Goin' to the Chapel

Remember this??

Well, let me introduce you to two more great ladies who have also asked me to be a bridesmaids!!! 

The first:

See the girl in the top right corner? 

Well that's one of my roommates, Audrey.

This picture was taken at good, old Iron Springs way back before we even dreamed of being roommates. 

But now I like to tell people we've been roommates for four years (because she was basically in our room enough to live there our freshmen year).

We decided on a whim that we would be church buddies.

Then became great friends.

Then she met this great guy.

And the rest is history.

They're getting married on January 1!! 

Audrey, I'm so excited to be a part of your wedding. I love you!!

And then next we have:

 

This fantastic girl.

 Meet Rebekah. 

We just have so much fun together I can't even start to describe it. 

She's crazy and hilarious and the best kindergarten teacher I know. 

I loved being a part of her engagement and can't WAIT to be a part of her (and Lane's) day on July 2. 

Rebekah and Lane, I just love you both so much. 

I am so so SO excited to be part of one of the biggest days of your lives.

So 2011 will be the Year of the Wedding. 

I'm in 3 and probably attending way more.

I can't wait! 

Discipline Thursday

The discipline: Waking up at 6 am and no texting.
Success of discipline: The first two days I woke up at 6:30. Every other day? Anywhere from 8 - 9:30. Oops. But I successfully did not text for one whole week.
The lessons:

• I had to be present. When I was someplace I didn't want to be or talking to someone I didn't want to be talking to, I couldn't escape by texting. I had to be where I was and paying attention to who I was with. No escaping. No dwelling on other things. Just being present. It was oddly refreshing.
• Some things are just not as important as they seem in the moment. When I couldn't just text my friends when a conversation didn't go as planned, I forgot about it. When I couldn't immediately tell them about the girl who gave me a dirty look in class, it didn't really matter anymore. It allowed me to stop worrying about every little thing in my day and just relax.
• We are not used to real communication. People were shocked when I would call them instead of text them back. Not that I think texting is evil or anything, I just think sometimes we forget what it means to actually communicate with the people around us.
• And as for waking up every day - I learned that I am not a morning person. I would love to be. Really, really. But I'm just not. If you have any pointers, I would love to hear them.

This week's discipline: Be positive. It's going to take a different form for everyone. For me it's no complaining and no saying anything bad about myself. 

Please go read this post. 

Discipline Thursday*

*Just pretend today is Thursday. I got a little sidetracked after I wrote this and forgot to publish. 

If there's one thing I've learned in college it's that sometimes crazy things happen late at night. You're tired. You let your guard down. You agree to do crazy things.

That's how I agreed to be part of a secret society last year.

But it's also how I agreed to be part of some strange group almost 2 weeks ago now.

Picture 7 college kids sitting in a living room. Might as well picture a pretty small living room because, let's face it, we're broke college kids. They're all talking, laughing, and of course studying. Then one issued a challenge - "Let's try going without Facebook for a week."

Maybe it's because we're competitive. Maybe it's because we were bored. Maybe it's because God needed to show us all something. (I think the whole late at night thing had something to do with it.) But eventually that one challenge evolved into giving up Facebook, Twitter, and blogging (reading and writing) for a week with the promise of giving up something different each week.

So from here on out (at least for the next several weeks) Thursdays will become Discipline Thursdays so that I can tell you all the great things the Lord taught us in the past week of giving things up to Him.

For the week of September 1-8:

The Discipline: Give up all social networking (Facebook, Twitter, and blogs) for one week.

The Lessons:

• There were several times over the week that God did really fantastic things in my life. Anytime it happened, my first inclination was to get on some social network to tweet or status update about it. "God is so good!" "I'm so amazed at what God's doing in my life." "God's timing is perfect." But I couldn't update electronically so most of the time, I just stopped thinking about it. Did you get that? I just stopped thinking about it. I didn't run to tell my best friends. I didn't find the first person to tell them. I just stopped. How disappointing. I am so comfortable praising God online but when it comes to praising Him in my everyday life I get embarrassed or afraid or apathetic. 
• There were also several times during the week I was in a horrible mood. Again, my first inclination was to turn to my beloved internet. I wanted to read all those encouraging blogs. I wanted to see who had encouraged me on Facebook. I wanted to laugh at someone's tweets. But instead, the Lord called me to Him. "Let me heal you. Let me dry your tears. Let me put you in a better mood."  
• I got SO. MUCH. DONE. I did more homework in the past week than I've done in most of my college career combined. 

So hopefully now that it's over I'll be able to still limit my time on this internet thing.

This week's discipline: No texting. And waking up at 6 am every morning. Ambitious, I know. 

Encouragement

About a year ago, maybe a little less, I stumbled on this great site called (in)courage (as seen on the linky thing on the right). I actually think one of my best friends introduced it to me.

Anyway, today is the National Day of Encouragement and I signed up through (in)courage to get 10 free cards to use today and in return to blog about how I used them.

For some reason, encouraging strangers comes easily to me. It's seems to take no effort to tell a teacher or public speaker they did a great job. Or to go out of my way to comfort the girl crying in the bathroom I've never met before. What is difficult for me is encouraging my friends.

I can't describe it and maybe I'm the only one who feels this way, but I see it as a big problem. The Lord has blessed me with absolutely amazing friends that support me in so much and I let so many days go by without telling them how much they mean to me.

So today I used my cards to encourage some of my closest friends. One that is doing a fantastic job in a ministry that doesn't get much thanks. Another that life just has not been fair to recently. A best friend who I don't tell enough how much she means to me. You get the picture.

Maybe this whole thing will help me outwardly appreciate my friends more. On those horrible days, and even on those just not perfect days, they need to hear it just as much as I do.

"Therefore encourage one another and build each other up just as in fact you are doing." I Thessalonians 5:11