Friends are the best, aren't they? I love my friends! And I love my best friend...you've probably read her guest blog a few times. She's so cool! But really, I absolutely love my time with her.
We live 3 hours away from each other. And with our schedules, it is incredibly hard to get a weekend where we can visit each other. So last Sunday we met in the middle for an afternoon coffee. It was pure bliss!
My heart was happy. I left feeling encouraged, challenged and loved. Sometimes you just need that...you just need time with your best friend. They understand you. They don't judge. They love and they listen.
It was actually Orphan Sunday when we met. Orphans are our FAVORITE thing in the whole world!!! DBarr and I love orphans almost more then anything. So we spent time talking about orphans, Africa and adoption (I don't know if you fully understand...we could talk about these three things all day every day!!).
Here is a picture of a little boy DBarr started sponsoring that day. His name is Albert. He is the most beautiful boy I saw all day. He is so brave.
Make time for your best friend. Skype, call, meet. Best friends are a great gift from God!
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Today I got up at 4am to go shoot pictures of Texas A&M in the dark. It was fun. I just couldn't put my camera down today so I went to my favorite spot on campus. The Bonfire Memorial.
Lately, my life has been one, big, beautiful, messy, crazy thing. I can't really even describe it.
It's easy for me to happy. Making a boring situation fun, looking for the good, finding something to laugh at- that's me.
But I struggle with finding joy. Joy is beyond the happy. Beyond the laughs. Beyond the smiles. And to be honest, right now it's so hard for me to find joy. But I'm learning.
Just this morning the Lord proved His beautiful faithfulness again. Glory to His name! I read Psalm 5:3
"...and wait in expectation."
That is the last part of the verse and it hit me like a brick. My expectations HAVE to be in my Heavenly Father. I can't put my expectations in a job interview, a relationship, or myself.
It's hard to do. And I'm learning. But here are things that have been happening...enjoy!
High school football on a Friday night.
Sitting on the front porch at home while it rains. There are few things better.
Class field trip to take pictures of flowers? Don't mind if I do.
Getting to take pictures of adorable little girls.
Sister just keeps comin' to College Station. I'm not complaining at all.
A fun football game with some Impact fishies. Love these girls!
Fall brings the good comfort food to Panera. Bring on the carb overloadin'.
Pretty skies. Thank you Jesus.
Grilled Alaskan salmon brought straight from Alaska himself. Grateful for this friendship.
More sister time.
As if headed to a NEEDTOBREATHE concert isn't exciting, God gave us this to look at!
A weekend with these two to see NEEDTOBREATHE. So many laughs and memories. Love them dearly.
Be still my heart.
Beau.
My. Favorite. Band.
Aggies love them.
Seth's guitar picks. Thank you Shiloe.
2 things: the start of Duck Dynasty season two; drinking coffee at home~nothing better
Good reminders.
Got to spend a week at home for the one and only East Texas Yamboree.
The only time during the year when it's acceptable to eat a whole one. By yourself. Each day.
Day made when someone sends you this.
Afternoons in the Flag Room with beautiful Ags playing beautiful music on my beautiful campus.
You know how some days you can plan your entire day out, hour by hour, with your to-do list and schedule. All color coded. All perfect.
When my day starts like this (which is most days), I feel fail-proof. My day will go just perfect if I can follow this schedule and get everything done. When I lay down that night, knowing that everything will be marked through, that makes my heart happy!
I know, Type A to the max. Some of you may have no idea what this looks like and think I'm crazy. Others of you relate so well, don't you!?
Well, last week was one of those weeks where every day my day was planned perfectly. Every day did not end perfectly. My list and schedule were not marked through at the end of the day perfectly. Things came up, things didn't get done. I was frustrated. I was annoyed. I was stressed. I was defeated.
When I don't get things done that I had written down, I feel like I failed. Big time. I think that everyone around me expects me to get everything done. Expects me to have a clean house. To cook and bake homemade goodies. To wear make-up and have my hair done. To have time to workout. To be in a zillion organizations. To be successful at school. To be happy all the time.
Do you feel like that ever? Feel like you just have to be a perfect Christian girl? It's hard. It's impossible to do. But yet, we put so much pressure on ourselves to be this way. Why? I don't know.
Maybe it's from growing up in church and seeing all the older ladies or our own moms. We watched them have a clean house, cook dinner every night, volunteer at the church, be there for everyone. And what we saw was that they did it all perfectly with grace.
I realized this week that God wanted my attention. He definitely got it. I felt so defeated. So not perfect. I realized that all my attention, all my work, everything I did was due to the fact that someone was watching me do it, I knew something was wrong. I was in need of saving from this huge bubble of pride surrounding me. I knew that God was faithful. I knew that everything I did was because of His grace. I knew that He has redeemed me. But living that way is hard. Knowing how to live as free, in His grace, redeemed, is hard.
Praying for my Father to rescue me from my defeat and pride of living in a way that satisfies others, that's a daily prayer for me now. Tears flowed when I realized that I'm captive to living in a way that bases all my success and joy on how others are satisfied by me or see me as successful. How that must hurt my Father's heart when He already rescued me.
After days of praying, being convicted of this and crying out to God for help, you do get tired. I was getting more frustrated that I wasn't fixing this problem now; that God wasn't making me joyful or satisfying my heart immediately. I had pain. I wanted healing after my prayer ended. Right then. I think I expected my heart to be overwhelmed with joy and satisfaction in the Lord immediately. But sometimes our Father doesn't work like that. He didn't do that for me.
I knew God was faithful. I've seen His faithfulness before and knew what that feels like. I knew my heart could be completely satisfied in Him; it has been before. I knew all these things. I just didn't know why my heart didn't feel different.
God works in so many ways, and it isn't my place to tell Him how I want Him to work in my life. Really, that's crazy. Me telling the Creator of the universe how I want Him to work because obviously I know what's best.... But slowly, my Father sweetly brought me back to Him.
He is showing me that my perfect life isn't perfect. Only He is perfect. That getting my satisfaction and joy from the way others view me or doing things out of pride because I think that's the way people should see me, is hard to let go of and let Him be the giver of joy and the satisfier.
This journey is a hard one. But God is beautiful. He is gracious. And glory to His name for that because He knows I'll need lots of it through the process!
I heard this song and loooove the lyrics! Listen to the words. Our God is our savior!! He is right there when we call out to Him! He hears us! He is so great!
Well, it's been a crazy couple of months. Family vacation, Impact (meeting the most precious incoming-now-freshmen at A&M), good friend getting married, starting my last semester at Texas A&M, doing school stuff, and trying to breathe....learning too.
Learning that God is here. He is now. He isn't going anywhere. He isn't going to leave me (or you!). He's right here.
Isn't that comforting!? It makes my day a whole lot better remembering this. Lately, I've had to say these things out loud daily or several times a day.
But God is so faithful and so good! He's teaching me that. Sometimes it isn't fun going through the process of something. But then as soon as it's over, you realize God taught you sooo much. He's so beautiful and good like that!
This is what my life has kind of looked like over the past few months...these are just a few of my gratefulness pictures!
The Thomas Family Vacation:
We started in Red River...oh Red River, NM, I left my heart with you for many reasons.
Reason 1: I could sit outside in August in 50 degree weather with coffee and my favorite book. Reason 2: It is socially acceptable to wear chacos and fishing shirts everyday.
Reason 3: Your Mountain Daisies are my favorite flowers.
Reason 4: Your views are beautiful.
Reason 5: You have cool places like Camel Rock.
We then headed to Santa Fe...cool city. Great food and weird people but I loved everyone of them. I also loved buying beautiful handmade jewelry from this Inca Indian lady. She was beautiful!
After a wonderful and restful family vacation, I headed to Impact. Impact is a retreat for incoming freshmen at Texas A&M/Blinn that introduces them to Christ and His community here. It's a beautiful thing! :) I was so excited! I was a prayer teamer, so while camp was going on I got to pray for the freshmen and retreat. God moved in awesome ways and did awesome work in their lives and mine!
My camp color was green; we were Omega session and camp Simeon (Omega Simeon)!
The beautiful Omega Simeon ladies! Absolutely love these chicas!
The rather handsome O-Sim gentlemen.
My partner, Bryce!
On the way to retreat...just look at those precious freshmen!
Some of my beautiful freshmen girls!
Then it was my life-long friend's wedding!
The cutest little flower girl around, Harper
OHMYGOODNESS!!! Then I had my last first day at Texas A&M...weird.
It did help that my class was in this room.
Having photography as apart of my degree does make me a happy camper.
Early morning photo-shoots and coffee...ahhh
This chica turned 19!! (She's a baby:) )
Shiloe: we walk around Sams getting samples, break into Breakaway before they open the doors and have the best convos. Love her! :)
Perks of being a morning person, being on campus to watch the sun rise over Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park (one of my favorite places!)
God is beautiful! Watch a sunrise this week.
This past weekend my sister came to visit me!! We also had our first official game in the SEC!! Whoop! (gators 20, Texas A&M 17 :( )
Getting sunburnt at the game, having a fight break out right behind us at the game, eating bread bowls from Blue Baker, laughs and lots of talks...best. weekend. ever.
Gratefulness makes for a beautiful heart. You can see way I think giving thanks breeds joy here and the importance of it. :)
But here are a few of the things I counted as gifts this week!
Seeing God's beauty through His creation
Sister date with the best sista evaaa!!
Having friends with the coolest job...blessed by Lizzie and her passion for adoption. You can learn more about Together For Adoption and follow them on Pinterest.
For fun shoes
For chacos and giving my toes freedom ;)
Babysitting three beautiful girlies :) Their sweet new kitty, Rock Star
The honesty that comes from a 5 and 3 year old...funny and challenging
Make overs, playing in the sprinkler outside, eating jelly sandwiches, and watching Barbie Christmas in July...I love these girls!
