Sneak Peak.

"I grew up in church. My family has always gone to church. I got saved and baptized at a very young age, the age of six. I always knew who God was and what He did for me by sending His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to die for my sins but I never had a real relationship with Him growing up. My parents prayed for me every night and I loved Jesus deep down in my heart but it wasn't until two years ago that I truly surrendered my life to Jesus Christ. My sophomore year of high school I got into a terrible car accident. I am alive today ONLY by the Lord's grace, angels and divine purpose for my life. 'For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper and not harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11 took it's place in my life that day. God has a purpose for each and every one of you. I truly believe that. If I hadn't of survived that car accident two years ago, I wouldn't be able to be here in Africa with you and I am so glad that God saw you in my future even before I did. "He makes all things work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose." Romans 8:28. In this life, we will face many trials, disasters, famine, death, tragedies and much more. But we must always remember that God can and will bring good out of every single situation we might face. He is an all-sufficent God. We must praise Him in the storms just as much as we praise Him when the sun is shining bright, if not more. He is worthy and good ALL the time, not just when things are going our way. It's in the dark times we must cling to Him and never lose our hope that we have in Jesus. He has GREAT things in store for all of us, all of you. He truly cares about each of you and holds your heart in His precious hands. If we do all we CAN do, God will ALWAYS do what we cannot. Trust in Him and give Him your EVERYTHING! He will always be faithful."

In Africa, we have to be ready to share the gospel at any given time in 2-3 minutes. This terrifies me so I jotted down a bit of my testimony to share with the people. Thought I would type it out. Enjoy! :)

Long overdue.

Hello people! Wow! It has been way too long since I've written on this thing, I apologize for that. My life has been CRAZY lately. Good crazy though, for sure. I don't even know where to start so this will probably be a gigantic, jumbled piece of writing. But hey, fits me perfectly so let's flow widdit. If you read these things and pick out all the bad grammar, stop reading now. Imma do me, and you just keep doin' you! :)

ANYWAYS,
God is SO stinkin' good! His blessings, love, presence, strength, everything about Him have been so relevant in my life these past couple months. I can't do anything but smile when I talk about Him! Before going off on a giant tangent, let's talk about graduation. Graduation was everything I thought it would be. I didn't cry because I'm just READY to be in college, but it was really sentimental spending time with some of my best friends and classmates for the last time. I mean, we exchange all of our "This isn't goodbye, just a see ya later!" Or "We'll hang out we're home for the holidays..." Or "This won't be the last time we'll see each other, I promise!" We say all of these things, but let's face the reality, Thursday night was the last time I will ever talk to a lot of those people. And that is what made my heart a little sad. I have such a big heart and it gets the best of me sometimes. God gave me a heart that breaks for what breaks His. I truly care about every single person I made a relationship with in high school. I tried my best to be the best "Jesus w/skin on" that I possibly could be these past few years. I hope Jesus is proud of me. As I walked across that stage Thursday night, after dropping my diploma in front of thousands, not only did I laugh really hard but I stood on the fact that I never conformed to "high school." Not once did I take a sip of alcohol or a puff of something illegal. I found myself in Jesus Christ and I stuck with it. I didn't sway like others did, I kept my eyes on the prize and pressed on. And I am proud of myself for doing that. It was MUCH harder than conforming and going to the usual party on friday nights with all my friends. Sure, I slipped a few choice words in my cheerleading career, but other than that I am clean, and I am proud. Only by God's grace could I ever do it. So all glory goes to Him! Saying goodbye to high school was bittersweet, but mostly sweet. I am so excited to see what God has in store for my future. He has been laying so much on my heart this past year. I am ready to have a group of friends that build me up and make me a stronger lover of Jesus. I've never had that. Sure, I have my strong, core friends but never have I had a large group of people who share the same love for Jesus that I do. I know that God is going to bring some awesome people into my life and I am so ready to meet them. They were handpicked by Him. How awesome is that! I don't even know their names yet! :)

Speaking about college brings me to my next topic: Joplin, MO. How, you ask? Well through divine appointments with certain people in my life, Emergency Management has caught my attention as a career choice. Emergency Management is the more professional title for "disaster relief." And as you all know it seems everywhere we look these days, literally, there is a disaster that has occured or is occuring. The tornadoes are especially what broke my heart and it was God's way of guiding me to this major. So I listened and obeyed and declared Emergency Management as my major last Monday. So excited about that! With that being said, yesterday, me and two good guy friends of mine took a trip to Joplin. I knew it was bad up there, but honestly until you actually see it with you own eyes, you can't fathom the damage. Pictures don't do this place any justice. As soon as we entered into the desturuction my heart was absolutely devestated. Tears swelled up in my eyes as I met and listened to stories of these people WHILE we were standing on what was left of their houses. Talk about humbling. We helped at two different houses, one still had a structure maintained, the other completely gone. You could see for miles because absolutely everything had been completely flattened by the tornado. The only way to describe it is that it looked like the end of the world had taken place. Everything was destroyed. It all became real with the stories I heard. As we arrived at the second destroyed house, we stood on top of it looking at the house beside us, as three cadever dogs looked for a dead body. The house that used to stand in front of that one belonged to a man, his wife and daughter. The man is now a widow. I could tell countless stories like this that flooded my ears yesterday but I'll save you the heartache. Please continue to pray for these people. It is going to be years before things even BEGIN to be normal again. Go, share Jesus, listen to stories and help clean up. It's like a never-ending cycle.

On a lighter, more happy note I leave for Africa on June 15th! I remember counting down from six months and now I'm just weeks away. So surreal. My dream of three years is coming true. Today, we officially got the okay to spend a day at Amani Baby Cottage in Jinja. I am very excited about that. I've wanted to do that for a long time now! So keep me in your prayers!

I'll try not to wait so long before the next post! :)

God bless you guys!

Patience; 

If patience makes the heart grow fonder,
why am I wanting to wait no longer?
I've waited for days, months and years,
for you to come and meet me here.
I pray for you more than you'll ever know,
writing you letters that bring me hope.
The day you walk yourself into my life,
will be the day my face turns bright.
Purity is held so sacred to me,
in love with you I can't wait to be.
Writing this poem, I can't help but smile,
wondering and waiting all the while.

Wrote this in about 5 minutes.
Just been thinking about my
future husband a lot lately..... :)

I get it.

This weekend I had to work a fairly large volleball tournament that FS puts on to get some much needed NHS hours. My job was to simply clean the courts, pick up all the trash and straighten the chairs when a game ended. I had the last shift so my job was doubled. I ended up cleaning about nine courts full of bottles, wrappers and things you don't even want to know about. I'm not complaining, this is just getting me to my point of this post.

I picked up hundreds of water bottles on Sunday night. Hundreds. More than half of those bottles were either hardly drinken out of or hadn't even been opened. This a.) pissed me off and b.) broke my heart. The only thing running through my mind were all of the orphans and impoverished people living in third world countries that would do ANYTHING for even a drop of this water that we so freely waste. I made a comment to the guy I was working with about how upset this made me and all he could do was give me a half-hearted smile. He didn't get it. This is when I realized that people don't get it. This concept that was invading my thoughts didn't even cross anyone elses. At this moment God reassured me that I am called. Why? Because I get it when no one else does. I'm thankful that I'm one of the chosen ones who actually get God's heart. This is why I will be His hands and His feet forevermore.

Okay straight slicka, lemme throw dis at cha:


First of all, I've been sick for the past week.
Grossly sick as in 'I've never been that sick
before sick.' It sucked bigtime. I feel like I've
been passed out wasted for 5 days, all I can
remember is coughing my lungs up, drool,
migraines, snuffy noses, more drool and lots
of medicine. Oh and then x-rays telling me that
my scoliosis has gotten a lot worse so Monday 
afternoon I will be sitting in a neurosurgeons
office & he will probably say the following, 

"Okay...first off, you need to quit cheering. 

Second, the only way we can truly stop 

all this pain you're in is for you to have a very

unpleasant back surgery." 

CYA.

Okay I won't say 'cya' but I'll more than likely be thinking it. On a serious note, I don't want to have the surgery but I have to consider the fact that I'm a 17 year old, active teenage girl and my back is already as bad/worse than my father's. That's not looking good for me down the road. I really don't want to be a hunchback bride. Eeek. No thank you. But I don't know I guess we'll see after Monday.

God is still good.

I am still single. 

Africa is closer.

I am happy. 

I get to see Kari Jobe.

I might not go to prom

just so I can see Kari Jobe.

And yeah, that's about it. 

Satan's Voice, God's Redemption:

Wrote this with my friend, John Creech. 

You know those days you just can't shake,

that little voice you wish was fake.

It roams inside your thoughts and mind,

beats you up and makes you cry.

You try to fight but yet you falter,

Just give it up; run to the altar.

This voice that haunts you day and night,

is Satan taking all your might.

The days they come and go it seems,

like a never ending cycle of dreams.

But with my God our purpose is given,

never was it meant to be hidden.

Satan tries to hide it from you,

give you an L and take away Gods' W.

But listen to him and be undone,

cast into Hell as an evil one.

Listen to God and be redeemed,

take on His mercies, rise and sing.

Hands and Feet of Jesus:

blackened skin and joyful smiles,
that makes my heart beat a little faster,
gives me desire to heal disaster.
Little to eat and no clean water,
We're here asking, "Where's the nearest McDonald's?"
Shoeless feet and clotheless backs,
we walk around wearing eighty dollar hats.
A five year old raising a baby,
she's just a child, not even a lady.
It makes me wonder what Jesus would say,
"Why are you sitting? There's hurt and dismay.
I asked you to be my hands and feet,
help the speechless learn to speak.
Is that to much for your lazy hearts?
Mine is breaking, falling apart.
I've given you nations to make My Name known,
so stop being selfish and give them a Home.
Show them my love and all of my grace,
teach them forgiveness till they seek my face.
I hold you ALL in the palm of My Hand,
My thoughts for you like grains of sand.
God is good and forever will reign,
so pick up your Cross, follow and obey. 

There's something about those hopful eyes,