Avoiding Relationship Suicide.

I've never been one to really want to be in a relationship. Yeah, over the past few years I've liked a few people, but the whole idea of dating just didn't sound all that interesting to me. It's not because I have one of those "GAH! Dating is evil!" -type of attitudes, I just haven't found someone who I believe I could have an ideal relationship with. All the guys I know are either too much of a brother to me, too douchey, or they just didn't love Jesus (that needs to come before me to them).

So, just recently I've noticed that a good majority of my very dear friends are in relationships or they're about to be and almost every time I checked facebook, someone was in a new relationship, and I started to get a little frustrated about it. I didn't tell anyone that, but good ole' mother can read me like a book and could tell. So, this past Sunday we were in the car and I started talking about my best friend and her boyfriend (they celebrated their one year of dating last month-isn't that cute?!) And I started going on about how precious I think that they are together and about how I just love the two of them together, and basically just how perfect they are for each other. (People go on rants by complaining about things, I go on rants about how much I love people)

So, as I'm talking to my mother about my best friend she said to me, "You deserve that too, you know." (I hadn't even said anything about that, but like I said, mom can read me like a book). "I know you've been really frustrated lately that everyone around you is dating someone and you're not. But God's got a really wonderful man in store for you who will treat you like the princess you are." And I started to cry. My mother is wonderful.

People often ask me why I don't date, I'm avoiding relationship suicide by not just dating any ole' guy that comes my way. God's got someone better for me, no idea when it's going to come, but he'll come and he'll treat me like I'm a beautiful princess. Yeah, this whole waiting thing DOES get really annoying and it often makes me feel really upset, but like I said, I'm avoiding relationship suicide. :)

Love love love love love!

Hey there folks! It's been awhile since I've posted something, life's been pretty crazy lately. I've been checking the blogs I usually follow-then I realized I haven't posted on my own in quite some time. So-I'm back guys!

I've been thinking a lot about God's love lately, and just how BIG it is. I think about how blessed I am and gi-hugic His love for ME is, but then I thought about something-He's got the same amount of love for everyone. I mean, there's 6,964,860,174 people in the world as of September 27th at nighttime (I just googled it-try it-whe you find the page click F5, the number increases every few seconds) and just think about alllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll that love He's got. It's like the concept of infinity- impossible to wrap my brain around. That's A LOT of love.

Optimism.

I'm such an optimist. Get Happy! It's a great day to be alive!

Concert time.

Last night I went to the Maroon 5/Train/Gavin Degraw concert. It. was. fan.tas.tic. I sang along with almost all of the songs (resulting in me not having a voice this morning), I got to spend the evening with some crazy amazing people (!), and Adam Levine is beautiful.
But, the concert itself is not why I'm making this post. (Even though it was AMAZING!) This post is about this song. My mom was talking about her being proud of me with my decision to not have sex until I'm married, and at the end of the concert, they did this song and it made me think of what my mom had said.
It may not be now, it may not even happen ten years from now, but one day, I will be loved. I'm already loved by God and by my friends and family, but one day I will be LOVED by THE ONE. And, since I'm a cryer, I got choked up during this song.
I will be loved. I will be loved by that someone special who I will one day give my full self to, because he's the only person I want to be with. I may not even know this man yet, but that's okay. I'm pretty patient :)

Amelia Island.

This post is going to be short and un-poetic/theological/etc like most of my posts are. But, however, I'M GOING TO AMELIA ISLAND ON FRIDAY! I'm so excited! We're celebrating my best friend's sweet 16! I've never been there before, but the pictures I've seen are beautiful and plus, it's "Amelia" Island. "Amelia" is my favourite name! My first daughter is going to be named Amelia Blair, so how could Amelia Island be anything but schmazing?

Judas.

Judas. I have a love/hate feeling for Judas. Love because if he hadn't done what he did, Jesus wouldn't have died on the cross. Hate because of betrayal. But out of all of that, Jesus loved him anyway. I mean really, HOLY CRAP. Jesus loved Judas, and He knew that he was going to betray him.
I haven't seen this particular person since school let out, but said person made me angry almost everyday. Now I thankfully don't have to see said person's face on a daily basis, but sometimes I think about what they did and I just find myself getting angry again and filling with hate. Mom tells me all the time "Be Jesus, Emily." And tonight I realized that if Jesus can love someone he knew was going to betray him, then I should love someone that bothers me.

Vegetables and Snoodles

So, tonight I was babysitting two little boys and my brother and we decided to have a Veggietales marathon. I hadn't watched an episode of Veggietales in ages so watching them was almost like a trip down memory lane.
The second episode we watched was "A Snoodles Tale"-one that could've been written by Dr. Seuss. The little snoodle names Snoodle Doo was loaded down by all the harsh things that other people were saying (they painted pictures for him so he "wouldn't forget how dull he is") and the painting were in his sack and they weighed him down, so he ran away. He ran away to a cave and found a "strange snoodle" (GOD!) and He spoke to the little one and told him he was born to do great things for HE had created Snoodle Doo and that he was born to do great things. So, after removing the bad paintings from this sack, the big snoodle (GOD!) painted a picture of Snoodle Doo as a great and mighty snoodle. "I made you, you were born to do great things" he said to him. And then Snoodle Doo gave the big snoodle (GOD!) a painting of flowers that he had made earlier. "That's for my fridge!" the big snoodle told him.
So, Snoodle Doo went down and changed everyone's lives from what the big snoodle (GOD!) told him.
So, I have no idea how many times I said "snoodle" in this post, but it's important to me to get the whole story in. Lately, I'd been feeling down with college decisions and for some reason a few things from my past have been making me a little depressed. I don't know that I want to do yet school-wise and I'm feeling really pressured and weighed down (just like the snoodle!) and when the big snoodle was talking I felt like I was hearing God's voice telling me that I was born to do great things, and I started to cry. (This isn't the first time a veggietales has made me cry.) I talked to God and I felt like all my bad paintings were being torn from my backsack and I felt so relieved. And when the big snoodle said "That's for my fridge!" to the little snoodle I felt like that was God's way of telling me that He loves me so much that He wants everyone to see what I'm able to do.
Veggietales=you'd be surprised how life-changing they can be.

My Amazing Birthday Gift!!

So, for my birthday, my parents usually get me tickets to go see a show. This year it's CATS! I used to watch my aunt's VHS version of it ALL THE TIME when I was little. There are no words to describe how excited I am to go see it this Saturday!

No More Sweet Sixteen

Tomorrow's my seventeeth birthday, I've been singing this song ALL day! Word.

Loser Like ME

On Thursday, I fell asleep in English....and I sleep like the dead. So, some people thought it'd be funny if they wrote "LOSER" on my forehead. I looked in the mirror, I was cool with it. I am a loser. Everyone's a loser. I have no shame in who I am, therefore, I walked around the rest of the day with it written on my head. It was written in highlighter, and since I'm so pale you could only make out what it said if you were really close. But honestly, I didn't care who saw it. I don't get embarassed. That's what this post is about: embarassment. People often say to me, "Isn't that embarassing?" or "Wow, that was awkward." My opinion is, things are only embarassing and awkward if you make them that way. If something embarasses, it typically means your ashamed of who you really are. Who am I, really? A total goofball. Therefore, my inner goofball doesn't embarass me. If that means dancing to a song I love, then I dance to a song I love, no matter where I am. (Shoot, I was the 1st person on the dancefloor at prom!) You practically have to pants me to make me embarassed. (But don't do that, because I have a big Irish temper that can GO OFF). But all in all, I don't really believe in embarassment :)

My Mommy

Sorry, hate to break it to you-but I have the best mom in the world. She amazes me day after day. She's one of the most strongest people I know with all she's been through in her life. I'm not supposed to share with the world the story-but she just wows me with how she's gone through with all God has put in her life. She's so gorgeous, I might add! Whenever my dad is out of town, she has my brother spend the night at a friend's house and she and I have a movie (most recently, Breakfast at Tiffany's) night with limeade, sushi, and chocolate mousse (my ideal dinner). Sometimes, if she sees something cute in Old Navy (or one of my other favourite stores) she just gets it for me. Just like that. For no reason. She's so awesome! She tells me I'm weird on a daily basis, (and I, of course, take it as a compliment) and yet she deals with me anyway. She's always there for me when I'm hurt or angry, and she gives the best advice. She cries whenever I'm singing on stage because she's so proud of me. And lastly, how she puts up with raising a teenager like me, I'm nothing but amazed. This post had a bunch of random sentences in it, but they're my immediate thoughts about how wonderful my mother is.
Happy Mother's Day Mommy!

Jar of Hearts

It kinda bugs me that the music industry has to make everything about love. I've really loved this song lately. Its about a girl asking a guy who he thinks he is for what he did to her. Before I thought of it this way, my mom told me a friend of hers "sings this song to Satan"-which I like a lot. Whatever someone thinks this song is about, its a really great song. This is a short post, but I thought I'd share it.

The Tat

Isn't it funny how you can listen to a song a million times and not realize the true meaning until the million and first time? This song has been so inspiring to me lately, it reminds me that God (sunshine) is always with me even through my times of darkness (shadow).

I've always wanted to get a tattoo, I never knew what of, but I knew that I wanted one. Just today I realized that if I can somehow get a design of a shadow being casted by the sun-that was what I wanted. I think a tree would be best to create the shadow-for me at least. I'm similar to a tree, I change my mood/style really often, but deep down, I'm still me. A tree has its times where it dies down but springs new life later through the wonders going on around it.

A tree. A shadow. A sunshine. That's the tattoo I will eventually get.

Better

Earlier this afternoon I posted the blog post below out of a lot of anger. True, this certain person will still drive me up a wall tomorrow, but for now I've just decided to take a deep breath and listen to what God has to tell me. Bubble bath and quinoa=perfect relaxation to me. I'm off to do some listening.

I'm So Sorry

I'm so sorry that you have to be SO negative ALL THE TIME. We've had our differences, and they've been settled. You and I are good. But you talk about my friends that way? That's NOT okay. Have you noticed something? Everyone you hate-everyone loves those people? I seriously want to know why you have to be SO NEGATIVE ABOUT EVERYTHING! Just once, be in a good mood. Just once, say something nice about someone. Just once, look at the bright side of things. I'm a positive person, INCREDIBLEY positive person, and you make me negative. That's how much you drive me crazy.


Vent session is over now. I apologize for my rant.

Best Night Ever

Prom was last night. Let's list what was so fantastic about it: my friends looked gorgeous, my dress and accessories made my eyes look REALLY blue, my bright pinkish redish hair looked cool with my dress, my friend's date didn't feel awkward about being the only guy, dinner was only 10 bucks a person (!), I was the first person on the dance floor, they played my favourite song Firework by Katy Perry (twice!), I taught have of the people attending prom how to properly do Cotton-Eyed Joe (I was really surprised how many people know that song but don't know the dance), there was a chocolate fountain and chicken nuggets from Chick-fil-a, my teacher made a two certain comments that made my entire evening (!), the person I voted for Prom Princess won (!), I got to take home a genie lamp (the theme was Arabian Nights), my one friend lifted me up so I could see a dance competition (which made me feel really good to know he could pick me up), I totally started poking someone on the dance floor to only realized it wasn't the person I thought it was, my ex-boyfriend told me I looked gorgeous, I'm pretty sure I lost a good twenty pounds from dancing ALL NIGHT LONG, the guy at McDonalds told me I looked like the Little Mermaid, me and my four friends spent almost an hour at McDonalds (being exteremely loud) at 1 in the morning, and to conclude the great night, I fell asleep on my friend's couch with one leg in the air. For those of you teens who read this-you don't need a date to prom to have a good time. :)

Prom-i-dee Prom Prom

Prom is tonight! I couldn't be more excited! My dearest tall friend was wondering why I was actually excited about something the typical teenage girl was excited about. (Because quite frankly, I am NOT the typical teenage girl in high school). Honestly, I don't follow the crowd, things that make the sterotypical teenage girl excited, doesn't make me excited. But prom...I'm excited. Tonight is going to be MY night. I'll make sure to post a picture of my complete look!

Keeping my Heart Protected

Let me start out by saying that Adele is FANTASTIC and I love this song to death! (Plus, even though it wasn't as good as Adele, they sang this song on glee!) I'm not 100% on what this song is about exactly (relationship-wise) some say its about an abusive relationship, some say its about opening up. Lately there has been a certain fella (two fellas, actually) that have been on my mind a lot. One of them I hang out with ALL the time, the other I don't see as often, but he makes me feel so special. But here's the big thing-neither are Christians. It KILLS me.
I don't know how, but I can keep myself from liking someone if I really put my mind to it. I have yet to admit to myself that I have feelings for either one of these guys (and it takes me a lot to admit it to myself-see older blog post of mine). So this one line from this song has really stuck out to me-"I won't let you close enough to hurt me", which is hard to do, but I've decided that that's how I'm going to be with the two of them. I don't open up as easily as I used to to guys, and it's made me strong. It was difficult for me to think this (but not as much anymore) but I can actually prevent my own heartbreak. So, basically, I've decided to protect my heart from it being broken by those fine young men. One day (should they decide to follow Jesus and I'm ready) I may open up to them. But for now, I'm keeping my heart safe.

Paint Guy

Nothing too exciting, but I have a simple story. So our church is having everyone put signs in their yard advertising for the Easter Sunday service next week. Naturally, we have one in our yard. So, while my mom, Alex, and I were out yesterday a guy my mom hired came and did something to our yard/patio/front of the house area. The guy saw the sign in our yard, so what does he assume? That we WANT lots of signs in our yard. So we pull onto our street, what do we see? A giant sign advertising for his paint services. What did I do? Ripped it out of the ground and told my mother, "The Easter sign has a significant purpose, this other one just flat-out looks tacky." So what does she do in response? Laughs at my comment. I love bringing my mother laughter, I truely do.

I just have one thing to say,

And that's just I couldn't be any happier that it's spring break. This is the first year in a long time that I haven't done anything. I'm going to get my lisence on Tuesday, going to go see One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at USCL on Sunday, taking Alex to go see the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie, probably going to go play paintball with Lacey and some people she wants to see, going shopping with Hannah, skype movie date with Kyndall, actually getting some sleep for once, and just having a break. Nothing big. Just calm, relaxed, and preparing for the stressful prom week after my week off. Just as Glinda said, "I couldn't be happier!"

Sounds a Little Cliche, but....

.....the truth really does set you free. Well it sets me free at least. I'm probably one of the best secret keepers in the world. People trust me so easily, that really random people will tell me their deepest darkest secrets within five minutes of me meeting them. Ever seen Mean Girls? Remember that part when the Burn Book gets out and all the girls go insane and practically kill each other? Well, I have enough secrets in my head to make that happen if I wanted to.... Well, this past week I found out (yet another secret) something really big, and without her knowing it, but my mother was (kind of) a part of it. Someone asked her to do her a favor, so she did it, and when I found out what the favor was for, I stopped it without telling her. It really killed me inside that I didn't tell her what was really going on. I didn't want to tell her because (literally) the exact same situation happened a few years ago, and I lost some friendships over it, and I did NOT want that to happen again. But the past few days it was eating me up inside. So I finally told her about it today and I felt so relieved. She was a bit concerned about what I'm going to be do in the future now but other than that she didn't make too big of a deal about it. (Because it didn't really involve her much) But the amount of relief I felt after I told her felt like twenty pounds got lifted off of my shoulders. So, really, don't think it's too cliche, but the truth does set you free.

Can I Just Say...

....how much I LOVE my small group? They make me feel so special. Giving words of encouragement to others has always been a big deal with me. I always want people to be uplifted with whatever they're doing. But tonight we were finishing up book study on "Forgotten God" (which is great, I might add!) and one of our leaders made these little pages and framed them and gave one to each of us. They had your name and a bunch of words that the girls in the small group used to describe that person (and they were written in a funky way.) But as I was reading them, I just felt so special. And people may deny it until pigs fly, but listening to things like that really makes a person feel good.

The things that were written on there made me feel like I was actually doing something right. (and I don't feel that way very often) These lovely ladies are just so wonderful. God has truely blessed me with them! (In case you hadn't noticed, but I don't use names on my blog) but we prayed as a group over each individual person and when it got to my turn, my dearest love prayed for me and I wanted to cry. She is one of VERY few people who knows my ENTIRE life story so she just simply said in her prayer, "God, Emily has been through A LOT in her life, yet she's able to smile everyday and encourage each of us all the time." I love that woman!

So, if this blog post seemed like it was all about me, I didn't intend for it to be that way. This blog post was to show people how blessed I am to be surrounded by such wonderful women each and every week!

My Opinion on the Matter

There's this kid at my school who is gay and he assumes that I'm out to get him and that I hate all gay people. I want to start this post by saying this: one of my close guy friends is a closested homosexual and my un-biological uncle is as well. God calls me to love, so I love them dispite the lifestyle they live. Here's what I believe on the matter: All sin is equal, right? We're all sinners, right? So, me lying to my parents about something is just as bad as being in a homosexual relationship, right? Right. This is why I don't "condem" (as this person at school likes to tell me) gay people. True, I think that they're sinning, but aren't I sinning if I judge them for it? So I'm pretty much just as bad. John 8:7

Here's the Deal

People really start to annoy me sometimes. First off-you think ALL Christians are judgemental? Don't you think that's just a tinsy bit hypocritical? Not everyone falls into the sterotype. In fact, a lot of people don't fall into the sterotype. Second- I hate it when people find it insulting when a Christian says something about God or Jesus or anything like that. Don't you think WE think its a little insulting when you shout out "JESUS" or "OH MY GOD" every other second of the day? There's this person at school who has been sterotyping me every single day and practically quizzes me on my own religion. He does it because he WANTS me to screw up so he can call me lukewarm or a hypocrite. I'm just so sick of some people lately.

Content Again.

Ever since last October, I felt like my world was turned upside down with all the changes that were occurring at my church. My youth pastor, Daryl Sutherland, wasn't going to be our youth pastor anymore, which I've had a really hard time with. I come from a home that's full of hugs and "I love you"s and that's what Daryl was like. I have so much to thank him for, he's helped me grow in so many ways and I thank God everyday for blessing me with a pastor like him.

When the announcement was made that he was leaving, he told us that he was still going to be the Missions Pastor at our church, so we would still see him pretty often. The adjustments of him not teaching us on Sunday nights was difficult, but I still got to see him pretty often, so it wasn't too hard.

After a while, Daryl got a job offer at a different church, and he took it. He and his simply wonderful family were leaving Southbrook. It killed me. His daughter, Kyndall and I had become WONDERFUL friends, his son Ky hugged me everytime he saw me, and his wife, Sherri was the sweetest lady on planet Earth...and they were all leaving.

After the Sutherlands left Southbrook, changes started happening...fast. Every Sunday, something in our youth building was different, there were new rules, a lot of my friends left, and in all honesty, I didn't feel the love that I used to feel every week bursting from the students and leaders like I used to. I've always been one to like change, but it had to be slow changes, and given time to adjust. There wasn't any time this time.

For the longest time I wanted to leave Southbrook. It wasn't my home anymore. I wasn't excited to come anymore. I didn't feel the love like I used to. My mom told me that once I got my car, that if I felt called, I could go to a different church if I wanted to. And I wanted to. I never told any of my friends, but I had made plans to start "church shopping."

This past Sunday we had a Worship Night like we do from time to time. I sang the words, but I didn't feel really feel it. Then, they sang David Crowder Band's "How He Loves Us", a song that always makes me cry. Then I felt God saying to me, "You don't feel the love here anymore? Yeah there's been changes, but my love has stayed the same. I'm your whole reason for you coming to this place every week. Why are you leaving?" I began to bawl. I had God's love, why did I need anything else? Yeah there's been changes, but that's life. I felt at home again at Southbrook for the first time in months.

When I was in Charleston, I attended Seacoast Church (man, I love that church, if I lived in Charleston, I'd go there all the time!) and the pastor talked about being content with what I have. My mom was with me so she brought that message up whenever I wasn't happy about what was going on at church. I've finally learned how to be content again.

Japan

I posted this to facebook, but I decided to put it on my blog as well:

So for the past few weeks, I've gotten into a lot of debates about whether or not we should give money to Japan. Here's the excuses I've gotten:

1. Because of what happened at Pearl Habor.

This one was just pathetic. We dropped the atomic bomb on them. And you're really going to hold a grudge about something that happened over 60 years ago?

2. They wouldn't help us out if that happened to us.

Are we really THAT selfish that we expect something in return for helping out another country? What has this world come to? Plus, they helped us during Katrina. So, WHAT NOW. Plus, when has Haiti ever helped us? Everyone was quick to help out Haiti, and I bet over half of the people who helped out when it happened didn't even knon where Haiti is geographic wise before the earthquake

3. We have our own problems and our own homeless people in America.

You feel bad about the homeless people here? Then why don't you volunteeer and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT instead of just sitting around talking about how bad it is. There are TONS of people who go out each day and help out these people everyday, why don't you? Also, a good percentage of the homeless people (I'm NOT saying all, don't think I am, but a good percentage) are homeless because they wasted their money gambling, drinking, smoking, etc. The people that are homeless in Japan are homeless because something tragic happened to them that they couldn't prevent from happening.

So, if you don't want to give money, just consider these things. And if you don't want to send money and help out, volunteer to do something here so at least you can make SOME difference in the world.