Emmanuel

"Emmanuel: from Hebrew `immānū'el, literally: God with us".

As long as I can remember, this simple word has been my favorite name for God. I would belt the Amy Grant song at the top of my four year old lungs, and I even tried to name a babydoll of mine "Emmanuel." My dad, the quick-thinker he is, suggested "Emma" instead.

This is going to be a short blog, but I felt I needed to reflect. The concept of "Emmanuel" has been manifested in my life recently, and I am ever so thankful for the resurfacing of this truth. God is so good, and He is ever-present in my daily life, loving me fiercely through my countless mistakes and shortcomings.

Lately, I have reminded myself to reshape my prayers slightly. Instead of praying to be a better woman of God or praying for Him to teach me to try harder, I find myself thanking Him for being there with me. I pray I see His love, mercy, or grace in every situation. Through my crazy freak-outs, through deaths of beloved pets, through deep longing for my family, through it all.

God is with us.

Media-Naranja

I'm blessed. Hard to the core. And I'm gonna brag to blogger about how much love God gives me, because those who'll make fun of me or get annoyed with this post think blogs are stupid.

Garrett Daniel. There are too many awesome things about him to list. But I'll start with some:

He loves Jesus. First and foremost.
He loves me. Through everything.
He's funny.
He's ridiculously good-looking.
We can quote movies together.
He can do almost any accent flawlessly.
He'll make goofy faces with me and let me take pictures of them.
He is my best friend.
He is very intelligent.
He's talented.
He loves his family, and he's a wonderful son, brother, and uncle.
He knows me.
He sticks around anyway.
His love teaches me about God's love.
We can laugh at ridiculous things.
We just fit together: our senses of humor, our love for others, our beliefs, so much.
He can be honest with me.
He is so encouraging and affirming.
We make up ridiculous pet names on the spot.
We have awesome inside-jokes.
When I try and get away with something, he'll laugh and kiss me and say no way.
But sometimes he gives in :).
When I talk to him with a baby voice, he'll talk back with one.
He makes me wicked awesome mixes and fake serenades me.
Our voices sound real good together.
We look real good together.
He tells me I'm beautiful when I don't think I am.
Like when I have no makeup on and my retainers in.
He doesn't like tomatoes, so more for me!
He lets me borrow like three sweatshirts at a time.
We go to church together.
We worship together.
We love together.
He is my media-naranja, my soul-mate.


I'm just gonna post pictures :)



















I just love this man, and most of all, I love where Jesus is leading him to lead us. Happy (belated) one year, pookie.

New season, new blog cover.

I love how random life can be.
How unexpected.
How scattered.
How imperfect.
How perfectly it aligns with God's plan.

I love moments. I've been realizing more and more that I just love moments. Moments with God, with people I love, doing things I enjoy...lately, moments to breathe.

I've been learning to breathe the Holy Spirit back into my everyday life. I've been calling on Him to lead me and guide me through my choices, molding my shaky faith with all its worries into a strong, firm trust with a big faith to back it up.


This is a great new season in my life. A time when God is encouraging me to enjoy all of the pleasures life has for me, whether it is taking up kickboxing (which I did; it's AWESOME!) or pressing into God and what His plan entails for my journey into a more full life.

I keep noticing three key themes in this new season: trust, identity, and thankfulness. I'm so very excited for what God has in store for me and my growth in Him.

Happy Birthday Moon, Jo!

I've been realizing lately that doing things in bullet points will actually get things done/said/accomplished.

I love:

weekends.
road trips.
jenna.
talks.
long talks.
deep talks.
the Holy Spirit.
prophecy.
laughter.
diet pepsi.
bagels.
hugs.
janelle.
very one-sided basketball games.
joanna.
stars.
moon rises.
pizza.
toe-headed children.
joy.
taboo.
kelci.
memories.
sleepovers.
pancakes.
bacon.
restful afternoons.
massages.
texting.
forever 21.
blogging.

So....here's to Jo's birthday week! :)

(Jenna and I are celebrating in this picture!)

'10/'11: Processing the Scary Stuff

I'm busy.

I've never been busy before. I mean, yes, I have had things to do, and some days, I've had more things to do than others. But I don't think, until this school year, that I have ever been BUSY.

It's kind of awful. For me, anyway. Even though I am going from thing, to thing, to thing, I end up feeling empty and alone.

Maybe I am handling this the wrong way. Maybe I am putting too much pressure on myself to be the best at everything I'm consumed with. Maybe I am too absorbed with comparing myself to others who are drastically impacting people to notice the lives that I could be changing.

Either way, I've been feeling extremely attacked. All of my insecurities are coming out, and they are causing me to lash out at the people that I love most. I have had dry eyes for maybe a few nights in the past couple of weeks.

Also, this year scares me.

When I came to Redding early for RA training week, I felt so incredibly pumped for this year: all the crazy things God is going to do, how He will move on this campus, the lives he's going to saturate...

Now I feel deflated. I feel like I'm moving backwards. I feel tired. I feel spent.

Everyone--yes, I am hyperbolizing, but it seems as though everyone (including leaders on campus) that I take the time to ask how they are doing start off their response with a sigh, and they reply "stressed."

All of the student leaders were stoked for the big things that are going to happen this school year. We all threw ourselves into Orientation Week, and the first weeks of school, and the fantastic worship night Encounter, and we saw God moving amongst His children.

But horrible things continue to brew on this campus. We are immensely overwhelmed with school, we are continually feeling the grinding of stress on our nerves and emotions, we aren't getting enough sleep, people we love are getting hurt, or worse: a girl's mother was pronounced brain-dead after being rushed to the hospital; a guy's grandparents were killed in a car accident, and his nephew was put in intensive care; a girl's brother was driving a jeep and an accident severely injured his sister and killed her boyfriend...and I am sure there are more.

This is real stuff: heavy stuff. And all I can picture when I think of all these things is that Satan is terrified. Satan sees all the potential of this year, and he sees all of the big things that God is going to work, and he is desperately trying to snatch up whatever he can reach. He is wreaking havoc on this campus, and we need to be aware of that.

We need to press into God more than ever this year, or Satan will get us to our most vulnerable, desperate point and take us out. I don't want that. I don't want that for anyone.

I'm sick right now, so if this sounds "over-dramatic", just take it for what it is; I'm processing this for myself, and in turn, rambling via blog. Just know that it's real, and we need to be careful.

KatieMarie-SiuSoresi-Tam

I am in love with this woman. Yes, I said woman, Katie; you're a woman now!

Katie is in Cambodia right now doing her required internship for Simpson University's Cross-Cultural Studies major. She left May 2nd, and she is staying, by herself, in a foreign country for two months. She is working with a program called "Daughters" that helps women who are in the human trafficking trade get out and stay out. It is an amazing organization that my friends Jenna Barney and Libbie McIntosh worked with a couple of years ago, and my friend Harrison Yager even randomly visited and supported when he was in Cambodia. Now, Katie is working there, hands-on, with these broken women; encouraging them, supporting them, affirming them, and teaching them their worth and valuable skills that can help them earn an income in a safe, healing way.

Now, you may already be amazed at the sound of how amazing Katie is, but I am not finished; oh, no. This was not just a required internship for this woman. Working with girls stuck in prostitution has been her dream for a very long time; helping these women who are forced into this way of life with no visible way out has been something that God has laid upon Katie's heart for most of her life. I've known about this dream since I met Katie my freshman year in college. This quirky, hyper, adorable, spunky Asian's love for people permeates everything she does, says, and just is.

Katie Marie-Siu Soresi-Tam inspires me to my very core. She and I can laugh til our lungs give out at the smallest things, but we can also sift through very profound questions that we just can't answer until we're with our Savior. I've seen her through the easy stuff and the hard stuff, and she has always been there for me. Sometimes, we look back, dumbfounded, at how much we've grown since we first met; we were both afraid of relationships, and look where we are now! We've always laughed at how similar we are, and luckily, one of us is always slightly ahead of the other, so we can say, "Mm...been there. You're feeling this and don't know why this is happening, right? Yep, it gets better, I promise; here's some silly advice to get you through." We've had amazing times, from 312, Jamaica, modest swimsuits!, calls with Phillis, N*SYNC stick figure dance moves, bloody noses, PEPPER TURKEY!!!! >:(, wrestling for the honor of Bilbo, crazy photos..mostly on Thursdays, to our amazing notecards, laughterlaughterlaughter, painting, stripeyheadbands, "Aubrey, have you washed your face yet? Can we do it at the same time?", ascetic junkies, Wake Me Up, Nolan, Relentless Love, Garrett, Starbucks dates, Lifegroup..kinda :p, laughing for hours and hours at silly youtube videos like Aicha (that will ALWAYS be a classic :D), homework on our beds, reading LOTR finally, and soooooo much more.

Katie. You are amazing and are one of my very best friends. I am so proud of you for what you are doing for those girls in Cambodia, and I can't wait to hear it in person when you get back. I love you so so SO much.

And I know I'm gonna remember stuff later.

Mm. Life is good.

Lately, life has been amazing; everything seems to be going so well. :) It's great.

I just want to make a list....:

1. The beauty of God's creation:
-the bare trees quietly whistling along with the wind and the birds
-the little white clouds that flit across the blue, blue skies
-radiant orange sunsets that sink behind the gorgeous Simpson campus
-even a chance encounter with a covenant-bearing rainbow after a light rain

2. Friends and family:
-my loving parents who text me just to say they're thinking about me
--my mom who calls to just check in, who listens to my endless ramblings about life and things going on with me and my Simpson world, and who sends me care packages stocked with thin mints and funny cards :)
--my dad who plays picture tag with me (via text messages and internet), and who either sends me beautiful pictures of everything I previously described about creation that I learned to admire from him, OR funny pictures of clever wordplay or ironic inconsistencies that I also learned to admire from him :)
-my sister who makes my life daily with random texts of movie quotes from our childhood that were buried in my schema, deep in the forgotten nooks of my brain, or phone calls that overflow with news of her growth from her experiences in her last year of high school in a town saturated in drama and her trials that seem too big for her that she soars through, making me so proud to call her my sister
-my wonderful boyfriend who constantly affirms me in my beauty and worth, and who listens to my insecurities and sticks around anyway, and who encourages me in my growth with my Jesus
-my amazing friends and extended family who love me for who I am and want to hang out with me despite my shortcomings (and my lame jokes :p)

3. Last, but not least, my Creator who gave me all these things and blessed me with this life.

For awhile, I'd been panicking slightly because things have been going so well, and I was worried that because things were so wonderful, something bad was bound to happen. I began to worry that the ominous thing in my future was just growing in ferocity the longer things went on without any huge trials (although, there were/are little ones, obviously, from day to day, but I mean large, life-changing-in-a-moment trials).

But then I started thinking ("a dangerous pastime" :p) and as I thought, well...actually, let's back up. Nate Edwardson triggered it. At the Stirring one night, he used the phrase "season of favor". Now, being very close friends with Jenna Barney, I had heard all about seasons :), but I had never heard this one, or if I had, it had never struck a chord before. I had always thought that when you are in God's favor, that everything goes right for you: getting As on every test, never tripping up the steps in LR, waking up early and feeling well-rested, being able to make crazy basketball half-court shots like Michael Jordan in space Jam, etc. A shallow view, I know, but it was one of those assumptions I'd had since childhood that had become an ingrained fact of life that had never resurfaced and whose ridiculousity (yes, I made that up) had never been exposed. Anyway, (gosh, I am SO tangent prone :p) I heard that phrase and thought it fit with me. I may not fit the "Midas touch"-God's-favor, but I do believe that I am immensely blessed. I thank God everyday for the things He has given me that I have done nothing to earn or deserve.

Someone (either Travis Osborne in Chapel, or Nate at the Stirring, I believe) was talking about Haiti as he was preaching, and he said something that hit me hard:

"The only difference between you and that person with nothing is where you were born, and you had no control over that."

*low whistle*...Seriously, though, think about that for a second: the ONLY difference is where God placed us. I was so broken by that. I have done nothing to deserve being born in America, to great parents--CHRISTIAN parents, with a wonderful family (parents, sister, extended family), to live in a middle-class home, to have great friends who love me and laugh with me, to go to a great school--a Christian school where I am in constant fellowship and encouraged so often....the list goes on and on.....I am so, so blessed. It almost brings me to tears again just typing it out.

Before, during this season, I had only been thinking of the trials to come; I neglected to bask in the glory of the blessings God has bestowed upon me. If He wants to bless me with all of these outrageously wonderful things, I am so in. Bring it on, Jesus :)