Greetings from California! Today my sister is graduating from BIOLA University here in La Mirada, California. I flew up on Wednesday to spend a couple days alone with my sister before the rest of our family came joined us a couple days later. Rebekah and I enjoyed Wednesday and Thursday together exploring campus, hanging out with her friends, going to the beach at night, going to a delicious milkshake place in Hollywood, exploring downtown Disney, and other fun stuff. Today my family and I all went to the beach. Though it was a little chilly and windy out, we had a good time nonetheless. It's been a good, relaxing week, but I'm starting to look forward to getting back to home sweet home. What are your plans for the summer? Hope everyone is having a great start to summer! 

Here's a poem I wrote! Let me know what you think.

Do you see them? People trapped in prisons of insecurities and fears. Look closely into their eyes and you will see tears. Tears accumulated from Complete frustration, hurt, and desolation. Yet they have no one there to offer comfort and consolation. In their eyes is an emptiness that never dies. You walk past them everyday, too busy to show them there is another way. A way of love, pure love, perfect love from above. You are content to let them be, because the only person you can see in the mirror is "me." They are broken by untold secrets, unfulfilled dreams, and unknown pain. People whose days of sunshine are long gone and they are lost in the blinding rain. Peoples whose lives are shattered. And still others who ended their lives because they were never told the truth that they mattered. You cannot see them because your vision is too dim.

Do you hear them? People are crying. They are dying. They are falling. They are calling. They are haunted by voices from their past, a constant reminder that this darkness will forever last. All they can hear are the voices that whisper, "you'll never be anything. You're worth nothing." Sometimes it's not about the cruel things you said, but what you didn't say. Would it really have been that hard to give them a hug and tell them everything will be ok? Overtime, you will no longer have the capacity to hear. The voices will fade and eventually disappear. You cannot hear them because you are too busy pursuing some new whim.

Do you even care? Or can you even see they are there? Open your eyes-look around-they are everywhere. Can you hear them, their heart wrenching sighs of devastation, their hearts longing for restoration? They say beauty is simply in the eye of the beholder, but we often forget that it is God who is the molder. He molds each and every one of us in a beautiful creation, offering us the gift of reconciliation. Peace is established with God thru the gift of his son; it is thru Jesus' death on the cross, victory is won. Our response should be to give nothing less than our best. To proclaim to the dying world that in Christ, their sins can be removed as far as the east is from the west. The real question is not if you hear them crying, or see them dying, but what will you do? Will you dare to reach out loving arms and tell them of the live they can have anew? Will you offer them compassion instead of making them burn with humiliation? Will you offer liberation instead of condemnation?

My Prayer

We can never measure our relationship with God by emotions. It is a very dangerous game to play. We cannot just follow God because we "feel" like it. These past couple weeks have been very different. Last week God was teaching me so much. I "felt" so close to Him. It was great. This week, though, has been very different. God's still been teaching me a lot...but it's definitely been more tough. One of those weeks were you feel overwhelmed and nothing seems to go your way. It's so easy to let yourself get discouraged and want to give up.

Let's face it: life is tough. Sometimes heaven just sounds pretty wonderful! Sometimes I want to be there already. Today during teaching one of my piano lessons provided an interesting example. Every time my students pass a piano song, I reward them with a sticker. Today my student Madison jokingly said, "How about we just skip playing all the songs and I get stickers instead?" Of course, I didn't go for that! :) But it brought up an interesting point. How can we expect to win the battle unless we've fought? How can we expect to get the metal for running the race that we haven't run? Or...how can we expect to get stickers for songs we haven't played? I love what Hebrews 1:1-2a says: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus." I love the first part of that second verse...If we want to win the race, we HAVE to fix our eyes on Jesus. I've been struggling with that these past couple days. When I take my eyes off Jesus, I feel so discouraged and selfish. My prayer is that God would empty me of me. I want nothing left.

The other thing I recently prayed is that God would show me, remind me how petty life life. It's so easy to get wrapped up in the stress and business of life. And believe me, I know. I'm currently trying to get five speeches perfected for our next compensation and prepare music for four totally different things. Plus, work, school, a huge Spanish project...yeah, I know! But I never want to forget that's important in life. Recently tornadoes have been going rampant everywhere in Kansas. This past Saturday, my town was in two tornado warnings plus a watch. When the sirens started going off, we went downstairs to our closet just in case. Right before I went into the closet, I hurried to my room and grabbed something. I remember seeing all the metals I've received thru NCFCA hanging on my dresser...and yet I could care less about them. At that moment, they didn't matter at all. Don't forget what's important.

Well, this has turned out to be longer than I expected so hopefully I didn't bore you to death. :)

Indians and Easter

Mary and I are fighting our invisible enemies. We were very successful. :)

Yesterday we had an Easter bake-sale...This is one of the beautiful cupcakes!

So far, April has been a fabulous month. I am SO excited to have a month to focus on school, music, our home-school play, and preparing for our regional forensics competition, which I'm also super excited about. Today was especially good and relaxing...reading, cleaning my room, working on our Spanish project, and-of course-sleeping in! :) I went to the park with Mary where we enjoyed playing Indians...our newest favorite thing to do since yesterday. It was pretty epic, dodging our invisible enemies. I would highly recommend it. Wishing you all a fantastic Easter!

Emily was reminding me that I haven't posted on my blog in a while so I decided to. It's hard to believe our first forensics meet was two weeks ago! It was a great start to kick off the forensics year. I'm looking forward to Topeka in two weeks and wish everyone good luck for Lincoln next week! Topeka is sneaking up fast and I still need to memorize two speeches and finish writing one. But once that first competition is under my belt and I'm qualified for Regionals, I'm not really worried anymore. So far I'm qualified in four speech events-apologetics, persuasive, duo, and original interp. I'm hoping to qualify for three more at Topeka so we'll see. Enough about NCFCA! :)
I'm having a contact lens fitting tomorrow and can't wait to FINALLY have contacts. I was disappointed to learn today it's going to cost more than I imagined but I hope it'll be worth it. On Saturday, I'm going with one of my friends up to Manhatten, KS for a Japanese festival. I'm not personally interested in Japan, but the friend I'm going with loves Japan so I'm mostly going along for the ride. Anyways, I'll try to post some pictures from it. And, let's see...what else? Today I'm teaching piano lessons. I started teaching another girl recently so that makes four piano students. Next week instead of having lessons we're all going to play at an elderly people's home.

Hope everyone is having a fantabulous day. Good luck at Lincoln.

This and dat

I haven't posted in a while! I've been so busy trying to get ready for forensics next week, music, play practice, and all that stuff. Plus, I'm trying to fight a cold...so pray I don't get sick. Are you ready for Iowa next week? I mostly need to finish up my script submission and last minute memorization. I am definitely excited about next week! Just hoping I get everything wrapped up before then. It'll be great to see people! Forensics friends are funny deals...even though you only see them a couple times a year, they're the best.

Mi Familia

Yes....I am aware that Mary is not a baby, but there's wasn't enough room for all of us!!

Randomness

How is your week going? Mine's, well, going. :p It's been interesting. My favorite part of Tuesday was driving home from harp lesson. Techinally, Mom was driving. Our car smelled really fishy so I rolled down the window and stuck my head out the window-while we were blazing down the highway. It was fun UNTIL I tried to roll up the window....and it didn't roll up. Mom and I thought it was funny, though. It was also neato because on Tuesday after my harp lesson, there was this HUGE ring around the moon. My harp teacher, Julie, said it was supposed to mean there's going to be a weather change. Below is a picture (I found off the internet) that it kind of looked like. My week's been busy...started a Girl's Care Group with youth group, studying for the ACT, music, work, and school. I'm also in charge of music for the play so I'm trying to get that around as well. Hope you guys have a great week! :)