Photo Blog!!

Here is a few of the things we have done on break :)



Making a gingerbread house with Carly, her friend Hannah, and mom :)

Facial glue masks :) Crazy peeling it off! haha so funny I will have to make a seperate blog on it.

Downtown Coupville with sister Lindsey, grandma, and mom- Looking at the little stores.

My grandma came over and spent a couple days with us :) My grandma is such a trooper!

She broke her nose not too long ago..and yet you can't even tell now!

Classic Crime concert in Seattle :)

Carly's choir performance at Home Connection winter party. ( I loved their shoes :P)

Catching up with old friends :) Coffee, Running, Movies....

Carly's choir performance :)

Thats it for now!!

Home for the Holidays

So it all started when we had a great idea of making these cookies from a blog recipe, called Ugly Cookies. They looked and sounded super good on the blog... Made of grahm crackers, carmel, chocolate and walnuts..we decided to go for it.

However, in the midst of cooking them for too long we failed.

After a quick run to the store to get more butter, and a long discussion in the dairy isle as to what the difference between salted and unsalted butter was, I finally allowed my brain to snap back into school mode and decided that salted has salt in it and unsalted doesn't... Lacey had a good laugh at me :P

And back to the cookie story... My mom (note it was just her this time) remade them while we watched and chiseled or scraped...the burnt ones off of the cookie sheet.

And the moral of this bonding time of making cookies (Since there always has to be a moral) was...

If there were never burnt cookies in life..how would you know the difference between the bad and good ones? :P

The End.

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Quiting Points -
Wayne Cordeiro

"Because God chooses us to be his hands and feet, Satan wants to do all he can to destroy us. He makes us want to quit." - Wayne Cordeiro

Today Wayne Cordeiro came and spoke at our Chapel service at NCU. He spoke on our quiting points in our lives. As this was perfect timing, I was thinking about this in my life. Lately I have been struggling through as season in life of feeling super discouraged and have been allowing all the things that Satan knows gets at me tear me down, leaving me sitting. It makes me want to do nothing but the minimum and be isolated and sleep. I have been pushing through this season wondering why I am falling into this roller coaster life of emotions. Through talking to friends about feeling so down, and unloved, unworthy, and an "outcast" where ever I go at times... to seeing counselors... to considering depression pills or vitamins to level out the chemicals in my brain, I didn't know why I was feeling like this and letting myself be so tossed up in confusion.

All I knew and would scream in my head was, "I WANT OUT!". I don't know how else to explain it, but that I felt like I was fighting this big thing that in reality wasn't really there. It hurt. It sucked. It ruined me from living life and interacting with people. It was not me.

Although it has not even been a week since I started feeling done with discouragement...I honestly believe that God is healing me completely. Through my times of crying out to him in question and confusion and hurt, I am noticing his rescue daily.

He has shown me the Truth and light of the emotional trap I was falling into...

He brought to light the reality of me going to Africa in 49 days for a whole semester! If you don't know me that well, this has been my only dream that I have had since like the 7th grade. I am not one who has their life planned out to the tee with the job that I want to have, or even the future besides doing something in Africa... not that anyone really does. But I a lot of times feel more clueless than most. However, thats besides the point..The point is that Africa is the only vision that I can firmly say is from God, even though I don't know why and how he is going to use me there, and because its a vision, Satan has been destroying my confidence upon going through drawing my attention inward.

God has also been revealing to me repetively through books, people, sermons (Wayne Cordeiro) that Satan will do eveything he can do keep me from pursuing my dream...or upon going, destroying any confidence or opened eyes to a future after this Africa step. Satan desires me to do the bare minimum. He wants me to not dream on. He wants me to just go to Africa and come back unaffected....untouched by the people, and unwilling to do anything in response to my time there. He wants me to leave my heart at home and not follow it. He wants me to believe all the lies.

"The Devil is defeated but not stupid. He knows exactly where to puncture your heart, to get you and keep you down. He can't get at Jesus... So he gets to his kids." - Wayne Cordeiro

I am done falling into discouraging emotional traps of the Devil! My God is my strength and I can't let Satan take over my life any longer. Even if I fall, he is capable of picking me back up and reminding me of what he really thinks of me. I have absolutely no clue as to what I am going to be doing for God in my future. But I don't want to miss what he is calling me in today or even the next through believing Satan's lies. In reality my life is soooooo good right now! And I am sooo blessed!

Just to name a few: I am going to an amazing school right now :). I have an awesome family with awesome parents :). I have amazing friends and still being blessed with more where ever I go :). I can run where ever and when ever I want to :). I am going to Africa :). I can read my Bible and actually hear and feel God nudging at my heart :). I am going to be an aunt soon :). I have no medical problems (minus weird tail bone injuries that just make me laugh) :P And even if circumstances don't go well and are at their worst, I can still have a Godly deep joy that exceeds all of my understanding (Philippeans) :) How much better can life get on earth?!?

Thanks be to God, my hope, joy and constant savior. :)

I got mail!!!...

I got a love letter from my little sister Carly in the mail yesterday!!!!!!!!!!!! :)






The End.

THERE IS HOPE FOR ETERNITY.

EYES OF.... THE SAD.

THE HURTING.

THE SECRET.

THE DEEP.

THE DOUBTFUL.

THE SCARED.

THE HELPLESS.

THE INNOCENT SADNESS.

THE MISTREATED.

THE ABUSED.

THE STRONG HEARTED.

THE INNOCENT.

THE BROKEN. THE ABUSED. THE SCARED. THE UNSAFE. THE DESPERATE. THE LONELY. THE NEEDY. THE HUNGRY. THE LOST. THE WEAK. THE HURTING. THE SAD...

LOOK INTO SOMEONES EYES TODAY AND LISTEN TO WHAT THEY ARE SAYING OVER THEIR WORDS. OUR HEARTS ARE ATTATCHED TO OUR EYES. ALTHOUTH THEY DON'T SPEAK WITH A FAMILIAR VOICE OF WORDS, THEY TELL US MORE THAN WORDS COULD EVER.

TELL THEM THERE IS HOPE.

RAIN DROPS ARE FALLING ON MY HEAD.

I love the rain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It reminds me of home :) :).

Playdough.

"Love the Lord your God with all your HEART mind and soul."- Matthew 22:37-40

Playdough hearts.

3 clumps of playdough.

Clump # 1= This is type is taken out of its container and left untouched. Everyone knows what happens when you leave playdough out overnight, it doesn't just sit and stay all moist, and fine, but it actually drys up completely and becomes surprisenly hard. You can't mold it, you can't play with it...its useless.

Clump #2= This type of playdough is taken out of the container yet molded and played with and held. I haven't tried it yet, but my hypothesis would be that if you were to take a ball of playdough and constantly work it, and play with it, it would take longer to dry out vs. the untouched clump of dough. However, to make myself sound even smarter....(jk) I know that our hands extract the moisture from playdough, or clay. So, sooner or later, clump #2 will end up drying out as well.

Clump #3= (Get ready this is the most exciting, joyfully explained clump of dough yet...so stop skimming this...and actually pay attention to this one.. ;)

Ok, this clump is the clump of dough..or clay that is kept in a potter's hand. A perfessional potters hand for this matter. A professional potter knows that he must keep dipping his hands in water and how often he must do it in order to keep his work from drying out and cracking.

These three clumps of playdough I saw as our hearts. There are people who have such hardened hearts from past events and circumstances that they don't let any hand whether its a persons, or God's touch them, and help them heal.

Then there are people like me who have grown up in a Christian home and setting all of their lives or they just know how to do the acts of "love" for people, and to fall into the empty motions of doing church, and worshipping God the right way. We know how to mold our own hearts into looking like God's will for us real well. Our actions are beautiful looking and admireable yet our heart is not in it, our motives are wrong. I call this the "look good heart". They know how to mold our hearts very well but because our hands draw moisture from the clay, we never the less always come back cracked, like the playdough does, and feeling useless. We come back to God over and over again admitting that we can't do it on our own. And for some reason down the line we give into the lie of believing that we are not allowed to actually care for someone, and that we don't have anything to offer.

Rob Bell, in his Nooma video titled, "Sunday" Explains this type of heart very well as he uses the analogy of bringing home his wife flowers. If he came home to his wife holding flowers and blessed her with them, and then immediately saying to her, while putting them in her hands, "I got you these flowers only because its my duty as a husband and its what we are supposed to do." The whole meaning of his gift for his wife is lost. In fact, he explains that she probably wouldn't even want them anymore because it no was out of the heart, but an empty act. So often how we do this. God wants our hearts, not our actions and sacrifices.

"Love the Lord your God with all your HEART, mind and soul."

The third heart however is a heart compeletly surrendered to God. The heart that is daily set in God's strong and skilled hands. The Potter's hand. A heart that is constantly calling out hungry for Jesus to annoint it and keep it wet. A prayer that says, God, here I am as I love on that friend who I don't get along with at all lately, God here is my heart as I come in contact with the person who makes my coffee, or the Wal-Mart employee who is ringing up my items. God, here is my heart as I pray. Not to give "flowers", but my heart in relationships. God here is my heart. I can't mold my own heart. God, mold my heart. Keep it soft and open.

I don't mean for this to be a cheesy blog about the Potter's hand and how he molds us and shapes us into how he designed us. (Even though its awesome, and so true) But I mean for this to be something that you really read, and challenge yourself to think about as you go on with your day today. What clump of dough are you during the day?

So I really pray this for us:

That we can live not as a heart that sits, and is locked away from being touched or affected by anyone or thing. Not as a heart that is being molded by ourselves, people, things, circumstances, because even though its being molded and there is heart in this, it will sooner or later dry up, it will break. It will stop being able to be molded, and come up discouraged everytime. God help us to give our hearts over to you before we even think about starting our day. Your hand annoints. Your hand molds by constantly keeping it from drying out. You allow love to flow with out our hearts growing hard or cracked. God you do annoint. God you do refresh. God you come and soften hearts. Even if we have the hardest of hardest hearts, you really do come and lavish our hard, cold hearts with such grace, love, and the beauty of your sweet presence. Amen :)

Be Still...

God's comfort..







Once upon a time, there was a little baby girl and a father. The little girl would have a horribly hard time falling asleep at night. She would scream, and cry in her crib. Not being quite old enough to understand fully who her dad was, her dad would come to her room and place his hand on her head and his other on her back and whisper softly in her ear, "Im right here, everything is going to be ok...calm down now..." and would repeat his soft calming words until she relaxed and fell asleep.



After days went on of this his little girl began to understand who her father was and actually recognized his touch and soft words. She started realizing that her daddy came to her everytime she would cry out in fear. With the new knowledge of who her dad was, she soon began to not only scream and wimper in fear with no knowledge of who was to come to her, but she started calling out to her father by name... "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" And surely enough he came to her just as faithfully as the times before, and whispered the same words, "Its alright honey, I am right here again, there is nothing to be afraid of...I love you..." and with his hand on her head and back..she would calm down and fall soundly asleep.




Even after this stage, the daughter began to discover more and more about her father's faithfulness and developed a trust with her dad. She started to see that everytime she called out, her father was always right there, calming her down, comforting her, and helping her rest. Because of her fathers faithfulness the little girl wouldn't cry out in fear anymore, but would simply say her fathers name..."dada, daddy" and knew that he was right there and would come again and again and again.

...........................................................................................................................................................................

God's comfort is like this. The more and more you cry out...the more and more you will recognize his presence and the way he comforts you not only before you sleep..but even throughout the day whether its taking a walk, talking with a friend, having a flower stick out to you ...birds.. river..ocean...dirt even... the homeless. Don't be afraid to call out to our heavenly father. :)

He is faithful and does come to us. He runs to us and lavishes his unfailing love on us, even greater than that of any earthly father.

All you need is L-O-V-E.

Hello hello hello fellow readers. I haven't written in a little while....

What to write about...

Lindsey is now officially dormed in to her new dorm. And we are officially attending the same college. YAY!!!
Times of day that I get to interact with my sister:

1. Breakfast= sometimes.
2. Lunch = most of the time.
3. Dinner= all the time.....
4. second dinner, 4th lunch, 10th breakfast...never. (maybe because those don't exist...) :P
5. When she needs a back massage...or the other way around :)
6. Passing in the hall...most of the time we pretend that we don't know each other... joking again...

Actually what really what happens within passing each other is this:

Setting: Sidewalk outside of class
People: Lindsey and Megan
mood: Love and passion and joy..
surroundings: Jealous bystanders watching the love scene. Trees. racoons. and buildings.

Act 1: Megan comes frolicking out from behind a bush just waking up from an afternoon snooze, as she is making her way to IDS 101 class. The birds are chirping, the breeze is just perfect, and butterflies are dancing around in circles around her head.

Act 2: Lindsey comes storming out of her Grief and Loss class, sad and depressed beyond any word in the world. Clouds of grey and storms of heavy rain begin to fill in all around her. The darkness began to get soo heavy in its darkness that if you were to put a piece of glass under the weight, the glass would shatter in millions of sharp cutting shards of glass just as hurtful and depressing as lost souls...blackness...greys...abyss..black holes...nightmares... death...plagues...turmoil..famine...disease...pestilence...You get the picture.

Act 3: Megan sees this deeeeeeeeep deeeeeeep depression from afar and turns her frolicking into a full out mad sprint of compassion and deep love towards her without a sway of direction in her locked eyes upon her sisters soul.

Act 4: Lindsey looks up from her state of doom and connects her greenish, brown eyes upon her best sister's.... with simply that one connection her clouds begin to be pierced by great rays of sunlight...from the sun :P... and her clouds and rain begin to fade away ..not from evaporation but only by the great mood of love and joy and compassion that the two begin to start feeling amoungst each other.

Act 5: After approximately 1 min and 20 seconds of this love...which in love language is 6 hours of slow moving joy and peace, the two sisters meet in a long embace. The tears begin to flow, all the surroundings turn from any darkness and BEACONS of light begin burst with radiance upon their heads, hearts, holy minds, and hands. (Beacons are our mascot)

Act 6: All fellow classmates/schoolmates within the premises begin to drop their jaws in jealousy of such love two sisters can have. Nothing like this sisterly love has been seen before. As the love encounter comes to an end (only because its dinner time and i am hungry) the two of them walk or frolick off to wherever..because it really doesn't matter when all you need is love...(thats from a song :P)

The end.

So...basically long story..good story..short, My sister and I are bonding quite well here at college.

Thanks for reading!!

(however, rafting trip= sister attack. Consisted of me jumping from my raft onto hers and with help... plummetting her into the icy, river water. But don't worry! because I got the same attack back at me min. later. and a big bruise on the arm from two people pulling me one direction, and outsiders pulling me the other :P)

Ok official The end.

6 am.

My family is coming with Lindsey today around 5!

Plans that they don't know about...

1. Frozen yogurt with toppings and the Campus sub shop :)

2. Moving in Lindsey into her dorm room which I have already seen :)

3. Shopping?

4. Touring the campus..

5. Dinner!

6. Riding Elephants

7. random surprises...ha

(if you didn't know, 6. is not real)

Today I learned about God's rest.

“HE MAKES ME LAY DOWN IN GREEN PASTURES.”
ps. 23:2

Yesterday I was tired, going, and moving for no reason….my mind was jogging and running in so many directions…my soul was so uptight. My mind was soo gahhh. But Somewhere between all of that, I finally just stopped…layed down on my dorm floor and rested. Listened to my heart beat start beating normally and listened… and was reminded that rest is good. That God is good.

GREEN PASTURES ARE NOT NORMAL.

The shepherd himself has to come in and water it, take out the rocks…work.

Jesus on the cross. Nails driven through his hands and feet, body whipped, face spat on... He has created green pastures for us to rest in His grace :). A gift with a mighty cost not for us...but from him because he truly does love us..

My questions? Why did it have to be done this way? Why did Jesus have to die on a cross? How can I live this out as a reality over a story that I feel like I have to convince myself of? How do I live getting everything that God has truly done for me...and be thankful..?

.............................................................................................................................................

“The sheep doesn't understand how the oil that the shepherd annoints their head with repels the flies. The sheep doesn’t understand how it heals the wounds. In fact, all the sheep knows is that something happens in the presence of the shepherd. And that’s all we need to know as well.”
- Safe in the Shererd's Arms

LORD, I GIVE MYSELF TO YOU; MY GOD, I TRUST YOU.”- (Ps. 25:1-2)


I REST.

And the heat is on

It is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo hot here! Ok, not so ok that you can't walk outside without fainting, but the humidity is a lot higher here than Washington making it a nasty feeling heat. I am sitting in my dorm room pretty much dying as I am writing this.

Within the last couple of days we have done a few cool things:

We went to Honeymon State park and did a rigorous sand dune workout. Running up hills of sand work your legs a ton and makes you feel as if you have cement blocks tied to your feet.. but the good thing is that we only had to do three of up and over and back.

After we got to have fun jumping off of some small cliffs into the sand. I took some really awesome pics and videos of these however, sad and super bummer news........................... After I had my camera with me in the school van on the way back...but now I currently have no idea where its at! :( I am waiting and praying that someone found it, and turned it in.

Another highlight: Pool workouts at 6am :) I usually don't like pools at all because I look at them as big cement holes filled with water that you float around in...for fun? ha.

But doing our workout in it was actually pretty fun. We all started "water jogging" with these floaty belts that keep you up. We would go from one end of the pool to the other and then inbetween do water exercises like high knees, butt kickers, and running in place. I guess water workouts are supposed to give you the same benefits as running does, like they are equal...however, with swimming, if you don't do the water jogging right its ez to just float through the workout and not get the full effects. (Which I started doing for the first part..)

I am getting ready to head off to this church / college group with the team so I hope I like it so I can start getting plugged in with a good church.

Once again, its really weird having the whole team wanting to be involved in going to church and stuff.

Its also still sometimes a little hard connecting with another team, but it is definately getting better as I try to focus on getting to know one person at a time.

I really wish I had pictures to put up...but until I get my camera back, it will have to be postponed...

Thanks for reading about my life :)

If you have time... you should post something random in my comment box about what you have done this summer so I can hear what you have been up to as well!

New sheets are life changing :)

Closet ..

Bed! Thanks to my lil sister carly and her pro sewing skills I have my whole intitials in pillows :)

My dorm room! I really like having the bed up super high. However, in order to get up and down I have to climb up on the fridge, then the microwave, and then climb the bed ladder. Its a workout in itself. I am just waiting for the night that I really have to use the bathroom... :)

Today we did our workouts and then headed back to the school...

Highlights..played signs for at least an hour tonight with the team, got to upload 4 movies on my ipod from a teammates computer...The cafeteria pretty much spoils you with good...and healthy food. Today I had a super good omelet..

Went to trader joes and bought real peanut butter and trail mix and got sheets for my bed finally :)

Still trying to learn to rest in conversations..and not always run away from them which I am soo good at.

I think thats all I am going to post tonight.

Tomorrow we leave at 6:30 am for devos down by a river.

Its soo weird running at a Christian school now! The coach talking about praying, and Bible reading, and team building. Its actually pretty cool and encouraging.

Oregon College Life: Day #1

Ok, here I am, sucked into the world of blogging... :P

Yesterday my dad and I headed out from Oak Town in the morning and journeyed an 7 hour car ride. It was awesome being able to have one on one time with my dad before leaving for awhile. I had a great car ride of listening to The Monkeys, drinking coffee, talking about life and lectures of how not to get killed, and what to do if I am kidnapped... :), sleeping, reading, (There is a lot you can do when you are forced to sit in one place for hours).

When we arrived I hauled all of my stuff up to my dorm room... #229. As I began to unpack everything I started realizing how much of the stuff that I brought I don't even need. Ha.
(But mom, if you are reading this, I did forget shampoo and wash in the shower, my clothes in the dryer, and a sheet and some extra hangers. I will call you later :P) The rooms are pretty nice. I get a very springing matress thats really comfortable, a desk with drawers...a closet, and a beautiful view of a bar. I haven't gotten everything situated, but when I do I will take some pictures and post them.

Last night I went out to a taco place to say goodbye to my dad one last time. Lots of tears and very emotional... jk..not really. Sorry dad, I love you and know that I will see you lots and lots more times.

I think I am really going to enjoy having everything soo close. The Starbucks is not even a block down from the school...A cool ice cream place... a little bakery.... 7-11... Not to mention the University of Oregon.

This morning we left for some for some running trails that followed the Mackenzie River. It was super pretty and fun trails to run on. We did a 100 min run (50 in and 50 out) which added up to be about 12 miles. Afterwards we iced our legs in the river, which was way way too cold for me.However there are soo many rafters here its crazy! It makes me super pumped to go super intense rafting as its on my list of things to do along with sky diving :) So if anyone ever wants to go instense river rafting with me its only a 7 hour drive with a ready sense of adventure :)

Then after that we all piled in the vans and took off with the intention of hanging out at some cool hot springs that the coach knew about. However, when we got there, we found out that had to pay 5 bucks each and clothing was optional... Lets just say that the people that were already there took advantage of that and had us turned around heading back out to get our money back real fast. :P

After that we all ate lunch at the vans and headed over to a bridge that quite a few of the runners jumped off of. Usually I would be all for it, but I was pretty cold already and didn't feel like sitting in a van for an hour all cold without a towel. The water was soo super clear though! When you looked down from the bridge you could see directly through the water as if it was....ice? I don't know how else to explain it ha.

Ok, so, if you aren't bored yet...you probably are because I don't know how to write good blogs yet..haha but, after jumping off bridges we drove back to the school.

We all had chill time until dinner at 6:30 so I hung around campus..worked on unpacking somemore. Thought about taking a nap but decided to just get a cup of black coffee instead and go check out the little stores around campus. I got to talk to my lovely pregnant sister Allie today and hear the news that she is having a BOY! So exciting...However, I bought this really cute baby summer dress at a garage sale in hopes that she would have a girl... but oh well. I love love love to look at baby clothes, shoes, hats..anything baby so I can't wait to pick something out. Allie is going to make a great mom. :)

For dinner I had a baked potato with ketchup, cheese and sourcream and veggies. mmmmmm

Campus food: I love it! They have lots of foods I usually live off of such as bananas, apples, oranges, peanut butter and jelly, good bread, salad...

Then they have a hot food thing that I dont know what its called where you can order things to be made such as hamburgers, steak, and others..

You can basically have cereal whenever you want to...

Lots of juices and milk and CHOCOLATE MILK :)

However, there is a rumor that during the couple weeks that athletes are here before all the students, they really spice it up... as long as they keep the peanut butter and jelly thats all I care about :)

Bored yet? Blogging is a lot of work ha.

Hmmm, so after dinner I attemted to play a game of pool with a very nice girl I met named Melissa, but failed badly, so I left for my room and we lofted my bed which I am currently laying on. It feels like a cave. I can touch my ceiling, and my desk is underneath it. Its a pretty cool setting and it creates more space. I will post a picture up of it when I finish putting everything away.

The last thing that we did today as a team was got together at 8 and talked about nutrition and runners.

Our coach who is a nurtition teacher has a little different opinion on foods opposed to when I was at Everett. She says that things such as soda, and candy, and stuff like that are not all that bad..and there aren't any foods that you can't have. Just make sure everything stays at a minimum and you will be fine. I also found out that I need to consumer 523- around 600 grams of carbs a day. I don't know exactly what this looks like..but considering that I pretty dense carbohydrate snack like a bagel is about 25 grams of carbs, thats a lot of carbs for one day!!

Then after the meeting I was introduced to a game of ULTIMATE spoons. I think you guys would actually like it. Everyone sits in one room and plays spoons like you usually do, but instead of having the spoons be in the middle of the circle, they are all placed out of the room at the end of the dorm hall way. Its pretty crazy! I played a couple rounds until I was out, but as I am typing this I will every so often hear what sounds like a hurd of elephants running down the hall way. Its pretty dangerous too but a fun game.

Thats about it for today. And because its almost 11 I feel myself fading fast so I think I am going to post some pics and wrap it up and hopefully not allow the next ones be so long and drawn out. ha. Thanks for reading and keeping up with my life! If you have a blog don't forget to keep up with yours so I can keep up with your life! And if you don't...get one :)

Current thought and feelings: Still in transition mode. Pretty tired. Learning how to connect with everyone and get comfortable with new life and new state. Praying that each day becomes more and more comfortable and enjoyable. Missing friends and Washington. Also stoked for a new change. Although its hard now, I know that because its uncomfortable, its good and once more in the loop of how things work, I will not regret choosing this school.

i have more pics..just cant figure it out yet