A Thankful Heart

Being Thanksgiving, I thought I'd share what I am thankful for this year.  I'm thankful for how much God has blessed me with great friends (new and old) and family and many other blessings of things as simple or maybe even cheesy as a place to live or having a job. Also, I know my whole family is thankful for my Granddaddy getting through heart surgery well, even though he's still recovering and we wished he could have enjoyed thanksgiving dinner with us. This and another situation with my friend's family, makes me even more thankful for good health that God gives us and the help of great doctors and advanced medicine.  I could never go into that field for many reasons and really admire those who do.
Also, with so many tragedies that have happened recently, specifically up at JMU, I have learned to be thankful simply for life when life can so quickly end at any moment.

A great verse that I found today is 1 Thessalonians 5:18 which is "...give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."  I certainly can apply this to my life because I should be thankful for every situation I'm in and know that it is all in God's will, like the example I gave and also for other things in my life whether it's the fun times with friends or the stress of staying on track in school.

P.S. Another thing I have to add to what I'm thankful for, on a less serious note (but no actually I am seriously thankful for), is razors..like seriously I had no idea how much I was going to miss using one this month-"no shave november", which my roommate and I both decided to do.

Well hey it's been awhile (and that's def. not exaggerated)!
So I'd say that a lot has happened since I last wrote on here (so I will do a run-down on what I've been up to and especially say where my heart is)..
First of all freshman year came to a close too soon and yet at the same time I was glad and then there was a great summer of no stress of school, catching up with a few friends, making new ones where I work, visiting one my good friends from Jmu, going to the beach with my family, and reading all 7 Harry Potter books finally! Through all that I was not very disciplined in my faith like I had started being at school in the spring, probably because I was just in that lazy summer mood (except when I had to work a lot to save up money and keep busy). So that made it great that when I came back to school, my small group was going to study the spiritual disciplines including ones I don't have much practice in like fasting.  Though I am definitely working through still becoming more disciplined even with this semester being a little more stressful dealing with my major and anything else making me struggle, I remind myself that I shouldn't do it just because we're supposed to but because we want to and need to and I can definitely say that I really need to, not just sometimes but continually!
Other things that have happened since being back at school have included fun times with my awesome crazy suite mates that I am blessed to have- going to pick sunflowers on campus wearing all black, some of us dying our hair with pink streaks (or in my case red), our typical movie nights on most weekends, and other crazy random moments:) Oh and another random adventure was contra dancing (which is basically just folk dancing) not with any of the suite mates but laura, someone else I will live with next year. I definitely enjoy these moments because I would go crazy! I love being an art major but in my design methodology class has definitely been testing me and the professor even admitted it might be like design bootcamp and that is for sure, but now all of our projects are done and I just have to go back and make changes here and there now that I know what I'm doing.  Now I'm just trusting God on the issue of having not been able to get into the next class I need to move on in my major.
So I will update soon on how that goes and on my spiritual disciplines too!

Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine

1. 1. "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
      Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
      Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
      Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
      • Refrain:
        This is my story, this is my song,
        Praising my Savior all the day long;
        This is my story, this is my song,
        Praising my Savior all the day long.
   2. Perfect submission, perfect delight,
      Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
      Angels, descending, bring from above
      Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
   3. Perfect submission, all is at rest,
      I in my Savior am happy and blest,
      Watching and waiting, looking above,
      Filled with His goodness, lost in His love."
   4. I have to say this is one of my favorite hymns and it is actually where I got the title of my blog from. There's a home video of my brother and I singing it when we were little kids, with the hearth as our stage and our parents as the audience. We didn't know all the words so we repeatedly sang "this is my story, this is my song" over and over. You know -the typical cute home video. 
   5. But now this song means more after I learned that it was one of my Mamaw's favorites when they played it at her funeral last week. I knew there were more words to the song like "praising my savior all the day long," but I learned the rest of the lyrics then.  It makes me think how sometimes we can forget that he is truly ours. It is especially great to know that she knew He is hers and that she is with Him even though we miss her here! I will always think of her now with this song and all the memories growing up visiting my grandparents' old house-baking christmas cookies, doing puzzles, the smell of our clothes after visiting, the 5 dollars she would sneakily give us whenever we saw her, all the wonderful love of a grandparent even as they get too old and move to a new house. Love you always Mamaw!

I'm quitting this blog...April Fools!!

This year I think the weather is just playing a massive april fools joke on us.  It is supposed to be spring-happy and sunny outside.  I want to be able to go out on the quad:(  Although there were a few sunny moments, at the same time it was apparently snowing a little bit andddd it's been all cold and wintery all week!  not cool. :/

So I don't usually do anything for this "holiday" but when I remembered what today was, much thanks to facebook statuses and people having fake birthdays or relationships statuses, I realized I still have to watch out because I'm very gullible at times and someone could easily fool me-more around some people than others but yeah, haha. So as this day is not over I am being careful to think about what people are saying to me so I do not fall for their malicious jokes (woah big word! it's not like i'm in college or anything)
Well that is all for now!

Rest for the weary

So I am loving so far just resting this spring break from things back at school. Yes, I have projects and papers that need to be worked on some to make the week that I come back less stressful, but I still get to be at home not having to get up early for classes. It is great catching up on sleep especially :)
Today, I read in Exodus (I'm reading through the bible in a year) and in chapter 16 verse 30 it says the people rested on the seventh day.  I was reminded of Matthew11:28 which says "Come to me all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest"). This is comforting to me now because as much as I love it at school of course, it can sometimes be tiresome in all that is expected to be done. I will be keeping this verse in mind when I go back to everything and remember that God is there and restores us each day.
After repenting to God last week at small group some things that have been in my heart, I also realized how much I was looking forward to a break so that I could really rest and be restored from these things I repented.
~Also it was no coincidence that this psalm of the day popped up on my blog before writing this- "The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul."(Psalm 23) 

Haven't quit yet, I promise!

Hello again! Been busy this past week so I have not gotten around to writing on here.  As you can see I have added new 'gadgets' on here. First I got the virtual fishies which you can actually give food to by clicking in the square -I saw it on my friend's blog and wanted it too just for fun. There is also my flickr photo stream at the bottom which only has a small selection of my photos that I've taken in the past year but I will add more (I also used to have another account but I can't get to it now). And finally, I added daily psalms bible verses, which isn't actually daily because it changes whenever you refresh the page but whatever.
Well that is all for now. I don't have time for a longer post and may not get to write one until this week is over, with all the work that has to be done before spring break, so stay tuned:)

The Divine Invitation: RSVP to God's call

Jeremiah 29:11 was a verse I focused a lot on when graduating high school which is basically about God having a plan for our life, and this is still one of my favorite verses.
Being in college now, the pressure of what we are going to do with our life is great. Though I am lucky to have chosen a major in studio art instead of starting undeclared, I have not been free from doubts as to whether I am where God calls me to be and the insecurities along with that. But what I did not realize was that this is not important as far as God's calling goes.
Today, I got to hear from an amazing speaker at Intervarsity's Women's Conference.  In her message she spoke of His calling simply being a divine invitation to embrace the salvation of God. Now I wasn't exactly expecting that because I had embraced this salvation at a young age and I thought we were going to talk more about how to know what we are supposed to be doing with our life.  But that is not what His call is about. His call is for us to simply follow Him. These other things that we do are simply spiritual gifts to help in living for Him.
This semester, with winter conference, women's conference and my awesome small group in which we've been studying The Gospel-centered Life, I have seen my faith in God growing and I realized today just how much He's been calling me to truly follow Him in my life and how many times I don't answer this call or just don't recognize the call. She also said we are to focus on the caller not the calling. I know now that I can't complete the calling unless I grow to know him more each day which isn't always easy with the distractions in our life.
 A verse that the speaker gave today that sums up what I have learned in just this past month is 2 Timothy 1:8-9


⁸ So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. ⁹ He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time


Going back to Jeremiah, in verses12-14 I now see in that passage what I hadn't focused on before and that is we are to seek Him and listen so that he can restore our lives and then we can share this gospel with others.


http://www.absolutelyrics.com/lyrics/view/brooke_fraser/c.s._lewis_song/
also whoever happens to read this check out this song..it was playing on pandora as I wrote this. Hadn't heard it before but I love the lyrics!:)

~p.s. just trying out this blog which will probably be a combination of random things and we shall see how long it lasts