they could be dealing with something way beyond anything we could fathom.

Secondly. These blogs are an escape for me. I LOVE writing, always have and I believe I always will. But today. Today blew my mind. I will keep this person's name annonymous for now (because I don't know how they would feel about me using their name..) but this person texted me today. And this person has always inspired me, because of how smart they are, and how ambitious. And of course for their love of God. But this person texted me..telling me how moved they were by one of my blog enteries. That it brought them to tears. And that I truly helped them put things into perspective and said everything they were feeling. I teared up when I read this text. Because my writing means the world to me..and for me to be able to help someone by my simple words is beyond anything I could ever ask for..so to this person; thank you. I love you. And I'm blessed you are in my life!

Overall, the little things that frustrate me, annoy me, make me angry..they all go away when stuff like this happens to me. It all gets put into perspective. Once again, I gotta thank God for reminding me. Thanks for reading :) You are all amazing.

You're still alive

Where does time go?! I mean, honestly. It's been pretty much a decade since I've written a blog. And for all my lovely amazing followers out there, I apologize. I've been so lost in time. I really didn't think my Senior year would go anywhere near as fast as it has been going. Not only that, but high school. I feel like I was JUST a little bitty Freshman. Anyway..that's besides the point.

I want to talk about time though. Because even though I feel like so much time has been taken away from me in the last few weeks..I've been given so much more to replace it. I was given the chance to spend amazing times with my YoungLife family last weekend, and get to spend a weekend away in the mountains with God. How greater could it get? I also feel as though I was tested last week in big ways. To be a better person, to not let stress get the best of me, to be a great leader despite being tired, and for getting my priorities in order. It was a tough but great week all the same. I feel as though all in this time I mended things. I mended friendships that I so dearly missed, and I put myself back together.

I know the phrase "I put myself back together" sounds a bit strange, but that's how I felt for a while...strange. Like I wasn't myself. I didn't feel happy when I should have. I didn't get excited when I should have. and I didn't appreciate the wonderful things around me, like I should have. That may sound depressing, but it's honest. I think we all feel broken and lost at times. And we all handle that differently. For me, I put on a face or a mask if you will, that I was still put together. But that's not how I should act. When I feel broken, or sad, it lets me know that I'm human. We're all human. But I think we're also broken for a reason. I wrote a poem type thing a while ago...and I think I'll type it out on here because I think it sums up what I'm trying to say :) here it goes...


You gave me life the day I was born, but You gave me love the day I followed. People and things can be so messed up..the dirty looks, mean comments, the gossip, and heartbreak. But it is the pain that makes something worthwhile..
For we are all clay pots with broken pieces from being dropped. If we choose to walk away from the pieces lying on the floor, we miss part of ourselves. But if we try to pick up the pieces on our own, we end up with cuts and scrapes.
It is the decision within us to follow You or to walk on without part of us. You are the candle in the pot. You help us shine, even with the bumps and bruises, cuts and scrapes. For if we didn't have these openings, Your light would not shine. You are the light in the dark that guides me.
Although I do no know how to put myself together, I believe You have the ability to do so. Soon I will know the reasons and answers behind life's mystery..
But for now, I stand before You as a broken clay pot with broken pieces in my hands, waiting to be fixed...

SOO yeah :) Even though there are pieces missing in us, there is still hope. So don't doubt the confusion, the hurt, and the pain. It's happening for a reason. And although that reason may be unknown as of now, you will eventually know. Just stay strong.

I want to spend some time at Your feet, take me..

Okay, so. Being sick/lying in bed for 3 days straight is horrible. Specially for someone as social as I am. BUT. It was somewhat enjoyable to just hang out, watch movies, learn about God, and have some alone time to think.

I have a three day Campaigner Camp this weekend through YoungLife at our local camp that is about an hour away. And I'm SO excited. I get to spend the whole weekend with my YoungLife family and God. What could be better? The things I kinda was thinking about these past three days revolve around forgiveness. I've been going back in forth trying to figure out how to somehow fix something that is broken..and I just don't know how. But then I realized..if it is weighing so heavy on my heart then I must react. The only problem with this is--I don't know what the reaction should be. I know I'm supposed to be the bigger person (which I'm quite good at if you ask me) but in this situation neither of us did anything wrong. We grew apart and that person decided to leave. Now my question is do I go after them? Or do I let them go? I'm sure I'm not the only one who has had this problem but I've written countless letters, gone over what I want to say thousands of times, and have given up a million times. But there has GOT to be a reason why I'm hanging on.

Forgiveness. Such a simple word..yet so hard to do. I think it's easy to say "I forgive you." but to me, you really aren't fully forgiving them by brushing it under the carpet like nothing happened, or even hanging onto the fact that they did something wrong in your eyes. I think for us to not forgive is to fall, and to fall is not what God intended for us to do. He intended us to stand firm and live like He did. I think to truly forgive you just gotta let go. But in order to do so...you have to talk things over and clear things up. It's the only way.

So I have decided to make a huge gesture and make things right. The title of this blog is "I want to spend some time at Your feet, take me.." because the only way I know how to figure things out is if I give them up to God and let Him lead my steps instead of me. Because I often take the 'wheel' in my life when I clearly know better.

Is there someone that you should forgive to move on? How would you deal with forgiveness? I think we all need a second chance every once in a while. We're human. We fall, and sometimes we need someone to pick us up. My question to you is, are you going to be the person falling or the one picking someone up?

18 Years In..

Oh boy. OH BOY. Let me start by saying I'm smiling right now. Wanna know why?! Because I have the most amazing, crazy, loving, BEST people in my life. I'm finally 18 and I couldn't have asked for a more perfect way to spend my 18th. Everything exceeded any expectation I could have had. I just want to tell everyone what great people I have in my life, give them major bragging rights, and show off all the love I felt this weekend :) Soo here it goes!

When I woke up Friday morning (my birthday) I was first overwhelmed with texts, facebook posts, and all that. Then my mom gave me a huge birthday hug, near tears, because I'm a grown up! THEN I walk outside to leave for school to find my car completely decked out with 'Happy 18th Birthday!' and all these other amazing things written on it. All thanks to Ali, Amanda, Alexis, Carter, and Courtney. Thank you girls for making my day! :) Then I get to school and Ali hands me a beautiful card, Madeline hands me my favorite candy, Hannah hands me nice warm Starbucks, and Jasmine hands me balloons, a birthday pin, and a gift card. You can say that I was just ecstatic with all the love I was receiving! I got phone calls, texts, facebook posts, and hugs throughout the whole day which majorly contributed to my amazing day. For them to take the time out of their day to say happy birthday is wonderful! AHH I just want to re-live it over and over.

That night I had all my best friends over for dinner. We laughed (a lot), ate dinner, played Just Dance 2, had cake and ice cream, and opened presents. They all know me amazingly well because my presents fit my personality. Thanks guys!! :) Then towards the end of the night I realized that I hadn't bought a lotto ticket yet! So me, Catherine, Amanda, and Brittany hopped in Alexis' dad's NICE car to buy a lotto ticket, blasting the music as we went. You can say my night was perfect in the simplest of ways.
My future roommate also told me she sent me a package in the mail for my birthday! Ah, I've known her for about a month and I already feel so close to her. She's amazing! :)

I head to bed after bragging to my parents about all the nice things people said in my cards, and all the presents I had received, at about one o'clock in the morning. I thought hey? It's saturday. I'll get to sleep in! But actually...I was woken up/tackled by Madeline and Kendal that morning as they threw confetti at me saying "Happy Birthday!!!" at about 7:30 am. I sounded like a man because I am getting over a cold, so needless to say--funniest thing EVER. They took me out to breakfast, in my pjs, at Mimi's Cafe. Then we went to the park and just sat in the sun talking about life. They are amazing..and I love you guys so much! :)

Today is Sunday and I finally get to celebrate with my family! We're going to do the whole dinner, presents, and cake thing. But more importantly, I'm excited to spend it with people I adore.


I didn't need any presents or anything. Because I truly got the BEST gift of friends and people I love. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the best birthday I've had to date. You guys are more than amazing and I'm SO beyond blessed to have you in my life. Thank you thank you thank you!!

What happens in Vegas

(I will post pictures from my amazing weekend in a different blog, at a later date..stay tuned.)

You know the expression what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas? Well, in my case I hope that's not true. I had the most amazing, rewarding, fun, fabulous weekend that I've had in a really long time. I need to just explain everything I saw, experienced, and felt throughout this weekend. With that being said..this post may be rather long. But please read it and maybe you can be inspired from at least one thing I say in this :)

Day One: Friday
Debbie and I drove from Temecula to Vegas which is about a four hour drive. The whole drive consisted of eating, listening to music, reading, and talking. Normal road trip. When we got to Alexis' house we obviously attacked her cause we were so excited to see her (it's been a year). Then Alexis, being the amazingly talented singer song writer that she is put on a concert for us. She is brilliant with her music and so inspiring. You can just see God's light through her. Look up Alexis Weber on FB if you don't believe me :) But then we took a drive to see where she lives and goes to school..then rented a movie and talked and painted our toes...totally a girls night, I know. We then attempted to learn from Darrins Dance Groove. (Of course trying to learn the dance to 'Bye, bye, bye') All in all amazing night. But THEN...


Day Two: Saturday
Alexis, Debbie, and I got up at 6:30 am to feed the homeless with Alexis' church. I honestly am at a loss for words on how amazing this experience was. The first place we stopped at we helped people pick out clothes that the church donated. We met a little girl named Alina who was just 10 years old. She was so excited to be getting new clothes and that we were helping her. When it was time to go she ran to her mom with a huge smile on her face and she had this incredible light in her. Most rewarding thing ever. The second place we stopped at was behind apartments in a not so good area. This time we helped pass out lunches and desserts and they were all so thankful and it felt good to know we were doing it for God's glory and for HIS ministry. We met a man named Richard who was 55 years old, pretty messed up mentally..but I can't count how many times he said thank you and how great we were for doing this. He had tears built up in his beautiful blue eyes and my heart was breaking for these amazing people who are just so unfortunate. They believe our society hates them but it's our job to just love on them. Ahh I wish you could all see what I saw. If you get a chance to feed the homeless...do it. Please.

After that we were physically and emotionally drained so we took a nap. Then Alexis had a prayer night at her church..where they found out one of their youth leaders had died, and the whole room was shaken up but so many people loved this man and it's clear that he's partying with Jesus up in heaven. Spending time with God and only God for just that hour was so incredible. We then went to the strip and went to Serendipity's. This night was filled with painful, long walks, interesting people, lots of laughs, silly jokes..everything under the sun. Vegas is such a crazy place for three underaged teenage girls but it was so fun and I loved spending time with my amazing work crew girls. They are encouraging, fun, and so great.

Day Three: Sunday
We woke up early to go to church and I learned such an amazing thing. Live at 212 degrees. Water's boiling point in order to start to steam is 212 degrees. This is how on fire for God we should be..we all have a spiritual temperature and I'm striving to be at 212 degrees and build my relationship with God so it's as strong as it can be. Not just how I look and appear on the outside, but on the inside. I want to be seeking after God in absolutely everything.




Live at 212 Degrees


This is a weekend I will never, ever forget and I'm so blessed with the experiences, people I was with, and people I met for God's purpose. I learned so many things and I'm still in awe..I love God and what He is doing in my life.

God is good, so so good. <3


So yeah, correct me if I'm wrong but I definitely don't think what happened in Vegas should stay in Vegas. I'm carrying out so much of what happened this weekend into my daily life back here in Temecula. I realize how blessed, thankful, and how undeserving I am..and I will never forget that.

And I'll let my words be few, "Jesus I am so in love with You."

Days go by..

Okay, so I've been slacking with my posting every day type thing. So I'm going to recap the past couple of days with what I was thinking and what I did. Here it goes..

On Monday night I had an excellent one-on-one with one of my YoungLife leaders, who I also do WyldLife with. Anyway, as I was waiting to go into the nice warm, comforting Starbucks..I had Lee Dewyze playing in the background and I literally sat and watched so many cars pass by me, about ten cars go in and out of the same parking spot, laughter from young children, parents rushing around, couples meeting for coffee, the list goes on..but I really felt like I was watching life go by right before my eyes. There was something so cool about sitting there watching. I mean, I've always loved people watching, but this was different. Cause it was people that were happy and doing their thing..and they had no idea that I was watching. Ahh I sound like a creeper but I loved it. And I also love having long conversations about where I'm at in life and having encouragements all around me. It's great :)

Tuesday. Hmm. Well, Tuesday was an off day for me. Ya know those days? Well I woke up late, which made me later to school, spilled my coffee, and looked like the mess I was feeling. Haha. But there is some sort of good thing in this because even though I didn't feel my best, people around me made things better and I had an okay day. There wasn't too much deep thought going on that day. BUT. I had Senior Movie Night that night and a bunch of my friends went to Chipotle beforehand. Ahh I just had an excellent night and everything went really smoothly. Plus, we were watching Toy Story 3...what could be better? It was sad because it felt as though the movie applied to us..going to college and whatnot. But I legitimately had a great night and it goes to show that things can turn around.

I have Campaigners tonight and I'm SUPER excited because we're doing a study that will prepare us for college. I know that I will get a lot of it and I can't wait to get together with the girls I love and just talk and laugh.

That's it for me..probably for a few days. I will report back after my lovely friend Debbie gets here and after we go to Vegas. I mean..it's not big deal or anything. AHHH :) thanks for reading everyone! God Bless <3

Timing is Everything

Ohhh gosh. Today was a good, no GREAT day. It was one of those days that I appreciate. Not that I had to do anything absolutely amazing..but who I was with made it that way. I have been in an extremely great mood lately and I really think that it has to do with who I surround myself with. I'm so very blessed.

Anyway, I went on a date with Madeline and Kendal tonight. I love those two lovely ladies. We went to Panera for dinner then to the movies to see Country Strong. I don't care if you don't really fancy country music..GO SEE IT. It was absolutely amazing. I haven't seen that many really great movies lately but this one..blew me away. It was so up and down, happy then sad. But in the best way possible. Not to mention the acting was phenonemal. It was one of those movies that is hard to give a summary of, but the overrall message is definitely blogging worthy.

What I got out of the movie is timing is everything, choose love, always, and do what makes you happy. Now..these things are very broad. But I really believe that everything that happens in our lives is for a specific reason and it was definitely supposed to happen at the time it did. But these things go together. I think so many times we are after happiness in the form of education, a job, friends, money, etc. and we don't really choose to be happy with those who are in our lives, as well as what we have in our lives. We're worrying about little things about who the "in" crowd is, what crazy things we're going to do over the weekend, what guy is in our lives..the list goes on and on. But I think we really need to be happy with the moment we're in. Ya know?

We need to not worry about little things such as, high school. For me, I know high school was a fun time and sort of a fact of life..but I'm ready to move onto bigger things. There is a whole world out there waiting for me and it makes me sad knowing some people are just dying to live and stay in high school. In the movie, the main character says that we shouldn't be afraid to fall in love, and we should fall in love with everything. I love this. I want to be reminded everyday of the things that are beautiful to me, the people that make me realize love exists, and the amazing life that God gave me. He wakes me up every morning hoping that I direct my steps in such a way that will glorify Him, and He always wants me to be happy. I wake up angry, sad, and hurt very often..but I think I need to wake up happy and be satisfied with the reasons I'm here, doing the things I'm doing, and doing these things with the people He's provided me with.

I know this post was a little all over the place..but I feel as though you will get it if you see the movie. You'll know where I got all these thoughts & it will make more sense. Thanks for taking this journey with me, and trying to understand all the thoughts I have. I so much appreciate it :)

Ps.... 5 days until I see Debbie Lee.

6 Days until we trek to Vegas to see Alexis Weber.

13 Days until I'm 18!!!!

I think this may be why I'm so beyond happy :) :)

Have a great week, my friends!