The Holiday "break"~ I use the term loosely...
I've just returned back to San Marcos after an exhausting 5 days in Dallas. It was so good to have all of my immediate family together, Santa was WAY too good to myself and all of my siblings. We all agreed this was one of the best Christmas's in a long time, and not because of gifts obviously, but we all just had a good time together, we are all getting older and mom really enjoys just having us all home over the holidays. However for me, the holidays are never "restful" in the words of my ever lovely Katie Mcneill, "I felt like a ping-pong ball!" So much extended family to see ALL over the place.
I got to spend some time with Kim, Katie,and Abby on Wednesday night which we do every year and I look forward to every year! I love just drinking some wine, laughing, and catching up with my girls. We had so much to talk about with Katie's wedding just 6 months away, jobs, and they all got a kick out of hearing about my nude drawing class this past semester, hahaha. The world just feels right when the 4 of us are together in a room :-)
I'm back in San Marcos to work for the next 3 days and then headed to Houston for New Years with everyone from school, and then back to Dallas for a week at my 5th and very last Dallas Winter Conference with CRU.
Things I still wanto to do before my last semester of College starts........
-Read for fun, Paint, get organized, watch some of my new flicks I got for Christmas ( Felicity-Seasons 1-3, and Greys Anatomy season 2!)
Happy New Years <3
Amanda Michelle
be thou my vision
There was an event called 65 hours of prayer that was co-sponsored by our prayer and promotions teams at Cru. People signed up for hour slots to go to this local church to this amazing room that the promo team had turned into a very sweet, intimate, yet inviting setting for all of us to come into and to pray and write and paint and read; there were so many ways to worship and pray set up there. I really enjoyed my time there on Thursday evening and felt like it was cut too short, and hour went by all to quickly. I painted a little, read some and prayed a lot. It was literally the first time I had been still that whole day, almost the whole week, minus sleeping of course. I was humbled and grateful for that time and that place. Immediately following that I headed over to our Cru weekly meeting on campus, and it was an all worship night; no speaker just worship music, verses and times of reflection and prayer. I was so blessed and thankful for those hours on thursday. My head has been so cluttered and my heart has been heavy and I felt the burden lifted off.I love that hymn "Be thou my Vision, oh Lord of my heart....." I am always in need of a vision check and heart check, and i'm thankful for that this past week.
Chocolate
This catchy, and always appropriate word was the theme for our
Cru women's retreat this past weekend. Basically the talks were on conflict, comparison, and community. The theme connection was the question of "what's your chocolate?" Meaning what are the things that you crave and run to for comfort and in times of stress or anxiety before you run to the Lord. For some it is Chocolate, for others its a number of other things which we addressed. I think the best part of the weekend for me is seeing 50 or so women all gathered together to worship and pray and talk through issues and real life junk that we are all dealing with and learning how to walk through these things together. It was interesting in hearing from many of the girls in the room to find how similarly we are all made, and that most of the time we use these commonalities to tear each down and as excuses for jealous and
unnecessary conflict, instead of learning how we can teach each other and build each other up and grow closer as women, in light of these things.
While it's hard and complicated lots of times, I
wouldn't trade being a girl for anything! It's the hard things we go through that refine us and help us to grow into the women he wants us to become. I'm so thankful for the girls in my life who can go through my "chocolate" with me :-)
It's November 12
th, and you better believe my Christmas decorations are up in my apartment already! Sick, I know....but I
couldn't help myself!
Considering
Last night at bible study our lesson was entitled "All You Need is Love". The whole study was based around 2 verses in Hebrews which I have thought to be very mundane and common up until last night. Hebrews 10:24-25 and 3:12-13 were the passages and they are basically verses on community, love and encouragement, but this time in reading them I was pulling out all these new things that I never saw before. The first set of verses starts out with the words, "Let us consider......" it of course goes on to say great things about "spurring" one another on, and encouraging one another in love, and not giving up; but for some reason this idea of "considering" really struck my attention. To consider something requires more than simply a passing thought, it requires and demands intentionality behind it. I love this idea; I feel as though this idea of being intentional is something that Jesus loves, because He was and is with us. I long to be intentional in my considerations in relationships and behind the things that I do. It gave me lots to think about nevertheless.It's November 1st and its finally getting colder in Texas. Counting down the days till my roomates allow me to put up the Christmas decor. :-)
~A
Bliss
My best friend is engaged! It was so happy, as my lovely Kimmy Hooper repeated throughout the evening. I haven't felt that giddy in a very long time. Abby and Kim drove in from Dallas yesterday, myself, along with Katie and Travis's ( the newly engaged) families who also came into Austin from Dallas. Several of their UT friends and church friends were there as well. It was a celebration indeed. The story was precious, the ring fit her hand as if it had always been there, she has never looked happier than she did last night, it was wonderful. The 4 of us Rockwall girls along with Katie's roommate Jennifer stayed the night and woke up this morning to coffee and breakfast, just catching up and laughing a lot. It's crazy how much life happens when we are apart for so long! But we now know that Katie's pre-weddingness will force all of us to be getting together MUCH more often over the next 7 or 8 months! :-)
Abounding in Joy,
A
slick, wet, glorious
I woke up to the sweet sounds of raindrops against my window this morning. It makes it hard to get out of bed and motivated to go to campus. I would stay in my pj's, drink my coffee, and go watch one of my many perfect rainy day movies,
Pride and Prejudice, or perhaps
You've Got Mail , its a toss up. My roomie freaks out when its raining because she is very attatched to the idea of riding her bike to school everday, rain throws her whole day off. It brings me great joy though.
It's 9:55am, I have class at 11:00 so my dreams of staying in on this dark, wet day are unfortunately quickly being shattered.
be blessed,
A
missing out
I congregated downstairs with the girls when they got home from Fall Retreat today, which I could not attend because I sadly had to work. They were filling me in on the events of the weekend, funny things I missed that they knew I would still laugh about with them later, and of course my favorite...Women's Time. Every year for the past 3 years at fall retreat we always anticipate what women's time will consist of. The guys always tell us that Men's Time is just about the same every year..."don't touch yourself and don't touch others..." hahhaha. With women's time though, each year has been quite different, but always insightful and we usually get a good laugh out of a good portion of it. Kim actually brought me back the sheet of notes that she filled out during this years talk and at the top of the page left hand side was the title of the session: "Holy Sex". I instantly knew that I had missed something good.
