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.

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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..?

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“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!