"oh my soul REJOICE! take joy, my King, in what You hear, may it be a sweet, sweet sound in Your ear!!!"

i haven't written in a while...it felt like an appropriate time to take a leave of absence from blogging, as most of my thoughts were more inward...less internet-worthy i guess. but i do want to say...that this week, though not without its saddening moments...has actually been one of the most uplifting. the Lord, the amazing, beautiful Lord has provided for me so much encouragement and joy. it was like as soon as i got to school on monday, BAM! there it was. sources of comfort, compassion, love, joy...on all sides. my friends here...don't even know what they've done for me this week just by LOVING me and being JOYFUL. thank you guys so much...i thank the Lord for you.

omygoodness just PRAISE GOD for all He has done!!! in everything...praise Him...because goshdangit He's still so incredibly faithful and true and loving and so many other things...He is so constant even when we are not! how incredibly awesome is that! i am so so thankful for it. cause dang it i'm inconsistent. like REALLY. but He's just God. ALL THE TIME. hallelujah!!!

i love Him. i LOVE Him!!! let's climb up on a big mountaintop and proclaim it loudly together. can we please?

"the joy of the Lord will be my strength; i will not falter, i will not faint; He is my Shepherd, I am not afraid; the joy of the Lord is my strength...the joy of the Lord, the joy of the Lord, the joy of the Lord is my strength!!! the joy of the Lord will be my strength; He will uphold me all of my days; I am surrounded by mercy and grace; THE JOY OF THE LORD IS MY STRENGTH!!!"

theme song of my LIFE.

"oh, i look good there; i look like a monkey."

my own writing lately has been very much for me and not so much stuff i would like to share via internet. so here are some quotes that have encouraged me the past few days.

"Courage is not simply one of the virtues; it is every virtue at the point of testing." --C.S. Lewis

"and in light of all we have been forgiven of, we will find our hearts fuller and freer to give and receive God's love; so remember your chains, remember the prison that once held you before the love of God broke through; remember the place you were without grace, and when you see where you are now--remember your chains are gone." --Shane & Shane

"But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." --Romans 8:37-39

"But Jesus, overhearing what was being spoken, said to the synagogue official, "Do not be afraid any longer, only keep on believing." --Mark 5:36

"When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled, and said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to Him, "Lord, come and see." Jesus wept." --John 11:33-35

"Lift up your eyes and don't stand still, people of the world and people of the will, move on and on and on down this road; don't give up and don't give in, someday you will be strong again, but there's still miles to go." --Dave Barnes


"We will seek You first Lord, You will hear our voices early in the morning and late in the night; we will sing Your praises, giving You the glory, offering our lives to You a holy sacrifice; may our praise arise as incense oh Lord, to You, and may our worship be a fragrance oh Lord, to You."

"what i love most about rivers is you never step in the same river twice"

so i officially have my first ever flip flop tan. how random is that??

rock on.

"i'm finding that You and You alone can break my fall"

so my headaches have been pretty well under control for a long time. in fact, i kind of forgot for a while just how bad they used to be...i read some blogs i had written like two years ago and was like, wow. they were really bad.

well even though i've still been taking my meds and all that...the headaches have been coming back. i'm not exactly positive of the source, but i'm tending to think it's just the stress of starting my freshman year of college. i'm thinkin that might do the trick. then i wonder how bad they would be if i didn't have my meds...and i'm thankful. but i was really concerned last night--i had to ask a friend to drive my car home from rehearsal because i felt a little bit like passing out.

i really hope this doesn't continue for long. i don't want to remember sophomore and junior years of high school THAT much.

a group of my friends from home are going to a place i love very much for a service weekend this friday thru sunday. i've been trying to figure out for weeks how i might be able to go with them because, you see, i LOVE these service weekends. and i love pine cove. and i love my friends. so basically all in all it would be like the most amazing weekend ever.
but when it comes down to it...as much as it sucks to admit...i just can't afford to spend another weekend away. i need to be here--i need to practice and do the small amount of homework that i didn't already finish, and then i just need to...spend time relaxing HERE. with the friends i have HERE. as much as i love home and the friends there, and as much as i love pine cove, i really need to get used to being here. i'll be here for a long time yet. and i really do love it here. i think sometimes it's just "easier" to go back to the familiar. but then it makes it that much more difficult when i get back here to readjust and get things done. so i need to be here. in Huntsville.
i'll still be a little jealous, i have to admit, of the amazing work my friends get to do at PC. but who's to say i can't serve the Lord right here where i am, right now? yes...pray that i may learn how to serve more willingly WHERE I AM.

more later...need sleep. :)

alright. i have a challenge for you all today:

everything you drop must be picked up with your FEET instead of your hands.

yep. sounds like a good game to me. DO IT! it'll be fun. and then we all get to laugh just a little bit more. :) yay.

have a splendid friday. i know i will.

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. IN THIS IS LOVE, NOT THAT WE LOVED GOD, BUT THAT HE LOVED US AND SENT HIS SON TO BE THE PROPITIATION FOR OUR SINS. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world." --1 John 4:7-14 (emphasis mine)

so....what now????

"Your love will never change..."

AHOY!

general concensus here at Sam...and probably with all college folk right about now...

...we're all tired.

yep. that's basically what you get when you ask someone how they are. "i'm fine...i'm really tired." "I should go to bed earlier." stuff like that. not that we ever actually do anything to fix the tiredness. i think my average hours of sleep have progressively gotten fewer and fewer as the weeks wear on. totally not good for the health, i know. but each day it just seems like when i'm not in class, i'm doing work for a class and then just barely fitting in time to eat...and then i've got to cram in working out and studying and any general time doing something OTHER than class in the early morning hours or late late at night. so that ends up usually leaving only the wee hours of the morning for kayla's sleepy time. then sometimes if i'm totally exhausted there's a power nap between classes...but then the studying gets behind and the whole schedule's thrown off, so...better just not to mess with THAT.

i don't think there exists a way to "catch up" on this kind of sleep deprivation. but i would like to have just one full night of sleep. sometime. cause then...maybe i could function normally, you know, without all the yawning and the droopy eyelids. :)

on a totally different note...it's a gorgeous day in huntsville today. wish i could go out and just enjoy it for a while rather than being cooped up writing a lab report--gross. everyone have an absolutely lovely day!! and get more rest than us college folk, okay?

ah, the small town life.

sometimes it really is in the little things...

...running as fast as you can late at night onto a soccer field because that minivan looks a little too familiar...

...chasing the campus kittens...they're just so darn cute!...

...the cute little small-town coffee house (with the comfy chairs and cheery college workers) that always smells of cinnamon...

...walking "downtown" and climbing on top of the roof of the music store just to sit and talk and look at the stars with a good friend...

yep. life is good.

"cause now it's time to get out of the desert and into the sun...even if it's alone"

--i TOLD alice there is a cricket in my dorm that won't shut up, and i can't find it to kill it. alice doesn't believe me. and you know what????

...that darn cricket is still chirping.

--in choir we got our copies of Faure's Requiem today. copies that we get to keep for ourselves forever and ever with all of our notes written in it...what a treasure. and it even SMELLS wonderful. like that old book smell. except it's new...

--on days when our choir class is longer by a half hour, the head choir director at SHSU, Dr. Allen Hightower III, comes in and teaches us for a while. he's teaching us this absolutely GORGEOUS piece. i nearly come to tears every time we sing it, because the music is just that beautiful, and...because this dude knows what it means to really CONNECT when you're making music. to make music come alive between the people who are making it. i really admire that. anywho...these are some quotes of his that i'd like to share.

"When you say you're an 'artist,' it means that you take your craft so sensitively that you are sensitive to every nuance of it."

"I'm very interested in you as individuals understanding that the music is not (**looking at page of music**) THIS. (**looks up**) The music is US."

**points to a guys music** "Look at me! The music isn't there!"

"How meaningful to do something for someone who is powerless to return the favor."

"Never forget Whose you are."

--today has been nice so far. more low-key than the first few days of the week...which made me think i would never catch back up sometimes. but here i sit, with only one thing to do...relax a little bit. :) well, AND try to finish decorating my room. but that's part of the afternoon relaxation routine. yay for relaxation.

"eleven times out of ten, i slip dancin in the rain"

i really appreciate my choir director more and more every day of class. he really is an excellent musician, and on top of that, he's just a good guy. so today...he comes up in front of the class first thing and has us sit down. and he tells us something along the lines of, "inevitably life is not just a straight line, it's a bunch of peaks and troughs, like music. and last year i guess was a trough year for me because even though all this cool stuff was done musically...i just didn't connect with the students on a human level. so i'm gonna read you an excerpt from this book written by an author whose writings changed my perspectives on life...because i don't want to miss out on connecting with YOU on that human level." the passage that he read us said, in essence, that life, like music, is not just all about one big sound. it's about the silences, too. and it's about the harmonies, and the differences between the loud and the quiet, and so much more....oh, it just went on. i wish i could put the quote here for you to read. it was a really exquisite picture.

to consider...that life is NOT just going, going, never stopping, never changing volume, never noting the beautiful differences in people. that you also have to learn to be still and silent sometimes in order to appreciate the movement and the music. that there is a time for the quiet and a time for the loud. that for work to have value, there also needs to be rest--and vice versa. that the differences between us all come together to create a beautiful symphony. ...it's beautiful, to consider that.

i want to be still just a little more often. i want to learn how to be silent just a little better. i want the wisdom to discern the right time for quietness or loudness or silence. i want to learn to appreciate rest and harmony.

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manufests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place." --2 Corinthians 2:14

"Give me your heart, my son, and let your eyes delight in my ways." --Proverbs 23:26

"...let go of seeking perfection and, instead, seek God, the one who is present in the tangledness of our lives."

i would like to know...

why is it that within the body of Christ we don't love more freely? more willingly? more passionately? with just a little more abandon? why don't we dare to love each other with EVERYTHING that we have?

are you ready for something?

i DARE you.

i dare you to ACTUALLY love your neighbor as yourself. to love strangers enough, that you HAVE to share God's redeeming love with them. to love your brothers and sisters in Christ (even the ones you don't LIKE) enough that it doesn't matter whether or not you like them anymore, or whether or not they're DIFFERENT (gasp!), or how badly they screw up. that WHEN someone screws up (because, hello, we will) you have the grace to show them love in abundance. and i dare you...to serve your brothers and sisters, your parents, your authority figures, your best friend, your worst enemy, a complete stranger...EVERYONE...in the manner that Christ would because you just love them that much.

i dare you to have a love for every individual that overflows from an overwhelming gratitude and love for Jesus Christ and all He has done.

just at least for a while, can we try out NOT being the body of Christ that is known for being too lazy to care about genuinely wanting to KNOW and LOVE others? the one that has a reputation for just mindlessly throwing out memory verses, but not putting any heart into real relationships with the people of the world whose lives are, let's face it, NO MORE OR LESS OF A MESS THAN OUR OWN? instead, let's be honest with each other, admit we're messy. and let's not be afraid to help each other clean up every once in a while.

ready? GO.

"You're the first, Jesus, by Your hand we move; You're the image of the invisible God"

today was really...difficult.

but no...i was prepared for "difficult". mondays are "difficult" days, they just are with the schedule that i have. but today was different. things were thrown at me that had to be handled without taking a lot of time to do so. and it wasn't a lot of outward stuff...it was inward. stuff i had to deal with, within myself, between me and God. and i just felt like with my schedule being so cram packed the way it was today, i didn't even have time to BREATHE, let alone deal with what was going on in me.

so during my quick break when i should have eaten dinner...it happened to be raining...and it seemed like the appropriate time to just postpone dinner and take that "me and God time". i found me a spot, and sat in the rain. for an hour before my psych class, i just sat, eyes closed, in the pouring rain.

i battled inwardly with some things.

i was just still for a while and listened.

the problems aren't all solved. that doesn't happen from just sitting in the rain.

but God and i are closer from that time that i sat and was still...and handed all of it to Him, and then listened.

and that's really what He wants...for His people to draw near to Him.

at the end of what i would consider my hardest day here yet...i can only count myself blessed. so yeah, i go through trials...God NEVER said i wouldn't. in fact, He said i would. but He also said that i can do all things through Him...and He promised He would never leave me. i'd say that's a pretty sweet deal. to say the least.

"If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world." --C.S. Lewis

"grace's amazing hands, they hold me"

lately i've been thinking...

...that it's pretty much the most encouraging thing in the world to watch a new sister in Christ learn what in means to grow in Him. to see her unafraid to admit her mistakes and so incredibly willing to learn from them...to hear her just so READY to learn all she can about her Savior...to see her love freely and unwaveringly, in a way she wasn't able to before...it's just beautiful. inspiring. and like i said, the most encouraging thing i've seen...in a really long time.

...that i want to finish the songs i have written and am writing. well i guess technically that would make me still in the process of writing all of them. but the thing is...i want to finish them. it's like i've got these big pieces of my heart sitting in a journal doing nothing, just...sitting there...begging to be completed. and i want to complete them, and to share them.

...that sometimes it truly is really hard to motivate yourself to do schoolwork, even if you are that weird girl who always liked school. i guess that's just the nature of the beast.

...that this weekend i laughed more than i have in what feels like a really, really long time.

...that every time i leave flower mound i feel like a piece of my heart's being ripped out. it's literally one of the hardest things i have to do, but i love being able to come back and visit sometimes. is it normal for me to get sick to my stomach when i have to say goodbye--again--to people i love? it's just tiring.

...that i'm so so SO very thankful for every single person at Crossroads Bible Church. you have all helped encourage me in so many ways throughout my life and continue to do so even now...you have all been the most incredible blessing, truly. i treasure every moment with every single one of you.

...that i'm SO incredibly thankful for the friendships i have made here at SHSU. God REALLY knew what He was doing on that one...i don't know what i would have done these first few weeks without the friends i've got here. i count myself extremely blessed.

...that above all, God has blessed me beyond anything i could have ever imagined, and all i can do is be thankful and respond in worship.

"refiner's fire, my heart's one desire, is to be holy, set apart for You Lord"

God's really stretching me. i'm being faced with a lot of situations that really boldly ask of me, "WHAT exactly do you really believe?" just today i've been faced with it numerous times. and it's tough...but, praise God! cause i'm growing. i can only hope that He continues to stretch me each day more and more...it will be difficult, and it won't always be "fun"...but it's just one of those beautiful things, ya know? truly beautiful...no matter how difficult.

i think i left my comfort zone behind a long time ago. (happy, brent?)

i attended a small group bible study tonight, as yet another attempt to find a church home here in Huntsville. i think it's safe to say...i'll be back next week. these girls are loving...they genuinely want to grow and learn about Christ...they love the Lord, and they encourage each other and hold each other accountable. i NEED to be a part of a group like that again. praise God that He always provides exactly what we need long before we even realize it's there, or that we need it...
His timing IS pretty impeccable. :)

i love loving people. i'm a little confused right now about some things, but i know this...i need to be loving people with every breath. and i love to love them. pretty sweet deal, huh? cause hey, there are people EVERYWHERE! you know what? i'm gonna go find someone to love.

"I choose to be holy, set apart for You my master, ready to do Your will."

God is amazing.

He never ceases to amaze me...but OH MAN...

this week...some prayers have been answered...in some INCREDIBLE ways. i can't even describe...

i just want to DANCE or something!!!

dang it. i have to go to class. okay...much love to all. I LOVE GOD!!

"The only way God plants His saints is through the whirlwind of His storms." --Oswald Chambers

"and her smile is a symphony that no chamber could play"

i'm home for the weekend...

..and it's...

...weird.

i can't put it in adequate words, but...it's all just very surreal, this being home stuff. somewhere in there during the past two weeks, i think i managed to forget that this place, and the people in it, were really REAL. i mean i really convinced myself somewhere within me that all of this may actually not even exist. and to come back to it was...overwhelming, to give you the biggest understatement of my life.

flower mound doesn't in fact exist, not in the way i remember it. it's different now, and always will be. the people i could always drive ten minutes to see at any time of day are hours away. i feel more like an invader, an outsider, than like i'm at home here. it's just a strange feeling.

i even miss sam houston--just a little. not a lot, by any means...not nearly as much as i've missed everyone here. but part of my heart is already becoming attached to that place and the people there. i'm connected to it now. i even refer to my dorm room as "home" sometimes...like, "hey guys, i have to run home and grab my books for my next class" or whatever. WEIRD.

the way i've processed it so far is this: i'm still deep in the middle of a transition...so of course to come back here in the middle of that transition is gonna be way awkward. and of course every time you leave a place that you've put some roots down in, you're going to miss it some. but that's a GOOD sign...it means that you've allowed yourself to be connected with that community--you've put your heart into it. and i would much rather miss people terribly when it comes time to leave them than never pour my whole heart into my relationships with the people around me. i want to be poured out.

all that to say...it's weird, and i don't like the weird...but i'll take the weird any day if it means i get to give all of myself for the people i love.

i hope at least some part of that makes some remote kind of sense. often when i try to put the innermost ramblings of my heart into writing no one can tell what the cob i'm trying to say. but thanks for reading. i love all of you, really i do. :)