His Purpose, Not My Plans

Here I am again. It's kinda late. I don't know what I'm even going to say. I really don't even know if I'll delete this post or actually put it up.  But here I am. Tomorrow is March 24. And that's what's on my mind.  Tomorrow makes seven years since my mom died. But I really don't like saying that. I don't like saying passed away either.  Instead, I'm going to say what I really think, and that is that tomorrow will make seven years since my mom quit dying on earth, and went to live in Heaven. Because that's the truth. For those that aren't familiar with my story, my mom, Cindy, was diagnosed with Breast Cancer when I was 6 years old. She went through many surgeries, many types of treatment, many many doctor appointments, and was so amazingly strong through all of it. And on March 24, 2008, she was done.  And Jesus took her. And sometimes that really just sucks. It took me a while to realize that it's o...

It's 10:38 as I start to type this post. My favorite time to write a blog post. Naturally, I have an English exam I need to be studying for, Med Term words that need to be reviewed, and some texts that need  responses. But instead, I am sitting here typing.  Thinking. Praying. 98% of the time I never know exactly what I'm going to say when I type these blog posts. I really have no clue. I just start. And sometimes I'm actually surprised by how well it turns out. Other times I just post it because I spent a while on it.. whether I really like it or not.  It's been a rough day. Everyone has THOSE days. The ones where your brother is running late. You forget to eat breakfast. You get caught in traffic when you're in a hurry. A mean comment is said to you. A car nearly hits you on the way home. The grade you got back was not what you expected. (It was worse.) In some way or another, everyone can relate. And today was just not my day.  Without get...

Do you ever just think to yourself, "My God is amazing."? Because this week I've thought that about 40 times. Okay, actually more like 9 or 10. But still. It was this situation with a scholarship. It wasn't a big one. I'll give it a nice shout out, because it really is an awesome thing they're doing.. It's called the "Prudential Spirit of Community" Scholarship. It's based on community service. There was a long application that you had to submit to your school, the school chose one applicant and sent that on to region, and they sent it to state and a state nominee is chosen. That nominee wins money, and a trip to Washington D.C. in May, where they get to hear different speakers, tour places, and there is a ceremony where the national winners are announced as well. The national winners win money both for themselves towards college, and $5000 for the charity of their choice. I entered, just to enter. There really aren't that many scho...

Passion. It's defined in Merriam-Webster's dictionary as:   a strong feeling of enthusiasm or excitement for something or about doing something. January 16th-18th I had one of the most encouraging weekends of my 17 year old life. It's an event called Passion. In a nutshell, Passion is a weekend long Christian conference, put on for college students, high school seniors (that's me!) and their leaders. There are 6 "sessions" where people come and speak, BIG people in the Christian speaker world. Before each session there is some major amazing worship going on by popular Christian artists including Chris Tomlin, David Crowder Band, Kristian Stanfill and more. There are also community groups/family groups.  It was amazing. And I should mention that when I say Christian conference, I mean it was in Atlanta in the Phillip's Arena with around 15,000 people.  Two years ago a group from First Pres went and when they came home and talked a...

I feel that lately I start out every post with something along the lines of, "life is busy" or "I am so busy". But it's so true. I really thought it was just a season of life, and I guess it is. But this feels like a really long season. Don't get me wrong- I am incredibly happy with my life right now. In all honesty, I am so thankful that I am where I am. God has this crazy way of making everything work out, and it is really cool for me to be able to see some of this stuff that I've gone through, come to fruition. Words to describe the month of December.. Fun. Busy. Joy. Love. Sleep. Peace. It was a really really really good month. I could write paragraphs about it. But instead, I'll just put up a bunch of pictures with short captions to highlight the big events of the month. Let me share my month with you…. To start it out, we had the Tennis Club presenting our check to the Florence Area Humane Society on December 3rd. Our club raised ove...

Well. Merry Christmas after Christmas! I just want to say that really and truly I tried to type this post like two weeks ago. But 'tis the season, and the season 'tis busy! It's been crazy, and wonderful. Also, tonight as I start to type this (probably will finish in the morning) I just spent an hour and a half saving pictures and transferring them to my computer for this post, only to realize I did all of that last week. OH Alana. I want to type a whole long post about my Christmas celebrations, and I will. But first I need to share about ANOTHER Christmas celebration. Christmas at the East Florence Mission. It’s a fun night. And this year, I really was kinda put in charge of planning it. We split up the kids, which we normally don't do and did my class on the Tuesday night, and then the older ones Wednesday night. SO I was in charge of my class Christmas party, I guess you could say. I was nervous but really excited. I mean it’s the same kids I...