shhhhhhh.

wow so i havent written for a while! Life has been intense lately, and I havent had any time to sit in front of a computer for minutes at a time. But now I do so here we go!

A lot has been happening lately. It's been hectic.

I turned 20.
(yeah, when i made this blog thing i was actually 19, but i knew i would only be 19 for a few more days, so i just saved myself a step and put "20 year old girman" instead of "19 year old." =] )
Some of my best friends from florida came up to see me. What an adventure that was. Those girls are incredible, and loving, and unavoidably HILARIOUS. I got to spend the entire past weekend with them. :) I really miss the beach, but i miss them more.
So i've had old friends come and visit me and my new friends. That was interesting. Especially when people from your past meet people from your present. It's like youre in the twighlight zone. The world in which my new friends live and the world in florida where my past is combined this weekend. It was really cool.

I've met some new people through Water's Edge, a college-aged ministry i'm involved in. Very cool people that love God. I love them all. A couple in particular.... but i won't write about that just now.

I've been reading A LOT lately.

I'm currently reading

The Shack by William P. Young
Passion and Purity by Elisabeth Elliot
Captivating by John Staci Eldredge
Closer than your Skin by Susan D. Hill
And the Bible. (3 translations.)

All are unfinished.

I have so much STUFF going on inside my head. New information and teachings and rules and boundaries i have learned, thoughts hopes and dreams, worries and stress about school and my future and eventually marriage....

But everything is suddenly okay when i just think about God and His love.
Everything is put into perspective.
Stresses fade.
Thoughts cease.
And He fills me with a warm, calming peace.

It happened to me today in my car on my drive to school.
I was voicing to Him my worries, thoughts, wishes...and then it was as if he shhhhhed me but in the most loving way. You know how a child is right before they go to sleep? "Mommy, why is the sky blue? " "Daddy, can we go to Mcdonald's for dinner tomorrow, I want McNuggets and a toy!" " HEY GUESS WHAT!!!"
And then mommy or daddy brushes their cheek and says "shhhh. time to calm down." and takes them in their arms and stills them? Pretty soon the child is asleep, tired out by their own energy and comforted in their parents' arms.
God is so like that. In Zephaniah it says that God will quiet you with His love.
mmm. He does.
I was non stop with my words for Him this morning and i felt this overwhelming sensation of love in my chest. He loves us so much. He doesn't want us to worry or stress...he wants us to rest in His love for us and our trust in Him. It's awesome to know that He is so much bigger than our circumstances.
I had a young friend of mine call me that just moved away. She is in high school, and was describing to me the "drama" of the youth group she is now involved in. All it took was for me to simply mention God's love. She went from crying to quiet. She realized that nothing else mattered but her Father and His love for her and those around her. She thought it was me that put her in a good mood. But it wasnt. It was Him.

<3 I love how you can worry and worry all you want but in the end you know God is in control.
So why worry?
Let Him quiet you with His love. <3

making God my sine qua non <3

sine qua non \sin-ih-kwah-NON; -NOHN; sy-nih-kway-\, noun:

An essential condition or element; an indispensable thing.

So I'm one of those dorks that gets the "word of the day" from dictionary.com. (Yeah, I'm okay with that.) Today the word of the day stuck out to me. I had no idea it was part of the English language. It definatley doesn't sound English at all.

Sine qua non.

SIN-IH-KWAH-NON.

Woah.

That's pretty intense.

Well. This word not only stuck out to me because its weird....the definition is pretty cool too. I have been searching for a new word to describe God.

Have you ever felt like you've heard them all before, and you want an even COOLER word to describe who He is to you because all the other words aren't sufficient??? (Like if you know me, you know that I use the word "amazing" a lot. It's just because I dont know any other word that describes something as "more amazing than amazing". )

I do the same thing in prayer and in worship. I search my little brain for words that might describe God, as he watches and chuckles to himself as a father does as he recieves a fingerpainting from his little girl. ("I made this for YOU, Daddy!" awww. how cute.) That's how I feel sometimes with words. Like I'm constantly on the prowl for a new word I could use to describe him because I've used them all before and the ones I've used arent good enough. I know a lot of worship songs, and the use of vocabulary in most songs about our God consists of:

Father, Faithful, Creator, Reining, Beautiful, Lover, Kind, Righteous, Compassionate, Husband, Constant, Savior, etc......

What if we sang to Him as our Sine Qua Non!?!?!?

Our Essential Father. Our Indespensible God.

that would provide for quite the original worship song.

But then as I was pondering this word and its definition, and meditating (if you will) on what it really means for God to be my Sine Qua Non, a bunch of questions came up in my head.

One of them was:

Is God ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to my daily life? If I woke up in the morning, got dressed, went through my entire busy day and went to sleep at night without talking to God, would I continue on, would I be satisfied?

Sometimes I am so busy that I dont give God the time He deserves, some days I dont hang out and talk with Him as much as I want to, some days He is NOT my Sine Qua Non.

But what would happen if each day we woke up and DECLARED to God and ourselves that He is our Sine Qua Non and we can not LIVE that day without Him. That He is INDESPENSIBLE to our day. I think our days would go a lot smoother. I think our relationship with God would be a lot more intimate. I think we would become more dependent on Him.

Sine qua non.

Woah.

That's intense.

<3

thoughts are so weird.

so. i've been inspired to write a blog. i've always wondered what went on inside my pastor's head...and he started a blog not too long ago to put his thoughts on display. i bet a lot more people will be interested in his thoughts than mine....but i think this blog is more for me. Sometimes i think it's important to get your thoughts out on paper (or webpage. ha) so that they transfer from intangible to tangible. When you have something you can hold on to, look at, read out loud...its often easier to understand and organize. And my thoughts definatley need to be organized. I'm in this crazy stage in my life where i'm trying to figure myself out and i'm trying to be me-the woman God created me to be. (there's that dreaded "woman" word again.) But how can i try to be me if i dont know who "me" is? I figure if i can organize my thoughts, get them on paper and read them it will be easier to figure those thoughts out.

Speaking of thoughts, aren't they weird? How is it that we can have a million of them rushing through our head all at once and appear like we are calm and collected on the outside?

And here's a crazy thing...have you ever tried to AUDIT your thoughts? Put them through a filter? I've been trying to do this for a while now and have discovered that it is not as easy as i thought. (ha.) See, i try really hard to follow Jesus. (the key word is TRY.) Well, the thing about Jesus is that He's perfect. And i want to be like him. So essentially the goal here is perfection. (i've learned to always set your goals higher than you think you can possibly achieve. it helps you live out to your full potential.) so in order to be perfect like Jesus i have to not only act like Him but think like Him. not WWJD but WWJT?

Have you ever caught yourself thinking something that doesnt quite line up with the WWJT lifestyle? Like something just ruthless or mean or insensitive or prideful or lustful? i do. it drives me nuts. i HATE those thoughts. And they seem to pop up out of no where sometimes. i try my best to catch them as soon as they surface, but sometimes there are just too many and some slip by unnoticed. It's quite annoying.

Anyways, i'm not exactly sure where i'm going with this(i tend to do that alot.)

I guess my main point is thoughts are SO weird.

And i'm going to try and capture my weird thoughts in this blog for all to see.

:)