Time Flies.

Listening to :
You're Gonna Miss This- Trace Adkins
Letter to Me- Brad Paisley
Don't Blink- Kenny Chesney
All 3 of these songs/videos made me tear up :)

Lately, I've been looking at life very differently than I expected I would be at 17. As a kid you think everything passes so slowly. School, classes, the weeks, the years, everything. As you get older you start to realize that it doesn't pass slowly at all. I cannot count over the years of my life how many times I've heard adults say "time passes more quickly than you know it. You'll see it one day." Well, just like they said, that day has come, and I understand what they were talking about all those years. I got a sense of just how quickly life passes and how incredibly important it is to cherish each moment of it.

Today I did the usual. Got up, went to school, went to community service, came home, and went to pick up my sister (who's in 8th grade) from basketball practice. Something was different about today though. I drove in a blur all the way to the school and thought about how young I was, and how old I was, at the same time. I pulled into the parking lot and parked and just stared at the front of the school. I thought about that morning. I had looked at all the kids standing on the corner waiting for the bus to pick them up to take them to Jr. High, like it does every morning. Now all the kids get bussed to Big Rock, due to the combined Jr. High they have. (When I was in 8th grade I went to Jr. High and Elementary School all at Hinckley Elementary School and it was within walking distance from my house). It brought me right back to 8th grade. I remember rushing to get ready every morning so that I could get to school that much earlier to be standing in front of the school for 30 minutes before school started. Of course, I was there! I needed that 30 minutes to talk to my friends about anything and everything. I also recalled that I would walk with my four best guy friends to get to school. I thought about how much I loved that time and cherished the talks and laughs I had with them every morning. It was the absolute best way to start the day. If I had known what a short occurrence in my life this was going to be, I would've cherished it a lot more. Also, if I had known that very next year, one of the boys I walked to school with everyday, Stan Janik, would be suddenly taken from all our lives... I would've hugged him more, joked with him more...known him more. But I didn't know those things then, not like I know them now.

I sat in my car, thinking of all these things, and still more memories came flooding back. My 8th grade year, all our field trips, all our friends, our memories. That year I had the best memories, the best times, and the best friends that I've ever had. As I sat and pondered all of this I started thinking of high school. Freshman and Sophomore year were there in my mind and gone in a flash. Junior year seems longer and more vivid since it was only last year but still that was over in such a "short time" as well. And now I've arrived, senior year, the awaited year by all kids, and I find myself envious of these young kids that are just half way through 8th grade. 8th grade, which still to this day, almost 4 years later, was the best year of my life. I was a free and wonderfully happy kid then. I am still free, and still wonderfully happy, but I often miss that time.

Now I get so busy thinking about my future. College, my future job, house, kids, husband...life. I get so busy thinking about what's to come that I forget to think about what's here and now. My family, my friends, and my dear old school that I still attend, and do truly love. I forget how much I love staying up laughing until I cry with my friends that have always been there, and how much I live for cheering my school on in their games. I lose sight of these things, and miss them because I get so focused on what's to come. Lately though, it's been different. I'm not in 8th grade anymore. Now I know how precious each day.. actually, each and every minute is! It all passes in a flash. This time I know that... I know that each day that passes leads onto another, but you can't forget the day you've just had. You'll miss it. When I'm 25 I guarantee I'll be thinking about how I'm "envious" of those young seniors and how much they have to experience still. I'll be doing that all through life and that's totally fine! I will not only be thinking of that, but I'll be fortunate enough to know how blessed I am to be living in the here and now. I'll know that the life I have and the moments I've been given are ridiculously beautiful and huge blessings. Also, I'll be able to cherish and love all the things those experiences have taught me so that I can continue to pass on that knowledge.

Surprises.

Life definitely has a way of taking me by surprise. I never think of it when it's happening, but whenever I look back I can smile at so many things that happen throughout my day. Just the other day I got thrown totally out of wack. What I thought was going to happen..didn't, and how I thought things were going to go..well they didn't. They weren't even bad, just different, and I let that bother me...like I always do. Then later, when things were actually changing, and it was different.. It turned out to be really great. If things went as planned it would've been great too, but that definitely didn't mean that it couldn't be great another way too.

If you're anything like me, I can be pretty ridiculous when it comes to things like this. I love to say "I so don't have to have everything my way!" but when I really sit and think about it...I like when things go my way. I mean who doesn't? But I have a problem with letting that take too much control. I end up getting upset and ruining things in my mind and then feeling stupid for it later. I just automatically think it'll be bad because it wasn't orginially that way. But...so what? lol It'd be way easier if I asses the situation first, before getting upset, say..dude, it's not a big deal, and then I'd never end up feeling bad in any way to begin with! It seems like I truly have a love/hate relationship with this little thing called worry. I always worry that things will turn out bad and not as planned and I worry and worry! I don't like worrying, but when I start, I don't stop myself. Goodness only knows why I do this. It's something I most definitely have to work on. When I worry and think about how things should be I miss how things really are, and often times they are better than how I wanted them to begin with!

Life is...such a gift. Way to precious and beautiful to be wasted worrying, thinking about "would've been" 's and all those other crazy things us humans hang onto. When I sit and think about things that have changed and seem to be bad compared to what they used to be.. I get upset and bothered. But just the other day I looked at it from a different perspective. I looked back at how wonderful things were, and how different they are now, but for the first time I told myself it was okay. I love to talk about how everything happens for a reason and not to worry when it comes to others but I don't even take my own advice. For some weird reason I rule myself out and don't even think it applies to me. But of course it does, and when I actually look at it that way...it's pretty great. I feel happy for all the good times, thankful for the not so great, and excited to see what will happen in the times that come. This gives me a totally different, and way happier, outlook on my life and all of the things i've experienced....

Stop worrying, let go of those things that hurt you, hold onto the things that make you happy, and strive everyday to make life better for not just yourself, but every person you come into contact with.

...And I promise...I'm actually going to take my own advice this time :)

Leaving a Mark

Inked. This has been the theme that my church has been diving into over the past several weeks. It’s all about relationships and how we need to take them beneath the surface. All of the messages have been great but this past week, the last week of the series, really hit me. My pastor started out by talking about tattoos and how they are related to our relationships. We can have all these plans for our relationships, and even have them drawn out in our minds as far as how they are going to go, but unless we go through not only the good, but the times of pain and discomfort too, they will never go beneath the surface. Just like a tattoo, you can plan what you want and even get it drawn on with marker but unless you actually go through with the pain and discomfort of getting the tattoo, it won’t be permanent and the ink won’t go beneath the surface.

Last week’s service was entitled Inked: Leaving a Mark. Leaving a mark = making a permanent mark on those around you that you will be remembered by. I thought about this and I definitely want to leave a mark on those around me. Don’t you? Who can honestly say they want to live their life out on earth and then be forgotten? Everyone wants to leave a mark, and everyone wants to be remembered. Whether it’s for loving, winning, being spontaneous, being funny, giving great hugs, whatever..it’s different for all of us. I also think I can safely say the majority of us want to be remembered by a good mark, not a bad one. When sitting in church this past weekend I thought of all the people that would remember me for good. For loving them, and being there for them, for always encouraging, always being a good sport, all that great stuff. The number was pretty high. Yay me, right? Nope, not really. That’s because I then realized I could also think of a few people who might not think the best of me, and who I had left a bad mark on. The number of good marks didn’t really seem to be so significant now that I was thinking of the bad ones. I have to admit this pretty much sucked to realize. I kind of already knew this but I was super stubborn about it. I never really showed negative feelings towards these people but I always felt them. When I would feel them, I always made myself believe it was their fault I had these feelings, therefore, they deserved it. As anyone can probably guess, I was wrong.

Through some of the service I was still trying to convince myself I was allowed to feel that way. My pastor pretty much cleared that up for me though. My mind was going crazy as I was thinking about all these people and situations, and right as I was thinking all those things he began to talk about commitment and how commitment is what has to do with leaving a mark. He said that commitment is all about intentionality and it has to be no matter what commitment. No matter what you do, I’m committed to you. No matter what you say, I’m committed to you. When I really thought about that…there are few very people I can say that about. And that’s definitely not how it should be. I should be able to say I’m like that towards everyone. These are the commitments we talked about:

I am committed to ______ you…

1) LOVING. we have to be 100 percent committed to always, always, always loving the people in our life no matter what. I've never really struggled with this, I knew this. But although I could say I still loved these people, I definitely didn't act the same towards them as I did my friends and family and people I truly, outwardly loved. Something my pastor said that was awesome was that loving never meant agreeing. God never said that you had to agree with what someone is doing just because you love them. Think of all the lame things we do and God's like, "oh you dork, why did you do that!?" but never ONCE did he stop loving us. When I really thought about it people who are struggling and not doing the best need to be loved on a TON! When this happens it can totally be seen that God is shining right through you!

2) FORGIVING. And then it hit. The part I didn't want to hear. Mainly because I am hurt, and I know I have to forgive, but I don't want to. Human, brat, I don't want to forgive this person, or this person, or that person. I just don't. I can sit on my high horse and say to myself "they hurt me"..."I was there for them and they turned their backs on me, my hands are clean." But, my hands are so not clean. They would be if I would just do what God would've done. When I come to him and apologize for doing something, right there, on the spot he forgives me. I certainly don't do that by any means. If I did a few of my relationships would be quite different, and much better off.

Something I would like to point out about this is important. While I was sitting in church wanting to cry and be frustrated because I have to forgive and don't want to, and want to hold a grudge instead, my pastor pointed this out and it helped: Trust and Forgiveness is not the same thing. The second you forgive someone you do not have to trust them. If I really think about it, that is a huge problem for me. I think...if I forgive them that means I say what they did is totally fine and I totally trust them and open up for it to happen again. This is so totally lame and totally wrong! My pastor wasn't saying you will never trust them again but as for right now, it's not required. The fixing of relationships and mending of hearts needs to happen before trust can, but all of that mending and fixing begins with forgiveness.

3) EMPOWERING. This is a huge, huge thing. Once we know we have to love, and we have to forgive, we have to remember that we have, have, haveeee to empower!! With our words, with our prayers, and with our actions. They all go hand-in-hand. Words are huge, I can remember times from years ago where I was empowered with words and how they picked me up and how much it meant to me. Those are great to pull out when you're struggling and need a little boost for a bad day. I always remember the times when I’m really struggling and I get a phone call from a friend saying "hey girl, just calling because I really miss you and love you and think you’re awesome" or a text saying something similar. The reason I remember those so well is because I really needed to hear that so bad and it was beautiful how it happened perfectly. God is pretty awesome about things like that..through scriptures and through putting people in our lives to help us out or say that perfect thing right when it needs to be said. :] Prayer is super powerful to. It's awesome to have people in our lives that we can think about and say "no matter what I know they are praying for me" that's true love and trust greatness. I have people in my life like that and they are SUCH a blessing. The third thing mentioned was actions. We all have people in our life that say “you’re my favorite, I love you more than anything, and you’re my best friend” and then they don’t call, and when you see them they definitely don’t reflect the things that they say. It’s a pretty crappy feeling, I know. That right there is words not followed with actions. But when someone says all those beautiful things to me and then also calls, and loves on me when they see me, it’s great! And then every time I get a text with that in it or a hug from that person and they say that it totally brightens my day because I actually believe it!

It’s lack of loving, and forgiving, and empowering that truly tears us down, and truly does begin to burden us and make us unhappy. I know this first hand. I thought for a while that it’d be better to not forgive certain people, and to just ignore them and not deal with them because for some reason I thought that would make it all go away. But each time that name would come up there would be pain, sometimes even hatred, and it would bring on an unloving mood and bad feelings. It really didn’t do anything except make the issue bigger, and worse. I haven’t been content in quite a few of my relationships for a while. I could never seem to figure out exactly why but I think these things have a lot to do with it. There is a lot of unhappiness and discomfort right now for me in this area but nothing says that it always has to be that way. Realizing these things above have already helped me out a lot.

Hmm.. I guess I leave this blog with a few things….

Just like the Bible tells us that nothing can separate us from God, our love should tell other people that. That absolutely NOTHING can separate them for our love. Just imagine if we lived that way. If our friends, and family, and everyone else we came into contact with knew that we would love them no matter what they did. That’d be so amazing! And I know what that feels like because that’s how God loves….and take it from me…it’s amazing! Ha..

So when you’re thinking about these things…ask yourself…

Is there anything that can separate them from my love?


aaand remember! :

Have a love that loves no matter what and doesn’t love only “if they do ____” or only “if they don’t say ____ “.

We should always be committed to loving, forgiving, and empowering… NO MATTER WHAT!

:]. :].

Are you done complaining yet? :]

Happiness is such beautiful and searched after thing. I know I search after it. But actually I don't have to...because I have it. I think everyone can have it! I don't believe that anyone is destined for unhappiness. I know some think that of themselves but it just isn't the case! I think Abe Lincoln was so right when he said "Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be." :]

Think about it, if you wake up and think "Ugh gross, the weather's really bad, I have a headache today is going to be terrible." How much do you want to bet...today will be terrible? Now if you went, i'm strong, today is going to be beautiful no matter what! I bet you...it will be! Everytime something a little bad happens just think "hey, today is a good day remember?" It was be so much better than the person who woke up thinking "Ugh gross, the weather's really bad, I have a headache today is going to be terrible."

I experience this all the time in my life. I'm in my room on my computer, or reading, or doing whatever and my mom calls me to do something. I'm instantly frustrated. I either don't want to move or I assume she'll make me do something I don't want to do or a million other possibilities. Now if whenever she called me I thought "hey it's not big deal it's probably somethign quick" I wouldn't be frustrated because I wouldn't be thinking "this is frustrating."

If you say "boo hoo, i'm sad" you'll be sad.
If you say "i hate my life" you'll hate your life.
And if you say "this is so gay and annoying" go figure...you'll think it's gay and be annoyed.

So try this..."i'm happy and totally dig life." You might not be totally stoked every minute of everyday but you'll be way better off than the three people above saying those things. I gaurantee it :].

So I would say...

GO OUT AND BE HAPPY :].

woot! and remember...

No man is happy that does not think himself so. - Publilius Syrus