Take me there..

I have always wanted to do the following, so lets do it! 

1. Drive to the airport, sit on the top of the car and watch the airplanes take off and land.

2. Run through park sprinklers at night. 

3. Soapy, giant slip and slide.

4. Hike up Skyline. 

5. Drive the length of PCH, and visit every beach along the way.

6. Vegas turnaround trip. 

7. OC fair.

8. Warped Tour (August 22nd)

9. Watch the sunrise. 

10. Sleep in sleeping bags in the backyard. 

11. Camp on the beach. 

12. Learn how to play guitar.

13. Giant water gun fight.

14. All nighter, out on the town. 

15. Drive to a new city, walk around shopping centers and meet new people. 

16. Go to Mexico.

17. Make random videos of random things/people.

I will think of more things, and I will update this list.

But in the mean time, we've got 17 options :)

Life.

Is beautiful!

Can you feel it? 

I'm sitting outside right now, the temperature is wonderful, the breeze is lovely, it smells like BBQ off in the distance. My neighbors are playing basketball with friends in their backyard, Dakota is sitting on the floor chewing on some bark, and I'm in love. 

God is so great, He's given us so much, most of which we bypass. Like this chair I'm sitting on, or the fact that my BBQ Island has a plug on it so my laptop will stay alive for longer than 5 minutes, the wireless internet, the breeze so its not too hot, Pandora radio so I can drown out the sound of my neighbor's vulgar comments (=/). 

Its all beautiful, well, not the vulgarity, but you know what I'm talking about. I get the chance to sit and have time like this, in weather like this. 

And this is just a small part of life, just about an hour in my day, the first day I've ever done this. 

How could I have missed such beauty before? I love it. 

With EVERYTHING!

Generate tonight was AMAZING. Truly and wonderfully awesome. Not only Generate, but the entire night. The entire thing that was Generate, and everything that happened after, all of it connected to the same thing, all of it meaning the world to my relationship with God.

Pastor Tony Wood was talking about the core of a "passionate world changer" (the series that they are doing is called 3000 Passionate World Changers). The core is not anything you do. It is not the serving you do, it is not the tithing you do, it is not even the evangelizing you do, all those things are vital to christianity, but they are not the very core of your relationship with God. The core of your relationship with God is: realizing how big God really is. Which is something that we cannot grasp. Its something we will never understand, but it is something that will make all our problems fade away. God is huuge! He is all knowing, He is life itself, He is INFINITE! Everything we have, He gave to us. Everything we see, He made, everything that has ever happened to anyone ever, He did. "God exists in a tension between nowhere and everywhere" said Tony. He is everything, and we need to realize that.
God doesn't need you. He won't take your suggestions, He won't ask for your advice. He knows everything already, why would He need that? God loves you, sooo much, He sent his only son to DIE for you. HE DIED FOR YOU! Yah, thats huge, and its freaking great and I love it, I do. But do I embrace it, do I live like I owe him my life?

Answer: NO. And he made that blatantly obvious to me awhile ago, but I didn't catch it.

Ready for this? And, yeah, I even wrote this in my notes.
Everything that happened between my ex-boyfriend and I, all the bad, all the good, all of it. That is how I am living my relationship with God. Although I am not innocent little me in this situation, I am him. I am the one who hurt. I am the one who gave up. I am the one who brought the downfall. Now for our story: Not long after the novelty of the relationship wore off, he became quite vague with me. He spoke only when spoken to, he gave me one word answers to the simple "how was your day" conversation starting questions, hindering the ability to carry on conversation with him. He was all the sudden "too busy" to hang out with me. We went from hanging out everyday to seeing each other at church on Sundays. It got to the point where I couldn't handle it anymore. I was depressed for a week, and I decided that I wasn't going to live like that, I slept and ate too much and gained 10 pounds, which is big for me considering I don't retain weight for longer than 5 minutes. So I ended it, which made me more hurt because he didn't run after me, he didn't say "no, I will change, I'm sorry" he said "yeah, probably best" and left it at that. So I was depressed for another 2 weeks straight, I still have my moments and probably will for awhile. I don't understand why. Why did he stop talking to me, why did he not see that I was hurt, why doesn't he care.

And then it clicked.

That is exactly how I am treating God. When was the last time I read my bible without being told to turn to a certain verse during a service? When was the last time I sat alone with no distractions and talked to Him? When was the last time I spent any time with Him?
Its been too long. I should have known. I know how badly it felt to be treated that way. Why am I treating God that way? Where do I get off?
So I had my moment of feeling like a failure... Then the alter call, and the girl sitting next to me (someone i didn't know) committed her life to Christ! Like, obviously a ton of people do that every week, and I see them walk down to the front all the time, but never has the person been sharing an armrest with me! I was reminded of how forgiven I already was. Of how all He wanted was for me to say, "I'm sorry" and to change my ways (definitely a desire I can relate to). I was reminded in that moment about how strong God is. He doesn't give up, He never will, actually, He can't. He loves me so incredibly much, its just something He cannot even fathom doing. Then the band played the song "With Everything" with a whole drum line and all, it was great and it clicked again:

A relationship with God is a relationship with everything. A relationship that requires everything. A relationship that will give and has given, everything. A relationship to which I must give everything, especially now that I know how it feels to be in a relationship full of nothing.

After the service, I was out and about hanging out and talking with friends. A few times I was reminded of that past relationship, which, happens quite often, and brings me down every time, but I saw those reminders as simple hints to what I had just learned. They no longer made me confused and sad, but happy and somewhat..complete, for now I understand what that was all about. Life is not about any other person you encounter on this earth, its about God. Your relationship with him comes first, and if its not first, things will slowly unravel until you figure that out. (I sorta stole that idea from the book Captivating)
Tonight was an emotional roller coaster. The kind that you wait in line for forever and when you finally get on, it goes starts fast, and it ends even quicker. The kind that makes you want to throw up right after, but also the kind that you wait in line in fear not knowing what to expect, but when you get off, you have never felt so accomplished in your life, because you conquered it, and you've lived to tell.
:)

For The Best?

I keep feeling like I've screwed up. And I really wish I didn't. 

Everyone says it was for the better, but I keep feeling like i gave up. 

Like there was something I was supposed to be holding out for. 

Maybe something more, maybe something big. I often over think EVERYTHING. 

So this isn't really a surprise to me. 

But the over thinking thing usually doesn't last almost a month and a half.

So maybe God is telling me to look back, and to go back? 

NO!? 

It was a really painful experience, at the end. 

Wait, maybe cause it wasn't supposed to end? Ah. No. It was. 

But. Nah. Nevermind. 

It was more like "a really painful experience TOWARDS the end"

Have you ever felt like you have to redo something, or like you didn't do something right

or like this..at all?

Can I ever make up for that?

The past just never really seems to go away. Especially the parts that you want to leave the most. I think that is because those parts of your life have shaped so much of what you are today, no matter how hard or regrettable they were. Those feelings that randomly present themselves, all the times you reference back to it, all the people who ask you about it, its all part of the big process of learning from it and moving on. But thats what makes it so hard. 

All of my old friends are graduating tomorrow, I want to go, I want to be there to support them because, I still love them. They were a HUUUUGE part of my life. But they don't want me there. They don't want me to "suddenly" care so much about them. They're still a little mad that I "left" them, which, is understandable, but it gets in the way of my life. I wish I would have still been friends with them. But I love my friends now sooo much, maybe even more than them, only because they have loved me more than my old friends did, they're just generally more loving people, that is, of course all due to the fact that they know and follow Jesus. But I won't get into that. 

I want to talk to them, I want to tell them about all the things that have changed in my life, I want to find out all the things that have changed in theirs. I want to cry with them over the fact that our life is finally beginning, I want to know if they still have the same plans they had, I don't. I want to know how they are, how they were, and that I'm sorry. There are soooo many people I need to talk to. Sooo many people I left on bad terms, because I didn't know how to deal with my problems, so I ran away. Can I ever make up for that?