mmm amazing friends.
ash and becks. holy cow i just love them so much!! they are both so incredible and, in different ways, they both make my life so great. hanging out with them last weekend was so good for my soul. it really was like a little family get together, only more. and they are only a fraction of the amazing family that grew into my life at ffi.
focus gave me the best friends i could ask for. all of them. give me a weekend with anyone who was at ffi spring 09 and i will be so so sooo thrilled.
i love that, at anytime, i can call, text, facebook, whatever, anyone from ffi and not think twice. i can vent and laugh and be confused about the 'whys?' (whit), my soul can be renewed with more passion (ben), i can dream about the future (becky), i can share struggles (holly, rachel), i can laugh about everything or nothing at all (ash), and i can live into who i'm supposed to be, and just... be.
thank you to the odgens for starting ffi. thank you dr. tackett for believing in it and for who you are. thank you leeland, pamps, j-slat, robtom and elania for pouring out wisdom. thank you everyone involved for giving me the best 4 months of my life... thank you God for planning that into the script you have written... while i am just me. :)
"awaken what's inside of me,
and tune my heart to all You are
and and even though You're here,
God come.
may the vision of You be the death of me,
and even though You've given everything,
Jesus come."
- shane and shane
oh oh we need each other.
so. something really great happened tonight. i mean... k maybe great isn't the right word... but it was awesome. i got a phone call from one of the guys from in my youth group who i've gotten to know during the past 2 summers. i've always thought he was an awesome, deep kid, but i really only knew certain parts of his life and his heart that he would let me in on.
but so tonight this guy called me and just like filled me in on so. much. of what's going on in his life right now. during the hour we talked he really put himself out there, which was awesome, and while i really wished i could have given him more advice, i loved that he called me. i was so honored that he felt comfortable enough with our relationship to be so honest and straight and i was almost excited (probably the wrong word...) that he chose me to call when there were definitly other people he could have called. it was really just so awesome to me that he trusted me enough to let me in on some really private things in his heart and that he thought that i whatever i had to say would help him out.
but gosh i feel so blessed by this relationship because i'm pretty positive that's how things in our society should be... older people giving advice to people who are just a little younger than them. there was nothing abosoluely fantastic about what i told this guy, but i really don't think that he would have heard whatever it was that i said, in the same way, from somebody a whole lot older than me... ya know? like, he's a senior in high school. he's a jock. he's probably not going to really listen to what a 30 year old woman or a 50 year old men tell him- even though they have so much wisdom to pass down. SO, what if every person (this is just a what if, but what if) every person, especially in our family that is the Church, was mentored by someone just a couple of years older than they were- someone just a little further along in life than them. what could happen if this was the case?
see, this kid most likely would not have taken the words i passed onto him from an older guy in the same way, but when i pass them along by making them sound like my words- by talking in a way that he'll hear it, he'll take it in, right?
this post has nothing to do with me or the guy i talked to tonight. but it totally and completely has to do with the 'what if' that is 'what if we all poured into someone who is going through the stage of life that we just graduated from?' how amazing would that be? what if...
so, i just want to encourage you, whoever you are, wherever you are in life, to find someone who is in the stage of life you just 'grew up from', and start to build a relationship with them... let that grow... and pour into them. be a blessing... ps it'll totally come back <3.
peace.
---
and i love music... it's one of my favorite things... ever.
so here's another song that is great and totally applies here :)
we need each other by sanctus real http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPm1sk-utjQ
you were meant for...
**this is my over simplified, most likely inaccurate view of something i have never seen, only heard about. and words and stories can never stand up to the real thing. but i'm throwing this out there anyway... because it's a 2 second snapshot into a story that is changing lives... in a really real way.
in brooklyn new york, there's a girl named kelly allman. a couple of years ago, kelly became a flame in a fire a lot bigger than she is. the fire was started by a man named bill wilson. bill had a dream: that the kids who live in the projects, and other horrible parts of new york, would know how much they are loved. and not just that they would know it, but that they would really experience it.
enter metro ministries. kelly works for metro, which was founded by bill. their lives are not easy- at all. to live, for them, is a daily sacrifice. but the awesome thing is that they really live for what they believe in. how many people really do that? i think that their lives look a whole lot like what life not wasted should look like. to say that i have incredible respect for them would be such an understatement... and i'm sure that my understanding of what goes on there doesn't even come close to reality.
mmm okay so what is the bottom line of what metro is doing?
they're passing this word into little lives, and big ones too:
you were meant for amazing things.
___
check out the song 'umbrellas' by sleeping at last... it's pretty incredible...
peace.
you are meant for amazing things.
simple blessings.
sooo. i think it's funny. i think it's so funny how, lately, as soon as i start taking things for granted, they get taken away, just long enough for me to realize how much of a blessing they are.
for instance, i'm running low on funds right? very low for what i'm used to. to try to fix that, i thought that i'd be picking up some extra shifts this week covering for people and therefore, make some extra moolah.
so about an hour ago, i show up for a 2 hour shift, work for 20 mins, and then find out that the girl i thought i was covering for had gotten two subs to work cover for her. bam. 2 hours off the clock. and so i was little mad (not really mad, ha just a little) right?
well 2 mins before i find out that me and the other girl were covering the same shift, i find out that another girl i was planning on covering for for a 3 hour shift on friday got someone else too... just telling me now... boo.
but all that to say as i was walking away from work a little angry in my spirit i started thinking and i was like 'what the heck... ha i have a job - 2 actually - i get enough hours, not as many as i want... but it's enough... and i have been blessed crazy abundantly... so why am i complaining'
it's at moments like these when i am reminded what a blessing a job is- even when i dread going. and it's at moments like this when i am veryyy thankful to be sitting in a too-cold library and working on one of many hours of homework, feeling too full from dinner and perfectly sore from working out.
simple blessings like this abound. thanks god <3.
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