i dare you.

to be unique
and do what you really want.

Like making wedding cake for your birthday.

Hey, it's the little things that add
up to make you who you are.

the here and now

You never wake up knowing that today is going to include a breakdown. Life and your day are going along as usual until one comment, one realization, one test grade throws everything off kilter. One frustration or fear leads to another and soon you've built up every doubt, fear, and uncertainty remotely plausible about yourself. And worse, you let yourself believe it all.

Yesterday, I allowed a disappointing test grade to lead an influx of fears about the future to invade my present mind and day. A friend helped me realize that for the past few weeks, I've been so focused on the dwindling of undergraduate days that I haven't been focused on the here and now. I've been thinking way too much about where I'll be in six months instead of remembering where I am right now. I'm here now. And even more awesome, I'll be here tomorrow as well.

Being mindful of the future and responsibly planning for it is important, but for now, I think I'm going to keep my eyes fixed here and glance up from time to time at the future there. Remember, there's so much beauty in this moment and this day. Every day, I'm going to consciously make the decision to stay right here in this day, because tomorrow has enough worries of its own.


A recent here moment, taking pictures for a friend's school project.

if you're going to jump...

Image found {here}

A few weeks ago, a delightful friend gave me a book called, "The Pocket Muse: Ideas and Inspirations for Writing." Thumbing through the book, I found a quote that I haven't been able to forget: "Make your characters more than they are. If you're going to jump, jump off a cliff, not a chair..."
I think the reason I haven't been able to get this quote out of my head is because it has merit not only in writing, but also in life. If you want to live life out loud and in color, you have to leap- and a chair isn't going to cut it. From personal experience I know how easy it is to fall into patterns of safe behavior. It's easy and doesn't require you to get uncomfortable. But sometimes (okay, maybe a lot of times) it's worth the risk of falling if it means you get to be BOLD. Maybe I haven't forgotten the quote because I've recognized a lack of leaping in my own life. We weren't created to be timid- not with the way we love, serve, interact, or live- and I don't want to be timid anymore. I think life, especially the season of life I'm in right now, is for leaping. All signs point to a big ledge coming up in my near future and I'm making a promise to myself right now be bold and take leaps.

the space in between

I never quite know what to do with the days in between Christmas and New Years Eve. I usually feel stuck in this liminal space, having come out of the whirl of family and feasts from Christmas I feel like I'm tapping my foot in wait of the new year's arrival. It's weird, because as a life rule, I strive to make the most of every day I live: to love and laugh- much more than just exist.

I also have the tendency while at home to hunker down, usually only going out to see friends or run errands. This becomes especially true as the date to go back to school gets closer- it's like I want to suck in every morsel of home I possibly can. I love being home because I get to see friends that I've known for many many years and that know me so well. I also am with family who are my heart. And I guess that's why I hold on so hard right before I leave to go back to school. I won't see these people for weeks or even months and it's not easy to let them go, but the thing is, Baylor is one of my absolute favorite places in this world and once I get there, it's home. So then, it's the space in between that makes it hard, traveling between my two worlds. I don't know if will get any easier but at least I have some new, sweet kicks to carry me from one to the other. Happy last days of the year!

sweet, new kicks

sweet, kick-a friends

going vertical

Isn't it amazing how you can hear something hundred times and understand it one way and then, on that 101st time, your entire comprehension shifts. But I don't know if amazing is the right word to describe the feeling you're left with- it's more like shock, confusion, disbelief, astonishment, even an uncomfortableness. You've thought one way about something your whole life and then, someone explains it in a way that breaks through to you in a way nothing else could.

Allow me to explain.

This Monday, approximately 1,000 students nearly packed out the downtown Hippodrome in attendance of something new called Vertical. A group of students became convicted this last summer to start something new to bring Baylor students from every group and organization together to as one body and one unit. Ashfin Ziafat, the weekly speaker for Vertical Ministries spoke this Monday on knowing God and knowing the plan God has for our lives. He described living for God in such a way that it felt like a blindfold was being pulled off my face.

I've believed for a long time that God should be our first love, that we were created to be in a relationship Him, and that we are to be Christ like. But what about this (and I'm paraphrasing):

"God's will is so much more about what He's doing in us that what we're doing for Him. Marriage, kids, jobs- these are all wonderful things in life, but they're really things that God uses to shape us into being more like Him. What if instead of wondering and waiting for a wife/husband, you concern yourself with becoming a Godly husband/wife?"

Think about it, everything in life, everything, is to make us more like Christ and thus draw us closer to our God. Y'all, it's not about us. At all.