To My Dearest Friends

I miss writing late at night. I used to do it all the time when I was in college (Holy crap! Past tense!). I miss knowing that I was the only one awake in my apartment and I would scribble down random thoughts, ideas, poems, tangents and other random little entries in my journal or on one of my blogs. I thought I'd write one for my dear friends. You know who you all are...

I was driving home tonight thinking about all my friends. It was seriously like a flash. A bunch of people began to flood my mind. My heart ached a little bit because I miss SO many people in my life. I don't get to see some people as often as I would like, but the happy memories help make me feel close. The late nights, the trips, the random exchanges of laughter in a cafeteria, the goofy pranks that we'd pull on each other at Summer Camps, the BBQ's, exploring Big Sur, growing up together...SO many wonderful memories.

I miss the conversations. All sorts of conversations. Difficult, fun, life changing...

I feel so grateful to God for the people that He has given me. Past and Present. Those friends who would comfort you into the late evening with words of encouragement and love when life was dragging you down. The friends who didn't care what others would think just to make you laugh. The friends who would stop what they were doing to pray for you. Not just once, but throughout the week! The friends who would even love you even when you couldn't love yourself. Even the friends who may have hurt you, but through difficult times, you became even closer.

I want this short entry to reflect my heart and the deep love that I have for all those people who have touched my life. The ones who encouraged me when life was hard and the ones who laughed with me when times were joyous.

I especially want to thank the Lord for giving me the bestest friends a girl could ever ask for, hope for or pray for. My friends reflect my Savior. My Savior is freaking awesome.




A-to-the-men! :)

Answered Prayers

A little background to catch you up.

I fully believe that God gave me this wellness assistant job for a reason and that He handpicked it for me. Its a great first job, its close to my house and the pay is fairly good and they were looking for someone creative. It fit perfectly. However, they wanted me to work on Sundays. I was hesitant at first, but I just had this feeling that things were going to be ok if I took it. Hesitant because I knew I'd have to sacrifice not going to church on Sundays at Grace anymore. I had recently read a book by John MacArthur  about dealing with stress and worry. Since thats all I did before coming across this opportunity...and I was definitely stressing and worrying about this issue of days they needed me.

After praying about it, I knew God was saying, "You need to trust me. I am giving you this job. I will make a way for you to still grow and spend time with me. Just keep trusting me and keep jumping on the opportunities I give you." I am glad I listened...

I work Sunday-Thursdays now with really good hours. Thursdays have become my Fridays and Sundays have become my Mondays. My home church did have a Sunday night service, but if I am honest, after working all day with people and then realizing I had to get up and do it again the next day, Sunday nights didn't sound too appealing...I wanted to be fully rested and at the same time hang out with people even after service ended.

I started to become very lonely and worried that I was never going to be able to go to church as long as I was working at PT. Then one day, my lovely friend Jamie told me that Saddleback Church was starting up small groups. Kinda funny since I attended Saddleback's service with Matt while Pastor Rick introduced the new small group series. I wanted to get involved and it was great that Jamie reached out to me, so I was without excuse to join. I knew it was God answering prayer too because it was on THURSDAY NIGHTS ( my Fridays!!). That meant I had no obligations in the morning and could fellowship for as long as I wanted to.

I feel wonderful to say that Jesus has supplied my needs/wants. My need for fellowship, to meet new people, to have a mentor, to grow in His Word and to have a devo series to go through with my small group.

I am so happy that God put these girls in my life too. There are so many different backgrounds, stories, struggles and gifts. I am excited to get to know everyone and I feel so inspired by these girls. Each one wants to know more about God. And that makes me want that too.

I am just glad that God answered my prayer. I am glad that the Holy Spirit lead me here. And I just wanted to share.

"Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." James 4:8.

Haters Gonna Hate

This is the honest truth. My job is not easy. Its not easy to get up everyday to do the same thing over and over again. Its not easy to go into work to only hear people complain, whine and groan about things that really don't matter. Its not easy to hear time and time again how young you are, that you don't know anything because you're young. Its not easy to be passive aggressively disrespected constantly because of your age.

Its annoying. And by the grace of God I haven't opened my mouth to spit venom back at the people who don't believe in me, don't respect me and who aren't grateful for my team and what we do. I can feel my eyes turn into daggers as people talk down on me or who tell me I'm not good enough. Not smart enough. Not talented enough.

Ok. I may be small. I may be petite. I may be skinny. I may be young, but I know who I am. I am created in the image of God. He has bestowed upon me gifts that are individually unique to me. My DNA is unique. You might not think I am capable, but with the strength of my God beside me, your opinions of me don't matter in the end. Its dust in the wind.

When people talk down on me though, I can't help but feel the hairs in the back of my neck stick up. I want to control my fiery, spunky temper that I have (I hide it pretty well...), but honestly I want to tell people that I didn't get my Dumb Ass degree in "I don't know what the hell I'm doing". It motivates me so much to prove them wrong. When I am assigned something by my boss, I do a damn good job. So, haters gonna hate...

This verse keeps me going: 1 Timothy 4:12. I prove all of them wrong when I love fiercely instead of caving in to my anger or frustration. I will continue to set an example no matter what people tell me. Because in the end, it's God saying, "Good job my good and faithful servant".

Friend Ships

Sorry for all the nautical references. I just dig nautical things. Side note: Switchfoot released a song earlier this week from their new album called "Saltwater Heart" and it's my theme song right now.

Anyways, I've been thinking a lot about my friends lately. Possibly because that's what happens when you look through your photo albums of college life. When I was at school, I was surrounded by friends. And even on weekends when I was home, my friends in M.V. always knew how to have a good time.

Here I am sitting alone and reminiscing about the good times had. I am going to be honest with you, guys. I feel alone a lot of the time during the week. I don't get to see my friends as much as I would like to due to having a full time job and my friends working or doing their own thing. Last week, I managed to hang out with friends after work even while being sick, so I give myself a high-five for that and thankfully, I have an amazing boyfriend who knows how to make me laugh even when I feel like crap. You're my favorite, Sparky!

I guess the point I am trying to make as I type these things out is this: I miss my friends terribly. Not just my college friends, but everyone close to me. Youth Group. Mount Hermon. Childhood. High School. Yeah...

It seems like everyone's on their own journey. Trying to discover more about themselves. Seeing who they want to be. Maybe that's why they call them friendships. Someone comes to port in your life for a little while, you have a good time, make memories and then its full speed ahead. They never really leave your life. It's just a "See you later" or "See you soon".

I just miss everyone.

Simple as that.

God's Clear Call

Its funny how fast life can progress....

About a month ago, I got a call from a place in Rancho Santa Margarita (RSM) asking me if I would like to come in for an interview. I may have told some of you that the full time position seemed too good to be true because it was absolutely PERFECT for me. They were looking for someone creative to help with art programs and planning, the location was 10 minutes from my house and it was a full time position as a wellness assistant aka activities assistant. I went in, interviewed, got called back, interviewed again and then after only 2 hours past the last interview, they called me back and offered me the job!

Well, its been 3 weeks in and I am seriously in love with what I do. Despite the hard days (boy have there been crappy days...), I have loved every single minute of it. Every day, I get up and can't wait to see my residents at Park Terrace. Not only are the residents great, but the people I work with are fantastic.  My boss and I are so alike and we laugh about how everyone thinks we are related. She is so encouraging and positive. She's the kind of boss you aren't afraid to talk to and she trusts me enough with certain tasks. If I don't feel confident about something, she takes me through it step by step until I do, she's patient and she wants me to be real. A boss you like working for makes a HUGE difference.

Now about what I do. My job may seem easy. Yes, I do get to play Bingo and Blackjack with the residents. Yes, I get to coach balloon volleyball. Yes, I do help run the book club and get to read and discuss the book of the month with the residents. Yes, an hour of my time on Thursdays is to drink coffee and talk about life with my residents.

However, it is hard as well. People complain. Like ALL the time. About the food. About an activity you planned for weeks. About stupid little things that you never would have thought about unless you were 98 years old, sitting on your walker and watching people as they walk by. People can be so ungrateful.

People die. Death is very evident in this place. I was talking to one of my co-workers and he told me that 911 is called daily and they've even had people have strokes in the middle of an activity. Apparently, one person died in the middle of one. She just keeled over and died. I am scared to actually witness this one day. I am scared and don't know how I will react if something like that happens. I have never seen someone take their last breath before...

Despite the hard stuff, I 100% believe that God gave me this job for a reason. He blessed me with such a perfect fit. I wake up and thank the Lord for what He has given me. I don't deserve it, yet I know His hand was in this from the very beginning. All I had to do was pray, wait and trust Him. Some people were skeptical...they were wondering how the heck my relationship with God will grow if I work on Sundays. Then again...God doesn't just work on Sundays. I had faith that if Christ blessed me with this perfect job for me, He was going to make a way for me to still spend time with Him. It might take some extra initiation on my part, but God is faithful. And guess what? My boss is awesome and she has recently told me that if I wanted to come in later on Sundays, that would be fine. How awesome is that? Its even more awesome because I can still see my wonderful, goofy, sweet, handsome boyfriend too! :) OH HAPPY JESSIE!!!

So here's some random wisdom. If you don't know where life is going, if you don't know what's going to happen next, guess what? That. Is. OK.

Seek the Lord and He will make your paths straight. He is faithful. He knows your future. Ask Him to guide you.  God is faithful and He always provides for His children. While you wait, worship Him. Fall in Love with Him. Rejoice in Him.

Do not worry. TRUST HIM.

 

A Taste of Heaven in a Dream

You know those dreams that you never want to wake up from? The ones that you escape to and wonder if you're in heaven?

I've always believed that the human mind can be a scary yet beautiful place. How cool is it that your brain is probably the most intricate and mysterious thing in the world? There are places that dreams take me to that are like no other place in the world! I can recall some dreams where I wake up and I think to myself, 'I hope heaven will be like that' or 'Oh wow! That place was so cool! I need to write it down.' I mean...I've had dreams where I have been on massive old time ships sailing off a waterfall and ascending down into the sky. I've seen colors I've never even seen before. I've met creatures that seem straight out of a fantasy novel. My point is, that I think dreams are cool, weird, scary, mysterious and beautiful. Do I believe every dream means something? No, but I like what my mind can sometimes create (except for nightmares...I HATE those!!!!).

I'm just gonna tell you a dream I had my last semester of college. I wrote it down because I never wanted to leave that dream. At the time, I was highly stressed over things in my personal life that I didn't really feel peace...until I had this dream. I woke up feeling refreshed, alive and strangely intrigued.

Here's how it went (straight out of my journal. My thoughts might seem scattered...):

A Taste of Heaven in a Dream:

"I had a very interesting dream last night. Its one of those dreams where you feel adventurous, but you're at peace. I was on a science trip to Switzerland. We were studying about some ocean creatures that were traveling up a fresh water stream...which is peculiar. The fresh water stream was as clear as crystal and as cold as snow. It traveled up a mountain and through a wooden cabin. I remember the cabin being so warm and cozy. Then my team moved on to this lake that was surrounded by high mountains and greenery. We were testing products/machines that gave you the ability of some animals (boots that could walk on water like the Jesus lizard). Upon going through a rocky archway, the view took my breath away...high mountains, navy/sapphire lake, greenery everywhere! The lake was beautiful. But on the mountain to the right, there was a brightly colored castle engraved into the side of the mountain. Bright yellows, greens, apple red, turquoise...and to get out of the castle, it looked like people had to bobsleigh down. The castle was abandoned, so some color was faded. Someone told me that the man who had built it spent his life preparing it because he thought that once he died, his soul would reside there. Creepy. Upon staring at the castle, I saw something else. A pack of blue whales! Their giant tails came out of the water and the sun shone down on them as if they were splashing liquid light. It had to be one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen.

It was a beautiful dream....where you can literally feel everything around you. The wind on your face, the smell of the trees, the leap of your heart and the coolness of the water...breathtaking. I didn't want to wake up!"

Thoughts

I always find it funny that people tend to put the blame on God when horrible things go wrong. Why are you blaming God? Blame the Enemy who's whole motif is to shame the name of the LORD. We live in a fallen world, but Jesus has overcome the world.