Being Thankful for thy gifts.

Hola. yoyoyoyoooy. I am filled with so much goood food and joy within my heart because God is opening my eyes to the many things i am so blessed with. Like, i wouldn't feel so blessed feeling the amazingness of my work out tank ( ya know that breathable material that athletes wear, ohh yah the good stuff) if it wasnt for God. I am thankful for the little things like that tonight i was able to realize them. That was just when i was folding my laundrey tonight tho, after one amazing afternoon and evening with my frickin awesome hipster aunt Dafna. Ya, shes pretty AWESOMEEE!! hehe, she doesnt think she is "hip" but she IS! Haha, im laughing at the thought of her reading this if she ever does..you hear that aunt dafna YOU ARE COOOOL! And so are you uncle Chris :). You both are!! But Dafna specifically i click with so much because we are both such foodies haha, and are both really easy going and i love talking with her about where shes been in her life and getting her advice on things. We went to venice beach today and walked all through the boardwalk, saw many interesting individuals down there, and saw lotssss of good num nums to eat! def making another trip back there just for the food haha. But it is so beautiful at sunset down there- we got to walk on the sand- i get so thankful for the sand now that i dont have it in sonoma. meh. but its good cuz i am more thankful for it now..But man oh man was the sunset beautiful. We met some pretty interesting people. i love meeting cool people- we went into this coffee shop and just chatted with the owner- his name is sean. first we were just talking about coffee and then found out he is from iran, moved here to the states in '84 after the revolution in iran. hes been all over the world- mainly in europe and so we chatted about his favorite places- he said the seafood in northern italy and how much he loves paris. his favorite. then we met this other man on the boardwalk and hes old, my aunt loves dogs and was just chatting with him while i was looking at feather earrings. she loved his voice- it was really smooth like italianish- but he is from germany orig- and then grew up in argentina- and he was saying alot of things, but i loved how he lives he said he doesnt pay attention to time anymore- he asked us if today was either saturday or sunday- he could tell because of all the people- weekend- and he said he doesnt keep track of time, but he wants to not be controlled by it and just live life timelessly. so that was pretty sweet. thats not something i would do but i dug it.
i also found out today that american apparel's owner is like this sick sex offender dude- and takes all of the pictures for the clothing models- in like private rooms and has sex with all of them-EWW- and his motto is "oh its all just sexual"- like totally honest about it- but has a really bad rapp from alot of people- made me kiiinda not want to ever shop there again cuz i toates dont support that-but the clothes are so well made and i love themm, so i think i still will shop there. idk ponderin. but okay so after venice adventures, dafna took me to this amazinggg restarant in santa monica- 3rd street prominade- called Zenga- it was like a fusion between mexican and asian food- mostly asian tho- our dishes (small plates) consisted of: bbq pork rice noodle dish wiht like green onions, blackened cod (best fish i have EVER EVER EVER had omg), hot and sour soup with dumplings inside, yellowtail sushi roll with avo and chipotle sauce, and peking duck tacos and they used rassish slices instead of tortillas with this sweet sauce and slices of cucumber- o m frickin G. so freaking amazing ive never tasted anything like it. So that was greaat! i had to write all of this down because i dont ever want to forget this amazing meal. i will look back on this blog at school when i am starving from gross caf. then after that we got gelato, as if we hadnt had enough food :) i got cappuccino cookie, and dafna got cookies and creme. we had amazing conversation the whole time about so many things. i really enjoyed my time with her and i am so thankful for being so close with so many family members both in a group and individually. it is such a blessing and a gift. then the whole drive home i got the best playlist from pandora. and the moon was AMAZING. first it was this light orange color- and gigantic!!!! and it was just so peaceful, and kinda had a surreal out-of-life- experience looking at the moon- thinking that woahh, this thing lights up the entire world- there is only one of them and it privides enough light to light this whole world! And how creative God is for making that. and how it frikin stays up there- like just floating- and how we stay like just floating as Earth- in the galaxy- this song "hes got the whole world in his hands" just popped in my head. crazy eesh. my sentances are getting smaller and shorter. i am tired now. goodnight moon, goodnight God, goodnight earth.

Bible Verse from today:

2Corinthians 2:5-16 & 3:1-6: For we are to God the aroma of Christ amoung those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To one we are the smell of death, to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task? Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God. ...Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant- not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Wonderful Conundrums, Fine Fine Friends, and a Torn...

butt muscle... i hated hearing it tear this morning at the gym...i knew i was getting sick of doing the same stretch pose and my body was as well i guess! ew, i hate thinking about that sound...tear, rip.....bleghhhh i had to get it out, ventalation is key hear...or else it would have been pending in my mind throughout my other things i have to say today...YAAAAAAAAACK! ..okay, now feel a little better. okay. Sewww i have not been getting as many blogs/thoughts out these past few days as i should have but i am now working on getting in a blog every day no matter if i feel like writing or not. its good for my health. :) -(oh hey sonshiners) So my dear friend bryn, recommended me this book when we were chatting about our lives and how they are a'changin and how wonderful life is..it is called "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" by Donald Miller. Picked it up yesterday, and, while i waited for my dear friend elizabeth to get out of her classes at lmu, i went into borders and perched myself down in seattles best coffee arena with the book in satchel, pulled it out and promised not to stop reading it until she was done. So for three straight hours i sat adn read and read and sat somemoe. Thinking all the way through about my life, life lessons, and what a wonderful God I believe in, and i felt i was becoming a stronger person after reading, just one thing about being constructive. PS- i had to move spots from borders to starbucks because there was a creeper reeper- dude, i am so paranoid and scared as a sardine with creepy men- they are literally in every place- i am so sick of having to be so paranoid, and sometimes i feel bad cuz hey, the guy like for instance, today at the gym, i was laying out at the pool just relaxing and got so freaked by this dude- mid thirties, huge gut, tats, bald, kept looking at me and mayb just needed someone to smile at him, but i was too paranoid to even look him in the eye. Yes, i am very paranoid and sometimes idk if it is too much. but most of the time i feel like its right. So i will just have to deal with it and work around it. Seww anywho. this book is about donald miller, after writing his best seller "Blue like jazz", which is just a memoir of his life, felt like he was in a rut of life and couldnt find much meaning at all to what he was doing from there. Two producers called him up one day and asked if he would want to make a movie out of his book. he agreed, and the main thread of the book is about him making this new character of himself for the movie, because the original character, the producers said, was too boring. And Don finds himself rediscovering his own life and finding new refreshing passion and meaning to his life. Life is a story. Everyone has one. And we all want to have a good life, therefore a good story to tell. So its about how to have a better story, and i love it because its not an instructors manual to like how to live a better life cliche mania..no, he uses his own life and just expresses his experiences as evidence that what he is saying for the purpose in the book is legit stuff. hes not trying to sell anything. its just really real.

So my thoughts thorughout this was like, hey, i can have a passionate life and do great things with my life. It made me ponder and stir alot of positive thinking back into myself about how precious life is and like that its such a gift. a gift that is FROM God and nothing else. I want to go back to Sonoma refreshed, thats what breaks alll about riight? And time is indeed running out, and i have been asking myself if i really am ready and do feel refreshed about another semester away from everything i know and am comfortable with. In some respects, i still have some stuff that is gonna make me feel uncomfortable ( like my living situation for instance,) but the more i think about it, and talking to God about it, liike, the more i have peace with it and am not scared. Just writing it out helps me. I think preparation in advance is gonna save my buns. Also, not being afraid to make mistakes, but always being humble in the same respects. I have some issues that I am afraid of. Issues that i need to bring to God more and more, liike every day. I dont want to be afraid, and i dont want to lose my identity in the craziness of life, school, and God. God loves me, therefore he loves my personality, and doesnt want me to become this Christian robot, but just someone that loves him and loves people. Bryn and i, were talking about how the good and rewarding things in life are always gonna be hard, but also soooo good. So they are wonderful conundrums that, in the moment seem terrrifying or not worth it, but afterwards so meaningful.

If I Could design this day...

I'd never let it get away...lyrics from a band my dear friend showed me yesterday called, Jinja Safari. That was though, the way I could define yesterday. I never wanted it to get away it was so beautiful. everything just turned out so lovely. i am visiting my friends in san diego, yesterday i drove down and met up with Bryn, my good friend and we got to catch up about our lives. i love raw conversations. it was such a beautiful day, one of those days where everything just majically ends up falling to perfectly into place.

What a Run...

I like blogging versus going on facebook, because i feel a freedom in being different than the pack. It is sort of my own personal one up on facebook, like no facebook, im not gonna fall into your temptation just because i am on the internet does not mean i am going to go ahead and check my facebook. I am trying to keep it at a once a day occurance. Anywho...
I had so many good thoughts flowing through my head today. A bunch of them was when i went running on newports shores. So breathtakingly beautiful i couldnt believe i was actually there. I had such a great run, enorphins skyrocketing. Havent felt so winded ever since cross country races back in the day- or two years ago :). I was just running to the Ruby's pier (the newport one today) and looking at the sand as i was running- the shells along the sand trailed the shore like a man made dirt trail, except this was totally natural- made by the ocean itself. It was so beautiful. Also, there were tiny little seagull sandbirds- babies just waddling along with their webbed feet, a bunch of them today. I had never seen that many in one day before. I got to watch them plat along the whitewash and then, sometimes, when they were walking toward the whitewash on the sand, just before the water was going to hit them, they would fly up over it and sail jsut slightly right over the water. So amazing how God makes such beauty. It was something that is normally just an aspect that is overlooked, but I was able to actually appreciate that one thing, and then thinking about how intricately made this world/life is and how we overlook the beauty so easily. Such a blessing to see the beautiful creations that God has made. I ran from pier to pier and back, jumped in the ocean which was so liberating and majical. After I jumped in, I got to just sit, called Cassie which was amazing convo, and then just stretch and meditate, soaking up the view. greatness. Sometimes I write about every inch of my day, because looking back in my journaling is fun to read the intricate details, but most of the time I dont feel the need to write down where and what I do in every single part of my day. Just the things I find of importance. Like eating with my mom and brother blake at Cafe Rio- was BOMBSKIES amazingness! Fresh homemade flour tortillas, and slow cooked pork barbacoa tacos- mmmmmmuah so freaking delicious. If I ever went there on a date, it would be with someone who wouldnt judge me on the fact that i look like a cavewomen who eats for her whole family in one sitting. yes, mayb not that bad, but im a messy eater when it comes time for chipotle, or cafe rio. After that, I went home and found myself watching tv..which i hardly ever do unless something looks appealing on the food channel or its desperate housewives, but tongiht i found a sick documentary on jeff bridges. Kay, he's now #5 on my alter ego's list. Hes The Man! Such an amazing talented guy- found out he is also, beyond actor- an amazing artist, musician, and father. I love the roles he picks out, and the fact that he lives in Santa Barbara and is originally a surfer boy from California..adds to my love for him. It was really inspiring to watch this because of how close to home it hit for me...got me thinking about my freakin future again and how much I want to accomplish, and be in pursuit of my dreams. Jeff said his mom always told him when he was about to go on set- "have fun, but dont take it too seriously"- that has been my motto lately in the past 9 months or so.. to not take life too seriously and to remember to have fun. Jeff just finished the movie True Grit- hes like 60 years old now and he still was laughing about something fun they did on the set- He loves what he does and it still makes him thrive- I want that when I am his age. I just have to keep thriving always- and not worry about the things I dont know yet- or cannot control yet- but worrying is healthy a little bit when you are thinking about the things you can control. That is EXACTLY what I have to keep telling myself. :)

The Scenery from today

Perfect

Some days things just cant get any better- or they just keep getting better and better! Today was one of those days :) and I can't just not write about it because I am so grateful for every bit and millisecond of this day. Saw the most indescribable, but beautiful, magnificant, incredible, breath taking scenery today- huntington beach. It was literally like walking into a storybook or painting- such a surreal moment. Me and k-stuetz standing on the tip top of the pier outside of Rubys, just soaking it allllll innn- Frank Sinatra playing suddely but beautiful and smooth on the background- and the most incredible sunset surrounding us. God knew. God so knew that we needed this. He didn't have to give it to us, but his grace is so abundant. It was like a present that was just being presented to us and we were unwrapping it all with our eyes, thoughts, and feelings. It was like a big hug for our whole senses and body. I felt literally filled up completely from my head to my fingertips and toes. Like someone was just pouring pure love out of a pitcher and pouring it directly into my soul. twas quite the treatly trip. Then we sat in rubys and had a chocolate banana shake, split it, and onion rings, lots of ranch of course, split a tuna sandwhich, and the buffalo chicken tenders and did not feel guilty about a single bite of it because it was perfect. Then we walked down and tipped a man playing "hear comes the sun" by the beatles had the best voice for it too- and then to find the street fair was still happenin- tuesdays = best day to go to huntington! tootled around there for a while. Went back to k-stuetz casa and watched Romeo and Juliet- Leo dicaprio version though, sooo great. I so appreciate Shakespeare- it was a modern visual setting with the same exact dialogue from the original shakespeare- so it was really interesting and definitely thought provoking. That was a great end of the night. Thank you praise you Lord. You R so rich and bountiful- but merciful, true, thou art lovely, fair, divine, pure, and love.

Catching Up

Have been catching up with many people this break, for me, its a blessing and a curse at the same time because i suckk at summarizing my life for the past "semester" in a nutshelled form. However, I do it because I love the dear people that I am getting to spend time with that I have missed for so many many months. It is such a blessing to hear so many things that they have been accomplishing and the different perspectives of their college experience, and the same things that we have in common with our experiences, and also the ways in which we have changed, and finding comfort in still being able to rekindle the person I became friends with in the first place, and realizing that our friendship goes much deeper now that we have to work harder at keeping in touch. Also, catching up with bea, still call her mrs. wakeling tho- was amazing to get her advice still, and learning still so many life lessons from her experiences. I am so fortunate to have such an amazing woman of God chasing after His heart as a mentor. These people inspire me to be better, and remind me of what I am capable of. They are like fuel in my gas tank and also the foot pressing down on the gas pedal to drive me to just go and grab my ideas and dreams and make them a reality. Such amazing feelings.
I also love catching up because it is also reflective for me to debrief on the semester because I am forced to spit it all out and I am reminded of things that I have accomplished that I completely forgot about. In this life, there are always going to be ups and downs, but you just have to keep looking up instead of down or to the left or right, and press forward. And also be reminded of who you are-last night, at church, the pastor talked about baptism and who that makes us, our identity in Christ. He talked about the world, and humans identities- like what people thrive off of and what makes people who they are. For me, I am a redeemed child of God, that loves Jesus and that is saved and alive in Christ. That is why I have a real, alive life. And that is the reason that keeps me going no matter what. I fortunately have a constant peace and do not have to win God's approval by anything I do, except love him. I live the way that I do with all of my morals and such because I want to praise Him for saving me out of the depths of darkness. I want to be as close to the light as I possibly can, because that is where the ultimate joy and freedom from anger, fakeness, stress, frustration, regret, guilt, shame lies. I stick to my morals because that is where the truth and the true freedom is.

Hard, but Good.

So here’s my daily blog- trying to go at the keyboard everyday that is my goal-
My New Years Resolutions:
Give up Diet Coke- limit to one per week
Stay more focused on finishing the task/idea at hand
Motivated to have more PASSION for God and SHARE it PASSIONATELY with others without being too afraid!
Pray more
Time managing BETTER!
Today first off, I had coffee with Cody, hadn’t seen him in a year and a half! Where does time go nowadays, but I have found that I am growing up indeed and becoming way more busy, and my network of people that I know and care about spending time with has grown IMMENSELY, and I have to adjust to that…which means that my intentions and time with those people is more intentioned and has more pressure to be good. I feel like my time needs to be thought out and spent wisely- and that has to be acknowledged..I have been thinking about that ever since I became a senior in high school..time management and all of that has just gotten tighter ever since, it is one of those “hard, but good” things in life. But I felt like my time today with Cody was soo well spent! Mostly because he is SO good at it! Half of my mouth was numb, so he did most of the talking, but it was everything that I needed to hear about my major, God, and friends. I learned so much valuable information in a span of 30 min. That is something I want to get better at, is just soaking up everything that comes my way and always be on my toes for what God has for me in the moment…Finding the balance between on my toes, and constant peace which God is in both and can help me always find that place. Also, went to Disneyland with Elizabeth J It was beautiful, and so many good conversations with her. It was so fulfilling, being able to rekindle our amazing Holy Spirit-filled friendship.
I want to start my journey of helping my friends with their relationship with God… And seeing what God has for me, not because of any reason except that I care about them so deeply and love them so much and know that God loves them so much as well and I want them to have the best life they can have.. so I did that tonight- asking my best friend Court about her relationship with God- and I was able to ask some “hard but good” questions. It was hard but good, and I felt cleansed by the holy spirit afterwards- like a huge weight of fear was lifted off of my chest- oh so beautiful. Thank you Lord for this amazing journey. Love.

Messiah Give Me Mercy

The Lord, we forget half the time is immensely powerful in both grace and wrath. But nothing can separate us from His mercy if we are running to Him. I am feeling very broken and weak right now and need to take a moment and meditate on God's beautiful mercy and be reminded of how much I am loved by the Holy One. This is so satisfying beyond anything else I can ever ask for. Phil Whickham is singing the most perfect words pertaining to this situation, that is God answering my call. He is playing me the right songs on my iTunes. Psalm 78:38 is talking about God's power through all of the plagues He threw upon the israelites in Egypt- but also how many many many times He delivered them in the desert even though they continued to go against what he was asking of them. That is the story of grace right there, and God does the same for me and those who love him, so beautiful i want to cry. The only thing that is keeping me from balling my eyes out right now in pure admiration is that I have to get ready right now to go to the Melting Pot with Nicole :)

The fullness of
your grace is here with me
the richness of
your beauty is all i see
the brightness of
your glory has arrived
in your presense God
I'm completely satisfied

for you
i sing i dance
rejoice in this divine romance
lift my heart and my hands
to show my love
to show my love

your deep deep love.
a deep deep flood
an ocean flows from you
of deep deep love