feeling grown-up

i met with a financial planner today regarding my finances. how crazy! and crazier that in 4 years i just might actually have money that i will need help managing/investing. a good crazy, considering i'm so broke.

so i pretty much have a wedding each month till the end of the year. well, 2 in december, and 0 in august, so it works out. i'm hoping to make it to ALL of them. but dang! weddings are so expensive. i wonder if people realize how much their guests sacrifice to attend.

finding housing for school has been a huuuuuuge hassle. there's an apt complex that i love love LOVE.. except it's a little more inconvenient due to the albeit short commute to school. and the first place that i saw, fell in love with, is in the process of being remodeled, and the owner thought it wouldn't be done until much much much later. i was crushed. and then! God is really ridiculously gracious to me. the owner contacts me and thinks they can have the unit ready by aug 7th!!!!!!!!!!!! which totally rocks. so, hopefully this works out bc i think i started to get an ulcer over that.

and.... i totally chickened out of trying out for ai. yeah. i know. i'm a party pooper. but you have to get there at 5am, and a certain friend didn't ask me to go until 24 hours ago.... and yeah. i'm not ready. my confidence level is non-existent. i'm a very shy singer, and yes, i realize that that is odd considering my dancing history. at any rate, i'm not ready, i'm too tired, and then my cousins are in town for only a few more days. so i think that ai can be sacrificed. plus, who am i kidding? at least i can be honest with myself and know that it would be a COMPLETE waste of my day. sigh. it would be a fun experience, but just bad timing.

in other news. school is starting in like...3 weeks. WHAT THE MONKEYS. where did all that time go? ugh. i have so much to do! so much to pack! sigh.

fragments

sometimes, don't you just feel like you need to get away? from everything, everyone, yourself...

but where? when? it seems that the timing for things is rarely perfect, hardly on schedule, never the way you want. but its always worked out for good, right? and everything happens for a reason.... right?

maybe i'm learning to forgive and forget. really truly forgiving and deliberately choosing to forget. it's so much easier to love without limits.

and isn't it true? blood is thicker than water. and composed of many many more things... hah, i'm such a bio nerd sometimes.

i should be asleep but i'm still awake. a million thoughts racing through my head. disappointments. joy. pain. anger. frustration. hope. hunger pangs.

sometimes... i just wonder if it's worth it. you work SO hard, slaving over some project or other, you get it done, send it in, and think, WHEW! glad THAT's over! and then, and then.

you get some stupid letter and realize that you now have to jump through 20 more hoops. and spend even MORE money. and even that might not be enough. and even if it IS enough, you STILL might not get the end result you want. and so what's the point? what's the point in stressing, running around, spending more money for something you don't even know is worth the trouble?

so now i'm stressed, tired, and just..... put-out. sometimes i just want to drop all my cards and fold. is this really worth it? the hassle, the debt, the stress, the untimely-ness? is it really terrible that i haven't even started and i'm ready to quit? and why did i think this was such a great idea to begin with?

shouldacouldawoulda.

possibly the most boring summer of my life.

 so. both of my siblings are off at summer school. so it's basically just me. and then i am unemployed. i never thought i would hate not-working this much. ugh! i mean.... glad to be out of THAT situation, but totally bummed about becoming penniless. blahhhhhhhhhhh.

anyways. here's some pictures to liven things up.

barn's 21st bday. driving around in tucson w christian.

at B&J's in Palm Springs. We went for Resolved 2008, which was awesome! at any rate, this was my first experience of Chunky Monkey. and man. who knew banana ice cream would be so good?

getting sunburned in the sweltering 100* weather in sd to watch charissa graduate...

at mission beach, by guard tower #19 (i think) 

in SD for Charissa's graduation - woohoo! we ate some verrrry tasty thai food at Spices. the favorite? duck pad see-ew

fruit for my "fro-yo-at-home" experiment.

some of my youth group girlies - and they really liked "aletheia-berry" HAHA

my new friend, lizzie, who wanted to go swimming with me one day

double date at grand lux cafe. it was...ok.

dinner at bobby-q. MMMM MEAT!

outside of sol y sombra, a really yummy and super sexy tapas restaurant.

4th of july burgerssss. note to self - next time, flatten burgers to 1", not 3". but i will say that my bacon wrapped burgers were super tasty. although they just look like a big hunk of meat (btw, i did not grill them, so the burnt-ness is not my fault) 

my masterpiece - fresh strawberry shortcakes! come visit me and i'll make them for you. maybe.

Heaven and Hell

that was the theme of Resolved 2008.

I'm not gonna lie - I was a bit skeptical about the theme, since it seems kinda... one dimensional - as in:
Heaven = good, Hell = bad.  I knew the preaching would be stellar, as it usually is, but doubted that I would really learn anything new. I figured, at least I'll see some old friends, hear some good preaching, and get to hang out with Josiah somewhere new.

Was I ever wrong (and isn't it so prideful that I thought I knew everything?!?!)!  And I'm sooooooooooo glad, too! I always love preaching that is SO strong, passionate, and overflowing with God's truth that it just brings you to your knees because you are just so convicted of your utter sinfulness and how you are so undeserving of God's amazing, full, complete, wonderful grace! And EVERY SINGLE session - God was totally chipping away at my stony, cold, sinful heart. and it didn't really fully hit me until we were leaving Palm Springs, literally driving away - i completely broke down, sobbing and weeping over my sin and overwhelmed by God's amazing grace in my life.

i think so often as Christians, we quickly glaze over our sin, brushing it aside and thinking that "it's not a big deal, God will forgive me..." (Romans 6, anyone?) - you know how sometimes you learn something from a message, and you think, well DUH, but you never got it before? yeah, this is one of those lessons - sin is a HUGE deal to God! of COURSE it is! God is so utterly HOLY HOLY HOLY - and the result of one sin? the first sin? all of Creation was subject to the curse! i think for me... to see this with renewed eyes, and truly understanding the gravity of sin (ANY sin!) was earth-shattering. i have ignored my sin, learned to live with it, and embraced it at times, even - and then to really see it as the most base, disgusting, filthy, abhorrent thing that it is really broke me.

and then, to see Christ's sacrifice as more than just a trite "Jesus died on the Cross for my sins", but as it really is: as Jesus taking on MY sin, and receiving the FULL punishment for MY sins, being forsaken by the Father, the pain and agony that He didn't deserve, but that I did... and how flippantly I disregard His grace, to my complete shame. AND YET, He still reached out to me - not that I chose Him out of any love for good in me, because I realize more and more how there really is NOTHING good in me apart from Him - and not only that I received salvation from my sins... but that He adopted me into His family as His daughter!

it's hard not to feel guilty about sin (past, present, future) -  (although, we definitely should feel sorrow and be repentant over our sins) yet, to feel guilty is to believe that there is something good within me that makes me somehow attractive to God, or that I can somehow be "good enough". and I know that that is not the case. The beauty of the Gospel is that Christ died for me, and I didn't deserve it - never have, never will. And that His death is complete! He died once for all of my sins, past, present, future. This is the amazing freedom that comes from God's unchanging, perfect truth in His Word!

At any rate, go download the messages at Resolved.org - you will not have wasted your time. And if you only dl one message - listen to CJ Mahaney's 2nd message. and go to Resolved 2009! i'm not encouraging people to go just for kicks and giggles, or because it's cool because, let's face it, sitting through over 12 hours of hardcore messages is really rough! but seriously, it is such an immense blessing to hear God's Word preached by men who truly love God with such contagious fervor.

In summary... what an Awesome Savior. What a Great God.