7

I've started reading a book called 7: an experimental mutiny of excess, by Jen Hatmaker. The back reads: “7 is the true story of how Jen took seven months, identified seven areas of excess, and made seven simple choices to fight back….So what’s the payoff from living a deeply reduced life? It’s the discover of a greatly increased God- a call toward Christ-like simplicity and generosity.”

So far, the above quote is the thing that has hit me the hardest. I can't have authentic communion with Jesus while mired in the trappings He begged me to avoid. 

I overindulge in the world: food and media being the most time, life, and energy consuming. 

As I read this book, I plan to prayerfully commit. in my own way, to a fast of sorts.... a way of getting me out of my complacent comfort and make room for the Holy Spirit to move in my life. I'm desperate for the Holy Spirit, for communion with Jesus, for the living water. 

I can't wait to read more.

I'll keep you posted.

pinterest-inspired wedding.

My good friends Haley and Jody got married this morning, and it could not have been any more beautiful!

I instagram'd the entire event. Shocker. Here are a few of my favorites...

Wander this Weekend

Here's the lot this weekend... enjoy wandering!

image from design is mine

+ Easy Iced Coffee if you're in a crunch - wish I liked coffee enough to try this.
+ A word to the beauty product obsessed
+ If you are waiting for Mr. Darcy...
+ A word on Psalm 31 from Life Blessons
+ Red interior inspiration - such a great color!

I have my roommate's wedding to go to this morning. I'm sure a post about it will wind up on here.
Best wishes for a great second day of June!

two things on a thursday & hello june!

It's the last day of May!

{done by yours truly}

Two things have been on my mind today:
1. I don't think the human race with get used to time passing as quickly as it does.

and 

2. I think a lesson I will constantly be learning until I'm old and grey is this: You will never realize the gravity of your gratitude towards something or someone until things are different or a particular person isn't in your life anymore. 


It's the day before the month of June in the year 2012. June in the year that I celebrated my first two decades of life, June in the year my sophomore year ended and my junior year will begin, June in the year my sister begins her last year of high school...

June 2012... in a year of change and growth.

June for me will include:
+ my roommate's wedding
+ finishing my ceramics class
+ hopefully being able to start biking again
+ getting out of the boot!
+ another good friend's wedding
+ finishing The Hawk and the Dove trilogy
+ leaving Statesboro and heading back home for the rest of the summer
+ designing a friend's 'save the dates'

Busy month but simply enjoyable all the same. I think it all depends on how you look at it, how you walk in it... either let life overwhelm you or take one moment at a time.

Time is a marvel in our lives. Sometimes we want it to inch, sometimes we want it to sprint.

Food for thought, I guess.
I know I've been thinking a great deal lately about how I live, how I look at life, and how I invest in my life.

"If we only have the will to walk, 

then God is pleased with our stumbles." 

CS Lewis

monumental moment: frozen yogurt.

Tonight I tried frozen yogurt for the first time! Consensus? It wasn't my favorite. Probably the fact my sweet tooth isn't large, and I'm lactose intolerant and already am not a fan of normal yogurt. But the evening was fun, and now I can finally say I tried it!

Anyone have a favorite flavor or topping?

singleness as a gift.

taken by me

Besides "going out" with one of my best guy friends in the 8th grade, and a two-year relationship with a great guy, I've been single all my life. For purposes of this post, I'll say this: after I experienced a good, committed relationship, I've been single for 16 months (to be exact), and it's been OKAY. I'm not the girl who has to be in a relationship, or even the girl who has to be talking to a guy. I knew true contentment.

But, being the creature God created me to be, a woman, of course I think about it: the relationship with the man God has chosen for me to spend my life with. I mean, what single girl doesn't think about that? In those months following my first 'serious' relationship's breakup, I was called to be content in single-hood, but I've learned through certain instances that I don't have to necessarily be content forever. God created me with a desire to love a man, the man He has designed me for. And that it is okay to desire that, but to remember that it should never take a higher place in my life than God and my faith holds.

Following me still?

So. I'm in a season of life where I'm back to praying about that man God has for me, probably everyday. Who he is, where he is, who his friends are, what he likes to do on Saturday mornings, how he loves Jesus. Then I pray for my own heart: patience and faith. God's timing is perfect, and I believe that with my whole heart, but sometimes a girl needs to be encouraged... and a little inspired.

Elisabeth Elliot has been single, married three times, and widowed twice. She says in her book Let Me Be a Woman, after spending more than forty-one years single, that she learned singleness is a gift. 

"Not one I would choose. Not one many woman would choose. But we do not choose gifts, remember? We are given them by a divine Giver who knows the end from the beginning, and wants above all else to give us the gift of Himself. It is within the sphere of the circumstances He chooses for us--single, married, widowed--that we receive Him. It is there and nowhere else that He makes Himself known to us. It is there we are allowed to serve Him."

We do not choose gifts... we are given them by a divine Giver who knows the end from the beginning, and wants above all else to give us the gift of Himself. He is the end all, He is life and how we come to be fully alive on this Earth. 

So this is what I say, what I'll cling to:

The life of faith is lived one day at a time, and it has to be lived--not always looked forward to as though the "real" living were around the next corner. It is today for which we are responsible. God still owns tomorrow.