New Year? New Everything.

Everyone does a "New Year's Resolution" - I'm here to do a New Year Revolution.

I'm getting a little tired of feeling the same way about myself, which isn't all that great to begin with. I'm tired of saying I'll do things that I want to do with my life but not actually doing them.  I am going to learn to play the guitar, and I'm going to be good at it. I am going to get straight As this semester because I can. I'm going to change someone's life just by loving them like Jesus.

Why should I expect anything less of myself than what I can do? Push myself to my limits, and then push myself more. Limits are for those who can't see past their own inabilities. I can't do some things, but who cares? I have a bad back, weak joints, and I'm severely anemic. I'm going to give blood, run a couple 5Ks, and be a yoga BEAST this year. I want to live my life as a testament to say there isn't anything you can't do, no matter what's wrong with you.

2010 has been interesting to say the least. I finished my freshmen year of college, I went to summer camp for the first time (as a counselor), I got baptized, I made incredible friends, I helped put together and run fund raisers for incredible organizations, I lost a friend to murder, and I've laughed more-cried more-loved more this year than most of the others in my life. 2010 served me well.

But 2011? Oh it will be amazing. Here's to what's bound to be an amazing year.

until next year(:

Friend. Friends. Friendship. Love.

Everyone says how thankful they are for the people in their lives, and I take my time to do so for everyone in my life. It is too important for me to tell everyone I love them, then to let time pass and they never know. 

There was a time when I looked up to someone so much, but never had the guts to tell her until it was far too late. It was high school, and she is a year younger than I am, I felt that it would have been odd and random for me to tell a girl with no inhibitions that I admired that simple fact. Oh how wrong I was. 

Christmas day will be the 10 month anniversary of her death, and there are no words to explain how much I wish I could go back in time and walk up to her in the quad and tell her that I loved how free she was. I want to be more like her, and everyday I strive my hardest to do just that. Everyone says "Oh, she knows." "She can hear you, she knows how much she meant to you." And all that is fine and dandy, but the only prayer I have is that I touched her life as much as she touched mine. 

To my fallen angel, I miss you and I love you and one day I'll get the chance to tell you face to face how much you changed my life. We will change the world.

With all that said, I want to tell everyone of my friends reading this at this very moment, it's a lot of rambles but listen closely.

I have found that without each and every one of you I wouldn't be where I am. I have some of the best roommates, best dorm of girls, a devo group that brings me closer to God every day, amazing co-workers, res life blows my mind, a group of guy friends whom I'm beyond lucky to have, and even 2400 miles away I have some pretty amazing people to visit and love.

Everyday I tell people "You're the love of my life." "I'm madly in love with you." or even a simple "I love you." And everyday, in every scenario I mean it to everyone. I've found the secret to living life to the fullest, it is to love everyone as much as possible and tell them every chance you get. There is nothing that makes you feel more alive than love.

until next time (:

love from the Great Lover to us

Do you ever get lost in a song? Hear the lyrics, and feel the rhythm and think "I am moved". The Great Love Story - Jimmy Needham has moved me.

Although Jimmy Needham is a more Christian author, and although I am a Christian, it is important to understand the truth behind the words he sings in the song. The rhythm, lyrics, and emotion Needham puts into this work takes my breath away in more ways than one.

The first lines get your heart pounding because they make you question your walk with the Lord. "Where do you hide? Where do you go? Why are you running from Me?" I don't spend the majority of my time asking myself why I am not synced with God when I have my off days. I don't think that that is the reason the majority of the time, in fact, I don't realize that that is the reason all of the time. But it is the reason.

Why do I hide, and where do I go, and why on earth would I run from God? At times I run because I don't think consciously towards God during my day. I hide because I think I can handle my problems on my own. I go to places that I think will fullfill me. Ironically, those places don't fill me, God can handle all my problems, and my day should be towards God all the time.

The moral of the story is that God has created and is the great love story, God loves unbendingly and truthfully without letting go of any of us, whether we return the love or not. Just because you may not believe, doesn't mean the Creator does not love you. Believe it when I say He is just waiting for your arms to open, and your heart to cry out. 

The Great Love Story cries out to God in the greatest ways, and when I'm having a rough day and I'm not focusing on the Lord, I listen to it and it brings me back.

To you, world, check it out-and if you're not already on the bandwagon, jump on with me - God's pretty great.

To you, Jimmy, thank you thank you thank you.

until next time (:

A Letter to the Beauties of the World

I'll be the first one to tell you that my self esteem level is relatively a 2 or 3 on a good day, if we're scaling from 1-20, but something that bothers me the most in the world is hearing a beautiful girl think of herself as anything less than a perfect creation of God. 

The further is a letter to the woman of the world, man or woman read it for what it is, not for what you think it might be.

Dear Beautiful,

Yes, I'm talking to you. Why would you assume differently? What is it like for you to wake up every day and decide with one look in the mirror how you will feel about the person you are. Let me paint a picture for you and you think of how it applies to who you are. Wake up, roll out of bed, check the mirror and see bed head, running make up, possibly a bit of drool, and barely open eyes. Let me tell you something, no one looks good when they first wake up. Sure you've seen movies in which women roll out of bed and immediately go about there day. news flash: hair and make up teams are on stand by. MOVIES ARE NOT REAL LIFE.

You don't have to believe what I have to say next, but read through it anyway, read through and then read through one more time, hopefully something will stick.

God made mankind in the image of himself, mankind includes women (just for reference) and here is where I believe every woman is perfect. You don't have to believe in God to know the normaly conversation about Him is that He is the only perfect being, and in being so all of his Creation is perfect. Guess what ladies, we are part of His Creation! So we are perfect in the eyes of the Lord, but maybe not in the eyes of the world.

A smart man once said in a convenient facebook status, 

"Women's standard of beauty has changed as a result of advertising. Skimpy clothes, extenuated curves, artificial definition with make up, etc. However this standard is only validated because men accept it as beautiful. Men, a woman's value is not found in her beauty, or artificial beauty, but in her heart."  I couldn't have said it any better than he did, because every word is true. Our beauty, ladies, is found where men must search-our hearts. Don't validate yourselves with men or skimpy clothing, or new shoes, new hair, or anything unimportant, validate yourselves with YOURSELVES. God helps too!

So to you, the woman who looks down on herself for not being pretty enough, skinny enough, funny, or smart enough know that you are enough. You are more than enough. You are overflowing with ENOUGH. 

Challenge : I don't normally do this at the end of my blogs, but I feel like it's important to do such a thing. TO THE WOMEN: take a marker or lipstick, or something and write "you are beautiful" on your mirror that you look into every morning. Take it in steps, at first just look at it, read it in your head every morning. Then start to say it to yourself until you believe, and once you do? Continue that and spread your beauty!

TO THE MEN: Take time out of your day and find at least one girl a day (or more!) and tell her she is beautiful and then tell her why. Don't do it just to get one girl a day in for your quota, do it because you truly believe she is beautiful. And if you can't find one...maybe you should change the way you look at women.

All of you are beautiful and a perfect portion of God's Creation. Know it. Learn it. Love it.

Sincerely, 

A Struggling Beauty

until next time (:

Support for you from You

Many people fear going to funerals, just that many don't like them because they are too sad or too difficult to handle. Today, my school was courageous and banned together for a fellow classmate - in this I was moved. 

This past friday a friend of mine, let's call her B, her mother passed away from a five year long battle against a brain cancer. B is a very stable part of our society here at school and she means the world to all of us. So when we heard that her mom's suffering had ended and she was gone, we began to pray - cry - and surround B with everything we had. 

Now my school, being a religious environment, it seems sort of natural (one would assume) for us to come together like that, but not always. We are an amazing family together and we do always come together in ways that most other schools would not but today was amazing. Myself and a few friends stepped into the church where the funeral was to be held and we saw droves of students that went to our school, all in support of B. Had they ever met her mother? No, but it didn't seem to matter to any of them. The only thing that ever mattered in their minds was that B understood how much she and her family are loved by our community. 

I am proud to say I go to my school, and even more so to say that I belong to a group of friends and a student body that moves together to raise the spirits and hopes of our down trodden fellow students. B will get better, she will survive and be strong on her own, but with our help she can grow even stronger. 

To you, B, I love you and know that whatever it is that is taking place in your spirit that it will pass and we are all here to help it do just that. Remember your mom because she is still there, as a memory and as a love that transcends death.

until next time. (:

The Golden Two Rules

I'm big on promises. I firmly believe in them, and breaking pinkies is the consequence to the breaking of a serious promise.

I suppose I came about my sincere belief in promises when people started breaking the ones they would make to me. It became a common occurrence and I thought nothing of it for a while besides the frustrating pain that came along. Breaking a promise was like slicing day old bread with a knife made of air, the bread cutting was normal, the knife made of air made it painfully difficult to get through.

Then I contemplated for a while the fact that promises get broken everyday around the world, take wedding vows for instance. Many people, on their wedding day, make numerous promises - some even rather outlandish. "I promise to never get angry at you over the small things." Let's be honest, I've never seen a married couple who doesn't fight every once in a while about the toilet seat angle.  I consider that a small thing, news flash to that couple - you just broke a promise. "I promise to never stop loving you." Dear married men, has your wife ever said "I hate you" during a pregnancy or even special visit from aunt flow? Exactly. That is a broken promise.

I may be taking it to the extreme, but a promise is an extreme thing. It's like telling someone you love them, or even that you hate them, there is a lot of connotation behind the concept of promise. If you promise to do something, by golly, you better do it. If you say "I'll try my hardest", or "I'll do everything in my power"  if you don't follow through, you aren't breaking anyone's heart. 

Jumping back into wedding vows for a moment, when I was going over future blog posts, I thought about my own wedding vows. I like to think about my wedding constantly, well maybe not as extreme as constantly but I do think about it a good amount of time (especially with my galpals). I think about what I want my future husband to know on the day we say "I do" in front of everyone we love, including God. I want to make him promises I can keep, so this is what I have so far.

"I promise to love you unconditionally, but I cannot promise to like you everyday. I promise to work through our problems and never go to sleep, or start my day off, angry at you - or visa versa. I promise to try to talk out the problems I have with your sleeping habits, or future awkward parenting skills. I promise to always hear you out and work on having sane, thought out, minimal yelling conversations - instead of arguments. I promise to laugh and make you as happy as I can, every day of my life. I promise to be your wife, lover, best friend, and future mother of your children until the day I die."

All I've got so far, and although some of them sound silly to you, they are all promises I can firmly stand behind and commit to. I have two rules : 1) Never ever tell me something you don't mean, 2) Never ever ever ever promise me something that there is even the slightest chance you might not be able to keep.

A promise is a promise, a pact, a spit in the hand handshake, a commitment of love and understanding. Why break that?

until next time (:

Winton's Children

How far would you go to save a life? How about the life of a child? Would you do it to get world head lines?

Nicholas Winton save 669 children from the Nazis in 1938, keeping a record of every child he saved he put the pictures and records away in his attic and told no one, not even his wife. What he did was save hundreds of lives and did it because he knew it was right and he that he could. How far would you go?

Sometimes I like to tell myself that it's ridiculous to say that I'd do the same, that there is no way I could have the courage to do something like save another human being's life. Then I realize that if I were given the choice to save my mother, best friend, teacher, child, stranger's life I would do it in a heart beat. If I were given the choice to breathe another day and let them lose their life or give them my last breath and leave this world, I would give them my last breath and say goodbye.

I pretend that I would talk myself out of it, but then I realize that as much as I love living and doing what I love to do in my own life, knowing I could let someone go on doing what they love and go on loving who they love means so much more to me. I'm content with my life and the way I'm living, in fact I'm ecstatic about my own life and the things my heart beats for the dreams my mind takes me on for my own future. Which, all of those things make me realize I would give my life over someone else's without a second thought. 

If even one other human being has dreams like mine then let them live. To save a life makes the life of the saver that much more important, much more meaningful. Saving someone's life would be the fulfillment of all the dreams I've ever dreamed.

So to answer my own question, I would do what Winton did in a heart beat, no matter the consequence, but would you?

until next time (:  

St. Cloud - Lost in the Afterwards

Ever thought about the struggle of a difficult moment in your life? Ever wondered how to feel after such a time? I have. You are not alone.

This has been plaguing me lately. How do you move on from something that has totally turned your life into a turbulent tumble of jumbled ramblings and tearful goodbyes? The answer is...I don't have an answer. But I am working on it, which - if that isn't good enough for you, don't worry, because most days it isn't good enough for me either. It is placating at best. I've thought lately, and when I say lately I mean tonight when I saw Charlie St. Cloud, that life puts you through the ups and downs just so when you get out you are so changed that you don't know how to go about the life you lived before hand.

To be honest with all of you, if you ever thought you weren't changed, you're lying to yourself.

The only thing that changes during a time of hardship, specifically a death of any kind, is you. The things you used to do never change, nor do the things you owned or the life you lived. The one thing that changes is the person you used to be and I suppose that is the profound beauty. If you ever want to know how much something doesn't mean to you, have your world shaken and shattered and then go back to trying to find your place amongst the clothes, hobbies, friends and relationships you held pre-shatter.

The shaking and shattering does just that, shakes and shatters you and teaches you that you can be shaken and shattered but what it does not teach you is how to rebuild and move on. It does not teach you that every once in a while you will break down at the mention of their name. Every once in a while you will shake at the simple thought of that time in your life. That you may need to escape in letters to the ones who will never read them, or lose yourself in music that reminds you of them.

A man I admire once told me that I was the strongest woman he'd ever known because when I went through a hard time, I didn't break for all to see and I did not give up on the friends who needed me. I sort of stared at him blankly, a loss for words, and wondered. Finally getting the sentences together and working up the courage to throw them off my tongue all I could think of was "Are you insane? I am a wreck." We chuckled but there was nothing else more true. "Chelsea is gone." One moment in time, three simple words cut to the core of me and ripped it apart within seconds and to rebuild such a beautiful masterpiece of wreckage was going to take time.

Immediately I looked back at the friend I admired and said thank you, thank you for being so good and so beautiful to me because it is more important for you to see the person I've hoped to be than the person I truly am inside. If you were to see the leftovers of something so personal, you would wonder how I'm still standing. To which he simply said "I don't believe you. You are stronger than you think, believe that."

This is not about personal strength or personal growth because I have grown, of course I have, but to me being strong is not about growing from a hard situation, it is about accepting it. Being strong is pushing through it, breaking down in the middle of worship, finding the air has left the room in the middle of a class, finding comfort in the warm arms of a blessing at 1am when all the crying has made you nauseas and you can't put together coherent sentences. Being strong is being every part of what makes one weak.
until next time (:

Courtesy, where have you gone?

When is the last time you held the door open for someone? If you haven't done it in a while, give it a try, the look on their face will make sure you open the door for everyone you can.

Yesterday my mom and I went out for dinner at Joe's Crab Shack (epic meal) and this is where I experienced it. We were on our way out of the restaurant and after holding the door open for my mom I saw two lovely ladies on their way indoors. So moving just out of their way the look on their face said "she's not going to". Little did they know I was brought up much better than to leave two woman in the rain. I had moved out of their way and to the other side of the door to hold it open for them both. The bright smile on both of their faces brightened my already great day.

Immediately it struck me, why were they THAT happy when someone opened the door for them? Doesn't it happen often enough? What has society broken down to? And in that moment I went from happy to sad to angry, happy I could brighten their day - sad that something that small brightened their day - angry that the world's manner's has crumbled.

Now when I open the door for myself I normally look just over my shoulder to see if there is anyone coming so I can hold it for them, but I found out today that even my elder's could care less. Today I walked into a store and three women walked in before me, each one did not hold the door open for the other (it was a fast moving door) and so by the time it was my turn to enter it practically hit me in the face. I realize I'm not an elderly woman, injured or pregnant but when did manner's take place only for those less fortunate? I do not care if you are 9 months pregnant or an obnoxious 3 year old screaming about ice cream flavors and demanding his/her favorite, I will hold the door for you if you are in my proximity - it is how my mother raised me.

I suppose this breaks it down to "to each his own" but that is not an excuse to let the people of our world become inconsiderate for others. What if the person you so rudely didn't hold the door open for (or let the door them in the face) is the only match for your very much needed kidney. If that person has any manners at all they would follow through anyway, but if they have as much manners as you - you are kidney -less. 

I don't suppose it would ever come down to something like that but please be more aware of how you treat others because you could open the door for someone who could later save your life or you could just brighten their day - either way? It's worth it. Trust me.
until next time (:

Destination Unknown

No matter what time of day you are driving have you ever sat at a red light, looked over to the driver next to you and wondered "where are they headed"? 

We always understand where we are going, what will happen when we arrive at our destination and through the entire drive mentally prepare ourselves for whatever awaits us. While heading to church this morning, I was looking out the passenger side window at a few of the other drivers and each of them were unique and different in a hundred different ways. Some were stoic and looked as though they'd just heard the worst news of their lives. Some others were calm, listening to music, texting at stop lights or talking to their passengers as though they were headed to church or a lunch appointment.

Either way it hit me that in a beautiful way everyone's world collides in that way every day, every time we venture out on the road. Road rage? Maybe someone is headed to the hospital to experience the birth of a child, or hear the news of a lost loved one and speeding is the only way they can get there in time to say goodbye. What if you ran into someone who was on their way to watch their wife give birth to their first child just because you thought getting the ice cream in the freezer a little faster would be good? 

I suppose it really comes down to understanding and noticing the surroundings placed around you at all times. I've always prayed for the passengers who look sad, or even complacent. Rejoiced for those who are jamming in their car and found myself congratulating "baby on board" stickers. Before you take your purposes more important than others, understand what other people may be destined to go. One day, they may take into consideration your first hello or your last goodbye you may need to rush off to.

until next time (:

Taking dating to Court.

Per usual conversation amongst young adult girls, my roommate and I recently had a conversation about dating and relationships. The realization and decision we sort of talked out was how important it is to the both of us to be courted and date before "dating". 

The conversation began with our ideas of wedding possibilities, just like little girls playing barbie, we tend to talk about our weddings and our future husbands. Although God is leaving that last part an illusion, our desires and needs in that person are put in our hearts permanently. We came to the conclusion that neither of us have ever been on a date before "dating", and this seemed relatively frustrating. Not that we are the "spend money on us" types, far from it actually, but I am the type to say that spending time with a man that I am interested in on a more than "hanging out" level is very important to me post - "dating". 

To me that is when all of the deeper level conversation can take place, where I can find out exactly how you feel about God in a relationship or learn more about you as a human being. I believe the older fashioned way of putting the process is "courting". Yes, boys, girls still like to be courted as a part of the dating process. Suck it up (:

I will be the first, and probably leading the few, that says I cannot stand the "dinner and a movie" date night, nor do I like roses. I am an outdoors, lay under the stars, long conversation, ice cream, put put type of girl and to me if you like that type of thing, then let's do it! 

I suppose what it comes down to is texting for a few weeks and then becoming the facebook official relationship is not something that should be acceptable anymore. Yes we live in a technological society and don't get me wrong, I am a text maniac and facebook fanatic, but when it comes to dating old fashioned that is the way I chose to be. Don't kiss me on the first date, don't assume that after one date we are "dating" and facebook official and don't believe that after one conversation you understand the person I am and what I want.

"Dating" has changed and the world has spun into a never ending status change but what will not change is the need to be loved and to be understood and in my opinion that can only be done through dating pre-relationship. Courting is the new status change.

until next time. (: