I LOVE MY FAMILY!!

Well, my family had pictures done last Friday, per my request....why? I don't know? My parents are getting ready to head over seas for China tomorrow, and well, when they told me they were going, I thought that it would be a good idea to get family pictures taken. The last time we had them taken, I was I think in Kindergarten, and it was for a church directory picture...WOW, how we all have changed!! I just have one proof now, but I will blog more about the time when I have the others, and can put pictures with stories.

Let me tell you, it was one of the most fun times that I have had in a long time! I love my family, and yes, even though they get on my nerves, I am glad that we are all still here together! We had the best time just laughing and hanging out, and poor Alison (our photographer) I thought she was going to get sick of us talking so much, but she was wonderful!! I can't wait to see how all of the others turned out, but I won't get to see that for another week or so....in the mean time, I encourage all of you, if you don't get family pictures done, go out and do it! It is a little pricy sometimes, but the memories that you walk away with, are far more than money can ever buy!!

Luv ya'll and I'll blog to you more later!

Oh, for those of you who might not know.....

Russ (dad), Dianne (mom), Kaitlyn (brother's girlfriend), Jason, (brother) & Me

LIFE IS A CRAZY HIGHWAY!! THANK GOODNESS FOR FRIENDS!

Well, since I have not blogged in about 6 weeks, I guess that it is time to fill in all of those avid readers that are just dying to know about my life right now!! (TINA!! :) )



Here's my big shout out to my two besties on their engagement....CONGRATS!!!



So, the transformed conference was AMAZING!!! Getting to hear Ray Comfort, Todd Friel, and Kirk Cameron speak...WOW!! they all have amazing books out, and I strongly encourage you to check them out with The Way of the Master. If you weren't there, you missed such an AWESOME conference!!



Let's see, what else is going on in life.....



Well, as always, I am continualy astounded at how God continues to move in my life! As he continues to change the plans of my life, I just continue to walk and follow where He wants me! As I have bragged about me getting out of Fort Myers, and moving to North Carolina, God has been laughing at me the whole time as He has shown me that I am to stay put in Fort Myers for a while. Who knows, maybe sometime down the road, I will be moving to North Carolina, but for now I am going to enjoy Florida for a little bit longer. I am in the process of trying to purchase a house (and let me tell you how fun that is when you have no job!!!) We shall see the doors that God opens up in this HUGE area of my life...I will keep you updated more on that as time goes on.



OH, I almost forgot about the most amazing thing in the world that one of my friends showed me...GEO CACHING!!!! It is so much for to do with your friends and family!! If you have never tried it, I would encourage you to... http://www.geocaching.com/ It is like a world wide scavenger hunt, and it is so much fun!!! DO IT!! (Thanks Kathy!!!)



Well, I don't know how much more I have going on in my life right now, it is pretty hum drum...I am still jobless, so if anybody out there knows of a place that is hiring, please let me know!! I NEED A JOB BADLY!!! I'm actualy begining to get bored with being unemployed....who would have ever thought?? So, I just want to thank you to all of my devoted readers that continualy check up on me to see what is new, and I must apologize for neglecting your noseiness for so long :) I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and I will post hopefully Monday about a house status....I will also let you all know where I am registered for house warming gifts ;) Oh, you can all come over and help paint too!! I think that is it for now, I'm sorry it is not an in depth blog, but it is now 1:00 in the morning, and I have been going all day, so, yeah, I will get back with you all again VERY soon!! I promise!!!



Luv ya'll

TRANSFORMED CONFERENCE

I'm getting ready to attend the Transformed conference put on by Way of the Master....there will be more information to come....

WHO ARE YOU?

Okay, so obviously people are reading my blog, and me being the nosey person that I am, am curious to know who is reading this...so if ya would, just leave me a message....I just find it funny that people actualy read this!

Thanks!

Have an awesome weekend!

YOU'RE GOING TO DIE....HAVE YOU REALLY LIVED?

I was talking with a friend the other day, and we got into a deep conversation (I didn't like it because I am a very small thinker!) but we were talking about life, and being able to live it to the fullest. The quote "Everybody dies, but not everybody truly lives" came up. This just brought the conversation down to a whole other level. It got us both thinking about everything. We are both in our 20's and if you do the math, if the average man is supposed to live around 80 years, then we are a 1/4 of the way to death. If the next 20 years go by as fast as the past 20 years, then we'll be 40 by tomorrow (now for those of you trying to figure that one out, it's only a figure of speech) then we are half way done with our lives. NOW, that is ONLY if God allows you to take the next 60 years worth of breaths. We are not promised anything past right now! We talked about all of the things back in school that we were afraid to do, but now we are regretting not taking the chances on the simple things in life. Then it got me to thinking, how many things has God put right in front of me, and He is just asking me to take a leap and to trust Him, but I am too scared to. I'm too afraid of that thing called "failure". This brought on another good topic that I have not thought much about.

What is failure? According to man, failure is not reaching the goal that we have set. But, what is failure to God? I do believe that what man views as failure, is just God pushing us to where He wants us to be, and helping build us what He wants us to be. A lot of times it is hard to get past that we might fail at what we try to do, but if we fail, it is God's will, if we succeed it is God's will. Now, understand, we are not to just go and do whatever we want and take us failing lightly. Failure in God's will is after careful council, and much guidance from Him. Maybe it's time to take that leap of faith that we know God is calling us to, put the word FAILURE out of our minds, and just follow. Are we going to regret tomorrow the decision that we made today? Learn from yesterday, live for today, and hope for tomorrow! If this was your last breath, what are you going to regret not saying, what are you going to regret not doing? Don't live with regrets, live life for all that it's worth. We are often blinded by the things of man, bills, houses, jobs, everything we feel tied down by, but there is so much more, if we just let go and trust, we can live a life that we never thought we possibly could. Is it going to be filled with glitz and glamour? Maybe not, but what is God going to say to you when you get to the foot of His throne? "Well done thy good and faithful servent!" or "Why did you pass this opportunity by?" Just another challenge for you, tell those that you love, "I love you!" Tell your friends "Thank you!" and don't be afraid to show the love of Jesus to everyone around you.

THIS IS YOUR LAST BREATH, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO or NOT GOING TO REGRET?

On a softer note, I just want to thank all of you that have continued to pray for me as I go through some big life decisions and such, your prayers have been heard, and felt! I have gotten another job offer doing some faux painting with Connie (the lady that does the painting for McGregor's Pageant set) in some huge houses! Painting is not exactly what I want my career path to lead on, but I know that it is God continuing to lay a job in my path, and who knows where it will lead, I will follow! So, I just wanted to say thank you for your prayers!! I love you all! (Even though I'm not sure who all reads this, I do love you!)

THE STORY OF LIFE

I just got this book "The Ransomed Heart" by John Eldredge. It is a collection of Devotional readings from some of his most popular books. I have only read the first devotion in it, but what an awesome one it was for me as I continue to seek what God wants for my life. I know that God is calling me to something greater, but with something this big, I want a clear plan of what my life is going to become and why I am going to be going. This devotion was talking about how life is like a story. There is no pattern to it, it's not a cookie cutter, and it doesn't come at you like a math problem. Each day, a new paragraph begins when we wake up, and until we make the next move, we don't know what the next sentence is going to be. Sometimes the next sentence we know is going to be a scary one, and sometimes we know that it is going to be a happy one, but until we move, we are not going to find out what it is going to be. When we read a book, we often wonder what is going to happen at the end of the story, but we trust the author and we read all the way through the book to get to the end. The same applies in life, we all think that if we knew the end of our story, how, and when it was going to end, it would make life so much easier to live, we wouldn't regret things as much, we would get out and do today what we have planned for tomorrow. But, just like the author of the book, we have to trust the author of our life, and know that whatever the outcome is, that it is in His perfect plan!

Sometimes it is hard for us to trust God with the silent whispers that He speaks to us in our hearts, we know we hear something, but we're not quite sure what God is saying. We need to put our full focus on Him, and follow where He leads us, we are all going to make mistakes, but as a writer relies on whiteout (or the backspace key these days) the same we have to daily rely on forgiveness, and not let the past stand in the way of our future. It is proven that the hardest person to forgive is ourselves, but we must know that God forgives us, and we need to forgive ourselves, so that God continues each day to have a clean page to continue to write the chapters of our lives. Don't live today with looking for the end of the story and how it is going to end, live today as it's your last page, and God is about to sign His name at the end of your story. Take chances, if we seek God in all decisions we make there are no wrong moves. Somethings might not work out in mans eyes, but with God, He has put us in exact places at exact times. It is up to us at that point to realize the opportunities that God has put us there, and to take advantage and step outside of our comfort zone to use those opportunites, and to give our life story a purpose.

DECISIONS, DECISIONS, NORTH CAROLINA

Well, since I have been told many times lately that I have not posted a new blog since my birthday, I figured that I would please the fans, and since I have a little bit of downtime, I will go ahead and post some updates!

Over the past few months God has been revealing so much to me through many circumstances that have happened in my life....some of them have been an awesome experience and I have loved every minute of them, while others were hard choices that I had to make or some difficult circumstances. Through it all though, I can truly say that I have taken the time to look deep into the situation and try to find what God is trying to show me, and what an awesome thing when God reveals parts of the plan that He has for my life. As I've told many of you, I have outgrown Florida. North Carolina is where my heart is, and now I am just working on the stepping process in order to be able to follow God's calling and move up there! I have been thinking about going and working at Whisper Mountain Ministries for the summer, but I new with me starting a business that it would not be possible for me to be gone that long, and honestly that kind of frustrated me knowing that I knew God wanted me there, but that I would not be able to because of work. Well, so far, I have been unemployed since Christmas, and as much as I love the unemployed life, it's hard not having any money! God has continued to provide me with odd jobs here and there to continue to meet my financial needs. My parents have been on me to get a job (and I guess I can't blame them...they can't support me forever!) but I again did not see how I was going to be able to get a job and go to WMM. I spent so much time in prayer over it, and again, God has fulfilled my need with a job that will take a few months to complete, but I am able to continue to put school first, and work around my schedule. That is one of the huge major hurdles that God has gotten me over, when I thought that there was no way it was going to happen, He had it all worked out already, and continued to open the doors! So, it look like I will still be able to go and serve at Whisper Mountain for the summer! How awesome is God with the way that He works!

I'm also into much prayer (and I welcome you to join me if you like!) over a huge transition in my life with a move to NC. I have served my time here and Florida, and God is calling me to move on and move to a new location where He has huge plans for my life so that I will be able to impact people for Him! I am looking at maybe even as soon as Christmas if everything will work out with school and all that I could be packing up and be out of here! But, I am not putting all my money into that basket as I have seen that God has a funny way of chaning my plans to fit what He has planned for me. What an awesome experience gettting to reflect back on my time, and though I did not see it at the time, being able to reflect on the ways that God has moved, and the awesome things that He has done in my life!

LOOKING UP AT THE CABINS & MESS HALL FROM THE FIELD AT WMM