Classes start tomorrow and I’ve got mixed feelings about that. On one hand I’m so excited to get started. To take one more step towards my future. And on the other hand I’m a little nervous about the whole thing. I just don’t know what to expect really. ugh. We’ll see tomorrow then I guess.

I have a slight case of homesickness. It’s not unbearable. It actually not that big of a deal either. But being 9 hours away from everything and everyone I know is going to take some getting used to.

I had my own room for a whole day! haha And then I got a roommate. We have close to nothing in common so we’ll see how the whole living together thing goes.

I found an awesome group here on campus that I’m really interested in. Vols4Christ. They had a little table set up in front of my hall and the reps that were manning the table were so friendly. I’ve talked to them a few times over the past 2 days. I’m really fired up to get involved here at school. I feel like I’m really being drawn to campus ministry. Or a Bible study of some sort. Any kind of fellowship with other Christians at UT would just be awesome. I can’t wait to see how God is going to use my and how he is going to transform my life in the next 4 years.

The weekend before I left two friends of mine were in a pretty serious car accident. The driver luckily only suffered minor injuries. The passenger however had a broken femur and a collapsed lung. The whole situation freaked us all out pretty badly. But the passenger has since been released from the hospital and is on her way to a full recovery. GOD IS GOOD!!

Ok, well that’s all for now I suppose. I’ll write more later.

I’m so excited to embark on this new adventure that is before me. I’m ready to become the woman God wants me to be and to see his plans unfold for my life.

Tears streaming down my pain stricken face

I’ve come to discover I’ve finished last in this race

I can’t take much more than I’ve already run

My body is surrendering, retreating, it’s done

I’m searching for an exit hoping it’s somewhere near

Never getting out of this hell is my only true fear

Feeling alone no one here to hold my hand

I long for a foundation, a place of solid land

I’ve tried to reason and I’ve tried to care

But this life has proven to be too heavy a load for me to bear

With the mistakes hanging over like rain clouds above my head

I wake up every morning wishing I was dead

Reality has hit me and knocked me to the ground

I’m really nothing special; I could leave this cold world without a sound

I’ve tried to explain what’s bottled up inside

But that always leaves me wounded, running away, looking for places to hide

My heart it shows the scars of a thousand lost battles

My feet are cracked and calloused from a million lonely travels

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again

I hate this thing called living; I just wish it would end

This life that I lead is going nowhere fast

These days soon approaching; I hope one of them is my last

Now don’t get me wrong I’ve tried to change my mind

I’ve looked high and low but the right answers I simply can’t find

You’ve asked me to talk, to explain myself, no lies

But I’ve found that it’s too hard it only makes me cry

These tears they are real they aren’t just a show

Letting true emotions out has become my dreadful foe

Lonely girl crying on her front porch step; tears are coming down like rain

Her heart is broken right in half; No one can feel her pain

She doesn’t know where to go, there’s nothing left inside

Everything about her has faded; her spirit has died

She took that bottle and put it to her mouth

And she picks it back up whenever she has doubts

Reality will break her when she decides to face it

Life will get better but only if she chooses not to forfeit 

That most of its pages are faded and torn

The writing is smudged; you can’t make out the lines

If this book was a trellis it’d be covered in vines

Sitting upon a shelf covered in dust

Reluctant to turn back the cover, however we must

Read through the chapters that we now call our past

And try to understand how the years went by so fast

I don’t want to forget you; I just want to move on

Write yourself into my story and the memory will never be gone

You say you’ve tried to reason and that you’ve been ignored

You see me standing there doing nothing but continually slamming the door

It hurts to watch you struggle when oblivion is your only foe

Ignorance overwhelms you, you’re ability to see clearly seems so low

You want the world to love you, to take you as you are

But you respect no one; you are the most hypocritical by far

If books are for actors you’ve played your part well

But it’s time to switch scripts, on these days we shall not dwell

Blood is thicker than anything I know

For family, there is no distance I wouldn’t willingly go

Until you realize that yourself and embrace the same philosophy

A sequel to our story could simply never be

So you can play this role of victim, whimpering “poor me, poor me”

Or you can man up and mature, make your way to cleaning up the debris

You constantly place the blame on everyone else

You can never do wrong; the problem could never be yourself

The book you are writing is full of selfish conceit

Work on fixing yourself before you worry about me

This chapter has been finished; I’m already starting the next

I’ll write many more as you stand there vexed

Your life is yours and mine is mine

If you’re interested in what that means, read between the lines

Imagine you’re going on a long trip. You are packing your things and deciding what to bring and what to leave behind. You want to keep your amount of luggage to a minimum; things are easier that way. So, you’re standing amongst a heap of clothes and other belongings choosing what’s important, what’s worth taking along. You decide to pack only the absolute necessities, nothing extra. Seems simple enough, right?

Now, take that image and apply it to your life. You have to decide what luggage (the luggage representing your past) to take along with you. It’s ridiculous to carry around unnecessary memories and struggles from our past. So, take time to sort through the luggage. Throw out the old suitcases, leave the worn bags. You don’t need them. Learn to travel light!

In order to root through our luggage we need to be aware of what we’re looking to get rid of. We need to inspect each piece of luggage. When we come across a torn, falling apart suitcase we have to decide whether to accept that it is useless or to continue lugging it around with us. When you decide to scrap the suitcase you have successfully lightened your load.

You have to deal with the past before you can live the present. And dealing with the past doesn’t mean seeing it and tip toeing around it. It means embracing it, accepting it, and then letting it go. Find the useless suitcases and pitch them.

Now, I know I’m still young but having just graduated high school I feel like this is a point in my life where I need to do some spring cleaning; it’s time to sort through my luggage. I’ve made mistakes I’ll willingly admit that. But, there is no need for me to carry the burden of those mistakes with me as I venture towards a new avenue of life. This summer I’ve seriously realized that I need to let some things go. 

With college quickly approaching I am greatly anticipating my new beginning. I’m so excited to go onto campus that first day and begin to completely reinvent myself. Not in a bad way of course. I refuse to desert my convictions or to compromise my morals. Rather, I am going to begin to bloom into the woman God intends for me to be. I’m more than excited to see the Lord’s plans for my life unfold right in front of me. It’s so interesting to imagine where I’ll be 10, 5, even 1 year from now.

I’m ready to surrender entirely my life and everything in it for the glory of God. I want to be free from the burden of my past and to walk in His light; letting that light shine through me so others can see it. I want to be who God wants me to be. And the only way to make that possible is to give it all to Him!

When you enter into a relationship with Christ you are blessed with the ability to travel light. He lightens our load tremendously. It’s rejuvenating!!!

I’ve been finding it very difficult to understand why some people encounter so much hardship in their lives while others seem to get off so easily. It just doesn’t seem fair. Yeah I know, “life’s not fair”, I can’t even count how many times I’ve heard that.

As a Christian, I have trouble grasping the concept of God’s unconditional love for his children. This world is so full of crime, evil, hate, hypocrisy, and dishonesty. Where is the love in that? People are so calloused. Would a loving God subject his precious children to this kind of horror? Most would say no and along with that claim atheistic or agnostic belief systems. But where does that get them? Emerged in a screwed up world with nowhere to turn; tricked into believing the lies the world is continually telling them. 

 So after some much needed prayer, reading The Shack and studying my Bible I’ve come to a conclusion…

Hope (verb) To believe, desire, or trust

Hope is a verb, verbs require action, action requires commitment, commitment requires a choice; therefore, hope is a choice. Each individual has to choose to believe, desire, and trust what God is doing in and through his or her life.

God didn’t put all this crap here in the world. It was us; sinful humans. God’s actions are always expressions of love. He brings life out of death, freedom out of brokenness, and turns darkness into light. Just because God didn’t interfere when troubles occurred doesn’t mean He can’t still use the situations for good. We need to stop trying to be so independent and just rely on God and His plan for our lives. “People are tenacious when it comes to the treasure of their imaginary independence…They find their identity and worth in their brokenness and guard it with every ounce of strength they have” (Young 189). All the evil in this world is the direct result of our hunger for independence.

Faith (noun) Confidence or trust in a person or thing

We all have faith. Every last one of us. The difference is, what or who we invest our individual faiths into. When we choose to put our faith in God we enter into a relationship with Christ. A relationship in which we can experience true love in its utmost. “Have faith in the Lord your God and you will be upheld” 2 Chronicles 20:20

Do bad things happen? Yes. Are there always explanations for these hardships? No. Does God work purposely through these situations along with other similar experiences? Without a doubt! “Don’t forget that in the midst of all your pain and heartache, you are surrounded by beauty, the wonder of Creation, art, the sounds of laughter and love, of new life and transformation, of reconciliation and forgiveness” (Young 191).

I was born in the Hoosier State; the Crossroads of America, the Heartland, the Mid-west. I was born in Indiana. I’ve never ridden the rides at Indiana Beach. I’ve never heard the engines of the Indy 500 cars, but I have seen Peyton Manning throw a touchdown pass to Marvin Harrison; on my big screen TV in my living room at least. The man who invented the TV, Philo Farnsworth, well his old house is about a 30 minute drive from where I live. There’s a plaque in front of it. I live in a small town. The landscape consists mostly of cornfields and the occasional soy bean field. The population is 1,113 give or take a few people. It’s like most small towns; everyone knows everyone’s business. Neighbors converse in back yards complaining about how so-and-so needs to cut their grass before the town council has to be notified. Kids ride their bikes up and down the streets, shouting, annoying the older members of the community. It’s a quaint town, really. We even have a fair once a year. A 3 day celebration filled with unhealthy, deep fried foods of all sorts. There’s a parade on the third day.I googled my town once. This is what I got…

The town was founded in 1907. Today it is known for its antique stores and is surrounded by Amish farms.

The Amish are an interesting people. Even after nearly 19 years of living around them I still don’t understand their willingness to subject themselves to harsh, Indiana winters by claiming a horse-drawn buggy as their only mode of transportation. It forces me to question their intelligence. Why didn’t they root their culture somewhere warm? Sunny California maybe. Can you picture it? A brown mare carting an Amish family’s black buggy pulls up to a shiny 2008 Mercedes at a stop light on Rodeo Drive

Antique stores saturate my town. When I was younger, in the mornings on the way to school, I would see senior citizens unloading buses with eager eyes and hefty pocket books ready to purchase their favorite hand-sewn quilt or old-fashion, wood-burning stove. All very practical and useful items to purchase. Right.

As I got older, every year the town seemed less and less interesting. There were no longer any adventures I hadn’t been on, no more secret places I hadn’t revealed, no more alleys I hadn’t ridden my bike down. The town had lost it’s appeal, if it ever really had any. Eventually, I ditched my purple Huffy for a new set of wheels. A set of wheels with an engine and a steering wheel. Along with my first car came new adventures. Blaring the radio, windows down, a friend in every seat we rolled through the town like we owned it. 

I’ll be 19 on August 5. I’ve lived in the same tan house in the same small town for almost 19 years. I’m leaving for college August 16. I’m leaving my tan house and my small town and essentially everything I’ve ever known.