"Mom says I'm her very own alive Barbie Doll"

The Fashion show is finally over! I am so very pleased with how well yesterday went. We started doing hair and makeup at 2, and I had models leaving in groups the whole time for photoshoots with John and Claire. They were such a huge help in making the day go off without a hitch.

There was a lot more down time this year because we were done getting ready so early, which was a big stress reliever. And, the weather waited until this morning to dump rain, so despite the cold, it worked out really well :) A lot of people came, including my family and the wonderful high school girls from my church.

Now I'm just completely spent, though I managed to get my room picked up from the mayhem. I'm so grateful that God helped me get through to the end, even though it was hard to finish.

I've decided to make a final trip up to Provo at the end of March. I had pretty much vowed never to go back, but God has been faithful in healing my heart enough to allow me to go once again to the source of my highest highs and my lowest lows. Chi and I already have some fun things in the works, including a Harry Potter party and human battleship. I get to hang out with several other amazing ladies that I admire so very much. I'm not quite sure how it will go. I'm praying that I will be able to enjoy the memories of all the fun times I had in the beautiful town, and not dwell on the painful ones.

The biggest lesson I've learned from that city is that no matter who you think you should be with, or what you think you should be doing, you'll never be happy unless you're fulfilling the purpose your Creator made you for.

Today was a day just like any other

Today I enjoyed the sunshine. And the obnoxious parrots. I smiled for no reason and let the old school Christian songs take me back a few years.

I'm bracing myself, and preparing for the time to come. Praying that God will show me once again how to be abundantly joyful in serving others, as well as in the little things in life.

There are only three short months left until I head out to London, and I'm trying to rebuild my life before then. This will probably mean quite a few hours in prayer, and then a few more blasting Flyleaf's Memento Mori.

Every night has held the same dreams. But now I know, they will come to naught. It's tragic, mostly because it's so scary to be alone. I'm making myself a promise that by the time I head out of the country, I'll have come to grips with being content with Jesus, and Jesus alone. I'd be lying if I said I was there already. But that deep seated anxiety towards needing another person has flown away, and when I look at the state I was in at the end of last summer, I'm doing quite well.

My show is on Friday, and a lot has gone wrong the past few days. I just ripped up one of my finale dresses because it didn't fit the model. And now she's home sick so I can't fit the altered one on her. Maybe I'll end up modeling in it after all. I officially have a 54% in microeconomics, and a huge art midterm tomorrow I don't think I'm quite prepared for. Praise God it's all almost over. I'm going to sleep all day Sunday, and coast until Spring Break.

Anyway, it's bed time.

P.S.

I can be only friends now. I promise.

Take Your Medicine

http://www.myspace.com/cloudcult

Listen and love it.

We were strangers who knew each other very well

I think today was the day I finally stopped dragging others along my trail of tears. I'm scared to know that the step I took has led me into the unknown, but excited because it makes me have faith in a God I trust.

It has been almost two years to the day that I crossed my stars with someone else's that turned out to be a collision course. Post-explosion, I took the premature leap to do the same thing again, which I can see now was beneficial, though controversial. Today I broke it off, and I hope that I won't be dragging anyone else through the mud that is my life.

I need God to heal my broken and messy heart. So that I don't hurt Him anymore with my actions and thoughts. I don't know where I'm going or where I'll end up, but it never fails that I keep finding out things that I don't want. Is life the same series of trail and error for everyone? Or is it just me?

Now I'm free to grow in what God wants to show me. I've done my best to throw off the things that are hindering me from that. I hate being alone but love it at the same time. I like that I am responsible for only myself. That I don't have to trust and be hurt. Part of my healing will be learning to trust again, because a lot of what I've seen is broken people in a broken world that I can't trust.

It's time to live, and breathe, and make new memories in new places. I know that my Savior lives and is working wonders in my life through all of this. It's just the beginning, setting the stage for the rest of my days. I just turned 21 yesterday. There's too much time left to have my book be closed. I'm sorry for hurting all the people I have in the previous chapters. I'd take it all back, or at least take away your pain.

And lastly, thank you for the friends that love me enough to be brutally honest with me, and supporting me in doing what is right even when it's hard. It is one of the biggest blessings in my life, to have the few that truly care about me be there when I need them. I love you all.

"Hold hands." "Looks like we just started a sexual relationship."

I love weeks when God totally blows your mind. The weeks when you feel Him moving things deep inside of you that you thought you had all figured out.

This weekend I spent some serious quality time with a few members of my small group, allowing myself to become more comfortable in sharing my journey with them. It continually astounds me how much of a blessing it is to be in community with people who are striving for deeper meaning and closeness to God in life. Every night for the past five days has ended with me going to bed several hours later than normal because I’ve been caught up in conversation with these friends. Besides being bone tired and exhausted because I’m apparently an old lady now, it’s been amazing.

It is also sex and dating month for the high school youth group I work with every week, and that has also challenged me in ways that I see are foundational to my everyday life and relationship with God. I think my favorite analogy was seeing sex as a 6 ton truck, and a relationship before marriage as a bridge that can only hold 3 tons. If you try to drive the truck over the bridge, it will crumble into pieces. There are so many pieces of advice and wisdom that I’m picking up that I am trying to incorporate into my life, It can be hard when you are in relationship with someone who may be on a different page with it. But I am trusting God to lead me in how to follow Him to the best of my ability.

If I could change one thing about my college experience, it would be to never have gotten out of accountability. To never have put myself in a place where I was not being fed into my good influences and a church family. The things we talk about in youth group are things that seem so obvious and foundational, but yet I walked away from them. All I gained from that was a distorted view of life and a broken heart, and I see how many places I still need to reorient my actions and views back to focusing on Christ. It’s so much harder to refocus that to not lose the focus in the first place

I'm a tree, you're a tree.

This school year has brought an interesting new dimension into my life; which takes the form of the Independent Film. I have seen three documentaries this past few months, and all seem to coincide with what I am currently sifting through in my everyday life.

First it was the Shane Claiborne documentary called Ordinary Radicals. That part of my life was characterized by an intense surge of searching for meaning in what I do as a Christian. I found the film spoke a lot on simple living and on fellowship with other Christians. This also coincided with the Naz youth group focusing on how we are supposed to hold up in a materialistic society. My roommate and I gave up buying new clothes, and donated something every time we purchased something from a thrift store.

http://www.theordinaryradicals.com/blog/

The second movie was called No Impact Man, which focused on one family living a gradually sustainable lifestyle in one year. Though extreme, it had a large amount of great points about our current consumption as a nation. We took the youth kids to this movie, and it helped reinforce our goal of moving towards green and sustainable living. My Ecology and Conservation class lined up with this almost exactly, and learning the science behind the effects we’re having on nature made me realize that Stewardship is extremely important.

http://www.noimpactdoc.com/index_m.php

The third was one I saw tonight, called America the Beautiful. It is an amazing film about the effect of the media on American body image. From high fashion to cosmetic surgery, makeup to anorexia, this movie voiced what I think is the opinion of the majority of the US. We are bombarded with images of what we should look like, and so many problems stem from being disgusted with our bodies. Now for me, it struck me especially concerning the fashion industry. I couldn’t decide whether to cry because the obstacles are so big in the world I’m going to be thrown into, or to just walk away because it’s too much to deal with. I’ve decided the best I can do is make positive change in whatever way I can.

http://americathebeautifuldoc.com/

All three are worth watching. It just occurred to me how many movies that have struck up deep issues and conversations I have seen recently.