God is working even when I cannot see it, He is telling me I need to change, teaching me that when I have no faith it is because I am depending on myself and not on Him. He is teaching me that I need to let go- that even though I fear loss, I fear handing over what I want, it is because of all of this fear that I have not given over everything. These verses were like a slap on the face last night, but God has given me such a bright hope because of His promise in verse 11:

"1Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
4In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 6because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son."[a]
7Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? 8If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. 9Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! 10Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. 11No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." ~Hebrews 12: 1-11

I had a great conversation last night, talking about life and the fact that I want something I can't have. I have been saying all year that I feel like I'm stuck in the middle of two lives, a life where I want to be, and a life where I should be for now. I've been really homesick this week. As bad as it sounds sometimes it just hurts that everyone I love at home doesn't need me. I don't know why I desire to feel that but I do. My family goes on with their lives without me, my friends do the same, and as time passes by the less and less I hear from everyone. Harsh reality that life doesn't revolve around me, I never thought it did, but at times I wish it did only so I could fill the hole in my heart to feel needed and wanted. That's why I am so encouraged when anyone says that God doesn't need you but He wants you, because I've decided that in human relationships we dont "need" eachother and feelings change so much that after you fill another persons needs they don't want you either. In my everyday relationships I don't need anyone, it's just I want them... but sometimes relationships need to stop for awhile I guess to keep you continuing on in the life where you are now. The relationships always pick back up, but abruptly end when I'm away, I don't like that feeling. Been thinking a lot today about the school year coming to a close, how hard this year has been for me emotionally and how much I've learned, petrified thinking I have to do it all over again next year.

On a happier note I wrote a song today :-) I don't know if it fits my dream of writing a "good song" but I'm gonna work on it more and ask jace what he thinks. Sorry but I'm pretty sure most of you will never hear it but I'm okay with that, for me music is expressing some of my deepest thoughts and being completley vulnerable and I'm not there yet, nor do I think I ever will be and that is because of fear.

So pretty much my week has sucked, I miss my mom and I was just home a week ago, and as much as I make fun of family traditions I just missed Greek Easter for the first time in my life and that really hit me hard. I will be so relieved for this year to end, but I'm scared to come back to the place I love so much because I'm not going to want to leave again.

Sorry my posts have been so depressing latley. But I was reminded by someone younger and smarter than me that I should never try to cover up who I am or what I am feeling and try to put on a persona that everything is okay. The only reason I am sane right now is because God is holding me together, because the next four weeks are going to be really hard mentally and physically because I'm pretty sure I will be losing a lot of sleep. But I have some fun things coming up, spring banquet is friday so that should be fun. Other than that I once again find myself completley numb, but I know that God is going to use all of this.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowldge Him and He shall direct your paths." ~Proverbs 3:5-6

Doug has been taking amazing pictures lately! Here are a few of my favorite flower ones, pretty much decided if I ever get married I want these flowers:

These photos were taken by Douglas Ostlund.

Side note I've decided that love hurts too much, so much joy yet so much pain. I'm glad that God's love is a love that can cover all of that :-)

It has been a hard week for the girls on top floor of barndollar. Family problems, financial struggles, dissapointments, and stress of the heightened work load as the semester comes to a close made this week a crazy one. Yet through everything we have been facing, God has been working. He has truly been showing each one of us how to edify one another, and we are finding that when one of us is weak, He gives the rest of us the strength to pull eachother through. Even though this has been a rough week it has been so full of blessing.

Tonight we decided to have fun, to enjoy eachothers company and to be spontaneous. Rache, Maire Maire, and I hopped in the Kiaguar and headed off to Wally World, blasting Switchfoot, Relient K, and Barlow Girl and turning up the Bass to the highest setting possible (hehe it was fun). Then we got stuff at Walmart and Rache said she wanted to buy a flower so we all ended up buying a plant, pots, and potting soil. Then we went to Starbucks and got Caffeine. Planting flowers and caffeine we decided was not a good mix, but more on that in a minute :-) We first headed over to the "Spring Festival of Music." I pretty much just sat there in awe as I listened to my peers create some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard. It was so great and I am thankful that God has gifted so many of the students here at BBC with music because I am one of the many people who is blessed to hear them use their talents to worship God. (Great Job guys!!!)

So anyways we got back and started the planting process, here are some pictures but just to warn you planting turned into a dirt fight :-)

Flowers are such a beautiful reminder of God's magnificent creation. He created every petal on the beautiful yellow flowers that I will now take care of. The bible says that even though God takes care of the birds of the air He takes even better care of us, and I know that God has more intriquetly put me together than the delicate yellow flowers now sitting on my windowsill. God knows my heart and what makes my eyes light up, and what makes me smile. God knows the timing for my life and sometimes makes us wait for things because we will appreciate them more when we finally have them. Listen to part of this poem that I just wrote a paper on for english:

"Oft (often) a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day.
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient (passing with time) all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
O why lament (express grief for) its fall?" ~Excerpt from "Life" by Charlotte Bronte

How cool is that? And it poses a great question. Why would you want to stop the rain when you know that something beautiful will come out of it? We need to value the rainy times in our life more because it will lead to us treasuring the sunny days, and the rain will only make us more beautiful. I'm glad that God is making a wretch like me more beautiful every day and that is only because my beauty is found in becoming more like Christ, without Christ I would be the most hideous thing on earth. I'm glad that God answers prayer, but maybe not when we want Him to. I was reminded this week that God doesn't make deadlines, we do and that God will do things in His time. My step-dad called today and told me He got a job. After more than two months of being out of work and not seeming to find anything that fit, God finally answered our prayers. Not only did Doug get a job but this job will be paying him more than He was previously making. My entire family right now is in complete awe of a God that put all of that together, and I know without the rain we experienced for two months we would not have experienced the joy of God rescuing us from a trial. So even though I am tired, I want the semester to end, and I want a hug and to hear a comforting knowing voice telling me it will be okay, I know that God will work all of my effort for Him for good.

I have nothing else to say that could top this :-)

"3 He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.

4 He determines the number of the stars
and calls them each by name.

5 Great is our Lord and mighty in power;
his understanding has no limit. "

~Psalm 147:3-5

love you all!

amanda

So I know I'm always Miss Serious so here are some funny links:

This first one is a video that three Freshman Guys from BBC made, the twisting of Scripture is horrible, but it's funny because none of them actually believe what they are singing about, but just thought I'd share this as the example of how women should NOT be treated or thought of:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8233427637647478709&q=slippaz&pr=goog-sl

This other link was on Pastor Darin's awhile back but I found out about it through the BBC grapevine... I think this video is hilarious especially when you are attending "Baptist Bridal College"

http://www.whiteboydj.com/babygotbook.html

oh well, i'm not a very funny person so this is all I have for now, but read my previous post and you will find a lot of what has been on my mind and those are the posts I'd rather have comments on anyways :-) It's kind of funny because these are kind of the two extremes of how a woman should be treated and what they were created for... all i know is I would tell the guy in the first video to go find his own slippers :-)

enjoy :-)

So this past weekend I pretty much had a blast. The kiaguar and the Nicedes <- that's alyssa's car's nickname that I made up :-) both made it to NH safe and sound, the results are that her car got fixed and my car is "supposed" to be making grinding metal noises, so yeah... I don't like VIP very much right now, but hoping they were right in their diagnosis. On Friday I got to hang out with my favorite people all day, we hung out, relaxed and did a bunch of random things ( I loved it! :-) and then that night a group of us went to see the passion at a church in our area. That movie is always so powerful, my favorite part is definetley the line where Jesus says, "See mother I make all things new." I will never understand why Jesus would die for me and give me the privelege that I might die with Him, to be made new because of His sacrifice (2 Cor 5:14-15).... I just can't comprehend that, and all I know is that I am so grateful that He saved me. On saturday I pretty much just bummed around at home and got a little bit of homework done, so that was a much needed relaxing day. Then Sunday I got the chance to be with my Church family and be apart of one of the most joyful church services I have ever been to! I wish I could put video on here, but I can't so here are a few pictures from Sunday:

This picture is of the worship team and my little brother's arm (hehe... he always jumps in front of the camera!!!) shari and lisa in their cute hats as the worship team led us in a fun song by David Crowder.

Their was so much joy as we celebrated Jesus being alive, it was so awesome! Then after church I went back to my house and my family was there so we ate Easter Dinner. My family is nuts, I love them but we are so crazy... I'll give you a recap- dogs running everywhere, andrew dancing to rap music, my uncle's bull dog isn't fixed so it literally humps anything, my uncle is a police chief and was on call so his radio was crazy, my nana orders people around, we are just one "big fat greek family" so there is lots of yelling and chaos, hehe but i still love my family and wouldn't trade them for the world. Here's a picture of our dogs... barking at nothing as usual... :-)

I would have to say though that one of my favorite memories from this weekend was with my little brother Andrew, if you guys think of it please pray for Him. The little guy (not so little anymore :-( struggles a lot after he had brain surgery when he was five. So he struggles a lot behaviorally. On saturday night he would not go to bed and pretty much just sat in his room banging things around. I felt like God wanted me to go talk to him, so I grabbed my geetar and asked him if I could play him a song to get him to go to sleep. He said yeah, and I told him to close his eyes. I played him "only you" one of the most practical songs I have ever been taught (it's coming in handy with putting kids to sleep :-) Andrew sang the first chorus with me, but by the end of the song he was completley out. That kid is precious sleeping, he may be a handful when he's awake but I just pray that God will continue to grow him. I also decided that I want to learn some more mellow songs, that have a lullabyish feel... I was just thinking how cool it would be for Andrew to have something to listen to when he goes to sleep when I'm home for the summer. Not to mention I decided that night that I hope I have kids someday that I can sing to sleep. I love playing and singing to kids, they don't care how good you are or how you sound, just that you love them enough to spend time with them.

As for all the decision making I was hoping to get to, God has been teaching me so much as I seek Him in prayer about certain things. I still have a lot of things that didn't get figured out, but we made some decisions. I am going to be going to May school, stinks that I lose two weeks of my summer, but it will be awesome to get the credits out of the way that I need. My schedule for next year should work out and I should be able to take everything that I want to take, and will be graduating next May... all I have to say is holy cow and I have no idea what I am going to do with my life, but I know God will direct me. I was recentley reminded of this- Jesus will NEVER fail me... so I have no doubt that even though I will only be twenty when I graduate with a bunch of dreams and nothing certain, that God will somehow use that, hehe :-) Let's see we also decided that the whole job thing won't work out because I will be gone so much, and even though I'm worried about all the things going on this summer and how I will come up with the money, my mom reminded me that God will provide. It has been so awesome to see how much my mom and step-dad have grown in their faith. My family is struggling due to doug getting laid off, but to hear how much they trust in God's provision has been so encouraging to me. Money for Namibia is coming in slowly... pretty sure I still have like half of my trip to pay for, but again that is another thing I just need to trust God with. So yeah, although I have no idea what this summer will hold or how everything will work out I'm just going to keep living each minute at a time and keep giving everything over to God. Which this minute I have to go do my homework so I'm off :-)

love you all! Keep seeking after Him in everything!

I have been feeling overwhelmed. Overwhelemed with where God has me, what my summer plans will look like, financial struggles, and just my mind. This past week I have had some of the best conversations with a great friend. He listened to me talk about my struggles about feeling older and struggling with being in school when my desires and heart is just not there. It was so cool to hear from someone who felt the same way in college, feeling like he didn't belong and that everyone surrounding him was immature. I don't know why God makes me feel like I belong the most around my friends who have at least 3 years on me (hehe, starting with jesse), but I am starting to realize that I need to stop treating the way I am feeling like this is an annoying curse, and embrace it more. I don't know why God has matured me so quickly the past few years or why he has brought me to this point in my life where I think of the seniors here in a youth ministry perspective :-) (oh boy), but I need to start treating this as a blessing. I need to continue to grow and live life as an example... the kind of example laid out in 2 Timothy and to not worry about my own desires so much but to love the people around me. I am very thankful for that reminder, thanks jace :-)

This weekend I am going home again for Easter. I'm excited... but I am kind of in shock that my first year of college is coming to an end. Although I have few childhood memories I remember being in kindergarden and asking my mom how many years of school there were, and she told me 12 years and then college. Hard to believe that I made it through those 12 years, I just wish that I had more of a desire to be here at times. I have been told all my life that the good thing to do is to finish high school and go to college, I just wish at times I didn't feel like I should be here simply because it's what your "supposed to do."

This weekend though we are having a "family meeting" and we are going to be sitting down and making some decisions. My family has recognized how overwhelming a year this has been so I think there will be lots of prayer and hopefully a plan so I can settle my heart on some things. In my principles of bible study class, my professor Dr. Emert put on his power point this statement....

So this weekend I drove home to surprise my mom on her birthday. I saw a lot of this...

In case anyone was wondering I can now make it to BBC and back without directions :-) My mom had no clue and the 5 or so hour drive was so worth it to see this... lol, i love my mom so much and i miss her like crazy already!

^^^^^^how great is that??? :-)^^^^^

haha... and my mom and I are nothing alike at all :-) this pix. scares me ;-)

after that crazy escapade my family and I went to go watch my 2 favorite guys in the whole world rock it out at a coffee shop. i laughed so hard at pastor darin's rendition of "puff the magic dragon" :-) and mike was amazing as always. the third rocker who added to the "two poor pastor's," affectionatley known as "fluffy" also did a great job.

this weekend was also filled with lots of family time. andrew sang along with me while i played my geetar, i've been trying to get better cuz i love it but i think i need more lessons :-) we also watched "the young sherlock holmes" i love it because I'm big on mysteries although i will admit it is kind of cheesy. I also got to sing this weekend at church, haven't done that in awhile so that was fun. my car to pass inspection needed over $400 dollars worth of work and now my brakes sound horrible, but i made it back here okay... let's just say i am never going to a car place without a guy ever again, i think they like taking advantage of girls who dont have a clue about cars.

So anyways thats the amusing part of my weekend now onto some more serious stuff. Driving home today made me think a lot. I had a hard time saying goodbye to my mom, she hugged me and said "i love you" and i never seem to be able to say that back without crying. so yeah i cried for the first half hour of my drive. I called alyssa though and she prayed with me and yeah she is pretty much the best friend i could ever ask for, and one of the few people who seems to be able to lovingly remind me to give my thoughts, concerns, worries, and tears over to God and has a knack for making me smile when I don't feel like it. It's funny though, I have been so much better with that. In a journal entry i wrote before coming to BBC i said that the #1 thing i wanted to learn how to do is put God first, and to love Him above all else.

today was so good to put that into practice. I pretty much prayed the entire drive, I had a conversation with God as I saw the sunshine hitting the lakes I passed by making them shimmer, and the beautiful colors of the sunset :-) ... God truly blows my mind that even when I am a brat He still blesses me with something so beautiful...

The past few months in every prayer I say now, I always end with "I want your will to be done." So as I cried I gave everything I was feeling to God, I asked Him to take all of my concerns, and as usual God turned my tears into a smile. I popped in Bethany Dillon and at the top of my lungs sang her song "Hallelujah" which talks about no matter what happens in life, no matter how bad it is, how we should ALWAYS sing "hallelujah." i felt much better :-) then i started thinking of the last chapter of Habakkuk that I was reminded of this past week. Habakkuk says,

17 Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, 18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. 19 The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights." ~Habakkuk 3:17-19

This past year, I have learned something that makes all this pain of missing home worth it. Every time I leave and I feel like my heart is breaking I have trusted in God. I have given Him my heart, and as much as I miss my family and friends, God's will is what I am seeking and I know that deep down that's what I want or I would not be back here at BBC, but I know that for this day He wants me here... sometimes I wonder why, but I know He sees the big picture, and I don't. Even though there are times when I just want to drop everything (and trust me i have felt that quite a bit) I just give it to God. When I was at home before leaving for school I had almost everything I wanted and I never really had to hand over the things most important to me over to God, so I'm glad He is teaching me this lesson even though it's hard. And even though each time I go back to visit the harder it is for me to get in the car to come back to school, yet every time I pull onto the BBC campus I feel God's peace and His smile that I obeyed His command to come back. I just pray that God will give me enough grace to finish off this semester strong and to keep my heart together when I miss my family, my church, and my youth group girls so very much. But as the song by Matthew West says,

"There's only grace There's only love There's only mercy And believe me it's enough Your sins are gone Without a trace There's nothing left now There's only grace"

I know God can give me the grace that I need, I just pray that I continue to keep Him first in my heart.

I love and miss you all already, but God is still good :-)

I love you mommy!!! for all of you wondering "manda what the heck were you thinking doing your hair like that?" that would be my mom trying to make me little again that is how she did my hair for every school picture till like 4th grade... ugh... :-)