Honestly. . .

If college was a guy, I would have kicked him in the balls by now.

If college was a girl, I would leave a mean note and a bottle of Midol in her locker.

But as usual, the problem is me.

Not college.

Poor college, I blame everything on you.

How do you become motivated? How do you actually make yourself get off the couch and go write a simple two page paper? How do you stop wanting to quit every day?

(The question really is, "How do I?")

I have forgotten how.

You can stop worrying now. I did not fall of of the face of the Earth!

I have the same problem with blogging that I do with keeping a journal and a lot of other things in life: If I am not perfect at it and if I don't keep it updated, then I feel overwhelmed with all of the things that I think that I should talk about that have happened in my "absence" so I just put it off and never end up doing it.

Here are the major highlights:
1. I got married!
2. I got a job at Chick-fil-A!
3. We got a dog!
4. I totaled my car! (That exclamation point just wasn't as fun as the others. . . I was completely unharmed and no one else was involved, except for a light pole but it was unharmed as well.)

Each of those deserves a post or two each and hopefully I will write more about them, but for now I am just checking in because I want to get into the habit of blogging. I love to write. I just convince myself I don't have the time because I waste so much time doing pointless things, like checking Facebook five times a day even though nothing has changed. Anyway, my point is that you will be hearing more from me!

Here are some wedding pictures!


Awww!


I loved my hair. . . and that guy too!


See you soon!

Stressed

AD;LKFJAS;DLKFJASDL;KF

The above is an expression of how I currently feel.

It has very little to do with getting married in eight weeks either.

And regardless of how sarcastic that sounded, it wasn't.

I'm going to stop now before I sound like the negative kind of person I don't want to be.

This is where I am going to marry my best friend. It's going to spectacular and that is only the beginning!

An Interesting Observation

My dad loves TobyMac. Exactly how a fifty-four year old white male, who hates baggy pants and hats worn backward, came to be obsessed with this hip-hop artist is beyond me. This idiosyncrasy provided the opportunity for the perfect Father's Day present, however, because on June 19th Chris Tomlin and TobyMac stopped in Little Rock on their Hello Tonight tour. The concert was great. I loved it, every one else loved it, and, most importantly,Dad loved it. This post though is not about my dad, Father's Day, or even Christian music. It is about the adorable couple who sat in front of us.

They were probably in their late fifties and the man had white fluffy hair. They were both a little plump and seemingly normal people. When TobyMac and the band started to play some of the more up beat songs, the husband started dancing with his wife. He was getting pretty funky! He kept hugging her and holding her hands and moving his ready-for-retirement body. I didn't realize this until later, but the thing that most amazed me was that she was enjoying all of this. She wasn't embarrassed or telling him to leave her the heck alone. She was having as much fun as he was. This happened not just once or twice, but throughout the entire concert.

Since I was an objective bystander, not their child or youth group member, I found this to be intriguing rather than embarrassing. Here are these two people, probably after kids, financial issues, loss, and who knows what else, still obviously in love. Because they are both human I know that they have fought and screamed and hated each other, but they are still together. Their connection couldn't have been more obvious.

All my life and especially these last few weeks, I have observed the couples I know. I don't like this about their relationship. I don't want to do this. Shoot me if I end up like that. This couple though sparked the opposite response. I want what they have. I want to be head over heels in love after I have been married for twenty-five years. I want to have that much fun with my husband.

So whoever you two are and wherever you may be, I salute you!

Hmmm. . .

It is quite odd how some else's sin can cause you to regret your own past even more.

Finally!

I do not even know how to begin to describe how crazy wonderful my life has been since I last wrote.

This past month has gone by so fast.

I finished my first year of real college.
One year past since I graduated high school.
One year past since I was in a terrible wreck that ended a life.
I got a began and finished my first real job: an enumerator for the U.S. Census Bureau.
I felt depressed.
I felt alone.
Everything stressed me out.

As always, I made it through. It didn't kill me. Obviously. Jesus was right by my side. He was pulling me toward brighter days.

Oh yeah, I also got engaged.

Don't freak out. You read that right. I know, I know, the last ya'll knew I was flying solo. My goodness, things have changed though.

I will write again soon telling you all about this boy!

Sorry again...

Today was so busy I literally did not stop doing something until only about an hour ago. I can't promise that tomorrow will be any different, but an explanation will come sooner than later.

Dear reader,

I am sorry I haven't written in a while. Sometimes when I feel overwhelmed or depressed, I ignore things. Don't take it too personal, I also have been ignoring my laundry, my friends, my emotions, my responsibilities, and even God. It took a really rough day to break me. I will explain in a longer post tomorrow, after I make some apologies. I would write more now but I am an adult who has a meeting at nine o'clock tomorrow morning and this is a little past my bedtime.

Love,
Helen

Just in case

If there are any readers who regularly check this blog or to any one who just happens to be reading this, the reason my posting has been lacking is due to the fact that I got a job, I have finals this week, and I have some stressful decisions to make. I need prayer.

Some realizations

These realizations of mine are pretty basic, but I'm pretty much a complete idiot, so it takes me a long time to get things and as previously mentioned I forget things. Perhaps you can relate.

1.) God is bigger than my sin.
He can own my sin. He can pick it up, crumple it into a ball, throw it in the trash and not miss. He hates it. So while I think stupid things like, "Oh well, I will try to get over this on my own and then I will pray about it" or "I can't stop doing this so why do anything," I am turning away from my only hope because in reality, I alone can do nothing about my sin. I should be running to Him because He has chosen to forgive me and all my sin. He knows everything. He knows I am going to mess up. He loves me still. It is inconceivable and baffling, but it's True. By His power and grace, and not without time and persistence, I can and will overcome sin. I long for the day when my body will be made new and I won't have to come to Him time and time again saying, "Father, forgive me." There will be a day when I can no longer do anything but praise His name.

2.) Persistence
So last Sunday I went to church with my friend and we sang that old worship song we have all heard ten thousand million times, "You Are My All in All" and when we came to the part were it said:
Seeking You as a precious jewel,
Lord to give up I'd be a fool.
I realized, "Hey, that is so true and amazing. Why would I ever want to stop pursuing this love?" What is more amazing is that He doesn't give up on us. He seeks us and calls us to repentance daily.

3.) Repenting is difficult.
At the time it is much easier to wallow in sinful subsistence, but why in the heck would I want to do that? I don't know either, but I do.

"For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do --- this I keep on doing."

BUT

"But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Paul often likened the Christian life to a race. I kinda started running, which is really some fast walking with a little bit of jogging tossed in, and it is hard. My muscles burn and it gets hard to breathe. I want to quit before I even get started. I want to do the bare minimum rather than give it my all. Towards the end though, after I get through the shin splits and get into the music, I enjoy the exercise. I feel like I accomplished something. I even want to go at it again. It is all worth it.

Turning away from sin isn't easy. Giving things up isn't easy. Overcoming addictions isn't easy. There is pain involved. Failure and relapse will be a temptation if not a reality. But, oh, how it is worth it. He is worth anything and everything. And it's not like you're ever alone in this fight, Helen, so stop complaining and get on with living a life that shines with Him.

Ok, this was officially a rant, but a good rant.

Grrr...

Sometimes I hate myself, the attitudes I have, the thoughts I think, and the things I do.

Sometimes I think I don't hate them enough.

Good night.

New Header!!!

Like the new header? I lOVE it! This is mostly due to the fact that I designed it myself! To give credit where credit is due, I got the froggy image from http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ and the adorable typewriter is from shabbyblogs.com!

(P.S. I'm sorry for abusing my privilege to use exclamation marks, but I was really excited about this!)

And you think to yourself now I could be wrong,but I might have just stolen this scene from a song.

I haven't written poetry in forever. That makes me sad. I have heart scars and bad attitudes and a cold. Sometimes not knowing is better than knowing what is only a possibility and maybe just a childish dream. I haven't had my phone for three days now and I won't get it until tomorrow afternoon. I miss my phone more than I would like to admit, even though I use it more as an alarm clock than a device to communicate with people. My grandma is having a pacemaker put in tomorrow. I am wasting time right now. I have a paper due at 10:50 A.M. Thursday. It has to be six to eight pages. I hate writing papers. I tried to pick an interesting topic, but nothing interests me when I procrastinate. I even spent a lot of time calculating how bad I could do on the paper. If I didn't do the paper, the highest I could get in the class is a 75. If I make at least a 73 on the paper and make at least a 96 on the remaining tests, I can still get an A in the class. I don't like college. I don't like school. Actually, I am just complaining because I am lazy. I really love learning and reading and figuring things out and just knowing things. That, and the facts that I love kids and I am slightly off in the cranium, is why I want to be a teacher. I have a cold that makes me want to lay down in bed and not get back up. My nose is runny and my throat is sore and I still go to class. In high school I would have stayed home for like two days, but I am being a responsible adult because I know that in order to miss the days to go to Census training to become an enumerator, I have to have otherwise near perfect attendance. I used to hate typing. I can type well, but until recently I would much rather use a pen and pretty paper to vomit out words even if they were just as pointless as these. Now I am just taking up cyberspace. After I write the research paper mentioned above, I have to write one for my Introduction to Fiction class, which seems much less daunting because it isn't due for two more weeks. I ate way too many Sun Chips in the past two hours. Like probably half a bag. I want to go lay outside on the grass all alone and look up at the stars and dream dreams about how I think my life could be. Then I would go and be amazed at how it actually turned out.

Today this hit me in the face like a frying pan

Sometimes when I get bored in class I will doodle the "Love Chapter" from 1st Corinthians in fancy letters instead of taking notes. Today I started to do this and I didn't get past the first phrase. I wrote "Love is patient" and then the full reality of what that means at this point in my life hit me.



At that moment I realized exactly how true and beautiful and breath-taking that one little phrase is.

"Love is patient."

Love waits.

I am waiting. And I had always seen waiting as something you do before you get married, but until today I had never seen waiting as a part of being in love. In the act of waiting, I am also loving. It is beautiful to wait, to not give up. It is also difficult and sometimes heartbreaking, but "we can rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, and character produces hope. And hope doesn't disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us" (Romans 5:3-5).

And I can hope because love never fails.

(P.S. I went through a lot of traumatic stuff trying to move that picture from my phone to here, so don't judge its poor quality.)

Songs that make me cry. . .

1) Lead Me by Sanctus Real

I don't know why I identify so much with this song since I am not a husband or father. I guess it is because the chorus really describes my own desires to be loved and led.

Listen to it HERE.

2) Better Than a Hallelujah by Amy Grant

"You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." Psalm 51:16-17 (NIV)

Unfortunately, the times I realize my need and desire for God the most have been the times when I am at rock bottom. Why I sin until I get to this point baffles me. These times, however, are also my most sincere and earnest prayers. Better than most of my hallelujahs, sadly.

Listen to it HERE.

UGH

Trying to find something new is hard.
and expensive.
and heart wrenching.
Maybe I should just make another easy choice.
I don't really want to though.
But first I have to write those papers >:(
This isn't a poem.

My Spring Break. . .

I really like ellipses (. . .)

Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same. . .

If I fail out of college, it will be because I procrastinate these two research papers. . .

I have done nothing over spring break. Once I went for a walk, went to a movie, cleaned the entire kitchen, and had a picnic, but really I haven't done anything productive I need to do, like work on those stupid papers. . .

Just thought you would like to know!

I don't understand it all. . .

Tonight I fell to my face on my bedroom floor
And found myself in the throne room of God.
I am wicked and evil, shame is upon me once again.
I am dirty inside. I am unclean. I am nothing.
Yet here I am standing before the One who is everything.
You are everything that is lovely and true and praiseworthy.
Everything I am not, the antithesis of me.
Yet here I am.
I do not deserve to be here. I didn’t come here on my own.
I was called here.
The God of the Universe does not need me.
He is perfect, lacking nothing.
Yet here I am, standing before Him, trying to hide out of shame.
I don’t want to be here exactly;
I want to cover up my vileness, not have it exposed.
Why am I here?
This doesn’t make sense.
I am wanted?
Impossible. Simply ludicrous. Are you insane?
Could it be? Really?
I am wanted?
I didn’t do anything to be wanted.
I did everything that would make me undesirable.
Yet here I am and I have not been struck down, although I deserve much worse.
What?
I am wanted? I am loved? I am forgiven? You aren’t giving up on me?
How?
Where did all of my dirt and filth go? Why am I not wearing my shame?
The only explanation:
Grace.
Undeserved, freely given.
Jesus loves me.

Hello, let me unload all that is on my mind on you!

So instead of some kind of introduction, my first post will be a rant. . .

I HATE COLLEGE! I cannot get any work done. I am so lazy. I have two research papers to write. One I haven't even got a topic for. The other has a rough draft due March 30th and I have only read one chapter of one book and I have six more books to read. Plus both of these papers are required to be longer than anything I have ever written! 12 pages? How am I supposed to say that much? I hate writing papers! There isn't really any other kind of work in these classes except tests and papers. But those two classes are my favorites! The others are terrible! They are completely boring and pointless. I could read the book, never go to a class, and know everything that the professor is going to say in class. Especially in Education and Technology. The unoriginality and lameness kills me inside. I don't really want to stay here after this semester. I would really like to move down the street to UCA, but then I would have to worry about where I would live because I wouldn't want to live in the dorms there and I don't really want to live at home and any other option would require me to get a job.

What I would really like to do is take a semester off. I am kind of one semester ahead because of the classes I took in high school, so it wouldn't put me off schedule. But then I would have to start paying off my student loans I had to take out because I was too stupid and proud to apply for the Arkansas Challenge Scholarship because I just knew I was going to get the Governor's Scholarship. So I would have to get a job and I haven't really had much luck finding one of those so far. But, oh, what I would give to run far away and work in a orphanage and teach them about Jesus and hold the babies that no one else will hold.

But even if I ever get to do that, it will be in the future and I am currently in the present which requires me to read books about the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII and find a topic for Introduction to Fiction which will require even more reading. And it's frustrating because I know once I actually get into doing the paper, I will somewhat enjoy it despite the pain and stress and afterward it will make me feel accomplished that I wrote such a paper.

So now I feel a little less stressed just because I got that all out.

Tonight I went to a study through the book "Lies Women Believe" by Nancy DeMoss a dear lady in my church is leading. Two main things stuck with me: 1. Even though you may not believe a certain lie, such as God is not always good, you may act like you do which means you really do believe it in your heart. 2. You may believe one thing today, but tomorrow you might forget that is the truth. The latter is particularly applicable to my life right now. You see, my boyfriend and I are taking a three and a half month break to evaluate whether or not we should be together. And I know that this is the right thing to do, except sometimes I forget that and I want the situation to be different. I know that I should trust God that in the end we will make the right decision, except sometimes I forget that and I freak myself out trying to figure out what in the world I am supposed to do. I know that I am supposed to be using this time to pray, study God's Word, and learn to completely trust Him for all I need, except sometimes I forget that and I end up stressed and distraught because I can't make everything perfect in my life. I know that God loves me and that whatever happens will bring Him glory and be best for me even if it is not what I planned, except sometimes I forget that and I want what I know and what is safe even if it is not God's will for me.

So I need to do a lot less forgetting and a lot more trusting the Truth I know.