I think I can...

UPDATE!!!

It is 12:19am in Hollister, CA 95023.

I am sitting on my creme-colored twin bed swarmed with pillows and blankets, with "Girl Meets God" laying open and face-down just inches from my knee and centimeters from being finished, listening to the quiet whirring of my desk fan and the distant buzz of the living room TV, and feeling the slight breeze from my cracked window as it seeps into my in my mildly stuffy bedroom, smiling just thinking about things.

I just feel God's peace right now. And I am very thankful for that...I think we sometimes take that for granted, or at least I do. In the words of Counting Crows "you don't know what you got 'til it's gone". And we all know when it's gone, that is for darn sure. So I'm just basking in it right now. :)

...my desk fan kind of sounds like the "I think I can" train from Dumbo...it seems as if it's urging me to try as I force myself up that mountain...chanting at me to keep going...to hold fast to this peace that he has given me...to press on...speaking of...

Relient K is only a little over a day away. :)!!!!!!

Jenna Barney is coming tomorrow. And I can't help but feel like a child on Christmas Eve every time I think about it.

I just had a really fun day today. It was my good friend Matt Weir's birthday today, so Eleanor, Missy, Matt and I went out!! :D It was great!! The day went something like this: left Missy's house at 11:30am, drove to San Jose, went mini golfing, at about the 3rd hole I remembered how much I hate mini golfing, we got dehydrated, we left for the mall across the street, ate more than our weight in pizza and Diet Pepsi, walked around, Matt got rejected by TWO Verizon stores, looked at the sale in American Eagle, laughed at the ridiculous things in Pac Sun, went in the "Family bathrooms" and laughed at the baby toilet next to the big toilet (all I could think of was "Elf"), took HILARIOUS pictures in the FOTO booth (after rearranging ourselves many times, we barely fit), rode a quarter machine Merry-Go-Round (how great is that name?? "Merry-Go-Round"...it's just great), sat in the massage chairs, got three bucks each for smelling perfume, got free huge VANS stickers after taking pictures in front of their van, got See's Candies samples, got Starbucks, drove home! :) it was just good to do nothing and laugh all day and not worry about time or responsibilities...

I work tomorrow at 12:00pm at Barnes and Noble with Eleanor. I am so glad to be back working with coffee! It's so much better than Applebees! AND Java as a matter of fact...though I don't quite have the FULL hang of it...

I have just been reading for the past 45 minutes and it's been great. I used to be addicted to books only. Recently, I've been on a movie kick. Now, it's good to be back into books and rediscover how much I love them :)

Oh, and my phone is dead. Like, my-charger-can't-even-charge-it type of dead. :/ soooo if you need to get a hold of me, contact Kelly or Eleanor if you have their numbers. If not, try facebook! I'll try and get it fixed soon! :)

NOW I reeeally need to go to bed!!! I just wanted to post an update! Pray for me to keep pressing on and that I won't sit back and take this anymore :P!


This would be my up-too-late-still-not-that-tired-but-tired-enough-and-yet-still-can't-shut-up-or-sleep-but-I-think-I-can-with-His-abounding-peace face.

The Perfect Fan

In 1978, my mother heard a song that she absolutely loved. It was called "Aubrey" and she decided on that day that was what she would name her first daughter. She was twelve years old.

It's Mother's Day today, for those of you who aren't paying attention, and yes, I'm going to write a cliché blog about how much I appreciate my mom.

My mother is the best mother in the entire world. I know you hear that a lot, but mine is true. From the cursive "I love you"s in my sack lunches to paying for my whole life, she's always been there for me.

Around my junior year of high school, I left my home church for another church. I started just going for the youth group because of the fellowship there, but pretty soon I ended up going Sunday mornings. I definitely took for granted the fact that my parents and I went to the same church every Sunday morning for 16 years of my life. I missed looking over and seeing my parents there and just instantly feeling comfortable and safe. I went with her today and I just love watching my mom worship (though I am just like her so it's a little weird). But songs move her, sometimes even to tears. During sermons, she takes notes and underlines and stars things in her bible. She says "amen" when a good word is spoken. She asks for prayer when someone she loves needs it.

I love my mom. So much. She is so important to my family. From the "ask your mother"s that my sister and I get all the time from my dad to her waiting up on the couch until we get home, she loves this family with all she has and shows it. She is humble, and caring, and is always encouraging us to do our best, whether with school or things in everyday life. Everyday she would surprise us with things she would remember that we had forgotten. Either money for school that we needed or washing certain clothes for a spirit day or even making breakfast.

My mom didn't spoil my sister and me, but showed us the all the love we could ever need growing up. She would be there when you came stumbling into the house with a bleeding elbow and tears and snot coming out of your face and she would be there when your "friends" in junior high did something mean that didn't make any sense. When devastating things happen, there's a place inside of you that aches for your mother. I remember last year when my great-grandma died, I was in Redding and my mom was in Hollister and that was hard to go through without her. Luckily, I have really good friends who came by my side in a heartbeat, but I still hurt for her.

I never realized how lucky I had it growing up. My parents are still together and love each other very much (that is a huge lesson in itself) and they raised my sister and I in a Christian home. Not until I was older did I realize what a blessing this is; I thought it was annoying growing up. We didn't get to go to certain places or dress up for Halloween or watch certain movies. But I see now that the sheltering was in their best interest and if they hadn't enforced those rules, I wouldn't be who I am today.

Lately, I've been looking at life a little differently. Call it maturity (finally) but I'm realizing that doing the dishes before my mom gets home from work really does make a difference. Not arguing with my sister over the dumbest things really does make a difference. Using a little less sarcasm really does make a difference. I realized that I love unity way too much to let worldly things like that consume me and cause division.

The Perfect Fan
Backstreet Boys

It takes a lot to know what is love
Its not the big things, but the little things
That can mean enough
A lot of prayers to get me through
And there is never a day that passes by
I don't think of you
You were always there for me
Pushing me and guiding me
Always to succeed

You showed me
When I was young just how to grow
You showed me
Everything that I should know
You showed me
Just how to walk without your hands
cause mom you always were
The perfect fan

God has been so good
Blessing me with a family
Who did all they could
And I've had many years of grace
And it flatters me when I see a smile on your face
I wanna thank you for what you've done
In hopes I can give back to you
And be the perfect son (*cough* daughter)

You showed me how to love
You showed me how to care
And you showed me that you would
Always be there
I wanna thank you for that time
And I'm proud to say you're mine

cause mom you always were,
Mom you always were
Mom you always were,
You know you always were
cause mom you always were... the perfect fan

I don't care if that's a Backstreet Boys song. :P



Please ignore the hair and the braces. I love you, Mom. :)

Trust.

"You say, I've got you my baby, oh I've got you;
it's quite the mess you're in, but it's nothing Love can't fix.
So sit here upon my shoulders, and watch as it all unwinds..."

I need to believe that. This is where I am.

Hard Things

So I'm sitting here on my couch, joking around on Facebook, and pretending like nothing is wrong.

But things are wrong.

My mom is watching this documentary about a family whose oldest son set the family up to be killed as they walked through the front door of their own home. A armed man was waiting inside as the youngest son walked through the door. The father barely survived, and the mother and younger son were killed. This makes me sick. I'm sitting here crying as the oldest son, Bart, tells a reporter about how he planned it all...how the four of them were sitting at a restaurant eating dinner just minutes before it happened...how his brother Kevin looked up to him and was the one who was shot first...how he had the shooter shoot him in the arm to make Bart look innocent...how he stayed with his dad for six months acting like the perfect comforting son and lying to his face...how that wasn't the first time he planned that attack...

I had to turn it off.

This isn't even the reason I started writing this blog. But how does someone do that?! You can't blame it on the family; they loved him. They were even a strong, Christian family.

Actually, one thing that did impress me was the father of that family--I think his name was Kent. He was a strong Christian, God-centered man. On the same night that he and his family were shot, he asked God for the strength to forgive whoever did this to his family. As Bart was talking to the lawyer from death row in Texas, he said that before his dad found out who the killer was, he had truly forgiven them. And that he truly forgave him...

But it makes me sick to see the son so calm about telling the story and seeing the pictures of his mutilated brother...I just wish that there wouldn't be this kind of hurt and pain and cruelty in the world. I wish that people could see that Jesus is the only way and I wish that they would model their lives after Him.

I'm sorry; I just wanted to rant.

Anyway...I am watching D2 (Mighty Ducks 2) now. And what this blog started out to be was me talking about how hard things don't always look the same. Or at least in my life. I always think it's going to be some huge, gigantic, I-am-big-huge-ugly-and-scary thing, but usually, it sneaks right past me and all of a sudden I'm faced with it.

And this time, I was sooo not expecting it.

My current problem goes something like this: To set the background, my dad tore his ACL in his right knee. He has been hobbling around on crutches and denying the fact that he now needs help to do things. I've been trying to be helpful because I am now on Summer Vacation and my mom and my sister still work and go to school (my mom is a teacher). SO, I was planning on going to the When God Dreams Conference in Redding from May 7th-9th. I had everything worked out: I was going to stay with Jenna at the Gafner's, it was going to be epic because I knew the speakers would be great and the worship would be great...then, I was talking to my mom about it, and I mentioned the dates. She says, "The 7th-9th?! Oh no." So I said, "No, I'll be back before Mother's Day." "No, no..it's not that...it's just that dad's surgery is the 5th and I'll be needing your help..."

Awesome.

So like I said, I did not see this one coming. I have to choose between helping my dad after his surgery and a mind-blowing weekend learning about God...

Again, awesome.

So, I'm trying to not be too hasty about anything, but I realized I hadn't blogged in awhile and this is big. So thanks for listening--er--reading. :T