Youtube

Instead of typing everything out in a journal I started video blogging which I have been posting on my youtube account.

Check them out if you would like

http://www.youtube.com/user/TianasLife

Proverbs 19:8

I guess I have a thing for writing blogs late a night. I should just invest in a notebook that I keep by my bed. That way whenever I want to write about something that I read in my quite times I can. Yet for some reason I find enjoyment in rattling on and on about a certain scripture that I read, and then share it will all you views out on myspace.

I really liked what I read today in Proverbs. I seriously think that if you are in the word daily, and are searching and open to what God had to show you. Then FOR certain, without a doubt, He WILL revel something to you. Most likely it won't be a huge life changing thing, but it will start to change your heart and how you view others. I can personally testify to that.

I was reading in my bible today, and today's reading was the average old and new testament along with Psalms and Proverbs (which have so much wisdom packed into them it amazes me every time). Today's passage that stood out to me was Proverbs 19:8  To acquire wisdom is to love oneself:

Now I understand that you may be thinking… is that seriously all? But re-read that verse again and maybe a 3^rd time to fully grip what it's talking about.

I've heard from some of my classmates, and even some of my friends say "I hate myself" It's a common expression and I've sorta grown numb to, because in all honestly that's all it is... JUST an expiration. Think about it, Americans love themselves so much. If you didn't quote "love yourself" then you wouldn't spend time making yourself look pretty, you wouldn't take care of yourself, example: shower, brush your hair/teeth, eat food, drink water, put your self in hard situations) you would just let yourself rot away until you were nothing. But do you see people who quote "hate themselves" doing that kind of a thing? Not at all! It's because we truly DO LOVE OURSELVES!

Since I'm convinced you that you do love yourself, why don't you start acting like it? Start living a life that is full of wisdom! Start to acquire wisdom – for that is what loving yourself is all about.

And through this wisdom that you are acquiring to yourself - you might even truly learn to enjoy the love yourself for who you are.

Well here I am again, writing another blog for all of you viewers out there. I just got off of the phone talking to Meredith – Woot woot! We had such a deep filled conversation, which are always God-filled and inspiring. We got to talking about what God is showing us in our lives, and I found it sort of funny that the conversation took the turn of how life in America is so convenient. If we want something to eat, you either go to the local fast-food place, a restaurant, or the local grocery store. It's rare to find people who make home cooked meals. Meals that take more then an hour to prepare, meals that you spend the whole day marinating your meat, and preparing the food. The kind of meal that you yourself add all of the ingredients and spices… having a meal that came from scratch. The taste of one of these rare home cooked meals is beyond divine, their magnificent or marvelous. Yet as Americans, we don't have the patients to be laboring in the kitchen all day. It's just more convenient to have someone else make our food, even if it does cost more and isn't as healthy for us. We aren't thinking about the long term consequences about the actions that we are making. We are thinking about what is convenient, time efficient, and the easiest. Not that we might suffer from heart disease, high blood pressure, and or obesity.

The sad thing is that we take this convenient life style that we live in, and try to put God in that same box. We think that God should some how become as convenient as fast food is. Turn to Him when you need some help on a test, when you friend or family member is sick. We aren't taking the hours that we need to be plugged into Him. We live in such a fast paste life that we don't notice the things that He wants to do in our lives. We fill His place with things that are convenient for us.

As I continued to talk to Meredith, she told me that she's really been struggling with Mondays, because she usually spends the weekends with her family and when she goes back to her apartment to work for the week she misses them. Which is completely understandable, I honestly admire her for her strength and courage to be away from her family working for the summer. I don't think that I could do that because I'm so attached to my family.

As we started to talk about comfort, I realized that Americans also have the problem of finding comfort in things other than God. I think that we are ALL guilty of it. We turn to our positions instead of our creator, (which are our idols.)

This year I've been trying to read through the whole Bible. I've been reading through the Old and New Testament along with Psalms and Proverbs every day. Today's reading was in Romans and the whole chapter stood out to me. It was so eye opening that I pretty much highlighted the whole chapter with my yellow marker. But that's beside the point; I really got what Paul was saying.  He was talking about how people who say they are believers,(aka Christians) but they aren't putting their faith and trust into the Lord. They are putting it into idols. As Americans we all have our own idols, sure they probably aren't some carved out piece of wood in our living room as they were in the bible days, but that dosn't mean that we don't have them. They could be: you house, your car, boat, games systems, computer, relationships… it could be anything that is filling your time, or your putting your comfort into that is taking up the majority of your thoughts. It's what your spending you time on, it's if your worshiping the items instead of God. Slowly replacing the time you spend with God, and spending that time with your idols.

I found it interesting that Paul said in Romans 1:23-26

And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles. So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with their bodies. They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise!

The next few verses go on to say that these people turned to homosexual lives. After reading that this morning, it rang a disturbing kind of bell in my head. That these people first started with turning away from God to worship their own idols, and as God let them do the things they wanted, they then turned to a homosexual life styles. Doesn't that sound like America???

Romans 2:6-7

He will judge everyone according to what they have done. He will give eternal life to those who keep on doing good, seeking after the glory and honor and immortality that God offers.

Romans 2:16

And this is the message I proclaim – that the day is coming when God, through Christ Jesus, will judge everyone's secret life.

I just want to encourage you not to get stuck into the rut of having a comfortable, convenient lifestyle. Make it a point to acknowledge your idols in your life, and then do something about! Replace your idols with the creator!

Hello everyone who reads these. I've been meaning to write a blog for the past few days. I know it's sorta lame and kind of cliché to start a blog out like that, but to be honest I'm not sure what I'm going to say here. Sure I could just ramble on about the weather, and how it's been in the 90's for a good portion of the week. Or I could talk about what is really on my mind, break through the surface and maybe get a better glimpse of who God is, and what He desires for my life.

Just this week I'm been thinking a lot about relationships. You may be wondering why, but the truth is because it's been a deep topic this past week with two of my friends. I will never forget Friday night when I stayed up until 12:30 at the local McDonalds discussing and pouring my heart out to my friends who are in need of some wisdom. I fully understand that I am in no means equipped to be giving out dating advice, because who am I anyways? Yet as the night went on and the conversation took a different turn even expected. I learned some heart breaking facts about some of my treasured friends. It hit me that even though I may not have all of the answers, God defiantly could use me and speak words of wisdom to them through me. Believe me; it even freaked me out a little to be able to know so much about the topic that in reality I've had nothing to compare it to. All I can say is that I serve one amazing God.

Here is some dating, or pre-dating advice that I think I should take to heart – In the end it could save me some heartache.

For starters, when entering a relationship you should have set a solid friendship. Now I don't mean just any kind of friendship. The couple should know the person well, and where they stand on things that are important to each other, such as faith, boundaries of the relationship (not just physical, but also the emotional attachment) along with mutual agreements on where and how much time is spent while on dates. BEFORE you enter into a dating relationship

I don't know how much I can stress that before you get into a relationship you MUST have a friendship. For myself personally, I've gotten the idea into my head that I should have known this person and been friends for a minimal of 3 months. Not only is this a good idea because you get to know if the guy who asked you out is serious or not. (He may just think he's cool to have a girlfriend… like, woot look at me I'm cool.) In addition; you also get to know about this person, and decided if it's a relationship that you want to invest not only your time and money, but also your heart into.

 I've seen it in SO MANY high school relationships that just start because one person thinks the other is cute or funny or some other outward appearance thing. Not because they have a fascinating mind, or that they can grow closer to God though their relationship. It just stuns me, and breaks my heart. I've seen, and am seeing first hand some of my friends go though relationship crisis that could have all been avoided if they had just surrendered and taken time to develop a friendship with the person in the first hand before rushing into things because in the end, they most likely would have avoided the relationship in the first place.

Now, I understand that there are loopholes to what I am saying, and many people will think that they are the exception to this. But I'm going to leave you with this one question.

If you really care about yourself, and the other person, don't you think you should take time to get to know them before you enter into something that's been created to be a way to search for your future spouse? Not just living in the moment for things that feed to our desires.  Relationships are a serious matter, and they should be handled with caution and time. Don't rush into anything that you aren't completely sold out on.

Hey there!

Here's the story! I did agree to go to banquet with the guy who originally asked me. Stating that I would only attend with him on one condition. That he himself be a gentleman and treat me as a lady. He agreed and I thought that it just might work out ok.

The next day at lunch he comes up to the table that I am sitting at. Jumps up on the end of the table and stands there looking at me. Of course I was appalled that he was even standing there on the table and that he expected to have a normal conversation. It just blew my mind. At that moment I calmly told him to "get off the table" he didn't hear me the 3rd or 4th time so finally all of my friends are telling him to get DOWN! I guess it finally dawned on him that he should get off of the table and maybe sit on the bench like a normal person. He comes and sits next to me, and at that moment I want to just want to get up and leave since he's acting like a complete fool.

Since he is sitting next to me I feel as if I have to be nice to him. I give him a smile and he starts talking to me about some things that I frankly don't remember probably due to the fact that I didn't care. Then he tells ms that he has "A serious question to ask me." I tell him, "ok go for it." Then he gets all shy and tells me "That I don't want to ask you in front of all of your friends." I roll my eyes and tell him "Then it can wait" since I was in NO HURRY to leave my friends to go some place private so he can ask me some serious question. He tells me that he will ask me later and then he leaves.

5 minutes later he comes back and sits next to me. He then tells me...

"Ok, I'm just going to put it out there."

"Ok" I respond not really caring

"Am I the only one who has feelings for you?" he asks in this blunt voice

I'm thinking to myself - oh no! He's asking me to be his girl friend - but that's a REALLY weird way of putting it. I was very tempted to turn around and say "No, I'm pretty sure that there are lots of other guys who have feelings for me too" but I didn't. I simply just ask...

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, do you like me the way that I like you."

Uhh - I was right. I simply tell him that if he wants me to be his girlfriend that I'm not looking for a relationship. I briefly tell him that I just broke up with my boyfriend and that I'm not ready to get into another relationship at this moment. Completely skipping the point that I would never even consider dating him even if I was paid. I was so blown away that he would be so blunt in asking me that question after I made it perfectly clear the day before that it was just a one night thing. Nothing more nothing less - just going to be a fun night that's IT!!! I guess he missed that part.

I wanted to back out of going to the banquet with him so many times but it just wasn't the right thing to do. And once he bought the ticket for me it was set. So I went with him, and I did have a good time but it was nice because I got to leave at 8:30 and attend the CHS Prom with another guy that I met the weekend before.

I went bowling with Brittney and another girl from my class at school. Brittney got this guy that she likes and 2 of his friends to meet up with us at the local bowling ally for cosmic bowling last Friday night. To say the least I made friends with one of the guys who came named David. He stood out from the other 2 guys because he wasn't all into the cussing and being a rude teenage. The girl’s team had bumpers and the guys didn't. After one game David asked if we wanted to switch up the teams a little. I asked in a joking manner who wanted to play with bumpers. David volunteered and Brittney took his spot on the guy’s team. The night was filled with laughter and some awesome dance moves by Brittney and I from either cheerleading or Chasing the Wind dances. At the end of the night when I announced that I was going to head home. David asked for my phone number. I was appalled since I have never gotten asked by a guy for my number. I gave it to him and then he asked me if he could walk me to my car. Which made double points in my book.

That night instead of being on an emotional high because I got some male attention. I just handed it all over to God. I really want to grow stronger in my spiritual walk with God and not get so wound up in the clouds over a guy.

The next day I did receive a call from David. Which I was a little shocked but also impressed. We talked for a few minutes about some common things. Then the next day he called me again and I asked him if he was going to go to his senior prom. Since I had talked it over with my mom and she said that I could attend both if I really wanted to. Going to prom has been my ultimate dream. David told me that he wanted to go, but that he didn't have a date. That's were I stepped in and told him that it's been my dream to go to prom ever since I knew what a prom was.

Needless to say, he agreed and then he invited me over for dinner Friday night with my parents. I found out from my mom when they were talking and David and I were shooting hoops outside that, for the last 3 months David's mom had been praying that David would get a date to prom. She told her neighbor about praying, and her neighbor said that she was going to pray that David got a beautiful sweet girl to go with to prom. And it wasn't until the week before prom that I stepped into the picture. I don't know but that just sounds like the hand of God if you ask me.

There are a lot of details that I am leaving out, but this story seems to be going on forever.

I had an amazing night at both Banquet and Prom - and both gentlemen treated me very much like a lady.