Weekend in Canadia!

This past weekend marked my last summer wedding! I had one of the best weekends this summer-headed out on Thursday and went to a free concert at Elizabeth park. It was so much fun and it was a neat experience since it was the first time (that I remember) going to a free concert at a local park. My cousin and I decided to have a girls night out with our moms, and my youngest sister. Other than the concert we didn’t really do that much ahah my mom and aunt were insistent on showing my cousin, sister, and I their elementary, and high school as well as some of the houses they used to live in. It was really fun going to the high end of the city of Blaine and looking at extremely nice houses;the kind that reminded me of the white house in the movie The Notebook, if you know what I mean lol. The next day was probably one of my favorites, since my cousin and her husband took me out shooting. I got to learn how to shoot a shotgun for the first time, since all other times I’ve gone shooting its been a hunting gun haha. It was so fun. Then went to my other cousin (the bride’s) house and we went on a walk one last time…which brought up a lot of memories since when she and I were younger we would always walk around her and my neighborhoods, so it was a great time. Then it was time for rehearsal and the dinner. The Bachelorette party was another highlight since my cousin had no idea we were even going to have a party for her. We mainly just did girly things that we’ve not done in forever-painted our nails, watched wedding flicks, and ate tons and tons of candy aha. The next day was semi stressful cause we found out the night before that there were no CD players available for the wedding, so we had to set up some play lists from scratch and even though I am sure that the first dance/father and daughter dance wasn’t how my cousin originally wanted I hope that it was still good :) I was so honored to have been able to be a bridesmaid and be there for her on her big day. Over all I would say it was a good weekend, plus the day before leaving I was able to get together with my mentor at the park and have a talk about life. I am finding that I have been feeling more lonely and just unsure of my future now with the new updates on moving and what not. Talking to Saundra really brought clarity to how I should be doing things. Also have been learning that I really can’t let fear control me and even though that’s a given its really hard for me to live it out. In the area of relationships, there have been some new developments and honestly have no idea how things are going to turn out. Made a realization about 2 days before leaving for the wedding that things aren’t what they should be with one of the relationships I am considering and so that has had be worried a little. I have this thing where I have to be in control of near EVERYTHING. I feel like my life is going no where but honestly am realizing that I shouldn’t be basing my success in the future off of whether or not my plans that I have now, work out. So that is the update for now. I have found, however that I am making some steps forward in the confidence area-something that I had been worrying about the last post I put up. God is always good, that I know. He puts dreams in our hearts for a reason and sometimes we’re not ready for the things he has for us-hence why sometimes he makes us wait longer than we want. There’s a quote that has really encouraged me and something I truly believe on how God answers our prayers: He either answers yes, which gives us what we want. No, which gives us something better, or wait, which gives us the best. :-)

 

The fashion of his love

Ok so I'm going to just throw some things out there-put myself on the spot so to speak :P
Learned this past week that I'm very insecure about my age/size in more ways than I realized.As in I look way younger than I am, and it's pretty much been like that for my whole life so you would think I'd be use to it but I'm not. Ever since creation I've kind of been shaken up a little cause people would meet me and be all like Oh you're 15/16 right! And I'm like noooo 20 actually lol. For the most part I don't have a problem cause I've been told that once I start talking they can figure out that I'm older than I look. But its just the first part after meeting people that I'm super shy. Idk if that even makes sense but it just makes me feel that I have to try harder to prove my self and I shouldn't have to. So that's one thing that I want to work on;my confidence. The odd thing is normally I'm super confident and nothing can bring me down but yeah ever since creation fest I've been more quiet than usual and it wasn't just one incident that made me feel inferior. The second thing that I have recently learned is that the things I do=who I am. And I know that's a lie from the devil but for some reason have been acting like it's a truth in my life. So since I feel like I haven't really been getting anywhere in my life lately I've been feeling like a no body as sad as that sounds lol. So I was like if what I do equals who I am, than why on earth would God want to love ME. It's not like I'm even doing anything wrong-I could understand God wanting to forgive people who fail and then turn things around. But me, I've had different things that I've known I need to work on-things that aren't that bad just habits that make it hard for me to accomplish much...and haven't been doing anything about it. It's like I sit and wait for life to happen to me, wait for my dreams to come true and do nothing to add my part in the deal. Something I learned though is that God truly is in love with me in spite of that, and that just makes me more passionate for him. I'm telling you, how can a woman not be moved by a man who is moved by her? :) It's the most beautiful thing and especially when you feel you don't deserve that kind of love...just motivates you to go out and love other people, and to actually make changes in your life. Something that I learned in one of my devotionals is that I need to receive from people in order to receive from God, and that's the one way I will be able to feel his love more. And receiving...for those of you who don't know this yet about me, is one of the hardest things for me to do cause I like to be independent and accepting things from others just makes me feel like I'm being a burden. SO dealing with these things;that's my mission for the rest of August and the majority of September. I know what I need to do, I just need to do it now. :P Night to all my peeps out there and I'll have more updates haha

Love Unexpected

SO! It's almost the end of the summer, I can't believe it. :P My recent journeys...so many things have taken place that I don't remember where I left off haha.
Creation:was fantastic. For those of you who didn't know, I normally volunteer there every summer and this year rather than being in the Artist booth, I was placed in the Music store with a different schedule than what I wanted. So in all honesty, I was really worried cause this meant that for the first time I would have a supervisor I didn't know and would have to learn new things. GASP! Lol but I'm glad I chose to trust God cause I found out that it wasn't near as bad as I feared. I met a lot of really awesome people, was pushed way outside my comfort zone, learned a lot of new things, and had a lot of fun. I can say that next year I don't really mind where I work-artist booth or music store were really quite something. :) This year was different in that we had fireworks at the end of the event, and we also had movie nights after the concerts. So I really took advantage of that and really sad that the week went by already. Got to see some of the friends I made last year, and a couple times got to have some people over to my campsite to have a devotional. It was the coolest thing to be sharing testimonies with people I had just met/people I met last year. Aside from learning to trust God with where he has me and trusting him with the future, I learned something else that struck a chord with me:God KNOWS me fully and wants to LOVE me unconditionally. While I had known this pretty much from day one, for the first time I realized that I'm not just a group of people that God loves. I'm an individual that means the world to HIM an he would do anything to prove that to me. That needless to say, rocked my world. :) I do have a couple regrets like not going to all the concerts and hearing all the speakers that I had the opportunity to see, but then those were the quiet moments I had with my amazing God so though in some ways I felt I wasted those moments...they were still precious. :) I had a really hard time opening up this year though...that's the one thing I do regret that I would do differently. I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that a couple people that I'm used to having with me at Creation, weren't there this year. So that was another growing experience.
Upon coming home, I started this Bible study called Love Unexpected...and there are a couple reasons why this study has really influenced my life. :)My pastor is going through Song of Solomon in a way that I never would've thought of on my own:he is talking about the relationship between the bride and her lover as if it were God talking to each of us. I wish I could go into detail about every chapter, but in the first chapter...my pastor was talking about how God wants to be close with each and every one of us. He longs to have an actual relationship with us. That, I knew already but just the different metaphors given really helped me see it more clearly. The second chapter is talking about how God sees each of us as beautiful to him and it doesnt matter what we have or are doing, what we do doesn't define his love. The Third chapter is talking about how we need to do all we can to make sure that nothing comes in the way of our relationship with God, and that he needs to come first over anything else. The 4th chapter is the one I did most recently, and it uses the different body parts of the woman as a symbol of God's love, and to me this just shows why God made us women reflect him...which makes it so beautiful to me. :) When it describes the woman's eyes, its a symbol of honesty and purity. When it talks of her hair, it's talking about her glory-something I didn't know is that a reason why cultural women cover their hair is cause God has created women to have beautiful hair and if they are in the presence of God with their hair uncovered it will take away people's attention from God. So I thought that was interesting that God created us women to reflect a part of him :) The woman's teeth represent us taking in God's work and meditating on it, letting it digest in our lives. Our lips are red to represent how God's blood washed us clean. The man talks about the woman's temples which is a symbol of her brain-how God helps us to become new creatures in the way that we think. When the man describes the woman's neck, it is talking about her confidence in God and how when she is following him she can stand tall and strong in him. Her breasts represent her heart and how she is fully focused on her lover. And to me that is one of my favorite parts cause its talking about how we need to be consumed with God's love for us so we can love people better. Another reason why this study and title Love Unexpected means a lot to me, is cause it deals with what I'm going through in my life right now. With finally realizing that I like someone...its like a love unexpected. And the funny thing is that its a journey..I don't know how things will turn out but I'm enjoying what God is teaching me along the way. :)
Newest adventure for me:going to seattle for the weekend, possibly going to go to Port Orchards for the first time! Still have to study more and make sure I take my test here soon lol, and have another wedding coming up in almost 2 weeks. :)