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! :)

Daniel Fast

My family and I are doing something called the Daniel Fast, which is basically a fast from diary, yeast, sugar, and meats. Basically we've been eating fruits and vegetables. Today is our second day of doing it. It definitely takes getting used to. For instance, at Subway I get to have a free sandwich everytime I work. But now I can't! I can't even have chips or delicious cookies. So now I just eat salads after working. I also biked to work today which made me feel especially healthy. The Daniel Fast though is cool. I would recommend it. It's nice to know the food you eat is actually good for you! Such a great feeling! Anyways, today we tried smoothies, which were alright.

Before...

Yummm.....

The finished product

Music :)

I tried to upload one of my piano videos on my blog, but it failed miserably and was super slow so I decided to attach a link to youtube of me playing. The first one is a song I played for my piano recital...and the second one is an original song I composed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGPSeMCjwSE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tEh9TjD9Nw&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL