the first week.

i have been trying to think of how to describe these past 7 days...

a dream, perfection, hilarious, vulnerable, heaven, comfortable, normal, exciting, hard, frustrating, peaceful, interesting, life changing, unbelievable, indescribable, humbling, breaking, and the MOST FUN of my life!!

the list could go on. there is just no way to put the first week of marriage into words. there have been so many mixed emotions. it has been such a whirlwind...

all growing up you have this idea of what married life is going to be like... you think about what it will be like greeting your husband when he comes home from work, what it will be like to wake up with him and cook breakfast, what it will be like to go on dates and then not have to say goodbye after, what it will be like to just hang out and watch a movie, what your first fight will be like.... at least as a girl, we spend SO MUCH TIME thinking, dreaming and trying to create in our heads what it will be like to be married.

it is so much better than i ever imagined!!

because in all that thinking and wondering, i couldn't imagine the feeling in my heart when i greeted jake when he came home from work, and i couldn't imagine the overwhelming peace in my heart when we woke up together and then made pancakes, and i couldn't imagine how happy i would be to just hang out and watch Despicable Me.... i didn't know that my heart had the capability to love this much.

[granted, we are still in the "honeymoon" phase, but whatever!!! it is the best!]

all leading up to our wedding, i was reading The Meaning of Marriage by Timothy Keller. incredible book. i HIGHLY recommend it, even if you are no where near marriage. in it he said:

"...it is because marriage has both strong horizontal and vertical aspects to it... the covenant made between a husband and a wife is done "before God" and therefore with God as well as the spouse. to break faith with your spouse is to break faith with God at the same time. This is the reason that so many traditional Christian wedding services have both a set of questions as well as a set of vows. In the questions, each spouse is asked something like this:

will you have this woman to be your wife? and will you make your promise to her in all love and      

honor, in all duty and service, in all faith and tenderness -- to live with her, and cherish her,

according to the ordinance of God, in the holy bond of marriage? 

Each spouse answers "I will"... but notice they are not speaking to each other. they are looking forward technically answering the minister... what they are really doing is making a vow to God before they turn and make vows to one another. they are "speaking vertically" before they speak horizontally. they get to hear the other person stand up before God, their families, and all the authority structures of church and state and swear loyalty and faithfulness to the other. now, BUILDING on this foundation, they take one another by the hand and say something like this:

I take you to be my lawful and wedded husband, and I do promise and covenant, before God and these witnesses, to be your loving and faithful wife. in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall life.

...so the covenant with and before God strengthens the partners to make a covenant with each other. Marriage is therefore the deepest of human covenants."

this past week i have thought a lot about what that all means and i think the above truth is why this week has been so incredible...

just like when you first accept Jesus Christ as your savior, there is an unruly eagerness in your soul to learn about Him, praise Him, spend time in prayer and in the word, and to walk with him faithfully everyday. then as time goes by, there are ups and downs, but ultimately there is always the deep rooted desire to know and be known by Christ that draws you back into communion with Him.

because of the covenant's taken before our friends and family and then before God and each other, i see it as an earthly reflection of the above. in this "honeymoon phase" there is an unruly eagerness in my soul to learn Jake, to make over him, to spend time in conversation with him, and to walk  with him faithfully everyday of my life. and we both know, that as time goes by there will be ups and downs, but ultimately there is always the deep rooted desire to know and be known by Jake, and that draws me more and more in love with him.

that is why the day-to-day things have been so fun... because  i am learning jake. and what has been the most incredible thing and biggest answer to prayer is that as i have learned jake (in just 1 week), i have been pushed more and more to learn of my Heavenly Father.

abc.

the worst. date. ever.

in light of everything, i was reading through my drafts and found this that i, for some bizarre reason, had never posted.

[written 12/2011]

i have been looking forward to thanksgiving break for a while now. i was ready for a break from school, catching up on sleep, relaxing and reading some Chronicles of Narnia, hanging with my family.... and going huntin' with Tanner and my Daddy-O.

i had told literally everyone i knew that i was getting to hang out with some of my favorite boys and finally live out the phrase, "if its brown, its down" and i. was. pumped.

so we set out on the 11 hour drive and had some *quality* bonding time. i learned important lessons like... never sit down-wind of a skinny man (a.k.a. tanner.) anyways... head up to illinois to the cabin and some beautiful land up there.

after getting all our clothes all laid out, my dad set his alarm for 4:30 am and we all headed for bed. i may or may not have prayed for a fun filled day full of dead deer....

4:30am rolls around and i felt like it was christmas when dad came in to wake us up! we got dressed,ate some breakfast, and headed for then stands. T got all set up in his own stand and then dad came back and we went to another one so that he could coach me through what to do... we wait.... and wait some more....

we got to see a buck chase a doe, i learned the difference in a squirle and a fox squirle.. i really was enjoying just being outside with my dad. then, sure enough... dad got my attention and pointed out a set of horns headed our way!

now, a little side note as to what is going through my head:

1. WHAT THE HECK AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?!?!?

2. how do i make my hands stop shaking?

3. i BETTER not miss. this is EPIC.

and that was all running through my head in a split second. then it hit me...

its kill time.

so i keep trying to get the dad-gum deer in my scope and half the time i cant find it because i cant get my head leveled right.. and when i finally do, half his body is hidden behind a tree. to make a long story short... or really ive made a short story long... i never get a shot on the deer and it disappears.

only to be shot by a freaking yankee.

it was a 150pt deer... 11 pointer.

but our dismay, or i should say, my dads dismay was short lived because as soon as we got out of the stand T called to tell us he got him self a deer. and oh. my. gosh. it was MASSIVE.

11 point, 300 lbs... he was a beaut.

after we took lots of pictures with T's deer, we headed back to the house to regroup and eat some food. we headed back out that afternoon... and i was ready to prove my coolness and kill me a deer.

we put T up in another tree stand with the cross-bow and dad and i headed to a different stand.. we sit... it starts sleeting... we sit some more... then, dad and his 6th sense - tuuurnnnnn around.... and there, on a sweet little date is a beautiful 8 point buck and a doe.

now. when dad tells me to turn around, i only see the buck. i have NO CLUE the doe is there. so i find the buck in my scope, wait for him to turn broad side, then dad tells me "kill him! shoot him abby! kill him!" so... i pull the trigger and BOOM! i see legs kicking and a deer on the ground!

so i start telling my dad I GOT HIM! I GOT HIM! and my dads telling me i didnt and that the buck is still standing there. so i, very confusingly, look for a buck through the scope again and sure enough, hes still standing there.

im still trying to figure out what i killed while trying to not mess up finally killing a buck.

so dad and i climb down the tree stand and set out on foot... this is when, i SWEAR i stepped into a movie.

dad and i are on foot now, and i have a gun - loaded - in my hands. we head away from the tree stand following the buck. we see it, dad orders me to pull my gun up and shoot him. i try. i MIGHT have hit his foot. he kicks up and runs off... dad and i follow still.

we cross over a creek, down a little slope, then up a hill.... then, there he is. standing in the woods with his backside facing us. my heart is racing.

dad tells me to get the gun, steady my breathing, and when i am ready, pull the trigger.

now, im a little confused at this point. i knew some people aim for the hole and drop them, but let's be real, im no where near that accurate. so i was trying to figure out what he wanted me to shoot.... his butt?

so i pull the trigger without really aiming. dad grabs the gun and shoots twice too but the Buck keeps running.

finally we see him standing still, broad side, and i shoot. he runs off.

dad takes off and then disapears after jumping down a little ledge.... as i run after, its not long before i see dad standing there, grinning ear to ear, hands raised up, and a dead deer.

there her was! my first buck!

dad proudly took pictures of us with our [massive] deer

then i got to partake in a tradition that i had secretly been wanting to for my entire life...

annnnd i think dad had a lot of fun with it too! 

this is a weekend that i will hold on to for forever. i made so many memories that i will always treasure... seeing my dad in his prime, and T for that matter, was such an experience. waking up with the woods is such a calming feeling. i now understand why they travel all the way to IL to hunt deer. its because its not JUST about the deer. its about the camaraderie. the memories. the stillness, the retreat of it all. its about the hunt, the time, the attention... the reward is a beautiful deer, but it is about so much more than just killing a big animal [though that makes it MUCH more fun :)]




two thumbs up for a fantastic trip and the hope of many more to come!! watch out deer, i've got that itch now!



abc.

the coma that taught.

when i started praying that the Lord awaken my heart and teach me things that i had not known about him yet, this did not ever enter into my thought process. when you pray things like that, you think, i'll have a hard day at work, or something dramatic will go on with one of my friends and i'll see some sin in my heart and have to deal with that.... you think small. well, i have learned full well that God does not think small.

Dad. my dad. the man that so many cannot figure out, but that i love more than anything in this world. the man that never missed one of my tennis matches, or any of my other siblings sports games. the man that has taught me more about Jesus than anyone else. the man that taught me to demand respect, not just hope for it. the man that taught me how to drive and who ATTEMPTED to teach me to park, the man who did my hair for me for my first football game, the man who has sent me the BEST valentines cards every year, the man who is going to walk me down the ailse in July... my dad, the man of my life.

the last thing he said before going back for surgery was "God doesn't have a Plan B, sweetie. Only a Plan A." and that is what i have clung to for the past 11 days. that THIS, this is the Lords plan A.

when mom called to tell me that the surgery went ok but that they were keeping him in a coma until they could sew him up, a million things raced through my mind and the only way i knew to respond was tears....

im not done needing my dad! i never will be. i need him to continue helping get ready for marriage, i need so many more Isaac and Rebecca talks, i need him to help me figure out the 401K thing, i need him to say bye to while he is in the office, i need him for valentines day, i need him. and, for 11 days, we haven't really had him.

mom hasn't had her husband to talk to, Linds and Will haven't had him to respond to all the grandkid pictures, T hasn't had him to watch his baseball practices, and Luke hasn't had him to talk about working out.. we all need him in so many different ways.

it's never until something is absent that you realize how present it was...

so these past 11 days have been filled with tears, questions, worry, and fear. but just as Lamentations 3 talks about, there is a BIG but in that statement...  those have been my feelings, BUT the Lord is so faithful.

over the past 11 days, our family has experienced more love and encouragement than I could ever have imagined. Text messages, phone calls, food, hospital visits, emails... you name it. I have never experienced the body of Christ like this before. There are so many things that the Lord has been so gracious to teach me through this.

the saying that "God is more concerned about our holiness than our happiness" has never rang more true.

I have learned so much about family, about being a friend through suffering, about clinging to the Lord even before a parent, about what it means to surrender someone to the Lord, how important the body of Christ is, and that there really is true JOY found in trials....

my friends have sent me verse after verse of things they are praying for our family, i have basically lived at our sweet neighbors house, we have had delicious meals brought to us, so many people have stopped by the hospital to pray over Dad and sit with my mom, my Aunt Lisa has been up there with my mom every day, and the Lord has truely been glorified through all of this.

"BUT this I call to mind,

and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;

his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,

“therefore I will hope in him.”

(Lamentations 3:21-24)

The LORD sustains him on his sickbed;

IN his illness you restore him to full health.

(Psalm 41:3 ESV)

my prayer (after Will shared this with me) was that IN this trail, IN my dad's hospitalization that he would be not only restored physically but also spiritually. That the Lord would renew him daily in every way. 

"...And do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”

(Nehemiah 8:10)

"So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."

(2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

knowing that the Lord is doing so many things UNSEEN has been the biggest comfort of all. Knowing that in my life, in my moms life, in all my siblings life, and in so many others, that God is not only teaching us all things about himself, but that He is being glorified through this situation has brought true Joy to my heart. and i know it would to my dad as well. knowing that eternal things are happening because of my dad's suffering has made this all bearable. 

i know that God is for us. He promises over and over again that "never will he leave us nor forsake us", that he is "our rock and our salvation", that "by him we can run against a troop, and by my God, i can leap over a wall. This God- his way is PERFECT.." time and time again, the Lord promises that he will protect and sustain those who trust in him. and i have never, in my life, seen this truth of my Heavenly Father more clearly. 

I know that we all are in the Noonday sun. That my entire family is walking through the Lords Plan A and that brings joy in this trial. 

my prayer is that the Lord continue to bring glory to himself, that the Lord continue to sanctify me and my family members, and that the Lord continue to bring both physical and spiritual renewal to my sweet Dads body. 

Praise God from whom ALL blessings flow. 

abc. 

engagement.

on October 26th i got to answer a question that i had been waiting for, dreaming about, wondering about, praying for, and hoping for for my whole life. the man of my dreams asked me to marry him!! since then, it has been a funny, frustrating, and eye-opening journey.

the way i had always dreamed of my engagement going was to get engaged, the next week be filled with UNBELIEVABLE joy and excitement. talking about plans and wishes with my family and anyone else. i always thought that within the first month of being engaged that i would already have the date, the engagement pictures done, and moving full speed ahead on any other decisions pertaining to THE day. i thought it would be all fairytales and butterflies.

well. i was wrong. granted, our situation is a little different than most, i would venture to say that no ones engagement is like that. jake and i have had to deal with alot of real life in the past 2 months and it has made our engagement incredible, but not at all what i had always dreamed of. there have been tears, arguments, hurt feelings, frustration, disappointment, and misunderstandings...

we started premarital counseling last week and the pastor doing it said something that really made some stuff click for me. he said, "it is impossible to enter into new things without false expectations. one of my jobs in our time here is to at least cut those false expectations in half so that you are both prepared. its better to get hit by a 2x4 if you know its coming, rather than be blindsided by it."

i entered into engagement with a million and one false expectations. i expected day-to-day life to be like engagement pictures. perfect, flawless, lovey-dovey, and care-free. the "pinterest engagement" if you will. and the hard times we have gone through in these past 2 months has been the Lord cutting out all my false expectations.

we are talking about marriage here. the first few steps to preparing for a lifetime covenant. a day-in-day-out relationship where life is constantly thrown at you. you are faced with financial issues, family problems and struggles, things not happening in your timing or in the way that you wanted them to...

what i have learned about myself, about jake, about the Lord, and about our relationship are things that i never want to lose. lessons that i pray will stay with me my entire life.

have these past 2 months been what i always thought and dreamed engagement would be like? no. not in the least. have these past 2 months been an incredible journey that i would not trade for anything? absolutely.

my gracious heavenly Father has validated this relationship over, and over, and over. in every hurt feeling, every tear, every frustration, every disappointment, every misunderstanding... everything has deepened my love for jake, built my excitement for our wedding day, and given me a peace that the Lord is not done with either of us yet.

i cannot wait till we set a date and know the day that will start the rest of our lives together. but what i cant wait for even more than that is the next day, and the next day, and the next day. i cant wait for our LIFETIME together. to do what we have been doing in our engagement - living life together.

abc.

i said yes!

i am so excited to finally have time to sit down and write out everything that has happened. this past week has gone by at like a million miles per hour…. i cant believe i am engaged!! it still hasn’t really sunk in. but, here is the story and some pictures!!

so on monday last week, my boss called me to change my schedule and informed me that i was going to be working with Deborah getting trained as the Personal Shopper/Stylist! My boss informed me that I would be working individually with clients and so I needed to come dressed very “wealthy” as she put it haha

So friday rolls around and i am PUMPED to go to work… but when i get there, to my dismay, i get to do NO styling. so i was confused and very angry. So my friend courtney and I had planned to go to dinner that night after work and i was really excited to get a margarita and vent to her about how i didn’t get to dress anyone! I also took my merry little time after work and bought myself some really pretty pitty jewelry (little did I know i would be having a WONDERFUL addition soon! ha) so i get home (30 mins late) and decide not to go inside and just wait in the car for Court to get there… what i didnt know was that she was creepily parked across the street in my neighbors drive way just watching me. so she calls and says she has to use the restroom and for me to go inside and wait for her. i told her she was lame but i obeyed and headed inside.

When i get up to my back door, there are 4 candles just sitting there lit. on the steps. and i think… “well that is just CREEPY” (i thought Jakes mom was at the beach and that my parents were at Lukes football game that Jake was coaching at. i legitimately had NO EARTHLY IDEA and was not expecting it at all). well once I open the door, i see the sign on the door that says “Forever and Always” (jake and I’s thing we would say to each other in high school haha ohhhhhh the cheese.) so then i start to get real emotional. I get to the next door and there is another sign with 3 things on it but i dont really remember what they said but basically it told me to walk inside and when i opened the door it was magical.

the entire house was candle lit and it was beautiful! there was a candle path to a little chair for me to sit in and watch a video he has put together. it was a slide show of pictures of us from 9th grade until now! complete with tim mcgraw, eli young, and dave barnes… the essential ‘mushers’ in jake and I’s minds! it was precious. at the end it told me to walk outside and he would meet me out there….

so i walk out of that room and walk up into our kitchen and when i turn the corner i lose it. my entire back yard (2 full acres) was lit up like a fairytale! every tree had white twinkling christmas lights, there were hundreds of little candles, little lanterns, and then big white paper lanterns hung in the tree…. i mean it literally took my breath away. so i start BALLING.

i walk towards the back door and before i walk out there is a frame at the end of the table and in the frame is a journal entry from the morning after he told me his feelings for me in Charleston back in January. this was one of my favorite parts of the whole thing. it was his prayer for our relationship. and it really showed just how well he knew me. he was thanking the Lord for bringing me back into his life and him saying that he KNEW that i was who the Lord had for him to spend the rest of his life with. But, it was also his prayer for the Lord to reveal that to me in His own timing because Jake knew that i didn’t know that yet. It may sound weird, but it was just so cool to me that Jake prayed for patience on his part because he knew that my heart hadn’t yet come to the same conclusion as his and he was ok with that.

so i try to pull myself together and then i walk outside where my Oh so handsome man is waiting for me! when i get there, the GREATEST thing happened. he told me he loved me. we agreed back in January that we didn’t want to grow accustomed or numb to those heavy words so we had not said them to each other. it was probably the greatest thing my ears have ever heard! im smiling just thinking about it ha.

so then he takes my hand and walks me to under my favorite tree in our backyard and tells me alot of wonderful things that i honestly cannot remember!! and then he got down on one knee….. and BOOM!

i said YES!!! 

 this is when he was telling me some wonderful things that i cant remember…

this is when he asked me to be his WIFE!!!!

this was right after i said YES!!!

 aaaaaaaand these are the cheesy “right after” shots that i am pretty obsessed with!!

 after all that we went inside and he had my favorite dinner waiting on me, then took me to JenSei (a favorite of mine) for what i thought was just for he and I and when i got there, about 25 of my close friends were waiting for us with champaign and wedding magazines! then after that, he told me we had one more stop. so we headed back to the house and he had my family, his family, and all our close family friends there waiting for us with a beautiful cake, yummy cupcakes, and story time! it really was the most perfect night of my life! 

i could not be more in love and i am so happy to FINALLY be able to freely say it!

 it is just so neat to me that the Lord loves me and jake enough to take us down the paths that he did, for us to learn in the ways that we did the things that we did, so that moments like October 26, 2012 could be so fully enjoyed. my heart could not be any more full!

abc.

serendipity.

i opened my blog and sat down to try and write something. anything. but, i couldn't really think of anything to type... i am blessed with the opportunity this summer to intern with Nations Outfitters and it has been SO MUCH FUN. well, one of my jobs for them is to blog... so, for a small update on what is going on in my heart... click the link! 

 http://changingseasonsnations.blogspot.com/2012/06/serendipity.html

abc.

a failure.

i am, basically, done with college in 2 days. i dont technically graduate till august, but my time here in auburn is done in 2 days. when i think back to THIS time, it is crazy that i am sitting here talking about actually being done.

i remember SO distinctly this one day sophomore year... i was at southern union and had just talked with some of my friends up at Wofford. they were telling me about a super fun night they had had a few nights before and how they missed me and wished i could have been there. then i went back to that HORRIBLE place, Cambridge (my first apt), and lost it. i cried and cried and cried. i mean, snot-nosed, fetal position, wailing type of cry. and i will never forget thinking 'no one here misses me. no one here even really knows im here. and if they do, unless they've had to leave a school and group of friends that they love, they will never be able to understand what is going on in my life. i am NEVER going to get out of here....' i remember it like it was yesterday.

and now... im here. im done. im leaving.

but... thats where the conflict inside sets in.

my whole life i have longed for this day to get here. i never have to do school again! i finally get to move on to what i have wanted to do my whole life! and i never have to take an pointless tests or do stupid projects or anything ever. again.

this point of my life though is not how i pictured it....

no one thinks of graduating college and then.... moving back home.

[now before i go any further, i want to be very clear on this - i only think this way in terms of me. i have a number of friends... MANY... who, after graduation moved back home. i think that is AWESOME for them. but this whole post is in terms of me, and strictly me. so please dont anyone read into anything or assume that i am speaking indirectly to people. im not. i am talking strictly in terms of me.]

my whole life i have dreamed about getting done with college so that i could finally be free to do whatever it is i wanted to do. if i wanted to be a movie star, i could. if i wanted to start a free camp for inner-city kids to come to and possibly board at, i could. if i wanted to move to India to labor among the Hindi there, i could. if i wanted to get married, i could. if i wanted to move to New York and pursue my obsession with all things hair, makeup, and fashion, then i could. but im finally to this idolized point in my life and i am doing none of those. i am simply moving back home.
and to me, i see myself as a failure.

in my eyes, i have let myself down. i have not made the most of my life. i have settled and copped-out and not been able to make it on my own.

i love my home. i absolutely adore my parents and each of my siblings. i want to be near home so i can be everyones favorite aunt. i want to KNOW my siblings and what is going on in their lives. i want to have my parents near me so that they can continue teaching me, guiding me, and pouring into me in all the incredible ways that they have. NONE of this has anything to do with my physical, biological, actual home. my home is literally my favorite place in this entire world. i could talk all day about the sounds i couldn't live without, the smell of it, the peace i feel the second i walk in the door, the life that those walls have seen... i could literally write for FOREVER about how much i love my home and how much i love being home.

i dont want to move back home because i dont want to move back to birmingham. i dont want to move back to the pressures that are at home. i dont want to move back somewhere that i feel constantly watched. always scrutinized under a magnifying glass. i dont want to move back to birmingham because there is SO MUCH PRESSURE. not from my family, but from what i like to call "the stands". you know... the people that sit in the stands at sporting events and every person that walks by they have a comment about? thats what birmingham is to me. me on a playing field and a multitude of "stands" around me, silently commenting on my every move.

so when i say "home" i mean birmingham, not my home.

that all being said, when you are a college graduate there is a MASSIVE difference in going at home and moving home.

this weekend, i went home. tuesday, i move home.

what happened to my dreams? what happened to taking the world by storm the second i get my degree? what happened to changing and saving lives? what happened to taking the Gospel to the people that have almost NO MEANS OF HEARING IT?! what happened? how did i get here?

did i misread part of Gods plan? did i make a wrong decision? where did i go wrong? where did i screw something up? where did i start messing up how awesome my life was supposed to be?

...isnt satan good at feeding lies?

this whole semester those feelings have been pushed down, ignored, deflected... and i finally decided to face them. why do i feel that way? i know its not true, so why am i believing them?

as i have tried to sort through all of this and why i am feeling this way, it has been almost funny. almost.

there is this sermon that Tim Keller preached called "The Blessed Self-Forgetfulness". if you have never listened to it- stop reading. RIGHT NOW. and go listen to it. it WILL change your walk with the Lord.

anyways, in it he askes (my paraphrasing) why when we close our eyes to imagine, that we only image things for ourselves in the way that glorifies our own selves the most... and its true. if yall got inside my head when i day dreamed... oh. my. gosh.

i save the world, i cure cancer, i adopt every orphan in the entire world, i am a famous movie star that is an amazing role model for girls all over the globe that has time to radically change the fashion industry in just 1 week....

those aren't really what i want to do. obviously. but i have always had this weird but VERY consistent and urging feeling that the Lord has something strangely perfect in store for me... but what i have realized is that i had began to idolize that feeling into a worldly understanding. I began thinking of that strangely perfect things in tangible terms instead of kingdom terms. i realized that i  want to go do big great things because i want people to think highly of me. i want people to think 'wow, she is doing big things! her family must be so proud!'. approval of man instead of God. why, abby, are you letting something as fleeting as a human dictate your joy?

and i have seen so. much. sin. in my thinking.

i KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Lord has me at home this summer... and probably this fall. i know that the Lord has so much in store to teach me. i know that i have already learned so much about humility and i am sure there is alot more on that subject to come. i KNOW that the Lord is for me and that he has plans of a HOPE and of a FUTURE!

i had allowed satan to feed me lies for too long. i allowed him to seep in and train my brain to think failure. failure. failure. you are nothing but a failure. HDFS? whats that? thats not a doctor. thats not a teacher. thats not even a a real major. thats just a stupid MRS degree that you dont even want. failure. you are nothing but a failure.

well, im done. im done allowing him to tell me that. im done being manipulated and i am done allowing myself to think that my Heavenly Father does not have a GOOD and PERFECT plan for my life.

will it be a fight? hell yes. it might be that i have to wake up every morning this summer and pound my head into my pillow and yell - GOD. IS. FOR. YOU. - but if so, then thats what ill do.

that blog post i referenced at the beginning is EXACTLY why i started blogging. because in that post, these were my same thoughts. people are going to think that i couldn't handle being that far from home, people are going to think that i couldn't make it at Wofford... mans approval... i have failed.

what i have learned from when i wrote all that till now is that God is faithful. there has yet to be a time in my life where i faced something hard and did not see the Lord use it for good. there has never. not once. been a time in my life when i could have questioned the Lords sovereignty.

so. to satan, to the silent commentators, to the pressures that i feel from the birmingham world, screw you.

like many of my posts end, i am fighting for joy during this time. i am choosing to fix my eyes on Jesus and his promises and begging Him to not allow my heart to wander.

i am SO looking forward to spending all this time with my two knuckle-heads of little brothers, i am pumped about getting alot of time with my niece and nephew, i am so excited about being around my parents wisdom for a solid 3 more months at the least, i am SO PUMPED to intern with Nations Outfitters and get to work under a woman as wise, godly, and driven as Mrs. Lisa-Ann, i am excited to be near Lindsey and Colby and learn from their marriage, I am excited about the possibility of going to visit Will, Christine and Baby Cunningham as they start the next chapter of their lives, I am really excited about finally being in the same city as Jake... I am genuinely excited about alot of things. and i am fianally at peace about moving back to birmingham. and i am so looking forward to all that the Lord will teach me....

"My foes are many
They rise against me
But I will hold my ground
I will not fear the war
I will not fear the storm
My help is on the way
My help is on the way

Oh, my God
He will not delay
My refuge and strength always
I will not fear
His promise is true
My God will come through always
Always

Trouble surrounds me
Chaos abounding
My soul will rest in You
I will not fear the war
I will not fear the storm
My help is on the way
My help is on the way

I lift my eyes up
My help comes from the Lord"
      -Always , Passion City Band

abc.

QOTW.

i hope this is what all my nieces, nephews, kids, and grandkids say about me.

abc.

IM SO EXCITED.

this is what i feel like doing.

right now.

in the middle of the silent floor of the library.

so today has been..... AWESOME.

-i found out i will indeed, pass college!!!!!! i got a 73 on my Econ test and no, you do not have ANY idea what a massive deal this is.

- i have completely finished my 25 page paper for "my favorite class ever"

- i have also completely finished my MASSIVE life-folio, also for "my favorite class ever"

- i am done with MASSIVE project that i have for another class tomorrow that was A COMPLETE waste of time

- i get to see Jake in 10 days

- today was my LAST MONDAY OF SCHOOL EVER!!!!!!!!!!!

- and THIS is the biggest news of all, but im not sure if i am at liberty to disclose it yet, so i'll just keep you on the edge of your seat.

hope your Monday is this much of a funday!

abc.