My weekly highlight and odd day

Wow it has been a bit of a crazy week! I do love my Sundays though! Sundays for me are a time to wind down, a time to rest, a time to nap, a time to be refreshed, a time to catch up with friends and a time to just enjoy. I have enjoyed doing all of those things today and it was a well needed refreshment after a bit of a crazy week.

Highlight of the week: Thursday! My roommates and I went over to our friends house to watch The Office. We don't have cable or any channels at all at our house so we decided that we will have weekly times over there. Anyhow we watched The Office and laughed a lot... but that was just the beginning. Afterwards we decided to play Girl Talk! Which if you don't know is basically a game of truth or dare straight out the 80's. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. From Arianne walking around the room holding her ankles clucking like a chicken to Holly calling a boy to tell him a bedtime story to Theresa's painted nails and many Zit stickers (which you get if you don't answer) to my many phone calls. We laughed so hard! I was such a good night, so much fun! We then put in a movie and fell asleep. It was like we were 13 again and having a sleep over. Which are always the best!

Most odd day: Friday. Let me tell you the reasons why...

1) Arianne played at Starbucks which was really good. She did an amazing job! She even made me cry a little, twice. She wrote this one song that I love and that is so true of my heart right now. You should go listen to it here It's called She said He said. It speaks my heart right now. So I cried a little (big surprise!), and that was a bit odd since there were a lot people I barely knew there and some of people I work with... so that was a little odd.

2) I saw an old friend at the show. He was a very good friend of mine while I lived at Heartlight and we have lost touch over the past year and half or so. He has been struggling through some things and has pulled away and yet even after two years apart it was so good to see him. It was so good to hug him, it felt so normal, so comfortable, and it made me realize how much I miss him. Odd how someone can be such a big part of your life and then not be and yet it feels so familiar after the time apart

3) We got a call about halfway through the show from Theresa. She was playing softball with the church we've been going to. She called to tell us that she broke her leg and the ambulance was on the way to take her to the hospital. We all rode together to the show and therefore couldn't leave until after the show. I hated the fact that I couldn't do anything. I know how sweet it is to have friends at the hospital with you and she was there with all these random people she just met. I so wanted to be there with her. After the show Sarah and I did go up there, I stayed a few hours and then had to go home. My heart aches knowing that she is in so much pain and just having to sit in bed for a week. Odd how similar Theresa and I with some things and how we understand each other in such a sweet way. Odd that in the past month 2 out of the 6 close friends here have been in the hospital...

4) I had a bit of an anxiety attack after coming home from the hospital. I think that everything just came up. My life, my stress etc... My medical bills started being processed this week and I'm really not excited to start getting the bills. So far the grand total is $38,820! Oh how I praise the Lord that I have insurance!!! I was up all night sick and having a bit of an anxiety attack (which has been happening more and more lately...) Odd how I can feel so out of control of my emotions...

So anyhow there are a few of the days of my week. Hopefully I'll have exciting things to report this week! I should begin volunteering this week but I don't know what my work schedule looks like yet. I will keep you updated

My jumbled heart...

Ok so I know I just wrote a blog a few hours ago, but honestly that wasn't a real blog so I feel justified writting another one now. And besides I got a lot on my mind and heart right now.

I don't even really know where to begin. Honestly this is going to be very jumbled but I feel as though my thoughts are very jumbled right now. I feel as though the Lord is trying to teach me so much right now and honestly I'm a bit overwhelmed. I just returned from a night of worship at church. My cheeks are tear stained and I heart less burdened. I was able to sit with the Lord tonight and pour out my heart. I was able to say the things to Him that have been building up in my heart over the past few weeks. I was able to fall on my face and truely surrender. How silly I am to truely try to keep so much in my heart. To try to keep my sins, desires, hurts and frustrations hidden from the Lord.

So here is a glimpse into my heart...

Every year at this time I really begun to stuggle with Truth and I don't really know why. Every year about this time I begin to think about how messy my life is. How there is so much in my past that I am ashamed of, of the many times I have walked away from the Lord and made dumb decisions. I always begin to wonder if people really knew those things about me would they still love me? And am I even really worthy of love?!?! I continue to fear that I am still that person and I will never be the woman that God has called me to be. Ever since I was young I have been told that I am not worthy to be loved, That I will never amount to anything and I continue to believe those lies. I know it is silly because the people I have trusted the most and who know those dark things from my past are the people in my life who love me the most.

I often put on the mask of I'm ok, when I'm really hurting so deeply inside. I've had that mask on for the past few weeks. Here is my time to take it off. Here is the time to say I'm not ok, but because of my ability to say that, I know I will be ok. The Lord has so sweetly reached out His hand and is helping me out of this pit. I don't know how long it will take but I know that the only way out is to cling to Him. In that clinging He has put people into my life that I can share these burdens with, people who will encourage me in this journey. People I am so very thankful for!

I have been saying for the past week or so that I think God is out to get me, to draw me closer to Him. After tonight I know that is true... and He's got me. He keeps telling me the same thing over and over. Every talk I've heard and everytime I open my Bible I am reminded that He is good, He is soverign and that I need to believe that I am a new creation in Him. He wants me fully and completely surrendered to Him. But still I struggle... what does that look like?!?! How do I do that daily?!?! I still don't know the answers but I do know that I will be ok, I don't need to struggle alone.

I met the sister of a friend of mine last night. We interacted for maybe 5 minutes and today my friend told me that she said that I was the happiest person she had ever met. She had never met anyone with as much joyfulness or happiness. And earlier in the week a co-worker asked me how I can be so nice. She said she's never met anyone else who was truely and geniunly as nice as I was. As I was thinking about this today I was shocked. I feel like this has been a really hard week for me, I have hurt inside and yet the Lord still fills me with joy. May I continue to be filled with that joy and happiness that it overflows to those around me.

May the words of an old hymn resound in my heart in the days to come...

O to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love;
here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.

I've been tagged...

Seven Things I Plan (Desire) To Do Before I Die:
1. Travel overseas more! I've spent a summer in Brasil and L-O-V-E-D it! I plan on spending many more summers, spring break or whenever I have a break overseas. In fact I am praying about going to Thailand in the spring. My church (I'm excited that I can say those words!) is going over my spring break and I really want to go!
2. Hopefully get married. Although this is not in the in the foreseeable future I must confess this is a huge desire of my heart.
3. Have a house large enough that I can open it up to people that are struggling. I would love to take it teens who don't have anywhere else that they can go.
4. Finish my Masters in Social Work. I'm so excited to do what I desire to do (ie working with people and push them to a better place.) But I know that I must finish up with the schooling first. Weird to think that I almost be 30 before I finish...
5. Visit all 50 states. I'm over half way done but I haven't even ventured out to the west coast. Las Vegas is the furthest west I've been.
6. Love well! To have an influence in the lives of women as my mentors have had in my life. May I one day be a Jan Gregston or Sue Roise in someones life.
7. Have children. I don't know exactly what this will look like. I don't know if I will ever be able to have biological children for a few reasons... 1) refer back to question #2... First comes marriage, then come baby. 2) I have polycystic ovaries and therefore will have a hard time having children when that time comes (but I know God is way bigger than polyscystic ovaries and therefore and thing is possible!) But adaption can always be an option for me.

Seven Things I Can Do:
1. Journal with the best of them. I have been know to journal 38 pages in one day (Ahh post Heartlight days!)
2. Make a mean Caramel Macchiato. It's one of the perks on working st Starbucks.
3. Know things about people. I don't know why or how but I just have great intuition about people. I usually know when people are pregnant before they tell anyone. I was able to know when my girls were hiding something from me, and I often just know when something is going on with those close to me. I just know things... it's weird sometimes!
4. Perserve. If you know anything about me, you know that I have had some hard times and through all that I have learned how to perserve.
5. Buy/wear kids shoes. It's the perk of having tiny feet! I have been know to have pink light up barbie shoes (they were my fav!)
6. Cook. I do pride myself in being able to cook well. I really enjoy cooking for others and often don't get the chance. One of the things I look forwards to about having a family!
7. Crochet. I truly enjoy making and creating new things. It feels so good to complete something and see the finished product.

Seven Things I Can't Do:
1. Sing well. I enjoy to belt it out like the best of them... but you don't want to be around when I do because I am no good. I do have one friend who likes when I sing. In his words, "I love it when you sing because you are so bad and you know it, and yet you do it anyhow!" I wasn't really sure how to respond to that.
2. Take the antibiotic Cipro and not make a visit to the hospital.
3. Keep a plant alive. I do not have a green thumb. I kill everything green. I am working on this though. I bought a bamboo shoot and am hoping it makes it. I know that bamboo is almost impossible to kill... but I say almost cause I've done it in the past.
4. Understand why I'm the blacksheep of my family.
5. Be in the presence of tuna. The smell makes me sick. I just can't do it!
6. Wakeboard. I have tried and tried and tried and I just can't get up... it frustrates me SO much!
7. Live so far away from so many of the people I love and not miss them more and more everyday!

Seven Things That Attract Me to People:
1. Honesty
2. Love
3. Compassion
4. Sense of Humor
5. Realness
6. Joy
7. A good perfume or cologne :-)

Seven Things I Say Most: 1. I'm just a short kid
2. I love you!
3. Tricky... (Em are you still saying it?!?!)
4. Hi! Thanks for stopping at Starbucks, this is Jen, how are you doing today?
5. Can I interest you in a Pumpkin Spice Latte?
6. How was your day?
7. y'all

Seven Celebrity Crushes:
1. Matt Wertz (just to update ,I'm pretty sure he is going to propose when I go see his show on Oct. 12) Ahh.... if only dreams came true!
2. Matt Wertz
3. Matt Wertz
4. Matt Wertz
5. Matt Wertz
6. Matt Wertz
7. Matt Wertz

Seven People I am tagging:
1. Les (I''m with Emily on this one... so that she will start blogging)
2. Whoever
3. else
4. would
5. like
6. to!
7. Love ya!

A good day...

So I must say that I had a good day yesterday. In fact I would say it was one of the best days I have had in a REALLY long time. It was so simple and yet so good! Let me relive it with you...

We (as in Holly, and I) woke up and jumped in bed with Theresa where we just chatted for awhile. Then we got up and I made pancakes for breakfast (who knew Biscuit pancakes were so much better than the just add water type?!?!) We then got dressed and went to the bookstore for Holly to get some stuff for her class and for Theresa and I to pick out a Bible study to start together. We decided on Beth Moore's A Woman's heart. As we were checking out I saw two more books that I had been wanting to get (What's so amazing about grace? and Velvet Elvis) and they were only $5 each so I grabbed them. Then we left and got in the car to drive 45 minutes west of Fort Worth to Lake Mineral Wells. As we drove we rolled down the windows and turned up the music and just enjoyed the beautiful weather.

At Mineral Wells we rented Kayaks and spent the next 3 1/2 hours on the lake enjoying God's beauty and each other's company. I LOVED those 3 1/2 hours! We had some fun adventures, ie me flipping the kayak and Theresa and I trying to swim in to shore to flip it back over and when that didn't work, hanging on to Holly's Kayak while she tried to pull both of us along with our kayaks to shore! Finally a nice fisherman came to help us. It caused LOTS of laughs. My favorite part of the day was the conservations we had. It was so good to just be still and catch up with dear friends. To hear how their hearts are doing and to share my heart with them. It was good to talk about what God is doing in our lives and what He is trying to teach us. What we are struggling with and how we can encourage one another in those struggles. It was so good and it reminded how much I value true friendship like that!

When we got home we cooked hot dogs out on my new grill and ate Holly's famous Guacamole. We then showered and went to my Starbucks. We chatted with my coworkers for awhile, got our drinks and I spent the next couple of hours journaling and reading. It was so good. We then headed home exhausted from a day in the sun. Holly went straight to bed while Theresa stayed up and read for while longer. We then prayed together and then went to bed.

I was just a good day... Good to spend time with dear friends... Good to be in the midst of God's beautiful creation... Good to feel in the presence of God... Good to spend time hearing from God through prayer... Good to feel loved and to be in fellowship! I hope that I have more of these days in the near future!

To love well...

I feel like my mind and heart have been in a million different places over the past week. I am continuing to process through everything that has happened. I have realized how short life really is and how there are so many things that I put off until "tomorrow". Well I've decided to make today my tomorrow.

My roommate Holly and I were talking about love the other day. It is amazing how the slightest amount of love can change someones life. How one compliment can change someones day. And also how the lack of love can cause permanent damage and holes in one's heart. I have experienced both of these things, and I believe that through it I am beginning to learn how to love well.

One of the things I have realized is that I am not using my gifts and talents. I am not living out the desires of my heart. If someone were to ask me what I truely have a passion for I would answer working with people, especially younger women. For some reason I have the ability to love others and live in compassion for people. I love to walk alongside women and girls who are struggling. I love to serve others. As I look at my life currently people would not know this about me because I am so consumed in myself. This is where I want to change. I want to use the gifts and compassion the Lord has given me to help others.

So I have decided to volunteer at an after-school program in the inner-city. I will be going in and mentoring high school girls who just need someone to love them. I pray that I may step outside of myself and serve and love these young women!

I hope that when people look at my life they will say, "She loves well!"

Where I live...

I thought I would put up a few pics of my new home. Yes my room is very girly, but hey what can I say I'm a girl!

Can't wait for you to come visit! I love visitors!!

The story continues....

These last few weeks have been crazy for me, a lot has happened and I've realized that it's hard that so many people I love and care for are so far away from me right now. I feel like people don't know what is going on in my life and that makes me sad. I have been reading my best friend's blog for a few months now and I love knowing what is going on with her and so I thought I would take a number from her book and do the same. I don't know how well I am going to be about keeping up with it but I'm going to try.

For those of you who know me well know that my life could be a lifetime movie. Well these past three weeks will only add to the storyline. I got back to Texas a few weeks ago after visiting some dear friends in Arkansas. The visit did not go as expected due to the untimely death of one of their pets. I'm glad that I was there to be able to help in the little ways but it was a somber time. It was so good to be with loved ones for those few days though. I came back to Texas ready to start school and begin to get back to normal life. Within a week my bike mysteriously broke (the shop said it looked as though someone had run it over) and my car got broken into. Both of these things put me back financially but it was ok.

Then on August 27th I started my second semester at UTA. I decided I am going to really like my classes this semester. Then on Wednesday morning I woke up and had a great pain in my side. I could barely move. I knew I needed to go to the doctor's office. They told me I had an infection and but me on the antibiotic Cipro. I went home and sleep most of the day. On Thursday I continued to get worse. The pain was moving and I began to vomit (a lot!) I knew something was not right. At 7:00 that evening I went back to the clinic. They ran some test and found my white blood count to be at 17,400 (normal is between 10,000-12,000). They told me I needed to go to the ER right away. After 7 hours in the ER they admitted me. On Friday a handful of doctors came into see me. I was told that my Kidneys were going into renal failure, and they could not figure out why. I laid there in pain and listened to these doctors tell me they had no idea what to do. All kinds of scary words were being thrown around and I was beginning to become very scared.

My roommate Holly was there with me this whole day. I love and appreciate that about her... She helped me clean up each time I vomited and was just there to love me. I couldn't keep anything down and they decided they needed to but a tube down my throat. This is the most miserable thing I have ever experienced. The next few days are a blur. I was getting morphine shots ever 3 hours and was still hurting so badly. I wasn't allowed to eat anything expect for ice chips. It was no fun at all.

Luckily the doctors figured out what was wrong... I had an allergic reaction to the Cipro. This is a VERY uncommon reaction, I was told 1 in a million. The Cipro attacked my Kidneys and made them shut down. I just needed to wait it out. So after 6 days in the Hospital I was allowed to go home.

Since being home I have been able to process many things about my time in the hospital.
1) Even though I don't have a great family (they never once called to check-up on me after being told what happened) I have AMAZING friends! They are truly my family. I know that I am loved. (My best friend was even looking into how to donate a kidney to me if I needed on) These people are my family!

2) I was closer to death then I have ever been... I was scared and yet I know that only by the Lord's grace I am better today. My life is precious and I can not take it for granted.

3) It has been 9 years since I've spoken to my dad. If something would have happened to me in that hospital he would never have known, and I hate that! I spent the day yesterday trying to get in touch with my dad. My uncle is getting a message to him that I want the lines of communication opened again. This is a BIG step! I pray that the Lord would guide me in it.


So anyhow that is what has been going on these past few weeks. I am feeling SO much better and feel back to normal. I went back to school on Thursday and believe that I will be able to catch up in all my classes. I go back to work tomorrow and will hopefully get back to normal life.

I hope to be good about keeping this up to date. Maybe it will make me a little less homesick!