painting~my escape and emotional outlet
This has been a weird, rough week kind of, and its only Wednesday! In the last three days both of my roomates have had emotional breakdowns, and I have had to be the strong one in both situations. I feel like the Lord has be pretty stable right now and I now see why that is. But when life seems heavy around me I can always find solitude and serenity when I paint. Lately I have been so inspired with my Art projects and classes, I go through way more dry spells with my art than inspirational times, so this has been very exciting for me. I'm starting become more confident in my artwork, and not in a conceited way, but just not as hard and critical on myself and my abilities, I am letting go a little bit and having way more fun with it in the process!
Since I left California, its been hard for me to see the beauty and art in things around me, but these last few days I've started seeing it again, and I honestly think its just because I've opened my eyes! I know what things stir my heart for the Lord, and while they were easier to attain while I was in California, He is the same amazing, beautiful God here in San Marcos, Texas that He is in Newport Beach California. Yes its going to be different, and it sure has been, but He is so good and consistent! My heart is in such a good place right now with Him. I love that He made me the ways that He did. I love that I am such a visual person, and I love to find the Beauty in things around me. I love that I am a girl, I wouldnt have it any other way! =) I love that I feel things so deeply, even if it hurts sometimes. I'm so glad He's not even close to being done with me, and I'm excited for Him to continue to mold me and make me into the daughter that He wants me to be. In the mean time........ I'll Keep painting
Footprints in the Sand
With sort of a lot on my plate right now, I cant help but think about my Summer in Calfornia to find some sort of Serenity. Things seemed to get stressful and crazy at times there on summer project, but in coming back to reality here, I'm realizing I had absolutely nothing to worry about there. It was a time where I was focused on the Lord 24/7 literally. I saw His Love and Beauty in everything and everyone around me. I fell in love with the Lord all over again there, and now getting back here I've found myself neglecting that relationship which was so strengthened this summer. I wasn't expecting it to be exactly the same as on project, that would be immpossible. But just like any love relationship, it takes work and effort and time has to be invested and lately I havent been doing my part in making this relationship work as well as I should. The Lord is so patient with me, and my selfishness. I know that this is normal, i'm not perfect and He sure knows not to expect perfection from me, but I want to fix it and make it right. When I am reminded of how I felt about the Lord this summer, it makes me ill to think of how I have treated this relationship since coming home from project. I'm longing to get back to that place where I was this summer, I remember so clearly and I know that its possible to recreate that here.
I've been listening to the new Bethany Dillon cd entirely too much, hahahaa but there is a lyric in one of the songs that I love:
" I follow all the rules, well at least i'm trying..hoping when my days are through you'll be pleased......Is it all right if I stay here all night by the shoreline? I cannot believe your angry or unjust, you've done nothing but have compassion on us, so Be Near when I've given up, Be Near Me."
Rita 05
In my lifetime I've never experience any kind of natural disaster here in Texas. This last week has been one that I will never forget. Monday I was making plans to travel to College Station to spend the weekend with Kim and try and catch our Bobcats take on her Aggies in Football, and just have a relaxing weekend seeing my friend! Well by Wednesday my plans would begin to change as word got spread like wildfire that Hurricane Rita was on the way and that Galveston, Houston, and all the surrounding cities were going to be potentially destroyed and were encouraged to evacuate. Friends here at school had families sitting in traffic attempting to get out of Houston for like 12-20 hours, Gas Stations were running out of gas, Grocery Stores were running out of Bread and Water......This was just mass chaos of of the worst kind.
Thursday night at Cru we took some time to just worship God in Song and then to get into groups and pray for the events to potentially occur here in Texas this weekend. It gave me much more of a Peace about things.
Now I sit here in San Marcos Texas at 9am on Saturday morning looking out my window to what appears to be a Sunny, a little windy, but beautiful day! I'm not nieve, I know how quickly things can change when it comes to the weather, esspecially in Texas....a blink of an eye and you have a season change, hahaha. But, it looks like things here are going to turn out just fine. As for the Texas/Louisianna Coast, I still dont know, but I know the Lord is in complete control and he's already proven his soivereinty, by the mere fact that the hurricane was a cat 5 and was headed straight for Houston, and now it is barely a cat 3 and its path turned quite a bit and the affects of this one are going to be nothing like Hurricane Katrina's. Praise God for that!
Patience is a Virtue
As I sit here listening to Damien Rice's
Cannonball, I have the perfect balance of saddness and hope.
".....there’s still a little bit of your song in my ear, there’s still a little bit of your words i long to hear you step a little closer to me so close that i can't see what's going on
Stones taught me to fly, love it taught me to lie, life taught me to die
so it's not hard to fall when you float like a cannonball....stones taught me to fly, love taught me to cry, so come on courage, teach me to be shy...."
I can't even pin-point why this song makes me feel and think about so many things. This is definitely one of those songs that would be on my soundtrack at the crucial moment where the lead girl character, Me, would be going through some terribly trivial, life-transitioning moment. I'm not exactly going through something like that right now, but my heart is heavy with many emotions. I really hate it when things and people, and relationships begin to change in my life. While I am easily adaptable to change, it never gets easier, if anything I think the older you get it just gets worse. Sometimes I just wish that God would let me in on the tiniest glimpse of whats to come in my future, just to put me at ease that he's got me right where He wants me in His plan, and that soon enough I will begin to see why things were/are the way that they are.
Since I know that isnt possible, I am going to have to work on that fruit of the spirit that I has taken my heart captive for many years now it would seem, Patience, which is tagged along by Hope, and Contentment. I will never be able to fully grasp these things, I feel like the Lord will continue to grow me in these for the duration of my life. I long to be a lady of Virtue,and patience has to be a part of that.
the joy of birthdays...
This week has just been full of birthdays as September always is. This week was one of my brothers, one of my sisters, my roomate, and my good friend Marisa's birthdays! So exciting that so many great people were born all in one month! We went to eat, just the girls for corrie and marisa's birthdays last night to Johnny Carinos and then to a surprise party for corrie, and then to watch the great Josh Thomas perform at open Mic night at George's. It was a fun night.
God has been teaching me a lot about growth and responsibility and trust. It sounds like a lot and it feels like its even more than that, and while its sometimes hard, i know its good. I sometimes feel a lot of pressure on me to always be the best friend, roomate, daughter, student, in any and every circumstance, and when i think like that I always end up feeling disappointed, like I have missed the mark somehow, and thats probably because I have. I've never been a perfectionist so much as a people pleaser, but now I learning that the only person I really have to please is the Lord, and He knows I'm so far from perfection and is willing to forgive me and give me a little push everytime I feel inadequate or weak. I pride myself on being a loyal friend and I'm having trouble finding a balance in relationships right now.
I really miss Kim and Katie and Abby and havent seen any of them all summer long and I am longing to spend some time with those girls, they are so important to me, and yet my actions would speak otherwise. They are my oldest and dearest friends that I have grown up with, and luckily I am not worried of the status of our relationship, that isnt the problem, i honestly miss them so much! I have not been very faithful about keeping in touch with people from Summer Project. I have my weekly phone date with Dawn, but other than that it has been superficial IM convos over Aim, and I havent even talked to my roomates, the girls I lived with for 10 weeks and discipled for 5 weeks! I feel aweful about that.
My relationships here at school have been ok, I am just trying to figure out where the Lord wants my focus to be right now. I've just started meeting new girls who are getting involved in biblestudy and Cru and just started Discipling Sarah a girl in my bible study, and I have such a heart for girls on my campus. My roomates are awesome, although I have no idea what Corrie and I are going to do when Bri graduates in December! Sad! I am just trying to figure out where my priorities are and where they need to be right now and its so hard. I need to go home sometime soon too, i'm sure my family would appreciate seeing me for more than a day!
Diary of a Joyful White Woman =)
What a great, stressfree weekend I have had! Friday was just cleaning, laundry and workout day. Friday night Grace and Marisa and Christine came by and we just listened to music and chatted, all of us roomates and them. I made Pizookie for everyone and it was a hit! It was such a Summer Project desert and I didnt quite do it the justice it deserved, but it was good. Kim and Lindsey stopped my later on that evening, love those ladies as well. It was just a charming little Chill night, if you will. I love those.
Yesterday started with the lovely Miss Kari Kennedy cooking breakfast for the roomies and myself, while we indulged in a little coffee talk, it was fabulous. Then I just kinda did a lot of nothing, I worked on a project for a little while, cleaned and caught up on some stuff around here. We had a football game last night, but the weather wasnt looking very promising so I oppted to stay in. UT was playing Ohio state in what would result in a TEXAS sized victory, so Jason, Jordan and Nikki joined the roomies and I in watching the second half of the game! Later that evening we watched, at the request of Jason,
Diary of a Mad Black Woman; which, I'm not gonna lie, I wasn't too excited about watching, but ended up proving me totally wrong! The movie was excellent. It was funny, and had so many spiritual parallels throughout the whole movie! I would recommend it to anyone! It was a fun night.
This morning I woke up to the first rainstorm I have seen in Months! It was awesome. it cooled things down a little here too which was nice. I went and visited Martindale Baptist church this morning, and I surprisingly really enjoyed it! Its a quaint little country church with pews and hyms and he preached straight from the word which was refreshing. And today we totally made it a lazy rainy day around this apartment. I lit all the candles while I drank hot tea and we all watched
You've Got Mail, one of my personal favorites, rain or shine!
On My Mind
I woke up this morning as many mornings over the past few weeks and I've got one thing taking over my mind and thoughts more so than anything else and that is California. Not just the place, but everything about my project. My memories are slowly begining to become more faint but every now and then throughout almost everyday I am reminded of something, somewhere, or someone from my summer project in California.
**This is the view that I took for granted every single day, just outside our back door of where I lived on Project.
Part of me feels like I literally left part of my heart back there in Orange County....then I feel like parts of my heart are all over the country right now with the people that I met there, and then of course my heart is here in Texas where it has had residence for the past 21 , almost 22 years.
I love being back here and esspecially here in my new apartment. I just feel so at home here and I actually love spending time with my roomates! We just laugh a lot and talk alot and I love coming home to them everyday. We actually had a Sunday church service that my roomate corrie called " Come as you are around the Kitchen table" where we ate breakfast in our pj's and listening to worship music and read a devotional from My Utmost for His Highest. It was precious. I'm excited about starting up my bible study this week and getting to know all of the new girls.
While of course not everything in my world is going exactly how I would like it to go, I feel completely blessed beyond belief right now.
Feeling like I'm 13 all over again...Out of Control
This last weekend was quite a whirlwind. I was having flashbacks of middle school, and I'm not gonna lie, many high school memories as well of my old, house wrapping days. I have to say that at 21 it's still just as fun! =) It all began on Friday night with my CAR being toilet papered....why you ask, I honestly have no idea, but because I knew exactly who the guilty boys werem I knew I had to have my revenge and I knew I couldnt do it alone. So I gathered some of my favorite ladies and fled to Walmart to get the desired materials to do the deed. Of course doing it that night was pretty obvious, and we for sure got caught before we even got a chance to do anything. So all we got to leave was the toilet paper shreds of the "Proverbs 31 Bandits" as a symbol of "We'll be back!"
***
Saturday night we went 80's dancing at the Parish in Austin, which was SO fun! Saw lots of old faces from high school, which was kinda weird, but fun. Found out my friend Ethan dances totally like a white boy, handclaps and all! hahahaha I got to meet Kim's new fella, Will, from her summer project! Nothing but nice things to say about him! Lindsey and I had an interesting car ride back with our new friends who we had just met that night, all over each other in the back seat, it was a guy and a girl just to clarify! hahahaha Hilarious! So Saturday night needless to say was a little to busy to do any retaliating on the boys.
Sunday night, however, was perfect! I gathered the ladies secretly at my apartment and when the time was right, we went and did the deed, and it was a great job! We wrapped all the trees we could find and shoepolished John's car beacause Jp's truck was nowhere to be found, we later found out Derek and Ethan had borrowed it for the night. But later that night some of them came and retaliated on Marisa and Nikki with Cat food, Ketchup, and mustard, and saran wrap...sick! And as for how they decided to get me back, Just see for yourself at Dailyrice.blogspot.com.
It was fun playing Middle School again I have to admit! =) Blessings, A
