Beautiful Realization

So over the weekend, something so simple yet incredibly deep became clear to me. Being one with such a romantic heart, I can spend forever searching for a true love who will genuinely love me, care for me, and help me grow in my faith. But in reality? I've already found my true love. Jesus Christ, my best friend, my savior, my true love.

It's absolutely amazing to me how I grew up learning about God and how deep His love truly is, but I personally never realized just how deep His love is until I began really yearning to see for myself. Being surrounded by all these exceptional people here at CSU has been so divine in the sense that each and every one of my friends inspire me to be a better person. Back in my home town, I never felt this. But here, my friends truly want to grow in their faith, and it's so breathtaking for me to sit back and see just how great my God is!

I love the secrets that are shared between Jesus and I! The way I can smile at something so simple, knowing that my best friend is sharing in the smile with me. I love dancing like a fool, singing my heart out, and just resting in my Lord's presence! I have this song that I absolutely love called Way Beyond Myself by the Newsboys (if you haven't heard it before, listen to it!) So anyway, at one point in the song, the lyrics say, "Like the wind that moves the leaves, Lord, You move me to my knees..." So awhile ago as I was walking to my class and listening to my iPod, this song was playing and I was quietly singing along. When those lyrics came up I looked around and sure enough, all the leaves were moving back and forth with the wind. I couldn't help but smile for a good...at least ten minutes! That is a perfect example of how the small things are truly beautiful! It's so easy to take things fore granted which is really sad if you think about it. That's why I'm going to strive to give thanks to the Lord so much more than I do now. When I was a freshman in high school, my best friend at the time helped me stay grounded in the Lord so much that I can remember an exact moment as I was walking over the Ag shop and my mom's favorite type of bird flew by me. I remember how overjoyed I was by this simple bird that I began skipping, smiling, and praising God over and over in my heart! Unfortunately, when my friend and I drifted apart, so did much of my faith in God. More than anything I yearn to find it again. I want to be as thankful as I was then. It may be easy to say I'm going to be more thankful, but the point I'm trying to make is that I want to mean it. Mean it with all my heart.

This past weekend brought me to my knees in awe of my Lord and Savior. I yearn to be beautiful and loved, and it can be much too easy to let my troubles and tribulations tear me down. But God blessed me immensely this weekend as I was reminded that I do have a purpose being here as a beautiful daughter of God. For all the times I feel worthless or not pretty, those moments are times for me to just grow closer with God. It can go one of two ways. One: I can take it to heart and really doubt all that I've been told otherwise by my best friend. Or two: I can let Jesus wrap His arms around me, wipe away my tears, and love me unconditionally. It's so incredibly hard to go with that second choice, but how would I possibly get closer to God if I didn't have these hard times to really rely on Him?

I am just so blessed. I am being romanced more and more each day by the Lord, and it is incredibly hard! Here's a challenge for anyone reading this blog...I challenge you to fall in love with God. Not just tell Him you love him each day, or pray to Him once every day...but fall head over heels in love. I guarantee it will be painful, exhausting, and you may just want to give up. But I can also guarantee that it is the most beautiful gift that anyone can possibly imagine of encountering.

Jesus Christ, You are and always will be the love of my life. Thank you for my family and friends that lead me closer to you each day. Thank you, thank you, thank you! You've captured my heart completely and I won't let you go as I have in the past. I am yours forever, and I've come to the beautiful realization that I will be more than content loving You for the rest of my life and falling more in love with You every single second of my life. I love You.

"Hold me, pull me just a little bit closer. I don't wanna lose this moment. Your love has covered me and know I can't get over you..." - Can't Get Over You by Anthem Lights (listen to it!)

His will be done =)

Hello to anyone and everyone reading this right now! I'm pretty excited to have created this blog! Being a freshman in college it can be very hard adjusting and let me tell you, I was definitely way nervous. I was freaking out that'd I'd be crazy homesick like right away. But before I jump into the craziness of starting college here at CSU, I wanted to clarify the purpose of my creating a blog. At first I thought, yea this would be a great way to keep my sisters in tune with my life and all that's happening right? Well yes, that's definitely true. But even more so I want to take this opportunity to inspire others to open their eyes and hearts to all of God's amazingly beautiful blessings in disguise. I don't know about anyone else, but I've definitely gone through some crazy hard times in which it's been hard to see how anything could be beautiful. Thankfully God reminds me that the truth of the matter is that we are surrounded by much more beauty than we could ever imagine! It's just a matter of truly opening our eyes and hearts to all the blessings around us every single day. I don't want to just write on here to tell stories. My hope is that these stories will be a reminder of God's never-ending love for us.

Well on that note, let me give you a quick run down of adjusting to being away from family and living independently. When my parents and sister dropped me off, I was miserable. You can ask any one of them and they'd be able to tell you how upset I was. My family is my everything so the last thing I wanted to do was be away from them. I was trying to prepare myself for feeling very, very alone. One of my friends had given me some great advice that I should be slow and steady about picking my friends at college. He said that it'd be worth a few lonely nights to wait for the right friends. I kept that advice close to my heart and I prayed that I would be strong enough to face the lonely nights and not get caught up with people that wouldn't build me up in my faith. Well that very first weekend of being at college, I was a mess. I just wanted to cry all the time! Thankfully my oldest sister who lives in Denver was able to come up and visit me that first weekend. When she left on that Sunday, I felt completely lost again. I feel like I'm rambling right now though so I'm going to cut this shorter. Basically, I went to church that evening, which of course was just beautiful. Following mass they served dinner and I met some people at the table I sat at. They all finished eating rather fast though, and I ended up sitting there by myself for a little while. Looking around, all the other tables were packed full. So I decided to just head back to campus. Well, God had me wait there just long enough because not long after I got up to leave I was invited to a bonfire following dinner over at the FOCUS guys house. I cannot describe how blessed I was in that moment. I may sound incredibly pathetic right now, but because God allowed the opportunity for me to meet new people at that bonfire, I met some of the most amazing people I've ever known.

You'll definitely be hearing more about these wonderful people in my later blogs, but I'm going to actually try and get some homework down now. So I'll save that for later. =) I can't help but smile when I think about my experiences here at CSU so far. God is just too amazing to truly understand His ways. It's just so beautiful to think about! Thank you God...

"In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." 1 Thessalonians 5:18