Teresa's Senior Prom

I had the privilege of meeting Teresa about a year and a half ago, and was shellshocked by her beauty then. The thing I think I love most about Teresa is that she is totally comfortable in her own skin. She never wears makeup, never really follows the latest fashion trends. She is just... HER. I wish more women could realize this at her age. She's a sweet, sweet soul, and so very wise. She's good at everything she does, and loves to make people smile. I loved taking her senior prom photo's! Here's why:

Backpack Love/MVE

My husband, Cody, teaches at a great school. He comes home every day and tells me something great that happened. He loves his job, and considers it a blessing to be there. Not to mention pretty much every student there is completely in love with "Mr.C!"
He co-teaches a 5th grade class, and does something called "Happy Helpers" where he lets the students decide what type of community outreach they want to do, then lets them plan it all, and then helps them execute it. In the fall, they make hundreds of handmade cards to pass out to the local nursing homes for the folks who have no families during the holidays. This spring, he told the kids about a need and a ministry called Backpack Love.
The ministry stuffs backpacks full of non-perishables and gives them to children on Fridays to feed their entire family for the weekend. The need was found when children would come to school on Mondays nearly famished, scarfing down their free meals. It was investigated and discovered that these children wouldn't have eaten for the entire weekend. So, Beau and his father Todd Robson (of Straight Street Revolution) helped to start this ministry to meet this incredibly large poverty need. Cody's 5th grade students ate up the opportunity to be able to help other kids their age. They decided to talk to the newspapers and radio stations to get the word out and raise food for this program. Then, Cody took the students to the warehouse to pack backpacks! I happened to be there to take a few actions shots. 

For more information about Backpack Love, you can go here.  

Good News At Noon

A few years ago, my husband (boyfriend at the time) and I had the opportunity to serve at a homeless shelter in Gainvesille, GA called Good News At Noon. They serve meals, they have a clinic, they share the gospel, they house the homeless. We first went to serve a lunch meal with Revolution Church on a very cold, very icy winter day. I believe it truly changed lives, and not necessarily the lives of those being fed, but those doing the feeding. I remember seeing a look on Cody's (boyfriend - now husband) face that I'll never forget. He was in love. He found himself lost in loving strangers, feeding the hungry, and knowing what it meant to serve someone other than himself. It was beautiful.

Now, we try to go every Thursday evening to pour up drinks, or pass out pencils for the daily quiz, or help in the kitchen, or just talk to people who may not have had anyone talk to them in a while. Here's a little fragment in time of Good News.

Frank Moore, Jr singing his little heart out

"I'll Fly Away."

"Beulah Land"

Mr. B's beautiful 90 year old hand, helping the people sing "Beulah Land".

My handsome hubby serving good old fashioned kool-aid. 

To pass the time... chess. :)

Oh, Willie. Our dear friend. A special, special man, who says he doesn't smile, and he doesnt take pictures.
Gotchya, Willie. =)

The Married Life!

Golly!! It's been quite the last 7 weeks!! 

The Married life! 

What a GREAT life! 

Today, Cody left me this card 

And I love what it says: "Hearts and flowers are beautiful, but what we have day in and day out while we're sharing life together is more beautiful still. I love our life together.. and I love you." 

That's got to be one of the best descriptions of hour our first two months of marriage have been. 

It's been fun, it's been an adventure, and we've fallen so deeply in love with each other since the day we said "I promise."
He reminds me, often, of the vows that he made to me.

Like the vow to always kiss me goodnight. 

or the vow to SHOW me that he loves me before he tells me. 

I have LOVED making a home with him. 

I have loved LIVING in that home with him. 

I've loved the routine, yet I've loved the spontaneity of the little surprises.

I've loved getting to know him. 

I've loved getting to spend time just BEING with him. 

I've loved getting to do married things like baking, and cleaning and watching TV with him. 

I've loved seeing the way he leads me.
The way he hangs curtains and pictures and puts things away and does the laundry and cooks...
It's just awesome.

I heard everyone tell me before we got married, that the first year would be the toughest.
Mind you, we still have 10 months left of that supposed, "toughest" year, but so far, it's been quite the opposite. We aren't, by any means, perfect, but I think what we've discovered has been there all along, and I think people just forget about it sometimes. 

Forgive. 

Talk. 

Have inside jokes.

PRAY.

There's so many little thing's I've learned just in the past two months, it's incredible.
I will say that I LOVE being married SO much more than dating, being BF/GF/ or even fiances. 

There's so much more freedom, and I also just love being with him!
I hate that I have to leave him every morning, but it makes weekends that much more exciting!

I love doing ministry with him. I love knowing that he is praying protection over me, us, our family, our future children, our home. I love that he prays, period! I love that he loves scripture. I love that he is so positive. I love that he is a natural teacher at heart. And father. He's going to make the best Daddy ever!

I just really enjoy him as a person. And i love being able to experience the intimacy in every aspect as husband and wife, best friends, lovers, help meets, prayer partners, accountability partners, everything.

I cannot wait to see where we will be next year this time, or 5 years this time, or 50 years this time. 

:) It's so exciting. 

Love love love hard

And now....

So, a month and 2 days after the big day...
A week after an incredible youth retreat where I was wrecked...
Ending a 21 day juice fast....

its so strange... I feel... Something I can't quite describe.
I'm not sad...
I'm not lonely...
I'm not unhappy...
I'm not upset...

Im in the wake of a years worth of planning for one huge perfect day.. And now its over. I think about our wedding day every day... Thats not an exaggeration either. I think about our incredible honey moon every day. I think about mission trips I've been on, every day. I think about leading people to Christ every day. I think about what my purpose is every day.
I think I have a holy discontent. I think that would be an appropriate description.
I feel like Theres such an urgency in my Spirit to be doing what I was specifically made for, and I'm not doing that. I mean I am loving people and myself, I am being obedient to God, I am serving, I am doing my due diligence.... But I feel like thats not quite it.
I feel like I'm sitting on talents and gifts that God has given me.
I feel like people are dying and I could be helping bring them back to life. I don't  want to be mistaken- I am So SO grateful for what I have and where God has me, but I almost feel guilty because I'm not making any forward progress to what I was created for.

I was created to create.
I was created to worship.
I was created for relationship.
I was created to see transformation.
I was created to build up.
I was created to go.
I was created to share.
I was created to love deeply.

Im sure I feel the same as millions of other people in corporate America... And christians in corporate America at that... Trapped by there curse of toiling and laboring for my food. Trapped by needing food to live. But I'm not really living when I'm toiling just to survive...

To be honest I feel like I'm not making a difference. Everyone wants to make a difference somehow. And I don't feel like I'm in a place where I'm doing that.. 

.......

The Beauty Of Surrender; What Faith Can Do

That is just a little idea of the amazing things that have been happening in my life.

If anyone remembers my last blog... it was about the debt i was in and couldnt get into school because my transcripts were being held, but also the way i wasnt worried because i knew God would take care of all of my needs according to His riches in Christ... thats what scripture says.. and i say I believe, dont I? Then I should live like it.

Well since that last blog..... my world has been stirred, shaken, rocked and rolled. All, of course, to reveal a better me and a closer relationship with Abba.
It would take me a day to write everything thats been going on, and what Ive learned, but I will mention a few.

I wrote last time that I knew the debt was a consequence for doing something I thought I wanted to do, and taking precious time away from what God wanted from my life to pursue another career. (I still love photography and I dont think ill ever stop) but that wasnt what God had specifically designed for this little life. There is always forgiveness, but that doesnt erase consequence. I still had to go through all that debt and all that turmoil and time I wish I would have been in school..

For the past several months, miraculous things have happened... in terms of pretty much every area of my life, from parts of my family- my mother completeing a TRI-ATHALON, to my personal finance -getting a new job and doubling my income,getting on good debt consolidation and repayment plans, and my debt at the Art Insitute being forgiven, to being abundantly blessed in terms of the wedding of my dreams, and so much more- to Codys and my relationship - to friendships that have grown and been revealed.... i mean really there is so much that I truly believe God has done because of the faith that I kept, the faithfulness I had in surrendering and throwing my hands up and saying "alright, Youve got this... I cant do it any more" and in leaving it there..

God has really been showing me what its like to be a Daddy's girl... a blessed-beyond-measure (instead of spoiled rotten) little baby girl. Ive never known what it was like to run up to a man and say "Daddy look what I did!" or "Daddy I need your help" or "Daddy I love you."

Until now.

Its such a beautiful thing. I look at Cody when he is with Children, and how he was born to be a Father, but more than that, he was born to be a Daddy. He was born to love like a Daddy loves, care and nurture and protect and provide and teach like a Daddy teaches: Gently, humbly, willingly, passionately, lovingly.
And the coolest thing is that the closer Cody gets to his Daddy, the more that all is revealed in him, because we all become like those we are closest to and spend the most time with, and we all have our parents blood pumping through our veins. When Cody made a decision yo take on the cross of Christ and walk beside Him and follow and believe, that was the day he was grafted in, adopted into the Family, became an heir to the Throne, and Christs blood began pumping through his veins, beating in and out of his heart, and he started becoming like his Daddy.

The closer Ive gotten to God, the more I have been learning to be LOVED by a Daddy.


And let me just tell you....Its the most exhilerating and incredible feeling to know and be sure of the fact that I am LOVED I am CHERISHED.. I am WANTED.... I am ADORED... I am PRECIOUS... I am SPECIAL... all because I was fearfully and wonderfully crafted... God the Artist took His time and put every piece of me together and didnt finish until He made a masterpiece, and for the first time, I looked in the mirror, and said "I love myself."


What a revelation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No matter the weight, no matter the flaws, no matter the mistakes, no matter the imperfections and the quirks...
I know there is someone so much bigger than me who loves me, and I am free in that. And it all happened when I gave up trying to be the god of my own life - making decisions, judging, condemning, trying to provide and deal with things..
When i stopped all that craziness and finally let God be God.... thats when It came.


Surrender is so beautiful. But we make it out to look "weak."
Faith is so simple,but we make it seem so hard.



Its loosening your grasp.

Trust.

Relax.

Breathe.

Liberate.

Live.

Let God be God.

Seriously Mysterious

nothing ever happens by accident. nothing. and when you realize that, its when you can (sortof) relax and let everything kind of just.... happen.. Now, we do have to make effort and do our part, and God will bless our efforts, but in reality... Everything we do, every word we say, every place we go, every mistake that's made... it's not an accident. Something is meant to happen because of that something that just happened...

Now, my wonderful fiance has recently learned about the difference of God's sovereign will and God's perfect will, and what he's discovered is that everything is under God's control, under God's umbrella... nothing is actually out of the will of God, just in one or the other.

Obedience... Radical obedience is what will lead us to being consumed by God's awesome, perfect will, which we all know (just sometimes don't obey) is the better..no, BEST thing for everyone. It's a complete win-win!!

Now.... selfishness... our humanity... our desire for what 'feels' good or what 'looks' good... that is how we fall into the abyss of God's sovereign will.
We are faced with little, mini "forks in the road" consistently, at almost every moment. Some are more serious than others, but we are always faced with them. And what we don't realize, is that at any given moment when we make the smallest, (selfish) choice, it could relate in something we see as awful.

For instance....(story time)


I came home from spending time in Northern Virginia studying theology, doing things I had a passion for - music, ministry, learning about God...
I came back from that period in my life, and decided that I didn't want to study theology any more, but I wanted to study art.. specifically, Photography, because it's something I liked doing, and I was good at it, and figured I may as well study it in school and eventually make a living out of it...

I got into the school, and ended up going to a school for all of.. ohhhh 3 months, and ended up not being able to go back the next quarter because all of my student loans, all of my grants and scholarships didn't equal the amount of money it cost for me to attend even the first quarter!! Therefore, I wasn't able to return until I was able to pay the 3-something thousand dollars to the school. I tried to get into two other schools, who needed all transcripts from all schools I went to, and the former school wouldn't release transcripts until the full amount of $ was payed. Needless to say, I took a break from school for a while until I could pay off that money... and what accrued over the next two years of time? You guessed it, student loans.

Now, I'm almost three months engaged, planning a wedding in 9 months that I'm paying for primarily by myself, getting back into school, and hopefully starting my career in ministry....and I found out I'm over $8,000.00 in the whole from defaulted student loans.



Sounds a bit overwhelming? Well it was for the first 24 hours....
then it started to sink in that maybe... just maybe.. possibly.... a small, selfish, prayerless decision under the umbrella of God's sovereign will, could have lead to that little bit of stress, that would launch me into my destiny, which finally falls under the umbrella of God's perfect will.

Who knows... this could be what needed to happen to push me into making albums and spreading God's love and praises through music throughout the state, country, world..
That could bring in some money to help me pay off loans and enter into this marriage debt free, and even put money into savings for other things God has for us.

Who knows.... This could be a means for me to rely COMPLETELY on the mercy of God to once again get me out of a mess so deep that if it weren't for HIS grace and HIS hand pulling me up, I'd be absolutely and inconceivably hopeless and helpless.


All I know is that I know that because of the little and seemingly insignificant decisions of deliberate disobedience I made a few years ago, I have been through what can be described as hell (circumstantially). Not necessarily as punishment, but because of cause and effect, I think. Because I did something dumb then, I reap the repercussions of it now. Like if a teenager knows she shouldn't have sex, but she does, and ends up with an STD or pregnant, an STD isn't punishment, and God knows a child isn't punishment.. it's just what happens.
Anyways, but I said all that to say this: All of the awful "effect" things that I've gone through in the past few years have led to so many greater things than I thought could have ever happened... Things that God has orchestrated the whole time.

Now, I'm not saying that it's "okay" for anyone (including myself) to go out and do whatever the heck I want to do at any given point, just because God's grace is so abundant and so... perfect....
But what I am saying, is to be deliberate about your decisions, words, actions.. Be prayerful. Don't be RELIGIOUS, but be in conversation with the one who already knows what's gonna happen. It's simple, really. All He wants is to hear your voice call His name. All you want is to have a good life, right?

Well once you realize that God's grace - His PERFECT will - is so amazing, so sweet, so loving... You can't help but to fall in love - not with the grace, but with the giver of the grace,and then you can't help but to converse with Him, and then you hear what He actually wants you to do in every situation, and you make the obedient decisions, thus effecting not only your life (making it a good one) but also effecting everyone's lives around you, which is the ACTUAL definition of all life: To know God and make Him known.

Hmm.. I think I just gave myself a revelation. Hah. Funny how just talking things out works out great sometimes.



What can I say... I've learned alot lately. Been through alot lately. Oh, and gained so much alot lately. (in terms of fulfillment and love in alot of aspects of my life.)


This is something that I know I need to remind myself of repeatedly, but its something that you may have never heard, or actually realized.


I hope God showed something to you through my blabbering... If not, I hope He will through something else, someone else, or Himself.


The way things work out... the way God's already worked everything out...

Seriously... it's mysterious. And wonderful.




Go make a difference.

Love someone. Love yourself.

:) <3