and the leaves fall off..

Isn't this a beautiful picture of a leaf? I saw it outside Brad's apartment and thought, "hey, while the leaf still has color, I'll take a picture of how beautiful it once looked!"

Well, as I continue reading in Exodus, the Lord has been showing me so much about His personality, it has been so great. Today I read about a song the Israelites sang to God is praise.. I won't write it on the blog because it is so long but you can click here to read it.

Today I went to a Christmas party with Brad and the people he works with. I had alot of fun and ate some delicious mexican food. The legit kind. None of this, north- central- dallas- texas kind. Nope, it was the real deal. Anyways, about two weeks ago I made a little ornament to put as a holiday decoration on Brad's door. Wanna see?

Cute? I know. Sadly, Christmas is coming soon and the ornament will have to be taken down until next year. Anyways, this is my last week of the semester! I'm pretty excited! My sister, Jackie, will graduate on Saturday and other sister, Julie, comes in from New York City! It'll be a great sister reunion. Well hope everyone has a happy week and enjoys the time off school/ work!

Today is the day..

... my life will change forever. I'm totally just kidding. It just sounded like a fun title. Anyways, yall the Lord has been so good to me! On Sunday, it was baptism night at The Village and I had the privilege of watching my special friend, Kaitlin, get baptized! Hooray for representing Christ! There were 5 baptisms and the rest of the time was worship and let me tell you something, it was so beautiful!  I felt as if God's heart was so close to mine and I became so overwhelmed I didn't even know what to do. Beautiful. That's the only word I can think of to describe it. I'm so thankful for a Father that still longs for my heart even after all of the hurtful and disappointing thoughts and actions that run through my head everyday. I'm so thankful for grace! I would like to leave you with this little note by St. Augustine, which is in the book I am currently reading called "finally alive," by John Piper. 

{I flung myself down beneath a fig tree and gave way to the tears which now streamed from my eyes... All at once I heard the singsong voice of a child in a nearby house. Whether it was the voice of a boy or a girl I cannot say, but again and again it repeated the refrain, " take it and read, take it and read."

So I hurried back to the place where Alypius was sitting.. seized [the book of Paul's epistles] and opened it, and in silence I read the first passage on which my eyes fell: "Not in reveling in drunkenness, not in lust and wantonness, not in quarrels and rivalries. Rather, arm yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ; spend no more thought on nature and nature's appetites" (Rom. 13:13-14). I had no wish to read more and no need to do so. For an instant, as I came to the end of the sentence, it was as though the light of confidence flooded into my heart and all the darkness of doubt was dispelled.}

- St. Augustine

[Augustine was born again. He never turned back to the old ways. The Wind blew in a garden. It blew with a child's voice. It blew through a word of Scripture. And the darkness of his heart was dispelled.]

-John Piper

Have a happy day!

old post- new heart.

This was a note I wrote when I first moved to Denton. I thought it would be nice to share it again. It's a good thing for me to read it every now and then and remind myself that this life is not my own.


I have officially lived in Denton over a month now and I cannot even find the words to express the feelings God has given me since I have moved here. The most important thing God has shown me is: what it is to love passionately and how to love passionately. 

There are so many times we go through life and we think: “ I love this person so much; I love them with all of my heart; they are my everything” and what we think is a passionate love, is really not passionate at all. We tell people, yea, I love you with all of my heart, but what about our souls? Minds? Or even our strengths? How often is it that we tell people, I love you with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength? Not very often, I would assume. The point is, God commands us to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength because He knew, for us as humans to love someone with ALL of that, would have to mean it would be a passionate love. God created us, as His children, to glorify Him in everything we do- which when you think about it, all comes down to one action: love.

Now God also commands us not to have any other gods before Him. Which growing up I also thought of “gods” as another religion. Then as I got older, I began thinking it was t.v. and the internet but now it is so clear that anything keeping you away from loving God passionately is, in fact, a “god.” That doesn’t just mean watching t.v. for 5 hours a day, but it could also be church, your Christian friends—something that you think is important for your Christian life could quickly affect your Christian walk with the Lord, but most importantly,”we” easily place ourselves and selfish desires before God, making us our “god” before God. (if that makes any sense) When I first moved to denton, I had so many mixed emotions as to why I was here, and why I came when I did, but mostly I thought, out of all places I could’ve gone, why denton? Growing up I also told myself, I will never end up in the Dallas area, yet, I’m here. I also questioned a lot on whether or not I made the right choice, wondering if God was going to use me and if I would ever have the same opportunities here as I had back home. Then I just realized how everything quickly became about me. Although everything I was thinking was pretty legit, my heart clearly wasn’t in the right place. I was worrying instead of trusting. Forgetting God has a plan with every step that I made and because of that I was trying to make up my own.

God created me to love Him. If I’m in Denton, texas- Brownsville,texas- or somewhere in South America one day, wherever I am, God created me to love Him with all of MY heart, MY soul, MY mind, and MY strength, Wherever He places me, I am to love Him passionately and to believe that even when I go through some dark areas in life, He is my light, to guide me in His path for my life. Reminding myself that I’m living, only by the grace of God, and where He leads me, I will go. I will trust Him with HIS plan and love him passionately throughout it. PRAISE GOD

Amazing Grace.

Beautiful song. Listen to it here.

Our God is a Consuming Fire

Well yesterday was the annual Wassail Fest! I love love love going to this once a year celebration for the city of Denton. I got free earrings, donuts and several different types of wassail. There was live music and a whole lot of people to make it feel like the wonderful city of Denton that it is.

 

I had the pleasure of going with my roommate Alyssa, Hannah, sister Jackie and cute little Boston. 

Isn't Boston just the cutest?! Overall, it was a swell evening and we had tons of fun.

Well, I've been reading in the Book of Exodus lately and God has shown me so much through the life of Moses. It's so interesting to read about how God told Moses to speak to Pharaoh and Moses said to God twice, "Do I not have uncircumcised lips?" So God would speak to Moses and he would tell Aaron what the Lord told him to do. Towards the last few plagues it shows how Moses began performing the signs and it was just so big to me how in the end, Moses did what God had planned for him in the Beginning. Sometimes it's a bit hard to explain my thoughts on the things I read but I am so thankful that when I am reading the Word, God either shows me something differently than the last time I read it or He reminds me of something amazing that He had already shown me before.

Oh! Before I forget, want to hear a pretty song? click here! My sister has been singing it to me the past two nights and it's beautiful!

Have a happy first week of December!