He is Proud of Me.

[from Pinterest.]

I apparently have a hard time understanding what God really thinks of me. I never knew it was an issue. I always thought I was one of those secure people. Sure, I have those days that I feel fat or whatever, but I have never questioned God's love for me or his goodness. Secure and confident are words that I hear often during times of encouragement. 

Well, I guess that both my friends and I didn't realize that I have a dang hard time knowing that God is proud of me.

Today, some of my best friend's came back from India. As I was driving to the airport to welcome them home I started singing some worship which turned into me kind of sing-praying to God which then took a turn for the weird when I started basically prophetically singing what God was speaking over myself. Have you ever done that? Like spoke out loud for God? Where your words are like being hijacked right from your brain? No, this is not like tongues. Its like when you write down the things that God is saying in your journal, only you are just saying them out loud as they come and your basically weeping the whole time. Well, that is what happened to me. It was crazy. It was intense. It was the best moment I have had with Jesus in a while and I welcomed it with open arms.

So, he said a lot of stuff which was all wonderful, but it came down to two main things: He is proud of me and he dearly loves me.

When I mess up or feel less than mediocre I tend to get in this funk of a mindset that there is no way that I am worth anything. I just feel like such a stinking failure. I watched a segment on the Today show this morning about getting a job and all I could think was that no one would ever want to hire me. 

The wonderful thing about being the daughter of the King of the Universe is that he knows all. All meaning the end from the beginning. All meaning every event has, is, and will happen. It also means that the good works that I was made for were made by his hands and his mind. 

So he looks at me in the midst of my sin or failure and says I am proud of you because I actually KNOW you. I don't even know myself as deeply and intimately as God knows me. I haven't even discovered the things that he has put inside me for his glory or the passions that he has created in my heart. And those things that my 22 year old self hasn't even touched yet and the things that he looks at and says look at that beauty. He doesn't look at me in my current state and only see the brokenness. Rather, he looks at me in the midst of all that junk and has the ability to see past it into the GLORY to GLORY that he has promised me. 

I am so lucky to have a Daddy God who does that. Man, it must really be a downer to choose anything besides him.

The Meaning Behind The Name

The Sweetest Field.

Sounds kinda funny right?

Like some insider thing that you aren't being let in on?

Well, today is the day that I am going to enlighten you as to the meaning of the name of this blog and my original intent in creating it. 

In the summer of 2001 I stepped through the opening gate of T Bar M Sports Camp and that week I fell in love. This place has been one of my favorite places ever for the last 11 years. I was a camper from 2001-2004, on high school work crew in 2007 and then FINALLY a counselor (we call them coaches) in 2009. My years at camp are some of my favorite memories. They mark times where I've seen lots of growth in my life spiritually. The last two summers I have wanted desperately to go back to camp, but felt God pulling me in other directions. In the summer of 2010, I felt like Jesus wanted me to go Brazil on a mission trip with my church and again in 2011 I felt that pull to missions and went to Uganda for a month. Both of those trips were so special and so great. I delighted in obeying God and knowing that I was not only haphazardly walking into this plan, but also choosing it. There was still a place in my heart that wanted to be back at T Bar M though. 

At the end of last summer, I went to visit my camp bestie, LeAnne, at camp. She was on leadership and I was soooo jealous. She got to spend her entire summer there! Well, during my quiet time one morning in the outback I just really felt God saying that if I wanted to I could go back for summer 2012. Well, that seemed a little ridiculous considering I would be graduating that May and had no idea what I was going to do for income and figured my parents would pull the plug right about then. 

The longer I prayed about it the more God revealed to me that way this relationship thing works. He just kept telling me that his desires had become mine and that many of mine had become his. That me wanting to be at camp meant he wanted me to go there. I also felt that he was saying that in the places that I had been obedient the last two summers and surrendered my own desires he wanted to reward me. It was a moment in which God wanted to say, "Well done. Here is what I think of what you have done." and then present a gift. I don't know about you, but my understanding of a gift is that it is meant to be enjoyed. Once I really landed on reapplying for camp, I just knew that this was a sweet gift from the Lord. That camp was like the treasure in the parable of the treasure in the field. In God's pursuit of my heart he had found this sweet treasure that he knew brought me joy and brought me close to him. He decided to hide it in the field in a place that only he would know. He knew though. He knew how to find it and when it was meant to be found again. So to me, being at camp is this sweet gift from my Daddy God.

Another thing I that I have continually felt God saying since I decided to come back to camp that it was just going to be an open heaven. That the field was ready for the harvest and that the fruit would blow me away. He wants to show me his goodness by letting me SEE the good work of his spirit this summer and then letting me partner with him in it. Its so happy and exciting!!!! I am so expectant.

The sweetest field. A gift, a promise, a mandate, and an invitation all wrapped up into one. It's gonna be one rocking' summer! There is already so much glory all over this!!!!

12 Days of Graduation: Am I Ready?

Obviously with graduating comes the irrational fear that I will never make it on my own and the real world is just going to swallow me whole.

Today I babysat two sweet little children. I got here at 6 am and just now at 8:30 got the last one to bed. I am so tired. I literally am in bed and ready to pass out. Another note, multiple times today I almost cried over either the littlest thing or just sheer exhaustion.

It really does make me question if I can handle ANYTHING. I can't even handle babysitting two kids for an entire day.

I mean, I still loved watching them and playing with them. I am just so worn out.

Anyways. The great thing about the place of weakness is that I get to let God be strong for me. I get to trust him that I was never made to fail. I was made to win. (shout out to Sarah Chang.)

12 Days of Graduation: What I Did This Semester

So, many of you know that I am receiving a minor in Studio Art along with my BA in Communications. You always get the same questions when you are an art student. They usually start with, "Can you draw?" and when I say no they look at me funny as if drawing is the only form of art and then ask if I paint. Thus the cycle continues until they finally just straight ask what classes I am taking.

To be a Studio Art minor there are very few requirements. You have to take Drawing I, 2D Design, one semester of Art History and then 3 upper level studios.

Last semester, I took wet lab photography. That means like film in the dark room with the little red light kind of photography. I loved it. I had only taken it because I had always wanted to take a photography class and in order to take any digital classes you had to take wet lab, but I ended up falling in love with photography. One day we were watching a movie all about the great photographers from LIFE Magazine and I just had this moment where I realized that I loved this art form and I wanted to be good at this art form and I really felt the Holy Spirit just stirring something in my heart that said I just might be made for this if I would allow him to partner with me in it.

So, this semester I was enrolled in 3 different photography classes and I loved every single one of them! It was seriously so fun and so refreshing and so hard!!! Haha. But I learned so much and I grew so much.

So, I figured I would post some of my stuff from this semester. Today I will post some collections and another time I'll just post the random shots that I love.

Enjoy.


This first group was a project I did about the way that words affect people. My inspiration originally came from a sex trafficking talk I went to in which they told us about how the traffickers use their words to imprison their victims through lies. It got me thinking about the way we say things to one another and how those things end up hurting much longer than a punch to the gut and can even attach to us.

This was my final project for one of my classes. It was a statement about the transitory state of life and how the state of being abandoned means that it was once occupied and the life or spirit of that place merely moved on.

 This last one was a really fun project! We as a class submitted a proposal to a project called the Billboard Art Project. You should defs google it cause it is awesome. Anyways, the project basically rents out electronic billboards in major cities all over the USA and for a few days in each city they display the art work of different artists. It is an effort to beautify the cities. So, our group got chosen for the display in Salem, Oregon. We decided to use 8 different images that we thought represented us and then using Photoshop we brought them down to 30% opacity each and layered them. It represents how all the things we love and all the things that represent us make up who we are as one image.

12 Days of Graduation: Bogo Superlatives

Tonight was the Bogo's last night together ever as one unit. 

Oh, it was so bittersweet.

But yes, we did in fact do Bogo Awards. Here are a few.

Most likely to…

·      Fall out at their wedding – Katie McCollister

·      Be Miss America – Sarah Chang and Sarah Neelley

·      Be a hot soccer mom – Annie Howard

·      Have the most biological children – Annie Howard and Stephanie Villa

·      Marry an ethnic person – Katie McCollister

·      Have the strangest kids’ names – Sarah Chang

·      Wear Chacos at their wedding – Lindsey Lawton

·      Start a non-profit – Sarah Neelley

·      Stay in Waco the longest – Sarah Chang

·      Star in a reality TV show – Katie McCollister

·      Have prophetic kids – Katie McCollister

·      Stay young forever – Stephanie Villa

·      Adopt kids – Lindsey Lawton

·      Go to the nations first – Lindsey Lawton

·      Travel the world unassociated with mission trips – Annie Howard

·      Be the best cook – Sarah Neelley and Lindsey Lawton

·      Be a country club wife – Annie Howard

·      Have a genius kid – Stephanie Villa

·      Be a member of a dance crew – Sarah Chang

·      Own their own clothing line – Sarah Chang and Annie Howard

·      Have most kids (adopted and biological) – Lindsey Lawton

·      Have hipster children – Sarah Chang

·      Come back for SING every year – Sarah Neelley

·      Own their own business – Stephanie Villa

·      Join a U.S. church plant – Annie Howard

·      Marry first – Lindsey Lawton

12 Days of Graduation: YouTube

YouTube. It is a mystery as to whether it is a college students friend or worst enemy. Many study hours can be wasted through YouTube, but many many many many many laughs can also be shared. I decided to post a few of my faves from my college years. Videos that I watched over and over. Enjoy :)

Side note: Official grades came out today! I am for real graduating in 4 days! AH!

Penland Life.

Nobody's Perfect by DogLover.

How To Jerk.

Aicha.

Boom Goes The Dynamite.

Threw It On The Ground.

Alana Lee: Butterflies.

Take It Easy.

Honey Boo Boo Child.

Ghost In The Stalls.

12 Days of Graduation: Once a Bogo, Always a Bogo

I don't know if I can truly express to you what exactly it means to be a member of the Bogo. It has truly been one of the best things to happen to me during my time in college. So, for those of you who don't know (though I can't imagine how you wouldn't know) the Bogo is where I have lived the last two years. It has been so wonderful. These girls have become my best friends and I truly cannot imagine life without them. It will truly be tearful and extremely hard when the Bogo disbands in a week or so. They have been the biggest blessing. I am daily encouraged, challenged, and blessed by their lives. Today they took me to breakfast and just celebrated me. Ah! I just feel like the whole breakfast I should have just been thanking them and celebrating them because they have changed my life through out my college career. I love em. Thanks for the new birks girls.

bogo love always.