My 4-H story....

What isn't my 4-H story? 4-H is so wrapped up in my life story at this point that it is hard to seperate the two... I started 4-H as an innocent fifth grade Cloverleaf. I remember getting my first achievement book and running down the driveway to show my daddy what I learned that day and to get him to help me with my projects. My father was always a very involved parent and being involved in my 4-H pursuits was no different. He went on almost every single trip we made every summer for the next three summers. He even helped me develop my own muffin recipe for a contest. My dad was an amazing man and I know that because of his involvement in my 4-H career, everyone was a better person.
The summer of 1994, the summer between my seventh and eighth grade years, our 4-H program went to camp on Tybee Island instead of Rock Eagle. I was so excited. The night before we left I could hardly sleep. Of course, the fact that there was a thunder storm, which I was terrified of, didn't help. An embarassing incident occured between myself and my parents because of that thunder storm, but the next morning we laughed it off as we brushed our teeth and headed off to the extension office. It was the happiest time of my life. I boarded the bus with my cousin and all my friends and waved good-bye to my daddy, tears welling up in my eyes, missing him already. But i was ready for a week of fun and adventure.
I had a blast that week at Tybee, despite the fact that I had forgotten to pack sheets or a blanket. My cousin and I horsed around, my best friend started dating her first serious boyfriend, I learned tons about the marshes and crabs and how to treat a jellyfish sting, and our cabin was so clean and creative that we won the coveted pink flamingo every day. We had a great time at the water park and ate the special counselor snowcones that had every flavor in them. I developed a very special bond with my counselor. He was my very first crush and he taught me to play guitar, not mention held my hair when I was seasick on the riverboat. I even sent my dad a postcard telling him that I was going marry my counselor! I couldn't have ever been happier.
Thursday morning, however, my cabin was awoken by a knock on the door, much earlier than any of us had anticipated after having gossiped and giggled our way in to the wee morning hours. I can remember every detail clearly. I sat up on my bunk, cold from not having any covers, and blinked blindly as my beloved extension agent opened the door. I couldn't see anything but black silhouettes. My best friend sat up in her bunk and rubbed her eyes as our extension agent gasped and turned her head to our remote corner of the cabin. My heart dropped; I knew in that moment something was terribly wrong. I watched Mrs. Nowicki tiptoe her way over to my bunk, taking care not wake any of the other girls. She said, "Holly, you're mom's at the door." I felt genuinely uneasy at that moment, but followed her in my nightgown, which was an old tee-shirt of my daddy's. I stepped out if the door into the early morning sunlight, taking in a deep breathe of the salty ocean air, and took one look at my mother. She wrapped me in her arms and whispered, "It's just me and you now."
My world came crashing down around me that morning. My cousin and I packed our bags and left Tybee, without ever getting to say goodbye to anyone except the head counselor, Captain Bull. I remember turning in my seat in the car and watching out the back window as the counselors and other campers trooped out of there cabins to watch our car roll away. I remember, in particular, watching my counselor walk in to the middle of the road, his guitar slung carelessly over his shoulder, waving sadly.
I was convinced the entire ride back to Atlanta that it was all a joke. But it most definitely was not. My father died July 20, 1994, from diabetic shock. I got the postcard I sent him in the mail the day I got back from camp, my heart broken in to a million pieces. It affected an entire, if small, camp; an entire, if small, community. This one event shaped my entire life and 4-H is in every way tied in to that. I continued with 4-H through my eighth grade and entire high school career. I was President of our county Senior 4-H club. I participated in DPA every year. I went to Cotton Bowl, Senior Council, Fall Forum, and auditioned for Clovers and Company. I ran for both district officer and state officer and made friends from every single county in Georgia. To this day someone can say a county and I can think of who I knew from that county and tell them exactly where it is.
My 4-H story doesn't end there though. The counselors and staff of Tybee sent me a card that I still have to this day. Every one wrote me a note of encouragement and those five amazing counselors gave me more strength to go on with my life than I can ever give them credit for. Inspired by their love and support, I apply to be a counselor intern my junior year of high school and to my unending joy, I was accepted to be a session one intern at Wahsega at the beginning of April. I spent the entire last two months of junior year on cloud nine. I had been selected to be co-captain of my marching bands colorguard, I was President of 4-H for the second year in a row, my mother had become my best friend, and I was headed to Wahsega. Alas, life was to hand me another tough lesson. On May 21, 1998, at my end-of-the-year band banquet where I was being named co-captain of the colorguard, my mother died of a sudden heart attack. I was in shock. I couldn't feel anything, I felt as though I were walking through life in a daze. One week later school ended and two weeks after that I was scheduled to head off to Dahlonega. everyone told me that I didn't have to go, but little did they know that I did have to. My Sunday school teacher drove me up to camp, my mom's Marlboro duffel bag full of tee-shirts, shorts, and underwear. She talked in hurried whispers to the camp director and I stood in the middle of the road, breathing in the fresh mountain air. Giving me a brief hug, my Sunday school teacher left me standing there, not knowing what to do.
I was the first intern to arrive. Dawn showed me to the cabin and I flopped onto the buynk in the middle of the room and cried. Until Samara showed up. Samara, Jennifer, Heidi, Tiffany, Kim, Fred, Durrell, and Crystal. My fellow interns. Then the counselors showed there faces: Kristie, Jennifer, MR, Tyler, Adam, Brad, Jason, and Jocelyn. I don't know if they know it, but they all gave me the strength to pull through. I still had my moments of course. I had just become an orphan three weeks ago. Sometimes we'd be in the middle of KP and I would run off to the cabin. Occassionally a cheer would set me off. Sometimes Tyler could look at me wrong and I would be under my covers, bawling my eyes out. But those two weeks at Wahsega helped to heal me in ways that I never could have healed if I had been left on my own that summer. We went white water rafting. MR introduced me to the music of the Indigo Girls. Jocelyn always found a way to make me laugh. Brad drove me crazy, in that way that only an older brother can. We helped with an Indian family reunion and had the most wonderful Indian food ever. I was introduced to veggie burgers, which I still love. We told ghost stories by the fire and pulled "bear" on the campers. We hiked, we canoed, we went tubing (well, Kim and I tubed), we did the ropes courses, and I finallt climbed the rock wall. Samara and I made green sun tea almost every day in a glass jar. We played with the snakes in the herpetology building. We held whispered conversations in to the late night and in the middle of the day we would run to the phone so I could call home and cry. Adam, God love him, gave me the best gift of all. He reintroduced me to my beloved counselor from that terrible summer of 1994. He gave me a CD of his music after I mentioned seeing his picture in the paper after he won an open-mic contest with his songwriting partner. (Thus setting up a pattern of "stalking" of said counselor that would remain during the 1998-2000 years as I followed him around from venue to venue to listen to his music. And now has deflected to his one time songwriting partner. Thanks Adam! love ya bro!)
That summer could have been the worst summer of my life. I don't know know what I would have done without 4-H in 1998. After my two weeks interning, I spent another week at Wahsega as a camper (which was kind of weird, let me tell you. I had a hard time taking Brad seriously after having bought underwear for him.), then I spent another week as a volunteer leader at Rock Eagle with our Cloverleaf campers.
4-H has influced so many things in my life: my happiness, my sadness, my love of music, my love of laughter, my friendships, my leadership abilities. I went to UGA because of 4-H. I quit my first job because I didn't want to miss a 4-H meeting. (Don't worry! I got it back!) I even volunteered with the Richmond county 4-H program, helping some of their Cloverleafs with DPA projects, when I moved to Augusta. I can't imagine a world without 4-H. It creates life long memories, life long bonds, life long skills. 4-H is more than just a mere organization or club. It is a lifestyle. A lifestyle that I hope the Georgia legislature will find itself unwilling to wipe out, for the sake of all the girls and boys out there who need the support and encouragement, just like this little girl has for sixteen years.

United We Stand, Divided We Fall...

So, I had another "Footloose" moment at church yesterday. This seems to happen to me when I go the "big" church with my family. I sit there with all of those people (most of them fifty-five or older) and stare at the backs of their perfectly coiffed heads and feel just like Ren; out of place, having an almost out of body experience. Sometimes David Bowie's "Space Oddity" plays through my head. Sometimes it is another song. This, oddly enough, does not happen at my "small" church. I am obsessed when I am there, mostly with the music. One of the ministers, whose wedding I was flower girl in when I was six (five?), wants me to lead worship. I am slightly afraid to do this and have been praying to God about it for the past month or so. I LOOOOOOOOVE music and one of my dearest ambitions for years (before I ever even really started feeling God move in my life) has been to write Christian music. I used to have notebooks and notebooks of praise music. I'm not sure where those notebooks wound up, but I still have tons of poems and song lyrics in various notebooks scattered throughout the house. So I am really feeling like God is calling me to do this at this tiny, tiny, tiny little church.
I am digressing slightly. (I have a tendency to do that. Mostly because I like to use the word 'digress'.) Our "big" church has an interim pastor and he was telling us that Sunday marked his 56th year in the pulpit and he gave the same sermon Sunday that he did his very first day. I thought that was touching. God, working in His mysterious ways as usual, really spoke to me in this message. I am always a note taker. Always. You should see all the notes I have from Sunday mornings throughout just the past seven months. So, I thought to myself, God certainly is trying His best to use me in so many ways lately. First of all, there is my aforementioned problem of leading worship. Second, I am working really hard to start a non-profit to help rape victims, in particular rape victims that have a resulting pregnancy. Third, I feel like God wants me to do something with all these notes I take. Ta-da! My blog! It's a perfect fit.
Our pastor was saying that people seek so many things of the flesh these days: fame, fortune, attention, whatever. That the younger generation (I took this as a personal affront as me and two other people are the only people there between the ages of 16 and fourty-five) is anti-Christ. Not like, THE Anti-Christ. He meant that there are growing groups of people that believe that the church is an institution that has much wrong about it. (Let me explain for a minute. I took this personally because it seems like every where I go, every church I go to in the past seven months or every lesson I listen to online, the pastors and teachers are blaming higher education for a lack in morality or Christian-ness. This is absolutely disgusting to me as a college graduate and, not to toot my own horn, someone is somewhat cleverer than the average person. It is not because of people being more educated. It is because of our culture!) He was right, of course. (Proving my higher education, ignorance, right?) There is much wrong with the church. He admitted as much! But, as he went on to say, that is because we are all imperfect. I absolutely agree with this. If you don't think there is a lot wrong with the church, then I think there is something wrong with you. There is bound to be problems when a bunch people (who are only human after all) gather together in one building, sharing our sins with.... I hope God, but most the time, each other. People in the church are always grabbing for power, gossiping, back-biting, etc. Like Joyce Meyers said in one lesson, sometimes people leave church Sunday mornings and go out with each other to lunch and wind up eating the preacher for their meal. We are not perfect. We are human. Sometimes we are fools who build our houses on the sand, some times we are wise and build our houses on rock. That is why God laid the foundation of the church for us. That foundation is Jesus Christ. Look at 2 Timothy 2:19 and Hebrews 11:10.
One of the roots of Catholicism is that there is no salvation outside of the church. This has been stated in various ways from Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Cyprian of Carthage, and several others. Martin Luthur, the father of Protestanism himself, stated that anyone who find Christ must first find a Church. The pastor said something that absolutely struck home with me. You have to give yourself to Christ. If you are just dependant on your membership in a local church, then you are destined to go to Hell just the same as a guy who sits at home on Sunday and watches NASCAR. Maybe even more so. That guy may have Christ in his heart and just has not found a church where he feels at home. I tried for a while to just be active in a church and let my membership in to that church be my salvation. I was even baptized there. But I did not truly have God in my heart, my soul, in my mind. I was simply going through the motions. You can't truly belong to God unless His spirit calls to you. The Spirit will work on you and all you to see your life's conditions.
Some people think that you can find salvation by doing good works. Apparently the pastor did not agree with this, but I do. I think in order to recieve salvation you absolutely must do good works. That's not the complete way to find salvation because I also believe that you have to absolutely had yourself over to God. But, I mean, think about it. How can possibly produce the good fruits of the Spirit without doing good works? I think that that would be impossible. We as humans are completely self-centered. That is our entire problem. There isn't anything wrong with the outward look of love. We shouldn't always consider ourselves, we should consider one another. I know that I have been guilty of this. For many years my mode was survivalism. I did things simply to survive: lied, stole. Just to survive. And merely surviving is no way to live. That is not the way to be satisified. No one can find fulfillment in that way. Hebrews 10:22-24 tells us, "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works".
As Christians, our hope lies in the resurrection. That is what the Easter season is all about. This is more important than even Christams. Yes, God gave us Jesus, but also He took Him from us. He died for our sins. How lucky are we? How much must God love us to do that for us? As imperfect as we are, we are so blessed! The pastor said one other thing that stuck with me: "His blood cleanses us, the cross illuminates us, and His friendship strengthens us". Praise God for that!

Mysteries of Valentine's Day Unravelled

Still departing from my usual blogs, I know! I promise I have something really good up my sleeve! In the mean time it is SNOWING here again. Imagine that, two times and it's not even April yet. Not even my birthday yet, which is Tuesday BTW. Which is also Mardi Gras. Really want some King's Cake. Yummers! Any way, this is the Valentine's Day article I wrote today. Of course it is the first draft. I am thinking that I will also submit some of my poetry/ song lyrics next week. Especially if I could find "This Winter's Our Discontent". I love that poem/ song. Anybody know of any one who wants a song writer? SOME people don't like to mix business with pleasure and A.) refuse my song lyrics and B.) refuse my awesome band names (No Not Chubby Bunny). Any who, here is my V-Day article. Hope everyone has a great V-Day, President's Day, and enjoys the first few days of the Winter Olympics!

The history of Valentine’s Day is steeped in mystery. Some say Valentine performed secret marriages after Emperor Claudius II outlawed marriage to make “better soldiers”. Others claim that Valentine’s Day started when Valentine fell in love with his jailer’s daughter and sent her a letter signed “your Valentine”. Still others claim that Valentine’s Day came about in an attempt to Christianize the pagan holiday of Lupercalia, celebrated to honor the Roman god of fertility and to honor the birth of Roman founders Romulus and Remus on February 15. What is it about this mysterious day in the middle of February that makes people buy candy and flowers, propose to their beloved, and even choose this most romantic of days to married their loved one?
Newlywed Melissa McClain, of Villa Rica, GA, says, “I think that, in our busy lives, we often lose sight of what means the most to us. So Valentine's Day, for all its commercially marketed chocolates and flowers, forces us to at least slow down for one day out of the year to really appreciate our spouse and loved ones.” According to a study done by WRAL in Raleigh, North Carolina, two-thirds of people asked said they would like to have a longer day, so they could accomplish more. Most would prefer an extra six hours in a day to do additional activities such as volunteer work or take care of children at home. The University of Pennsylvania informs their International students in it’s International Student Handbook, “Americans tend to organize their activities by means of schedules. As a result, they may seem hurried, running from one thing to the next, unable to relax and enjoy themselves. The pace of life may seem very rushed at first. “
Slowing down to appreciate your loved ones on Valentine’s Day is a time honored tradition dating back to the Middle Ages. Americans began exchanging hand-made Valentines in the 1700’s. With cheaper postage rates and improved technology in printing, Valentine’s Day really exploded in the 1840’s, when Ester Howland first began to sell commercially produced Valentine’s Day cards with ribbons and lace. According to the Greeting Card Association, over one Valentine’s cards are sold each year. Women account for 85% of the Valentine’s Day merchandise sold annually. According to fifteen year old Rebecca Turner of Newnan, Georgia, “I made lots of cards for people!” Teachers are the most popular targets for cards, followed by children and mothers. Three percent of Americans will give their pets a Valentine’s Day card.
Going out to dinner remains a popular Valentine’s Day option. Full-service restaurants, who have been hit hard by the recession, saw sales hit 139.4 billion in 2009, down 6% from 2008. Restaurateurs are optimistic about 2010, though. Annika Stensson, a spokeswoman for The National Restaurant Association, said the weekend is shaping up to be a good one. An informal survey taken of Orange County dining spots show that most are booked for Valentine's Day weekend, with most of the reservations actually booked for Saturday, the day before Valentine‘s Day.
Flowers and candy are also popular gift ideas for Valentine’s Day. The per capita consumption of candy for Americans is 23.8 pounds. The combined wholesale value of domestically produced cut flowers in 2008 was $403 million for all flower-producing operations with $100,000 or more in sales. Fifteen percent of women send themselves flowers on Valentine’s Day, just to make themselves feel better or to appear that they are in a relationship. Combined, men spend an average of $130 on Valentine’s Day dates, with flowers, candy, cards, dinner, and jewelry. This is double what women spend. Matt Partain, 28, of Franklin, Georgia, states, “Its a sweet holiday meant for your loved one but like most other holidays it is all about the money and corporations market it as such.” Considering that consumers spend almost $450 billion on Valentines Day each year in total, it’s no wonder that many people share Matt’s opinion.
In fact, so many people fell this way that there is even an Anti-Valentine’s Day movement. And some singles feel so badly on Valentine’s Day that they have dubbed the holiday “Singles’ Awareness Day”. In 1969, Valentine’s Day was cancelled because it was viewed as an “orgy of consumerism”. As of 2002, 904 dating services were established nationwide, including internet dating services. These establishments employed nearly 4,300 people and pulled in $489 million in revenue. In 2008, EHarmony took a survey and discovered that 40% of the matches that had been made on their site around Valentine’s Day had broken up six months later. Up to 64% of men do not make plans with their sweethearts and, coincidentally, 53% of women in America would dump their boyfriend if they did not get them anything for Valentine’s Day. Still Valentine’s Day is one of the popular American holidays. Valentine’s Day is the third largest retail holiday. Says Thomasa Hickey, “There is a commercial on TV that I just love and laugh out loud when I see it every time. ... The one with the dog with false teeth. My Honey came home with flowers and a card with a picture on the front of a dog with false teeth! Its my favorite card ever because it tells me he does notice the things that make me happy!” And that’s what Valentine’s Day is really all about.
Whether you feel like Valentine’s Day is a cozy holiday to spend with your honey or a consumer nightmare, one thing is certain: Valentine’s Day is here to stay. Some gifts, no matter what day you receive them, are priceless. I think Shane Cammon put it best when he said, “I got the best Valentine's gift ever 3 years ago: a handsome baby boy!! Going forward I don't think I could ever top that feeling.”

Uprising- The attraction Twilight to older women

Hello Everyone! I am departing from my usual blogs momentarily to post a draft of my article for Triond, AC, and the AP for all my friends to read since a lot of people contributed to this story. I still have a few quotes from sources that I have to gather together and flesh out in to the article, so this is incomplete, but it gives you an idea of the kind of stuff I work on all day! :)

Twilight has become a phenomena within a phenomena. When the movie version of New Moon was released in November, it raked in a record setting $140.7 million. People have already began counting down to the Eclipse premiere. Even Burger King has gotten in on the action with Team Edward and Team Jacob water bottles. At any given event where any of the stars of The Twilight Saga will be seen, you will see hundreds to thousands of screaming, crying fans holding signs that say things like, “Imprint on me!” and “TwiHard”. The amazing thing about this is that a great number of these fans are married women over the age of thirty who have children.
The first time I laid my hands on a copy of Twilight was when I read it with my “church mama”, my 67-year-old friend, who is the grandmother of several granddaughters. One of these granddaughters recommended it to her mother, who in turn recommended it to her mother, my “church mama”. She had just started Breaking Dawn during my stay with her and couldn’t seem to put it down. She would bookmark her page, go put the chicken in the oven, come back and read, bookmark her page, make the bed, come read again. I watched her do this as diligently as I watched Bill O’Reilly berate then President-elect Obama.
Why is the “TwiCrack” so addictive? “It’s the suspicion,” says Jennifer Carson, a 28 year old mother from Anderson, Indiana. “Its about adventure, and love, and makes you beg for more! Go Edward!”
Twilight certainly has the element of love involved, from the epic love triangle of Edward, Bella, and Jacob, to references to classic literature’s greatest loves stories like Romeo and Juliet and Wuthering Heights. Author Stephenie Meyer majored in English at Brigham Young University and is a happily married mother of three sons. Conceived of a dream she had one night, Twilight has captured the hearts and imaginations of millions and garnered several prestigious awards, including Publisher’s Weekly’s “Best Book of 2005”. Stephenie told Time magazine readers in a 2008 interview, “I didn't write these books specifically for the young-adult audience. I wrote them for me. I don't know why they span the ages so well, but I find it comforting that a lot of thirtysomethings with kids, like myself, respond to them as well--so I know that it's not just that I'm a 15-year-old on the inside!”
Maybe that’s what really appeals to women of a certain age who go bizarro for bloodsuckers and wacky for wolves. In this day and age, youth is everything. There were over 10 million surgical and nonsurgical cosmetic procedures performed in the United States in 2008, as reported by the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS). Surgical procedures accounted for 17% of the total with nonsurgical procedures making up 83% of the total. Recently Heidi Montag nee Pratt of The Hills pseudo-fame revealed that she, at 23, had ten different procedures in one day to help with her career as a pop star. When I posed the question of why so many older women were attracted to the Twilight series on my Facebook page, one of my friends asked, “Who would admit to being an ‘older woman‘? Lol!”
While I know my friend was joking with me, there is much truth in jest. Part of the appeal in Twilight lies in the allure of eternal youth. Edward will never grow older than seventeen, Jacob stops aging until he no longer transforms into a wolf, and Bella is obsessed with her age. In chapter five of Eclipse, Bella says to Jacob, “Am I the only one who has to get old? I get older every stinking day! Damn it! What kind of world is this? Where’s the justice?”
There is also the cougar mentality that exists in our culture today thanks to the likes of Demi Moore, Sex and the City, and reality television. There are even terms like puma for late twentysomethings/ thirtysomethings who date younger men, artic fox (women who are post-menopausal), and manther, which is the male version of a cougar. What these Twilight fans are really experiencing is actually termed “pedophilia”, which is the attraction of older individuals to teenagers. Granted Robert Pattinson, who plays Edward Cullen in the big screen adaptations of the Twilight Saga, is a healthy 23 years old, but his character is forever seventeen.
Many of my friends argued that it is the romance of the books that draws them in. In fact every single person who posted to my Facebook page said that the aspect of true love conquering all was the main element that drew them to the series. “I love true and honest love. It took Edward years but he finally found it and then there is the unconditional love and Bella knowing the danger but like most people that find real, true love, you will do anything to hold on to it even if you die in the process,” states Rhiannon Chandler, 29 of Ephesus, Georgia. According to University Wire at Louisiana State University, 88 percent of American men and women between the ages of 20 and 29 believe that they have a soul mate who is waiting for them. According to The State of Our Unions 2005, a report issued by the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, only 63% of American children grow up with both biological parents -- the lowest figure in the Western world. So of course people crave the idea that true love and pure romance and a relationship that will endure eternally can exist. Says Heather Duffey, 29, of Carrollton, Georgia, “Sometimes you just can't choose who you love and it is refreshing to see true/pure love conquer all.”
Maybe no one can ever really pinpoint the allure of the Twilight Saga. I think my friend Jessica Alford says it best when she says, “Because...it is an escape from reality at times”. And everybody, no matter what your age, needs that escape some times!

Wagon wheel...

The reason that I first became ordained as a minister was to perform weddings. I got the idea from "Friends", when Joey was ordained to perform Monica and Chandler's wedding. Religion has always been an educational persuit for me. I sit in church on Sunday mornings and take more notes than I did in any of my classes in college. (Except maybe abnormal psych. It was my favorite class in college.)My Bible looks like a rainbow because of the notes written in it and all of the verses I have highlighted. (I make a point to use different color highlighters each time.) I make sure to read my Bible every night for at least ten minutes because you can't witness to someone without being educated. (Which is why I also read other religous texts, the Bhagavad Gita being my favorite. I love Hinduism. Just not quite as much as I love Jesus Christ and not even as much as I love President Obama.) My point being, I had a "Footloose" moment in church this past Sunday morning.
We went to our "other" church, which is slightly bigger. There are about 75 to 100 people who attend there. I like going there because I have an opportunity to socialize more, which is important to me right now. I am an extremely social creature and being stuck out in the middle of no where with a car is killing me. I miss being able to hang out with people. I miss the fellowship. Because any time I get with my friends is a time of fellowship. Did not the Lord say "Where two or more are gathered I will be in their presence"? He did indeed. Check out Matthew 18:19-20. And anywhere I go, I praise God these days. Some of my absolute favorite times have been with my friend Charlie. We always have a great time doing the simplest things. One day we fixed shrimp and grits and listened to a Stevie Wonder album. And that is one of my favorite days in the world. Charlie and I once sang "Oh Happy Day" dressed in sheets as choir robes at the top of our lungs. I make it a point to have as much fun as possible in life. I think God appreciates that.
Then the devil got his stronghold over my life. I have always been an abnormally happy person. I smile all the time, I can't help it. People always used to wonder at that. I think that the expected me to be sad and droopy because both of my parents died when I was so young. It has not been until these past eighteen months that I hecame that sad, droopy person that everyone always expected me to be. I wasn't a lot of fun to be around. I wasn't happy, I wasn't excited, I wasn't myself at all.
PRAISE GOD! I have been feeling much more like myself since Mr. Butler introduced himself to my car. I can only blame Jesus and my faith in Him for this change. What's funny is that I know how much I have changed in such a short amount of time. But my personality has more of reverted in to the person that I used to be. I'm still me. I still love music, I still love a great party, I still love being with my friends. I just don't feel sad anymore. Not the way i did feel sad. Not like I was alone. And through this darkest of storms that has raged in my life, through this deepest pit that I sunk in to, I have discovered the true meaning of happiness and friendship. I guess that's what I mean by wagon wheel. Everything comes full circle. It's true in all religions.
I feel like I have included a lot of scripture in this blog. I feel like I should include more. So I'm just going to toss out some of my favorite verses for you:
Philippians 4:13
Ephesians 2:8-10
Colossians 3:12-17
Proverbs 3:5-6
Genesis 3:1
Romans 8:28
1 samuel 16:14-23
Revelation 2:4
Ruth 1:16
Hebrews 12:1-2
There are ten awesome verses for you. Put those in your pipe and smoke 'em.
In closing I would like to put a video on my blog. It's just funny. It made me gigge and I love to giggle.

All of My Love...

Jimmy Page is thought of by many people to be a devil. After all, he studied the "dark arts" with Aleister Crowley, who was a "master dark magician". That just seems a little hard for me to believe. After all, what's to really fear? No one, not even Satan, is more powerful than God. Right? RIGHT?
I've been thinking about this because there is a lot of stuff, like Led Zeppelin, that I think is high quality but a lot of Christians think is trash or they think it's scary or has something to do with Satan. We can't both be right and I am convinced that I have every right to listen to a nice round of Led Zeppelin whenever I feel an urge. After all, didn't Psalm 100:1 tell us to "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands"? And heaven knows I make a joyful noise when it is a beautiful sunshiney day and I blast my Zeppelin, singing "Tangerine" at the top of my lungs. Therefore I see absolutely nothing wrong with such music. Obviously the musicians were gifted with talent from the Lord.
Everybody kept talking about the "deceiver" on Saunday. We walked in late to Sunday school. We were trying to be on to time to church and wound up being about ten minutes early, which is really about twenty minutes too early at a church as small as the one I sometimes go to. First Born has about twenty-five worshippers on a good Sunday. But it feels like family because I was flower girl in the pastor's daughters' double wedding when I was five or six. I can't remember which one, but I was young. At any rate, we walked in late to Sunday school and all I heard was something about a story in the Bible where a man lies to everyone (and he tricks them too) and he tricks everyone to get all the way past St. Peter at the pearly gates and then he sits down at the marriage table supper and Jesus call him out. Basically goes, "Hey you, what you doing here?" because he notices the man is not wearing the marriage garment. And the was the jest of what I got from the story. I finally found the parable in Matthew 22 (and BTW learned that Jesus is to take a bride in Revelation 19:9, spoiler alerts would have been nice!) and I feel a little better now that I know that this marraige table was a parable. I was a little concerned.
The whole point of both Sunday School and the service that day went back to the scripture in Ephesians 6:11, about putting on the full armor of Christ. Ephesians is quickly becoming one of my favorite books of the Bible. It has a look of good quotes in it. Ephesians 5:18 is a great one. So over all, i was really enjoying my Sunday morning worship experience (because we got to sing 'O Happy Day', which my favorite) until the guy who was preaching (sometimes our preacher switches it out with the members of his family, after all, it's basically just a two family church) said something about baby Christians.
I hope you all know what i mean by baby Christians. I am a baby Christian. I don't mean little kids, I mean someone who is newly born in Christ. Someone exactly like me. That's what I mean. I do not take offense to this term. On the contrary, I am proud of it because this means that I do know Jesus Christ. Praise God! 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” Thank you Lord for that! I don't know what I would do without that chance. Brother Mike then went on to say that the only thing that baby Christians need to say is "God is good".
Continuing on with my Sunday, I was deep in contemplation of that thought when we wondered home from church yesterday after noon. Am I wrong to think that being born again should be a shared experience? That others might find the transfer from cocoon to butterfly as fascinating and delightful as I do? I don't think that the only thing a baby Christian should say is "God is good", but I do think it is the thing that all Christians should proclaim the loudest. I think we need to talk about everything that we are experiencing, other wise how will we learn? I was thinking about this when I came across an online sermon from Granger Community Church in Indiana, and I finally found my soulmate church. They opened will Kings of Leon, threw in some Chris Tomlin, played some Coldplay, had a Lego demenstration of King David's reign (complete with South Park-ish voice), and had tabloid headlines everywhere. It was completely too flashy. It was obvious that they were way too cool. It was everything that I would ever ask for in a church. Basically it was a rock concert with a sermon thrown in. But what a sermon! I learned more about King David yesterday than I have ever known in my life! And if God can forgive David for everything that he did and still say that David was a King after His own heart (Acts 13:22), then there is nothing but hope for me! God is good! And I strive more to be like him every day!

Turn and face the strange....

Change is painful.
"Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God" (Ps.55:19). My life is undergoing some extremely painful changes now because I am discovering the Lord. It's really the silliest little thing that is making my heart ache right now: people I am requesting to be friends with on Facebook are rejecting me. And the truth is, I'm not even sure if they've really rejected me or if my request didn't go through. But in my mind I am convinced that they have rejected me because they knew the person that I used to be, not the person that I am now becoming. Truth be told, this shouldn't make me sad. After all, I probably don't need to be friends with most of the people that were in my life. But there is some part of me, the part that wants to please everyone, that feels like if they could just really get to know the person I am now, the person that I am becoming then they would feel differently. So I have to take a deep calming breath and think to myself, "I can do all things through Christ which strengthen me" (Phillippians 4:13), which means that I can face rejection as well.
I went in to my pit all three ways that it is possible: I was pushed in, I slipped in, and I jumped in head first without looking. (Thanks again Beth Moore! Praise God that he gives you the words He does!) But I am climbing out and I feel my fingers scratching at the firm rock on which God wants me to place my life: His Word. I feel a passion for Christ and everything about living my life for Him now that I could have never previously felt. I feel Him pressing on my heart, my every thought, my every breath, and I just want to reach out to Him and have the best relationship possible. I wish everyone could feel this way. I wish I had felt this way earlier in life, but that was not the path He intended for me. I needed to see and be what my absolute worst was before He could let me see and be what my absolute best is.
This change in my life is still so new to me. I have claimed to know Christ before in my life, but really it is just now that I am learning all that He is and all that having Him in my life means. Psalms 51:10 states, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right, persevering, and steadfast spirit within me." And that is what I truly want in my life. Not to have a thousand fake Facebook "friends", but to have one absolutely true and steadfast friend in God. He is the only one I need and although it is a huge change for me to feel that way, my burning passion assures me that I do.

Every time you close your eyes

Lies, lies!
It's a song by The Arcade Fire. I've had the note in my Bible forever. I don't know why I put it there, I'm not exactly sure when I put it there, but it's written in the very front of my Bible. Maybe it's because I knew I was lying. To myself, to others.
I just received an email from a former friend of mine and I had to pray and pray very hard. What she said, the things she wrote, were all truths. I know that more than anyone, except God. And I have told Him all about them, although I know that he already knew. But one thing she said keeps ringing in my head: Have some respect for yourself. I simply couldn't. I am still having trouble with it. I keep condemning myself. I have been listening to this series by Joyce Meyers about the mouth, about the things that we say. In it Meyers talks about condemnation. And I am condemning myself. It's devil's work on me. I couldn't help myself. After reading the email, I had to get down on my knees and pray. And I don't really do that. But I felt as though I needed to. I needed God in that moment. I need God in every moment, but no more so than I did then.
I was hurt and also a little angry. How quick are we to forget? How quick are we to judge? "Judge not, least ye be judged."
It was combination of things that led me to this pit, but I want out. I have been working on getting myself out. I felt myself slipping at that moment and I did not want to be back down in that pit. "This too shall pass."
Prayer is all I have at the moment. I think I'll stick with it.

Start a Revolution....

I have been reading Revelation. I don't know why I started there, I guess God just placed it upon my heart to do so. I think I wanted to read more about these "end times" that I hear so much about. I wanted to know more about this impending Apocalypse. Right now I am on Chapter nine. So I know the colors of the four horses: white, red, yellow, pale. I know what happens when each seal opens. I know that Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega. But like a great mystery, I don't know what happens at the end. Except I do. It's a story I've heard before.
One of my favorite books is Left Behind. I enjoyed the book before I ever begin seriously persuing a relationship with the Lord. I've never seen the movie, but I imagine Kirk Cameron did a bang up job as Buck. I just love how all of the main characters wind up rallying together and I think the authors did a bang up job with Nicolae Carpathia and the whole Isreal thing, what with the professor who developed the seed that will grow in sand and all that the book entails. I have probably read the book at least twenty times. But I have never read any of the rest of the series. Why? I think it's because I was afraid of what I would find out.
I know that Left Behind is a work of fiction, but I feel like it has prepared me to read the non-fiction version, Revelation. What a trip! Revelation is both horrific and beautiful. It's terrifying to think that so many people will have to go through the Tribulation, but how awesome is it to think about being part of the Rapture? After all Philippians 3:21 promises us "Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself."
So many people today are convinced that end is coming: 12/21/12, the end of the Mayan calender. But what if the Mayans just ran out of stone to carve their calender on? After all, weren't we all convinced that Y2K was the second coming? God will take his time. you can't rush Him. After all, this is all His: His to destroy and create as we see fit. I feel no need to live in fear now. I have never feared death, but I am especially comfortable with the thought now because I am confident that I will be with my Maker. I have cried out to Him. I have confessed my sins. I have consented to let Him do His work in my life. I feel as though I have nothing but joy to look forward to.
So what is this revolution I am talking about? I have, like I have said before, always strived to be rebellious. I like to do what is uncool. And it is very uncool to be openly vocal about loving the Lord, which makes it extremely cool to me. Especially since I am a Democrat. I like Democrats, I just also like the death penalty and don't believe in abortion. Why is it that religion and politics are the two most taboo subjects in our culture and yet our country was founded on a belief of freedom in both? We should proclaim our beliefs out loud! People look at you weird if you pray before you eat when you're out at a restaurant. Let them, I say. Let them look at me weird.
I'm revolutionary that way and proud of it!

Just because I'm losing, doesn't mean I'm lost....

I adore Coldplay. They are by and far one of my absolute favorite bands to come out since the death of Kurt Cobain. I think Chris Martin is Shakespeare for the 21st century. Pick any song: "Violet Hill", "Talk" Yellow", "Warning Sign", "'Til Kingdom Come". It's just beauty, waiting for you to take it in. Having said this, my newest musical fixation is the song "Lost" from the album "Viva la Vida, or Death and All His Friends". The words are simply amazing. A sample:
Just because I'm losing
Doesn't mean I'm lost
Doesn't mean I'll stop
Doesn't mean I will cross

Just because I'm hurting
Doesn't mean I'm hurt
Doesn't mean I didn't get what I deserve
No better and no worse

I just got lost
Every river that I've tried to cross
And every door I ever tried was locked
Ooh-Oh, And I'm just waiting till the shine wears off...

Those are some of the most inspirational words I've ever let my ears hear in my life. Think about that. "Just because I'm losing, doesn't mean I'm lost". Praise God for that! Matthew 18:11 tells us "For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost." Even those who have Christ in their life will sometimes feel like they are losing. One of my best friends from high school has a favorite saying, "Born to lose but out to win". While I may not necessarily agree with the way he states it (I personally think it should be "Born to win, thought I was losing, but I'm going to win", but that's not as catchy.), I completely agree with his sentiment. And if anyone knows about feeling lost, it's him. He's been through his ups and downs in life (like us all!) but he's gaining his path back now. He told me just today that he wants to go back to school to major in psychology and go in to addiction counseling. He definitely has enough experience and he's smarter than a whip. And I think he was make a great counselor. God knows he's had enough practice, being my friend in high school!
In high school I had two very close friends, the guy I have been talking about and my constant companion and fellow colorguard member, J. We were pretty much inseperable for the greater part of my high school career and into my freshman year at college, until a silly little tift broke us apart. What it really was was distance, I realize in hindsight. They were both Seniors in high school and I was at UGA in Athens. But my love for those two has not waned through the years. We have been apart for ten years now, but I talk to them online and it feels as though there is no distance between us. We've all changed, we've all gone through our own journey to become the people that we have become, but there is a core of us that is still devoted to one another and I feel such joy just knowing that. I had a moment with the Lord the other day after realizing this. I was talking to J via IM and we had to end the conversation for one reason or another. I went outside to smoke my cigarette (yes, I am still smoking. I'm praying for the strength to quit, but it hasn't come so far. I know it will one day, but until then Marlboro Ultra Lights and I are as close as can be.) and I just had to praise God for my beautiful, funny, successful friend. She is absolutely amazing and I can't wait to get to meet her husband and stepdaughters and begin again with each other.
My point is: I feel like I'm losing sometimes. Often times, as a matter of fact. I mean, I'm twenty-eight (almost twenty-nine, February 16). I've never been married, I don't have any children, I don't own a home, I don't even own a car anymore. (Mr. Butler! *shakes fist teasingly*) So it's sometimes very easy for me to overlook what success I have had. I graduated from college with a BA, I've travelled to several exotic locales, I've written an entire novel! But my biggest success of all is accepting Jesus in to my life. It's a victory I will strive to achieve each and every day. Each morning now I make it a point to get up and put on the full armor of God.
Oh, I'm still a rebellious little thing. I think you have all kinds of Christians in the world. You have your fire and brimstone Christians, your Backrow Gossipers, your Sweet People, and then you have your Punks. That's me. I am the one you're going to find hanging out with the skateboarders, the musicians, the bikers at the church. But does it matter what you classify yourself as, as long as you have Christ in your heart and live in a Christ-like way? I think not, but I'm still new to all this. But doesn't Matthew 7 tell us "Judge not, least ye be judged?" And that's all I care about, what the Lord tells me. I've always been a live and let live person. I guess you could call me a "Live and let live Christian". I think that my only job is to set a good example of a Christian and to lead others to Christ in that manner.
I am not the Shepherd. That is my Lord. Most people are familiar with the Psalm, Pslam 23:1 "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want". And I completely trust that he will guide me.How could I possibly feel lost with that in mind? "The Lord is my Shepherd". It can seem frustrating that I don't know the entire path that God has set before me when I think about it. Not knowing what is going to happen next year, next month, next week, even the next hour. But I just have to place my trust in God. And I really hate not having control over situations. I'm stubborn that way. It's part of what has kept me from Him for so long. I was never able to step aside, put my own ego aside, and let him guide me. Like one of those "God is my co-pilot" bumper stickers. (By the way, those are wrong too. God is MY pilot!) Now that I have decided to let the Lord take the lead, I don't feel lost anymore. I feel like I'm on a great adventure! "Just because I'm losing doesn't mean I'm lost". It's so true. I'm never lost because I am with God!

In the beginning.....

Last night I simply could not sleep. It was just one thing after another plaguing my sleep. And that was upsetting because I love to sleep. I sleep to dream. "To sleep, perchance to dream" as Hamlet says. Ecclesiastes 5:12 states "The sleep of the working man is pleasant, whether he eats little or much; but the full stomach of the rich man does not allow him to sleep." I am by no means a rich (wo)man in the typical sense in of the word, but I am rich in the fact that I am growing in my relationship with God.
Like any good Southern girl living in the Bible Belt of America, I grew up going to church. It was not my parents that took me, however, it was my aunt. My mom was more likely sleeping in and my dad out hunting, whether it be hunting for deer or hunting for deals at a flea market. So I grew up as what I like to call a "dabbler". I think I have been to as many diffent kind of churches as possible: Pentecosal, Pentecostal Holiness, Holiness, Baptist, Catholic, Episcopalian, just plain Christian. Always trying to find my place, I never quite felt like I did find it. Sometimes I wasn't trying hard enough, some times I was trying too hard. And then there was my education to deal with. When I took Humanities, I wanted to know as much as possible about the other religions of the world. Other religions that had so many believers of a different sort. How could Buddhism, Hinduism, Muslim, Judaism, Toaism, and all the others be wrong? And then there was my ever-present struggle with Jesus Christ, the man and the myth.
My relationship with Jesus has always been.....troubled, I guess would be the easiest way to put it. God I have never been unsure of. How can you look around you and not believe in God? The trees, the birds, the grass, the sun, everything sings of his exsistence. But Jesus? Where's the proof? That's all I have ever been able to ask myself. WHERE'S THE PROOF? Try as I might to justify any thoughts I could have about Jesus, in the back of my mind I was always screaming "Where's the proof?" Until I discovered that it wasn't about proof, it's about faith.
Having faith in something means that you don't need proof. It's about trust. And that's something that I have always neglected to know the importance of. I always used to say that my two biggest attributes to look for in a person were honesty and loyalty. Maybe that was because I recognized that honesty was the one attribute I needed to work on. I have struggled with honesty, sometimes being honest to a fault, sometimes lying my tuckas off. I am, however, am extremely loyal. I would lay down my life for someone that I truly loved. In fact, it's this attribute that has gotten me into such serious trouble. If I am willing to give someone my all, then I expect to get their all in return. But what I failed to recognize is that sometimes it is just too much to ask that of someone. After all, all the people that I know are merely human. What I have failed to realize is that I have been searching for the relationship that I should have been seeking with God, my Creator, with some one who is earthly, merely a creation.
My struggle began very early in life, with the loss of my father and then my mother. How could a just and fair God take them away from me when I needed them so much? And then I felt alone, lost, with out guidance, as the people my mother had entrusted me with took advantage of my young age and took everything that my parents had left me. Still, I tried to do what my parents had wanted me to achieve. I went to college, where I majored in theatre, which is really nothing more than the art of lying. People were always praising me, telling me how strong I was for going through such tragic circumstances and still keeping on. What choice did I have? I couldn't bury myself in the ground with my parents. I had to keep on living. But the truth of the matter was I was just as dead as they were, I just didn't know it yet.
It wasn't until I was raped that God truly began His work on me. I was so angry at the guy who raped me that I didn't know what to do. I was scared and I had never felt as alone as I did in that moment. Then I found out that I was preganant as a result of the rape. As odd as it may seem, I didn't feel alone anymore. I felt as though I was waking up after a long sleep. Suddenly I had something to live for! My child, my dream of all dreams, despite how she was concieved. She was my one precious ray of light in the darkness that had become my life. I had already picked out her name, Genesis Dawn, "beginning new". I was planning on raising her with my gay best friend and I was very excited. Until I had the miscarriage, followed very closely by the dismissal of my charges against my rapist. It felt as though God had betrayed me once again. And the very worst parts of me came unglued and unleashed. I began lying about everything, trying make everyone think that I was much better off than I really was. I was ashamed of myself. I didn't want anyone to know how weak I truly felt, how dead I truly felt inside. The worst thing was my betrayal of one of my favorite cousins. In my sick and twisted mind I was getting justice; justice for myself against my rapist, justice for cousin against her ex-husband. The lying just wouldn't stop for me. I lied to everyone, but mostly to myself. I was not okay. I needed help, I needed support, I needed change.
I went through a very dark period. I had surgery which removed part of my fallopian tube, I was arrested and spent three days in jail, I broke my sister's and my best friends' hearts. I was at rock bottom, or so I thought, until I hit the runaway horse. It was a dark night and I was checking to make sure that nothing had happened to my aunt and my cousin on their way home from Wednesday night church when out of no where Mr. Butler (that's what I named the midnight black pony, after Bonnie Butler's pony in "Gone With the Wind")jumped through the window and roof of my car. I knew in that instant that I was dead. I could feel my heart stop beating and I could see the faces of all the people I loved (including my cruddy ex-boyfriend) flash before me. Sound was gone, sight was gone, feeling was gone. Just as quickly, though, everything came back to me. I felt my heart restart and I immediately went in to action, screaming at the top of my lungs for help.
If you could see my dearly departed car, you would know just how lucky I am to be alive. You would know just how lucky Mr. Butler is to be alive too. Luckily for both of us God was with us that night. Neither of us was seriously injured. Mr. Butler had to have stitches and I still can't use my pinky finger or lift my right arm higher than my shoulder, but for what we both got in rturn, I think we both would do it all over again (except maybe I could just see him. I do miss my car, as selfish as that sounds. But I'm only human!). Mr. Butler, who was seriously malnourished and uncared for, recieved a wonderful warm home and a loving new owner (Me!) and I finally truly recieved Jesus Christ into my heart. I finally knew the difference between knowledge and faith. I finally have faith that God did send his only Son to earth in a human body to teach us and to die for our sins so that one day we can walk beside him in the Kingdom of Heaven. ("Did you hear what I said? Walk! Beside him in the Kingdom of Heaven." Couldn't resist throwing a Forrest Gump quote in!) That is the most beautiful thing I have ever realized in my life!
I have always known deep down that I am a good person. I like to do good things. I like to help people, I like to make people happy. I enjoy holding the door for people and giving compliments. I like to be generous with my money (when I have it!). But I have done some truly awful things. I feel so much better knowing that I can tell God all of my sins and, instead me trying to put my past behind me, He can put my past behind Him. (Thanks go to Beth Moore for that one. Praise God that He knows the exact words to give His messengers!)That night I realized "The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" (Psalm 27:1, 27 ironically being my favorite number...) Instead of searching for that relationship with someONE now, I know look forward to improving my relationship with The ONE! This brings me joy and comfort. Even though I still have dark moments in my days (who doesn't?), now whenever I feel that way I simply think to myself, "Dear God, help me through this". And He does. He really does.