Wildest dreams, reality, synonyms right?

I've recently looked back upon the past few years of my life, only to realize that I'm living an amazing life that I never could have dreamed of. When I think of what I have learned and accomplished, I'm just flabbergasted. When I think of all the opportunities that have been put in my path, I can barely stop to thoughts of gratefulness.

I've been to 3 countries, I'm doing research, I've been on not just one but two mission trips, I have such an amazing family, and some pretty awesome friends if I may say so myself. And that's just the tip of the iceberg really.

I don't believe anybody deserves this kind of happiness in life, but that God has graciously provided me with some very blessed times recently. My life wouldn't be what it is without "Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us"

Family Ties

If anybody knows me at all, they know that my family means the world to me. I’m one of those weird people that actually look forward to family reunions. Family is such a perplexing concept I’ve discovered by observing. Some people spend their whole lives running from their family, the only ones that really provide comfort and support. Some think life is better if family is involved at a bare minimum. I just don’t understand why so many people take their families for granted. Maybe I’m just lucky that I have the family I do, but I believe that I truly enjoy my family because I have chosen to make them an important part of my life. Everyone talks about breaking ties as you grow up, but I am running around attempting to form bonds at every moment possible. There is so much to learn from my almost innumerable family members. I don’t want to run from what I hold so dear, even if that makes people look at me weird or call me “one of those people.”

Dreaming with a Broken Heart

"When you're dreaming with a broken heart, waking up is the hardest part"

I've been through the denial that I'm not hurt. That stage hurt me worse than the actuality of it all. Now I'm healing; I'm in repair. Not so much healing from losing what meant so much to me (and so little to somebody else), but healing from the simple breaking of a porcelain heart I always thought I had toughened to the strength of steel. I've never been the one with the broken heart, but I've always been the one breaking others (not that there are a great deal of those either). My heart hasn't been broken before this because I never let anybody in. I never trusted enough. I never loved enough.

But this time I trusted and I loved, and consequently the porcelain shattered.
Surprisingly it glues back together quite nicely. But memories still chip away at it every once in awhile. Like the same words spoken from a different mouth in the same old house it all began, that hurt way more than I ever thought it would.

I once said I wasn't sure if it was better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. I wanted to say it wouldn't be worth it at the time because I didn't want to give anybody the power to break my heart. On the other side of things I do believe its worth it, even if my love was never returned. I was the lucky one because I learned how to let somebody in, I learned how to let my steel barriers down and be open to love. Not everyone is that lucky. Not everyone is that brave.

I've learned a lot. I've gained a lot. Without losing much more than an amazing friend (and maybe I'll find that again one day).

"But when my loneliness is through, I'm gonna find another you..."
and learn from our mistakes in the meantime.

Fighting like mad to dance in the rain.

The rain came pouring down today, but metaphorically speaking its been raining cats and dogs and bad days for quite some time now.

I'm not the kind of person that admits that things in my life are hard or to whine about the things that go wrong. I put on a happy face moreso to keep peoples' questions and "need to help" tendencies to rest more than I do it to convince myself that I'm ok.

I want to deal with the rain myself.
And sometimes that is a bad thing.

I'm caught in this downpour.
Some of it still coming from previous storms and then sometimes it lets up a bit.
Every once in awhile it starts to pick up more.
Sometimes because of life altering things and sometimes its just the trivial crap of life.

There is no sense in trying to run away from the rain or really even to put on a happy face.
I need to look up, get splashed straight in the face with cold, fat raindrops.
Let it hurt.
Stop pretending I'm not drenched.
Soak it in.
I need to realize there is a reason for the rain.
And more importantly trust that the sun will eventually come back out.

So if you ask me how I am, I'm not going to put on a happy face.
I'm not going to deny the rainclouds.
I'm stressed, I'm hurting, I'm worried.
Your prayers won't dry up the rain.

But maybe if I let you join me in the midst of my downpour, it might just get easier to dance in the rain.

A project for break

I have to admit there is one project that I have fallen short on: The Why? Project.

I put a lot of thought into what I was going to study at the beginning of the semester. After a few weeks I decided on studying the Apocrypha. I am a Christian and I have never really read any historical and religiously significant texts that go along with my religion besides the Bible. Sure it is included in some special Bibles, but I have never really been exposed to it. I did not even know these other texts existed until a few years ago. I do not know much at all about them, therefore I felt it would be beneficial to research them more throughly this semester.

However, time really got away from me and I didn't get to immerse myself in studying the Apocrypha. I did enjoy a nice discussion on the Apocrypha during a Bible study early on in the year. In my World Literature class we briefly touched on the Apocrypha and other texts from the same time period. So I did learn little tidbits of information about my why project, but not enough to satisfy my curiosity.

Therefore, I will be studying the Apocrypha over Christmas break since I will have more time to focus on it.

What MOTIVATES me?

Think about your life.

Think about the greatest thing you have ever done, and think about

the worst thing you have ever done. Try to remember what motivated you to

do the former, and try to remember what motivated you to do the latter.

How similar are these two motives?

Chuck Klosterman, IV

I believe the greatest thing I have ever done is realized that I have a higher purpose than just being a human living however I choose on this planet. With this realization, comes more concrete action on my part. If I was not created for this world, but yet I do have a purpose here?!? It is such a confusing concept. I feel that my purpose on earth is to further the Kingdom of God. I feel that furthering God's Kingdom and ultimately bringing God glory should be the motivation behind every single action in my life.

Therefore, I must disagree with Klosterman here. He feels that what motivated you to do your best or your worst have something in common. If my motivation for doing my best is glorifying God, I do not see how that could have anything in common with being my worst. If you had to define what motivates me at my worst moments, I believe it would be selfishness though, it would simply be the absence of living to glorify God.

I know what I have spoken about here is not very concrete, but what "motivations" in life are truly concrete?

Impacting the World: Additional Information

I forgot to add that the Bethshean Mexico Mission has a current running website that has information about all their work, including the medical missions.

Here is the link for the the hospital/clinic project:
http://www.bethsheanmexicomission.org/index_files/Page540.htm

Impacting the World

I have formalized my impacting the world project since I last blogged about it.

Project Running Title: Fundraising Effort for Bethshean Mexico Mission Clinic/Hospital

Official Dates: Spring Semester (January-May)

Purpose: To raise money in helping to build clinic/hospital in rural Mexico.

Why: Because there is a great need for medical care in this rural area, with people having to travel several hours to go to the nearest hospitals.

Who: The main project is that of Bethshean Mexico Mission, under Cris Garcia. A local doctor, Freddy Martin is also very involved in medical missions in the area and being outspoken about the importance of building this facility. FAME has partnered with Bethshean Mexico Mission, promising $50,000 of the needed $250,000.

For my fundraising project, Katie Coppinger and Alissa Rockney will be working together. We are partnering with the Christian Student Fellowship, who has been to work with Cris Garcia in this area of Mexico multiple times in the past few years.

How: We will be setting up a booth in the culp center at least once where people can purchase "bundles of bricks" for $5 of donate money.

The second possibility is speaking to the clubs associated with the medical field.

A third possibility is to speak at a colloquium, or host a fundraising gig in the Great Room.

The fourth and most promising possibility is going around and speaking to each of the ministries on campus about the hospital and its need.

We will most likely show the video that Freddy Martin has made for the project because it shows people receiving medical care as well as specific blueprints of the hospital. It would even be ideal to get Freddy to speak at our main fundraising event.

The" Who am I?" question

Earlier in the semester, I wrote about "who I am." I know I probably shouldn't have started answering that question from my current perspective, but I guess I will just work backwards through my life in looking at who I was, and how those versions of me are similar, different, or alien-like to the current me.

Since I already talked about my current definition of who am I, I will reverse until entering college 2.5 years ago.

I am a startlingly different person at this time in my life. I am scared to death, with a side of excitement, regarding the big world that stands before me waiting to be experienced. I'm deathly afraid of going away to college, but I know that if I don't I will never become the person I really wish to become. I've never stepped too far outside my comfort zone when it comes to anything in life. When I look back on this person I was just 2.5 years ago, I thank God that He gave me the courage to go away and learn how to live my life to its fullest. And maybe studying in my dorm, with only emerging for Bible study and food, now seems like such a tragic first year of college. But it was that first year that I learned how I wanted to spend my time. I realized that enjoying things outside of academia and actually building more concrete relationships would be something I would earnestly seek in the future. Over the past year, I did just that. As bad as it may sound that I didn't always make school my number one priority (and my grades even showed it with A-'s that could have been A's if I had just stayed home that night), I feel it has been worth it. So it isn't that I like the me of 2.5 years ago, I revel in the fact that who I was 2.5 years ago brought me to ETSU and enabled concrete relationships that God had in store for me.

Hmm, next we should go back to the "me" of my high school days. What can I say about the me of high school. Several events that defined who am I occurred during high school. I was an overachiever who just had to have the highest GPA, but only because I never thought I would make it that high. I had always believed I was average until high school. I will never forget how much I actually loved to go to class and learn. I wish I still had that great of a passion for putting everything into learning. Although I still have that passion, I don't think it will ever be as great as it was then. Well maybe it really wasn't a passion for learning then, it was more of a great desire to impress people disguised as a love of learning. Now I honestly don't care so much about impressing others as I have learned that if I don't strive for excellence for personal reasons, it isn't worth achieving. Some of my best and worst memories come from my experiences with colorguard/winterguard in high school. The work ethic I learned from practicing over and over again because I was never a natural is something I brought away from the experience. I absolutely loved performing, becoming somebody else out on the field/floor. If I could go back to any me for a moment, I would go back to this me and perform once more. I guess all good things must come to an end eventually, or at least God had bigger plans. The hardest lesson of my life was also learned through my experience with colorguard. I respected an instructor, saw him as an older brother, even idolized him to an extent. It came crashing down, and I realized that I could put no faith in man because he would always disappoint me. Every since that day I have strove to always put my faith in the Lord and look to no human as "perfect." Even though I was not directly affected by what happened, the indirect affects truly changed me forever. [I do apologize for the vagueness here, but the details are better left unsaid].

I really don't know any "me" that is worth discussing through middle school, or even primary school. When I look back at who I was then, what I remember is what I learned from my favorite teachers. Mrs. Nunley was my first teacher that was forthcoming about being a Christian within students; I still remember her inspiring me by praying every morning during our moment of silence. Mr. Reynolds taught me that you really could have a blast while learning. Mrs. Rigg taught me to love writing with a passion. Ms. Kilgore gave me the desire to go out and see the world. As little as the things these teachers once portrayed to me, as purposeful or insignificant as they saw them, they did affect the person that I now am.

The last "me" I will look back on with be a carefree 5 year old. The summer before I started Kindergarten, I remember swinging on the swing set all the time. I would look at the creek flowing in front of me, as the shadows of the holly tree danced on the ripples. I remember looking up to the clouds and not wanting to ever grow up. I thought the world was going to be such a scary place full of bad things that I never wanted to experience. I just wanted to stay on that swing set forever. So I used to think I was a wise kid, being that I already understood like wasn't going to be perfect and all fun growing up. Just in the past few years have I come to hate that 5 year old me. What was I thinking? Why on earth would I want to miss out on living my life?!?!

Well that is a brief glimpse back to who I was, why I was who I was, and how I changed through the past 21 years to become who I am today.

can I just say God is awesome, and I'm truly in awe of Him right now.