Silent Sunday

Have a BLESSED week!! :)

Things I'm excited for...

I am SO excited....

..to sleep in a BED tonight. :D Like you have no.idea.

(for the past four nights I have been sleeping on either the floor or couch bc of this moving business)

..to be HOME, finally.

..to be working at camp this summer with a really close friend who I know from school that will be joining our staff!

..to listen to my senior commissioning prayer again and again. We got the recordings on a CD. :)

..to eat REAL, delicious, home cooked meals. It has been far. too. long.

..to not ever have to deal with thousand leggers (at least not for a looooong time)in my apartment at school anymore!

..to enjoy what will most likely be my last full summer at home with my parents.

..to get to practice more photography and set up a website. :)

..to play my guitar again!

yayyy! So much excitement.

Which is nice because it balances out how exhausted I am.
Today I went to the zoo with my 1st graders from student teaching! It was truly the best, and I loved seeing them all again, especially my coop! Pictures to come!

The end of the world?

Did you hear about how today was supposed to be the end of the world?

A man named Harold Camping predicted that the rapture would happen today at 6pm and that there would be five months of torment to follow.

I'm just really kind of frustrated.

Obviously, he wasn't right...and NO human being can EVER know when Jesus will come back. But seriously, the world is watching, and what does this "say" now for Christians?

I was just reading some news articles online to see what they were saying and one of the articles pits Harold's beliefs on all "believers". He said something like, "the believers thought Jesus was coming back today and that the rest of us would remain here... no news on what the believers have to say now.. "

Ugh! That disgusts me. How you pin one man's belief on ALL Christians everywhere?

I'm so bothered because now I feel like people who aren't saved are saying "see! You're all wrong!" and it's like...going to push the "world" away from Jesus even more, as if they're not far enough already.

The other thing that I thought was absolute INSANITY is that this man, Harold Camping, (and his followers) spent $100 MILLION dollars to advertise that this day would be the rapture. They put billboards up everywhere, even in other countries, they handed out pamphlets, and even broadcast it on the radio. And well...now what?

1 Thess 5:2
2For you yourselves know perfectly well that the day of the [return of the] Lord will come [as unexpectedly and suddenly] as a thief in the night.

What do you think about all this?
I would love to hear others thoughts!!
:)

Clean, pack, move. Repeat.

I'm still here at school chugging along.

I started subbing this week!

Here's an outline:

Monday: Hung out with my amazing friend Alex.


Tuesday: Subbed 5th grade. (Went to the WRONG elementary school and arrived at the RIGHT one about 45 minutes late. Yeah. I did that.)

Wednesday: Subbed 2nd grade.

Thursday: Subbed K3. (Kinder for 3 and 4 year olds)

and on the docket for today is.... MOVING. I'm planning on living with my friend Courtney and her family. They have graciously offered for me to stay in one of their non-occupied rooms for a low-renting price. :)

I'm moving some things over there and then moving home for the summer sometime next week.

and can I just say, I am so not a fan of this packing, organizing, and moving stuff. It stresses me out! The house looks like complete CHAOS and I feel like it's solely my job to clean it. It's a bit overwhelming.

I've also been really discouraged about this whole job-hunting experience.

I'm sure it's tough anyways but for now it's near impossible. I feel like I'll never get a real job. And that...makes me sad. Really sad.

So now, it's off to organize, pack and clean like it's my J-O-B!]

Have a good day friends!

Portrait Photography and John 10

For the past hour or MORE, I have been sitting at my computer. Doing what you ask?

Well, I've been looking up and reading a lot about portrait photography.

I'm pretty excited about it.

I found that the "definition" of sorts of portrait photography is this:

To capture the personality of someone in a picture.

Thinking about what makes a person uniquely "them" and bottling it up in a photo.

A good portrait photo "tells a story about the person in it."

How awesome?!

My wheels are certainly turning and I really want to be able to do this. To capture people.

I love people.

Everyone is so different and it's awesome to be able to freeze someone's personality.

To "grasp" a bit of someone's story just from a picture.

We are all so uniquely different and this is an amazing way to show that. :)

I can't wait to start practicing!
I especially want to photograph babies and children. But, I think that makes sense. :)

Here's a couple photos that I have taken so far. (Not portraits quite yet, I've still been learning what all the controls do)







I also got some good, quiet God time tonight.

I've realized that I have let the "noise" of all the other things going on in my life drown out God, and I needed the quiet with Him tonight to sort some things out.

Loving this verse especially tonight:

17For this [reason] the Father loves Me, because I lay down My [own] life--to take it back again.
18No one takes it away from Me. On the contrary, I lay it down voluntarily. [I put it from Myself.] I am authorized and have power to lay it down (to resign it) and I am authorized and have power to take it back again. These are the instructions (orders) which I have received [as My charge] from My Father.

Jesus laid down His life voluntarily, and so should I.

Updated Etsy

I'm excited to share today that I have UPDATED ( I know, it's about time) my Etsy shop!!

It's up and running and has some of my coin purses for sale. :) Purely for Japan relief!

Head over there if you're interested or share it with your friends!

Kay Shay's Fight

In other news...

I went to the substitute teacher services building today and I am now a substitute (maybe) starting Monday. :) woohoo

We'll see how THAT goes...

Graduation and weekend recap

wow- well somehow I've gotten myself into the habit of blogging on Tuesday's. Ha. Not quite sure how THAT happened. :)

These past few days have been such a whirlwind. It's been tough to keep up reading others' blogs let alone writing my own posts!

I'm happy to say that I am now a college GRADUATE!!! :D Yay. It is WEIRD. and exciting. all at the same time.



I want to go back a few days to last Thursday. It was my last day of student teaching in sixth grade! It was such a nice, bitter-sweet day. I have learned SO much throughout this whole placement.
If you remember, I was not such a happy camper when I started there. I was really negative and I wasn't sure I would get along with this new co-op as well as I did with my old one from 1st grade. If I'm being honest about it, I really judged her a lot.
I'm so sorry for it now, and God and I have "talked" about it a lot. I've learned that I can never ever judge people by any circumstance. Even if they do or say things I wouldn't. I grew to absolutely LOVE my 6th grade co-op and I developed SO much respect for her. It makes me angry at myself that I was so quick to judge her, but it's a lesson I know God had me learn by experience.
Anyway-each class period had a little party for me with cookies from my co-op and dum-dum lollipops from me. They spent the period making me cards and I went home with about a zillion, each with their pictures on them!

My teacher also made me a book with pictures of each class that I taught and had them sign the pages. It was so nice!! :) I'll miss them.

I felt really rushed to leave, which I didn't like, because I had to get back to school for grad practice at 4pm.

Friday was spent with good friends which was nice.

Saturday was GRAD! It was at 10am. My parents and grandparents came to my apt early and my roommie and I drove over together because we needed to be there at 9.

It was the MOST gorgeous day. I couldn't have asked for better weather.
Afterwards I hang out with my fam. We went to Applebee's and came back to my house for presents. :) (Mother's day and grad gifts.)

I got this super cute apple charm for my pandora bracelet.


and my most favorite gift of ALL.......



I got a Nikon D3100!!!!!

I've been wanting a nice DSLR camera so that I can get more into photography. :)) I still haven't had much time yet to sit down and learn things, but oh, I will.
I'm excited to glorify God with this new hobby. :)

So after the awesome time with my fam, they left and my best friend Christin came from Ship to sleepover. It was the best. day. ever.

We reenacted my graduation.



:)

Since then, there has been a lot packing, a lot of moving stuff, a lot of praying and reflecting. I'm ready for the change but it still feels very weird.

Up next is (anticipated) subbing. Moving out of my college house for good, and then living at home for the summer to work at camp!

Woo...God is GOOD!

Reflection and commissioning

I'm not quite sure how to start this post.

My time here at college is coming to an end. I can't believe it's been four years but at the same time, it feels like a long time ago that I lived in Hobbs as a freshman.

I've been doing so much reflection these past few days. It's hard not too.

God has brought me through SO much, and taught me, and done more IN me than I ever could have imagined possible when starting college.

When I started college as a freshman I was much more introverted and shy. I'm still an introverted person, and always will be, but I'm much more comfortable around people now. I've become so much more outgoing and I've learned how to be comfortable in my own skin. I've learned how to rely on who God has MADE me to be, and not who other people THINK I am.

God has brought me through so many hard, tough situations that, at the time, I could not stand. They really broke me. BUT now, I am SO thankful for those times. They made me who I am, and taught me things, and brought me SO much closer to God.
I was just kind of thinking of all the things that happened:
-My freshman year roommate basically left me hangin' the night before we left for summer.
-There were awkward, tough, sticky relationship incidences with people, involving so much brokenness.
-My early on group of "friends" went through so much drama and my sophomore year I felt so much loneliness like I'd never been through before. It may sound dumb, or like it couldn't have been that bad, but it was one of the hardest times I've ever been through. I felt like I had no friends, and I cried like, all the time first semester. That sounds really lame, but God was just breaking me and showing me how my main dependence, comfort, and joy can be found in HIM alone and no one else.
-I was stretched sooo much by being on our University Fellowship's leadership team my sophomore and junior years.
-God brought me to THE most amazing people ever who taught me even MORE how to be a friend, how God speaks through people, and what encouragement really means. I will forever be amazed at how God effects relationships.

I went to worship last night (called outlet) and I could hear God telling me that this is just the beginning. I have changed and grown so much, but there is so much more still to come. This is just the beginning.

Here, at my school, our Christian Fellowship (UCF) has a senior commissioning every year for the graduates. They always invite this man named Keith Yoder to come and pray over them in a prophetic prayer. This is something I had been anticipating my whole college career and this past Sunday, it was finally my turn! This guy is good. He is able to really hear from God and speak things about people that he otherwise would not be able to know. It's usually very affirming and encouraging.

I was so nervous but excited. They give us discs of the recordings so that we can listen to it as much as we want. My friend videoed mine with my camera so I get to listen to mine before disc is ready =)
The main biblical passage he prayed over me had to do with David and Goliath and how when David went to defeat Goliath he brought with him what he knew and what was comfortable. He said some things about five smooth stones that David brought and how those correspond to my five skills. He said that when I follow God's prompting He will add His power and favor so that I will see miracles happen in people's lives.

He also said that I can be confident about the future and that instead of thinking about what is ahead, I should think about what I already have and know.

I'm still processing it, and I want to look up the passages in more depth, but yeah :)) The commissioning was awesome and my best friend Christin even came from Shippensburg and totally surprised me!

Only two more days of student teaching and then grad on Saturday! AH! It is very bitter-sweet.

Here are a few pictures from this weekend. On Saturday there was a picnic type thing outside and we had fun taking pictures. Here's also one of me at the commissioning! :)

Me and my roommate Shelby:)


Me and my friend Courtney


Commissioning:)