Slightly sentimental

Today is July 31st... in one week I will be 20.
20 sounds old. It truly isn't but it just feels like its going to be old.
No more "teen" at the end of my name.
In one year my driver's license turns around. In 10 years I will be 30.
In one year I can legally drink (although I won't...lol).
10 years ago, I was 10.
My friends are getting married right and left.
My lil sis is getting her driver's license.
I am going into my 4th year of college.
I must be old. ;)
No, really 20 is merely one step closer to heaven. Thats the coolest thought! Wow!
But, my prayer for 20 is that it will be a year that my light for Jesus shines even brighter and I pray that people around me will see the love and salvation of Christ!
Yay for being 20 in one week!

Musings of a child of God

Friends... I must write this out. God has been working in my heart and opening up my eyes to certain issues lately, and for that I am truly grateful. It has been painful, wonderful, and stretching. Sometimes I can't think anymore because my mind hurts. And so, in a feeble attempt to organize my thoughts, I thought I would write it all for you all to see. Think what you will, pray hard, and consider.

Through our own personal walks with Jesus we each grow and learn more about our Saviour. We are refined, and taught, and encouraged. But we are always learning.

Things change through life as we discover more about God's grace and love and also about how we need to let those qualities live through us and affect our relationships with others.

Just because we made mistakes in the past doesn't mean that we were horrible and awful and that that previous life should be forgotten. I think God created us to learn from the past and even amongst all the bad, there are still positive kernels in there. We just have to look. And sometimes hard.

Grace is not an excuse for sin, nor is it an excuse to act the way we want no matter what. Grace is a marvelous and undeserved gift from God that we are to use for His glory and His glory alone. When I think about the fact that God loves me unconditionally and no matter what I do, I am still His child, my brain starts spinning. But that amazing gift we have does not mean we live our way. Oh how it should motivate, inspire and will us to live for Jesus... to live only for His great name!

Does this all make sense? Am I rambling? Probably, but thats ok.
My last point... God is great, we are not, His plans are perfect, and ours are messed up. So how can we view our spiritual growth of the past as negative when it is all God's doing?? We don't live in a perfect world, hence we aren't perfect... our churches aren't perfect, and what we do isn't perfect. But we should strive to live for Jesus... for He is perfection.
I guess what I am trying to say is that I believe it is wrong to see our past as negative and bad and full of error. Truthfully it is full of errors that we made: the sin we committed... but what happens in our lives occurs through God's will and we must learn and grow from it but at the same time thank Him for His love.
I love my Savior and am so grateful for the undeserved grace He bestowed on little wretched me and I pray that my life will be one that shines brightly for Him.

Pain, Numbers, and Black Belts

This past weekend, my sister and I set off on an adventure of unknown proportions which delt with areas of life which were at that time unmapped. We came out of the experience with a large quantity of learned material, a renewed energy, sore bodies, and pages of notes. What was this experience that I speak so highly of? Well, how about I give you the long-ish version of that! ;)

On Friday morning, I woke up at the rather indecent hour of 4:30am and pulled on some clothes, grabbed a half-filled backpack and headed out the door. At 6:30am, a 15-passenger van pulled away from the karate school, filled with people headed for an instructor training conference approximately 5 hours south.

Now, I have to admit that I was rather dreading this long trip because truthfully I can tend to get rather grumpy on trips longer than 15 minutes. And so in my mind, how could a 5 hour trip be fun when there are 8 people in a van and you sit for that long?! Well, I was proven quite wrong... something of which I am happy for. The trip down turned into a laughter-filled, cookie happy, and hot drive, complete with martial arts fights along the way.
On a side note, no long-distance trip is complete without cell phones, texting, and many uses of cell phone cameras. Here are some pictures which prove my point as well as show that I myself and one of those "cell phone users".

Upon arrive at our destination, we all piled out of the car, and completed a quick tour of the martial arts school before we had a bite to eat.

The first seminar got off to a rather late start, but we all still got our mental and physical workouts for the day. Half of our group went to the marketing seminar and the other half went to the grappling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu seminar. I went to the marketing and at times felt like I did way back in pre-calc class... lost and desperately trying to keep up.

But as time wore on, I became used to the jargon and my notes were no longer merely writing down what the speaker said, but rather writing down the key points the speaker said, because I was beginning to understand what was key and what wasn't. We learned all about how to advertise and market and the difference between the two and how to better our schools and increase attendance. The seminar wrapped up with a speaker who shared numbers. I got lost from about minute 1 and never regained my footing, although I tried desperately. Let's just say I was a good actress at that point, pretending to look and puzzle over rows of meaningless numbers.

After the seminar we proceeded back to the hotel where we dropped off our things and then went for a walk to the nearby park where things just got better. It was now around 5pm and the day had been sweltering. We had all been having a blast, but the heat was rather oppressive. And so all of us partook in big snow cones, decked in gorgeous rainbow colors and gently situated in adorable plastic bowls. Then we had a good look around the park with its beautiful flowers, old buildings, and unique set up.

And yes, we even discovered the hidden talent of Eli, who can beat any models pose in his grace and charming nature! ;)

Half of our group went back to the school to watch a mass intro.

Mass intros are where a large group of people come for a first-time class and get trained for about 45 minutes and then the owners try to sign people up. It was a great experience and we all learned a lot.

By the time we got back to the hotel, it was 8pm, and to say we were all hungry was an understatement. And so, we all headed off on foot to find seafood. We settled upon a restaurant and more priceless memories ensued.

For me, the cool part was being able to look across the river and see Oregon. And no, we never crossed the state line, although I wanted too!

After a wonderful meal, we ventured back to the hotel, practiced stick fighting, swam, and then played games and talked. For young people, I believe it is quite impressive that we quit our activies and went to sleep before midnight!

The next morning dawned beautiful and after a hearty breakfast complete with pancakes that came fresh out of a machine... we packed up the van and headed out. But I am rushing my story. These follow pictures only begin to touch on the vast array of personality, sense of humor, and memories over the weekend.

This is love... amongst boys. :)

And this my friends is a 12 year old who is exhausted because he only had 6 1/2 hours. Poor kid, he doesn't know whats coming to him!

These are awesome people and our most awesome instructor (man next to Melissa).

And these two pictures show the humor and toughness of some great people! Don't mind Gary's smile... he is tougher than you think! Never mess with these people!

Back to my story... Day 2 was great. Day 2 hurt. Day 2 was my most miserable and sweaty day ever. Day 2 almost killed me.

Day 2 I participated in the physical training portion. What I thought would be good to learn proved exactly that, but in no way that I expected. After 5 minutes of training I began to wonder if I was nuts, and after 10 minutes I began to wonder it everyone was nuts. By 15 minutes, my only thought was trying to do what was being asked. And so the next hour passed! By the end, I was literally soaked with sweat. The mats beneath me were wet. There was not a dry person on the mat (and there were 55 people). I no longer felt a difference between the room full of black belts and myself. We all hurt, were sweaty, and realized there were tons of things we needed to do for our fitness level and that of our students.

After a short lunch break, we commenced more of the same. A total of 4 hours of constant sweat, burning muscles, and a yelling voice, contributed to the hardest and most rewarding of physical "boot camps".

Even now my ribs hurt from the push-ups and random exercises we did.

Around 5:30 we began the long trek home along with 3 additional passengers. That trip was much different that the trip down, but it still had its memories.

Like this one:

Melissa fell asleep, and then moved onto Jason's shoulder without realizing it. Poor guy. A sore shoulder for him and 45 minutes later, she woke up... rather mortified and tired.

And long rides do something to you... so I took pics. Here is a familiar sight...

And here is Mt. Rainer!

And even through the soreness I could not resist a picture of the cute owl at the mall!

What a trip! What memories! What pain!

But what great friends to do it with! You have never felt safer, than when you travel with a van full of black belts!