Back from Wonderland!!: Part 2

Hey, so I told you there was more and here it is.

As you all (should) know, this weekend is Memorial Day weekend. My family has gone to Shenendoah, and I am staying behind. But don't feel sorry for me, on the contrary! Instead of going camping, I had a wonderful day with my grandmother and my cousin Abby at Grand Caverns yesterday. After that, I went to Hannah's house and had a wonderful girls night in, which included Pride & Prejudice, some awesome friends, and cookies!! That's what I call an awesome girls night. I actually ended up staying up 'til around 5am, and then sleeping until near 2pm. So my sleep schedule is a little off lol. Regardless, it was an amazing night. Now I am back home and just getting some more stuff together before I head over to Sara's for what I am sure will be an awesome night. :) So excited!! I've got church tomorrow before I head back home to meet my family. Monday should be awesome, as I am meeting up with Josh, Micah, and Sara for breakfast and then coffee at Books-A-Million. As you can see, my weekend is absolutely jam packed, but it is going to be so fun :D Anyway I'll update later!

BYL!

~Rachel <3

Back from Wonderland!!

Ok, so I think it's fairly safe to say that I have not blogged in far too long. And so, to remedy that, I'm going to post something right now lol...which is kind of what this is...ok, so here we go.

Wow, a lot has happened since I last posted. First of all, church stuff has been different. I've begun feeling more distant from my church, but I don't think this has necessarily affected my relationship with God. If anything, it has shown my that I can stand alone and have a personal relationship with God, while at the same time opening my eyes to the importance of good Christian fellowship. This also is in part of my growing friendship with Josh Justice who is definitely becoming one of my close Christian friends and brothers in a way that I haven't known before and it's nice.

Then there is school, which is always interesting. Grades have been pretty good so far, and I am learning a lot more than just book lessons from the teachers. Every year, it never fails that I learn not only dates and formulas and books from the teachers, but life lessons as well. I have learned about the amount of influence I give people over me, about what things make a lousy argument when making a point, and even about innocence and learning. My history teacher has probably taught me the most, but even my English teacher has begun to open my eyes to new things. Seeing as she was not exactly my favorite teacher at the beginning of the year, this is a pleasant surpise. :)

Then there is family, which is pretty normal. It doesn't much change, though I think I may have changed some in my understanding of it. I understand now that I place a lot of emphasis on family, which is perhaps why I am so critical of mine. I expect a family to be the ultimate show of love and support and loyalty in one's life, aside from that of God's love, both the family that you are born into and the family that we will one day create. Perhaps this is too high an expectation for any family to live up to, but for the time being, this is what I believe.

Well, there's more that I'll post soon, but for now I've got to get to bed.

BYL!

~Rachel <3

Sunday Thoughts

Well, my life is going better. I know that God answers prayers and he answers them in a lot of different ways. He's a helpful God, but he's also a creative God. I've found that prayers can be answered in the form of a badminton tournament, a girls night in, chick flick overload, or even a crowd of little kids. I'm thankful that God was with me during this time and I now just need faith that this will be the case every time I come along a bump in the road. I guess that's what our time here is for, right? As we sit here in the middle of a storm, God doesn't want us to waste our time building to protect ourselves. He simply wants us to stand firm and prepare for the day when the sky clears and the storm stops, because he has promised us that that day is coming and it is coming soon. That's why I'm waiting for.

Love,

~Rachel

Prayers

Please pray for me. My faith is being tested in ways that I don't think it has before and I really need strength right now.

Love, Rachel

Full Weekend :)

Ok, so I've had kind of a jam-packed weekend. It started Friday night when I went to a Civil War dance with two of my friends, Sara and Josh. The ride there was cool, filled with some good conversation and a few wrong turns (yes, Miss GPS, I know I missed the exit, stop telling me you're recalculating. lol), the dance was nice and I met a few new people along with some old friends. The best part of the trip, however, had to be the ride home. We had some deep conversation and some of my hardest questions were answered. I'm going to take a leap and say that God really spoke to all of us through Josh. He said things that were just plain amazing. So I get home at about 2 am and my dad's mad, but we got everything straightened out.
The next day, I went to City Point with John, Jenny, and Tony. That was awesome and we visited Sara at her work and later we all hung out a John's house and got in lots of snugglin'. ^_^
Sunday I woke up and came to church, just like I normally do, but when I got there, we made pancakes! We had a whole pancake supper after church and it was delicious! Not to mention it was fun to make. After church we went to my neice's B-day party and after that was Barnes & Nobles, where I got 2 new books!! Yay! After that it was straight back to church for the American Heritage Series, where I learned what the TRUE history of our nation is. And I'll tell ya, it's not what they teach in the history books nowadays. Man, I am gonna have some talk with my history teacher tomorrow. But for now, I've gotta go, cause it's almost bedtime. I'll blog again as soon as I can!

Love,
~Rachel

Guess Who's Back!!! (just so you know, it's me) ^_^

Hey all! Just droppin in to say hi and apologize for not having written in so long. I should really do something to fix that. Hmm...well how about for now, I just fill you in on some of the things that have happened since I last wrote. Well first of all, Matt, one of my best friends left for Texas. I don't know if this was actually after my last post, but I don't think I really mentioned it. In any case, I've missed him a lot and I still smile when "Piano Man" plays on the radio. Church is going great, but I've been struggling in my relationship with God lately. It's not that I have made idols of objects, but rather of people. I feel that in searching for the ultimate love and comfort, I've settled for less than perfect, therefore cheating God, myself, and several around me. That's something I'm definitely working on. My friends have been really great :) I mean, we have our issues, but we use them as growing experiences and we are stronger because of it. I am sad to say that I have lost at least one of my friends because of the fact that they didn't want to learn from our struggles, but rather dwell on the pain and point fingers. I do hate that I had to break off the friendship, but I believe that God has a purpose for both of us, and that when we are both farther in our walk, perhaps we may discover a deeper and better friendship for the both of us, with God in the center. Until then, I still love her as if she was my sister. As far as family goes, we are struggling, but we are making it through. It is amazing to me how many times I overlook the simple fact that despite all the pain and suffering and scars that we have all endured, our family is still together and for that, I cannot thank God enough. I've learned in the past few months to be thankful for suffering because that is the ONLY way to beat the devil at his game. Fight darkness with light, fight lies with the truth, and fight creature with creator. Without the light, there cannot be darkness (the absense of light), without truth, there cannot be lies (the absence of truth), and without a creator, the creature of the devil could never be; If the creators are ever to turn against their creation, the battle is already won. This is what we have to keep in mind at all times. The battle that we fight is already won. That's why every single struggle and joy that I've been through in these past few months has all been worth it. Anyway, I think I'm at the point where I'm just rambling. ;) I'll blog later, because I'm sure I'll have lots to talk about. :)

Love,
~Rachel

VBS Lessons

Who says the kids are the only ones that learn during VBS. The guides learn quite a few things as well. For example, Olivia learned that a paperball to the side of the head can hurt long after the incident. Sara learned that "train tag" can sometimes trigger chain-reaction tripping. Sam learned, after being nicknamed "The Cute One" and "My new boyfriend" by some of the girls, that he is very popular with the younger crowd. I learned that when you give a sugar-pumped 2nd grader a foam noodle and tell them to "tag" the other kids, people are going to get beamed in the head. Yes, there certainly are some interesting lessons to be learned at Vacation Bible School. But more important than these lessons, though they are funny to hear about, are the lessons we learn that opens our eyes to yet another layer of God's nature. On this subject, I learned about Joy. No, I'm not talking about the song. I'm talking about Joy like what you see on the kid's faces when they sing Jesus Loves Me rock and roll at the top of their lungs because they can. It's the laughing you hear during game time in between the paper fights and noodle duels. And it's even on Pastor Wayne's face when he shows how many cars we got for our food back train tonight. I believe that that's the kind of Joy he gives each and every one of us, all the time. Yet somehow, we all live our lives as though we don't have any reason to be happy half the time. I think it's high time that we injected a little more Joy into our lives and started looking at things the way God intended, instead of through the thick cloud of negativity and doubt that this world so happily provides. I'm not immune from this myself. I'm going to make a change to start taking the Joy that I've been given and actually using it. Starting now. :)

BYL!

~Rachel