Goals.

Devotion.

Worship.

Self-discipline.

Eat right.

Thrift.

Workout.

Thank.

Invest.

Warner Pacific Invitational, Portland OR

Oh, and I suppose I should also just throw this out there. On Saturday (16th) I finally got a PR. Yep that's right! I ran a 20:16 5k, which is a 4 second PR! Praise God. That was our last race before conference!

My Heart Is Bursting.

(sorry it's another long one!)
My heart is so full of emotions right now. It's incredible! It's exciting! Most of them are wonderful. There is so much God is doing to my heart, I don't know how I'll ever be able to put it all into words! But I'll try.

Today has been a good day. Really good. And it shouldn't have been, because yesterday I was awake for 21 hours! Mondays are long days beginning at 5:50am, including 4 classes, a long run for practice, and meetings from 10-11:30pm. That's just the expected stuff. There's always unexpected things, like a wonderful, deep conversation with your fiancé. Or accidentally reading the wrong homework assignment so having to read twice as much. Or the girl on your XC team who needs someone to talk to and encourage her. You get the picture. I was up until 2am. But it was great. And today has been great.

I'm really excited about the things I learned today in classes. In World Thought we're studying the rise of Buddhism and Christianity. Our textbook is secular, so it's very intriguing to see my "religion" presented from the ears of the critical world. I could go into lots of detail about this. I hope I have time later to post something about it, but we'll see. Also it's just interesting to look at other religions in depth...

In my Bible Study Methods class we talked about "Bible transmission," basically meaning we answered the skeptic question held by many - how can we trust the Bible? I've been asked that before, and I know in my head why I trust the Bible but never had sufficient information to even try to present a solid argument. Now I do! Again, I could spend a whole post breaking this down, and I hope to...sometime!

Even Psychology, which normally is overwhelming and just drowns you in so much information that you can't process or understand any of it, was not that way today! I absorbed a lot of the information presented about motivation and emotion and it made sense! That excites me and makes me happy!!

I've decided that God is definitely calling me to be a small group leader at Morning Star. This is where a bit of the "negative" emotion comes in, because I'm still a bit scared/intimidated and worried about giving up my control of time. But I'm beginning to get really excited and passionate about it! I'm actually looking forward to Wednesday night! And it's been really cool to see God working in all of this. It all started a couple Sundays ago when I went to Morning Star's Sunday service with two other sophomore girls from my hall, Rian and Hannah. In the bulletin were cards you could fill out indicating that you were interesting in helping with youth group. We all filled one out without realizing the other ones were filling them out. That was great, because I don't have a car and Hannah does. Plus it's helpful to have people you know accompany you in new situations. After our first experience with Wednesday's youth group, we all kinda felt the way I described earlier -- intimidated, really wanting to help, but not thinking we'd have time. But God worked it all of our hearts to bring us to the point where we realized that helping was what He had for us! It's crazy. And it gets rid of my excuse of not having a car!

And then there's my boy, my soon-to-be husband, my best friend, who God uses to blow me away every single day. He's decided that Africa is definitely on his heart, but not for this summer, because this summer he wants to spend by my side planning our wedding, going to dance lessons and marriage counseling and falling more in love. I definitely love love love that idea! He wants me to "get used to the idea of him always opening/closing my door for me." Jason wants to put  me second in everything (second to God). He loves me so selflessly and takes such good care of me. He called my roommate a couple weeks ago and asked her to deliver flowers to me, because he wants to be romantic and do special things for me even though he isn't here. Every morning he asks how he can pray for me, and we usually pray together at least once every day. We talk about deep theological things. We talk about being married. We talk about our weaknesses and encourage each other to grow. We support each other's dreams and desires. He makes me smile and laugh every day. Oh, and you should call him sometime just to hear is voicemail thing. Makes.my.heart.flip. My heart is bursting with love for and from him! God is so good! I'm so blessed!

Another one of the "negative" emotions on my bursting heart, is just knowing the painful stories of some of the girls in my life right now, girls from youth-group, my dorm, and my XC team. Life can be brutal. It breaks my heart sometimes. But on the positive side, I feel an overwhelming compassion for them and desire to embrace them and show Jesus to them.

My heart is bursting at the seams! It's overflowing with passion for God and for pursuing this life He has set out for me.

Opportunities. Dilemmas. Riot. Africa.

Sorry this is long, really long!
     Yesterday I went to the youth group (called Riot) at one of the local community churches (Morning Star) to check it out as a potential volunteer. They have a huge need for women to lead small groups for the freshman girls. I enjoyed it. I was also really challenged.
     Growing up I never liked growing to youth group because I couldn't find one that was deep enough to feed me spiritually and allow me to fit in at the same time. One would be too full of cliques and no one would talk to me (Yes it was my fault too, but it's hard when you're shy.) One would have way to many games and not get into the word very much. Etc.
     Well I love how this youth group is structured. The leaders met ahead of time and prayed for the night and prayed for many students/situations by name. They actually knew the kids and spent time investing in their lives! After the leader's meeting, it was time to mingle. The leaders mingled with the kids, catching up and checking in with the ones they knew and meeting the new ones. Hugs all around. Then they split up into grade levels (freshman, sophomore, etc) and within each group introduced all the new people and just talked for a few minutes. Everyone then joined together in the sanctuary for worship (amazing) and a message. After this, they were again split by grade, but this time into small groups of same-gender. There were two big groups of freshman girls so I shadowed the leader for one of them. In the small groups they didn't sit around and talk about "nothing" (aka the latest gossip) like I'd experienced at previous youth groups, they actually talked about specific questions pertaining to the message and how the message could be played out in their individual situations. It was good and got the girls to think. That was the night!
     I really want to be a small group leader for these freshmen girls because the need is great, I would have a lot to offer, and I think God has placed it on my heart for a reason. Yet I was challenged to readily jump into this position. I find several dilemmas holding me back. For one, high-school girls intimidate me. They're dramatic. They dress cute and "in-style." They're loud and excitable. I'm not any of that. I'm not very bubbly or outgoing. I have a hard time initiating conversations and connecting. So that scares me, to try to lead them. It would stretch me and take me out of my comfort zone.
     Also, I rushed straight from practice to the leaders meeting and didn't eat dinner or get back to Corban until 9:30pm. That means from 3:20-9:30pm my time is spent practicing and then at youth group, leaving very  little time for homework. And on Thursdays I have to wake up at 5:50am for morning workout, so I can't stay up super late doing homework. I'm scared to sacrifice that huge of a chunk of my homework time. I'm scared to give up control of that much of my night. But I think God wants me to. And I know, that if this is what He wants, He'll provide the time for my homework. Besides, cross-country will be done soon, I have from 7:30am-10:20am on Thursday mornings to do homework, and next semester my class schedule will be significantly more relaxed. But it still scares me. I like control.
   But this week I've also been challenged in different ways to surrender, live with open hands, and give up my control of things. I'm gonna be praying about this opportunity, but I think I already know the answer. I will step out in faith even when I cannot see. God is good.
     The other opportunity is not for me, but for Jason. He feels a tug on his heart to go to Africa for two weeks this June. I immediately feel two emotions- excitement and worry. Ok three, cause I also start to think about missing those two weeks of spending time together. I'm excited for him, really excited! This would be an amazing opportunity and I never want to say no to the things God calls him to. But I also worry. If Jason went to Africa, it would mean no summer job for him, because 2-3 weeks in May, 2 weeks in June, and 2 weeks in July isn't consistent enough for someone to hire him. So I worry about having money to support our first year of marriage. But I also know that if God really wanted Jason to go to Africa, He would provide for our needs financially and our needs would be met. Yet again, I'm scared to give up control, even though God would do a better job of handling things anyway. Already though we've seen God meeting our needs. Jason met a lady who has a small house in La Grange that she lets Frontier couples stay in rent-free. All they have to do is pay utilities. So that would mean saving $200ish a month and having our own place! We're still looking into it and trying to make sure it's available, but that would definitely help with the money issue! And Jason is going to start donating plasma again (which they raised the pay amount for!) and look for any odd jobs he can find. So it seems God is already at work! But you can pray about that decision too!

Willamette Invitational

Today I raced what felt like the best race of my life but then I didn't PR...so that becomes a frustrating feeling. My time was 20:42 and I finished 5th on our team, 138 out of 239. I did race faster than our last meet at OIT, so that's a good sign! Here's some fun pictures!

The Corban XC Team Is On Fire!

No literally... Yesterday we just got back to campus after going to a park in Salem for practice. Our bus shut off, and when Coach Brad went to restart it, smoke started coming out of the hood. We thought it was just over-heating, so it was kinda a "oh I guess you'll have to get off the bus here" thing as we took our time getting off, until a couple people got off and saw flames under the hood! We got off much quicker after that! Everyone was off safely, and they even tried using fire extinguishers to put out the fire. That slowed it down a bit, but soon the fire spread into the whole entire bus! Windows were shattering and tires popping. The electric lines it was parked under caught on fire too and a line came down and was sparking against the pavement. Our whole bus was destroyed! God really protected us though, because no one came close to being injured. Our starting-blocks for track and coach's clipboard were the only things that got left on the bus. And the power was out last night for about three hours because of the downed line, which was a bit frustrating because I had two tests to study for! But we survived! And we laugh...because cross-country is never noticed on campus. But now everyone is talking about us! We even made the news!

Disclaimer: this news clip makes it sound more threatening than it was - we had plenty of time to get safely off the bus! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taQrwkOHacQ&feature=player_embedded

I'll post a couple pictures and maybe another video later...