awarding fun

Today I was awarded the Liebster Blog award by the amazing Ireland from A Pearl of Great Price!! Thank you, Ireland!

First of all, of course, the rules:

1. You must post 11 facts about yourself
2. You must also answer the 11 questions that the awarder has given you, and create 11 questions for your awardees to answer in turn.
3. Tag 11 fellow bloggers.
4. Notify them that they’ve awarded them.
5. No tagging back.
6. The 11 blogs that you tag must have less than 200 followers.

So, 11 facts about myself - here we go!

1. I am a triplet!

2. My family is exactly 7 weeks into a 9-week RV trip that we're on, mostly around the Western United States - starting from Florida and traveling along the southern coast to California, up the California coast to Washington, eastward to South Dakota, down to Colorado (where we are right now), and then heading back through Arkansas and such to Florida again. :)

3. I hiked up a 10,000 foot mountain with my family yesterday, 6 miles round trip, 1,000+ feet up...and I had only had about 6 hours of sleep the night before, give or take an hour. :P Ah, well - we had fun!

4. I am the only girl of four kids.

5. I, oddly enough, am looking forward to this upcoming school year. :) I have a lot of courses I'm excited about - I'm homeschooled, so I'm doing some curriculum simply at home with my brothers, some on Florida Virtual School, and some out-of-the-house classes with (mostly) other homeschoolers.

6. I don't like eating bananas just by themselves...but I like them in smoothies, in pudding, etc. I know, I'm weird.

7. Speaking of, I just made a smoothie for lunch with half of a (large) banana, most of a peach, most of a mango, about 20 frozen blueberries (we don't have any straw berries :( boo-hoo), and, of course, ice - it is delicious!! I wish I could give you some...but I just drank the last sip. ;)

8. I haven't watched any of the Olympics this year!! :( We haven't had TV reception at the campsites that we've been staying at while the Olympics have been going...maybe tomorrow we'll get reception at our new campground that we're going to? I hope so!

9. Um...ah...er...let me think...oh! I don't need braces. :)

10. Hmmm...well, my parents went out on a date last night, so my brothers and I watched Mars Needs Moms while they were gone. I have to say, I actually think it was quite good. It didn't have the unnecessary things that many movies, even animated, kids' movies, have - the only small, two things I could think of were that the main character wanted to watch a movie about zombies or something (not shown), and the female Martians' suits were kind of tight, but only around their hips and such. It had great morals of conviction, healing, redemption, consequences to our actions, sacrifice, and showed how important a loving parent is to a child and vice-versa.

11. I'm turning 15 this year (already?!) on November 16th, and I'm hoping to get my permit around then!

Now, here are my answers to Ireland's questions:

1. On average how often do you blog? Not often enough. ;) Probably somewhere around a week or a week and a half on average, I'm not sure. It's pretty amazing that I'm posting again so "soon" after my last post, which was 5 days ago.

2. How many siblings do you have? I have three brothers.

3. Are your siblings younger or older? Well, like I mentioned earlier, I'm a triplet, so I have a brother who is a minute older (Nathan), a brother who is a minute younger (Noah), and a brother who is a year and a half younger, to the very day (Nicholas).

4. Do you like to swim? Yeah, I do like to swim, but most of the time I'd rather do something else.

5. What is your favorite season of the year? Autumn, most definitely...maybe spring, but even in spring it gets so hot so quickly in Florida.

6. Favorite holiday? Hmm, I don't know...Easter? Christmas? Thanksgiving? One of those three, I suppose.

7. Favorite band/singer? Oh my, there are so many that I love to listen to! Singers...I really like Kari Jobe, Jason Gray, Britt Nicole, and Francesca Battistelli. For bands, I like Tenth Avenue North, tobyMac, Newsboys, and Casting Crowns.

8. Do you have any pen-pals? If so how many? Well, not by letter, but I have been emailing, IMing, etc. with two girls who I "met" through a blog - one of them I actually got to meet earlier this summer on our trip!

9. How long have you been blogging? I've been blogging for a little over two years if you count my old blog (which I started on July 18, 2010 on Weebly), but I don't post on that one anymore; I've been posting on this blog since December 26, 2011, ah...7 months, 1 week.

10. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Ooh, good question...probably just simply taking a walk with friends/family.

11. What is your favorite thing to do inside? It depends, but I definitely enjoy reading, playing games with my family, and going on the computer (email & blogs for the most part).

Well, that was fun! :) OK, about awarding people...because I want to get off my laptop and it's a beautiful day outside and I can see the mountains from where I'm sitting and the cool breeze is wafting into our RV through the open windows and I just got a bunch of good novels this morning that I might possibly crack open...because of all this, I'm going to be lazy and simply tag anyone who wants to do this award! Really, go ahead and do it - I know you want to. :)


Have a wonderful Saturday evening, everyone! I'm planning on eating a delicious dinner outside in the cool air with my family and sitting around a dancing, smoking campfire and getting my fingers sticky with s'mores and going out driving with my family to look for elk...what about you? What have you done or are going to do today?


p.s. does anyone know what liebster means? :)

some thoughts about life and death

the two times i have come closest to death happened two days in a row.

not death happening to me, personally. but to others around me.

yesterday, my dad was driving early in the morning to find coffee and signal. for his phone, that is. as he was driving, a police car...a fire truck...an ambulance sped past him. later he saw them, crowded around where a car had driven off the road...and down the drop-off, several feet below. they loaded the person, loved and precious in the eyes of our Lord, into the ambulance.

that evening, as we drove by, merrily coming home from our day trip in San Diego, we quickly sobered when we saw flowers and a sign where the accident had happened.

life is so fragile.

today, a dear friend of mine, whom i've met only once, but who is a sweet sister in Christ...their very, very close family friend passed away today. she has... had been in the hospital for many weeks, for several things going on in her body. her husband, my friend said, was given peace by our loving Father, but i ask all of you reading this to please pray for him and for my friend and her family, as this is obviously so painful. i praise the Lord that this precious lady is now rejoicing in heaven with our Lord Jesus, but i weep for those here on earth who will miss her.

life is so fragile.

why? why must it be so? if i look at it in anger and pain and despair, it looks as if God is mocking us, mercilessly reminding us of our frailty, of our weakness, in contrast with His Almighty strength.

but i know that is not truth.

what is truth is that our Savior loves us. i know, as surely as the sun rises, as the Psalmist says, that our Lord and King is a loving God, and that while He is rejoicing in heaven, He is weeping with His beloved ones here in this fractured, broken world. the ones who miss their dear friends and family members, who have lost loved ones in combat...in the womb...at the end of an alley...in a hospital...

although i'm not quite sure what the point of this post is, other than to let out some of the thoughts tumbling around in my mind, my soul, begging to be heard...maybe, out of all that, this is one lesson learned:

how precious life is. how dear, sweet, and precious life is.

may we not forget that. may we always bless each day, grateful for the life given us by our Savior.

recent happenings {and a different direction}

Hello, peoples! I've kind of been dreading writing this post, not because I have bad news, but because I have way too much good news to share! :) We've been having such a great time on our trip, and I'm afraid this post will be a mile long! However, I will try to summarize *coughicannotsummarizecough*.


To start off, last Tuesday I had an amazing time meeting Sarah Elizabeth! She and I are both part of the wonderful community of teen girls led by Mrs. Rue at this blog, and for the last couple of weeks we've gotten to know each other better via email. My family was staying near her family, so we arranged to meet up at the Cafe Du Monte (sp?) for beignets - never had them before, but they were delicious! :) Kind of like fry bread, only they're shaped in little squares, with mountains of sugar on top - what could be better? (Unless...they were filled with chocolate! ;) just kidding...) Anyway, here are some pics.

this is Sarah Elizabeth and I...
(not Sarah Elizabeth and me, not I and
Sarah Elizabeth, Sarah Elizabeth and I ;) haha
...and, by the way, if you doubt my grammar, click here)

...and her adorable little brother :)

Here is her blog, by the way, where she posted about our time together (because hers is much better than my pathetic attempt at describing our wonderful time together!). It was really such a blessing getting to meet her, and I had a great time talking with her, as my mom did with her mom and older sister. My dad had so much fun playing around outside, throwing the frisbee and such, with my brothers and her younger siblings - my dad is so great with little kids (and he's not too bad with teenagers either). :)


Oh, and before we went to meet her, we visited a very cool glass blowing and printing place. They were in the middle of a summer camp so there were a bunch of young teens in there making glass beads and shaping metal and making their own ink prints (to print on paper), which was all very entertaining. :) They were not glass blowing at the moment, but they had some amazing displays of tons of different glass creations, which are what the following pictures are (obviously) of (sorry if some of the pictures in this post are messed up...they weren't cooperating with me :P).

Later that afternoon, we drove on the 2nd longest bridge in the world! And...we didn't make it all the way across. It was slightly boring. Beautiful for a couple of minutes, boring after many. So we went grocery shopping and headed home. :) Here is an example of the view from pretty much the whole bridge:

sorry for that annoying black dot :P
it's on my camera lens and I have not
been able to get it off - any suggestions?

The next day we went to a Children's Museum, which was pretty awesome. :) Pictures: 

Noah and Nathan in a bubble

Nathan in a huge bubble (!!!)

Me in a pretty big bubble :)

Here's Nathan standing on...
some sort of blocks that we built up.
we're not sure what they were made of :P

Nathan's pic of me sitting on our little block creation - a very unsteady creation...we felt very brave of ourselves ;)

We found a whole lot of interesting stuff there, and had a great time - unlike the Children's Museum of Houston that we went to yesterday. Oh, trust me, that place was huge and had a ton of stuff - but I was kind of extremely tired, and it was kind of extremely loud and kind of extremely crowded. With little kids. {Today I learned how quickly you can get a headache...just kidding.} Anyway, my mom and I sat on a bench (we soon figured out why it wasn't occupied - it was conveniently placed underneath the AC vent blasting freezing-cold air), and we people watched. Basically, there were a lot of young moms dressed like teenagers (annoying), a lot of young girls dressed like teenagers (very, very annoying), and several grandparents who looked almost as bored as I was. Almost.


But, really, when I say that the dressing like teenagers (and I'm not talking about modest teenagers) was annoying, I don't mean annoying in the normal way you would say annoying, as in describing your brothers' incessant chatter. No, I mean it was saddeningly heartbreaking. My heart breaks for the lack of modesty, morality, and above all, the knowledge of the God Who loves to the point of His death - the lack of this in women in this age. The lack of a relationship with the one true God Almighty, Yahweh, Savior, Who loves more deeply than any boyfriend could, Who makes you more beautiful than any amount of makeup or clothes could, and Who fills and fulfills your life more than anything or anyone else could ever, ever even pretend to.


God has given me a deep passion and burden for the young women of my generation, the lost, the ones who seek security and love and pleasure in all the wrong places, who are ever searching but never finding. What can I do? Where will He lead me? I don't know. But those aren't even the right questions - those questions are focused on me, what I can do. I believe I should sound more like Christ, and how He acted...

^"8 First He {Christ} said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings You {God the Father} did not desire, nor were You pleased with them” (although the law required them to be made). ⁹ Then He said, “Here I am, I have come to do Your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. ¹⁰ And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."
--Hebrews 10:8-10

words in {braces} are mine; also, I capitalized pronouns describing God

I don't want to act as if God is a tool for me to use in order to lead others to Him. {paraphrased from this post by Michaela Danielle - "We put emphasis on ourselves...using God as a tool."} I want to be, in every way possible, in Spirit and in truth, a tool for Him to use in order to bring others to Him!


And, while I wanted to finish there, I cannot. It would be quite hypocritical of me. I want to clarify that I have, in no way, become a perfect tool for Christ. I am definitely not perfect; I am, however, made pure by Christ's sacrificial love for me. And, oh, how often I forget that! I turn from Christ, trusting in myself, my knowledge, my ability - all weakness compared to His Almighty strength. I pride myself in spiritual-sounding language and good deeds, and totally miss out on God's amazing plans for me.


So let me make this plain (to myself as much as anyone else reading this). I have sinned. I will continue to sin as long as I am here on this earth (oh, how hard it is for me to say that, to accept that, that imperfection in me). And yet, Christ has died and rose again in love for what I so often try to justify by my own good works. I have believed in His love and forgiveness and embraced Him as my Savior. And I do this continually, every day - reminding myself that I have been saved by Him, not by myself, and I, in His grace, try to make every effort to live in His.


Thus the meaning of forgiven mess - in a nut shell (a coconut shell, that is, not a peanut shell). :)


In love and peace and blessings in Christ our Savior,
~Nicole


P.S. Well, this post went in an entirely different direction than I had originally planned (guess Whose "fault" that is?). I think it like it.

summer vacation! =)

Well, I'd say we're off to a good start! A good start to what, you might ask? To our summer trip!! I'm quite excited, to say the least. ;) I feel like I need to have pictures or something, but...there's really not much that I can take a picture of. :P I mean, I guess I could take pics of the RV we're renting...it's kind of difficult to take good pictures of the inside, though. Maybe in the next few days, m'kay?

Anyway, the RV is really great, despite the small inconveniences we've discovered, just like any home, temporary or otherwise. For example, the closet that we all share? When the slide in the back is slid in, the bed is shoved up against the closet doors, and you can't open it up. Thus, you cannot get into the closet unless the slide is out (which means we have to be parked somewhere). :P Ah, well. One thing, however, that's really, really nice is that we now have bunk beds in this rented RV (as opposed to our other RV, which we are selling) - that way Nathan and Noah share the bed over the cab, I get the bottom bunk, Nicholas gets the top bunk, and my parents (of course) get the "master" bedroom. ;) Also, we have lots of storage, which is quite nice. :)

And there are three TVs in this thing! My goodness, we only have one in our entire house! Who in the world needs three televisions in little more than 200 square feet??! My hope is that we'll be spending quite a bit of time outside - probably even more so when we get up north and into cooler weather.

Oh! That reminds me (don't ask why; I have a weird train of thought) - there is one thing that I have pictures of: my hair! Er, more specifically, the haircut I just got. ;) I got it cut two days ago, on Thursday, and while I'm still getting used to it, I like it. I'm going to donate my chopped-off hair to Locks of Love (3rd time!)...as soon as we take the time to mail it out, that is. :P Anyway, here are the before and after pics:

Sorry about that 2nd picture - how it's kinda blurry and I'm not really smiling well and all that...we are driving on the highway, you know, and I just took that pic in the bathroom because it was well-lighted in there and I wanted to do it in the mirror, so I had to brace myself against the sink and focus on not pitching into the shower while trying to quickly snap a half-decent picture (wow, was that a total run-on sentence!). :) Ha, I didn't even have my glasses on, either. :P And, as you may have guessed, the bags underneath my eyes are from packing all day and getting about, ah, 6 and a half hours of sleep...you should have heard Nicholas and I last night. Boy, were we punchy. :D

So, yeah...I like this haircut because it's so much easier to take care of, makes for quicker showers (for which my 3 brothers are quite thankful), and will keep me a bit cooler this summer. At the same time, however, there's not as much you can do with short hair (and today I just left it down because I was being lazy and it's easy that way). And I was hoping that this haircut would make me look a bit older, as it has in the past...well, this time I think it made me look about 2 years younger. :P Ah, well.

Anyways....hmm, reading over this post, it sounds kinda choppy and not all that well written. :P Well, whatever...you'll just have to deal with it, ok? :) Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend!

Love and blessings,

Nicole <3


P.S. I wrote this post earlier today, but am just posting it now - at, like, 10:55pm...which would be 11:55pm EST time - we're in central time now. Yeah... :P. But, I just wanted to add real quick that we're staying at this wonderful little campsite in the Panhandle, and had such a lovely time walking along the beach earlier, during sunset (we walked to the beach! it's only, like, a 5, 10 minutes walk - how awesome is that?! I'll post pics tomorrow or something). We'll stay here another night, and then head onto Louisiana. Oh, and my mom is updating her blog on our family website (where my old blog is, on Weebly)! Be a sweetie and go check it out, maybe even leave a comment! (Please?) ;) {I'm quite liking these handy little post scripts. I always seem to want to add something but don't know where to stick it!}

award and such

I know, I know, I know. I am a very bad blogger. Let me 'splain...no, there is too much - let me sum up (hehe :) Princess Bride quote): it's been about...let me see...5 weeks - over a month - since my last post.


I will wait for your gasps of horror to subside.


Now. Where were we? Oh, yes - the terrors of my blogging habits. You see, the first week and a half or so of my impromptu hiatus, I almost completely forgot to blog. At all. Really, you ask? Really. Seriously. No sarcasm involved. I'm not sure how, but somehow I just about totally forgot that I had a blog, much less that I needed to post on it. I'm not even sure what I was doing that so led me astray!


Once it finally, actually dawned on me that my 13 followers - wait a minute, 13? I gained new followers while I wasn't even posting?! This is slightly concerning...it leads to the thought that I am more interesting when you don't have to listen to me. Hmph.


Let me continue. *switches to dramatic, theatrical voice* When at last I realized that my questionably loyal followers were waiting in questionable suspense for my next questionably amazing post...*switches back to normal voice*..I procrastinated. Mmm, procrastination - one of the most blissful yet most cursed habits of mankind (blissful, that is, until your friend is coming over in 10 minutes and you haven't even started on your science test; blissful, that is, until you have to leave in a half an hour and you still haven't taken a shower; blissful, that is, until an entire 5 weeks have gone by and you are forced to post because you have been awarded. how pathetic. thus, it is cursed, as aforementioned).


And then, for the last, oh, 3 weeks, I had a topic bouncing around in my head that I refused post because of my stubborn laziness. I hesitantly checked up on my ailing blog every now and then, while still eagerly following other blogs....until the day that my blogging world was changed. That day was the day when I was....awarded. ;)


So, here I am, humbly presenting myself to you and apologizing for my lackadaisical neglect, and hoping you could somehow forgive me for my horrible misdeeds. (And realizing that I did not sum up. I most definitely explained, in a quite superfluous fashion. *sigh* Another thing for which to ask your forgiveness...)


And now I am putting my dark past behind me and am moving forward - to thank Ireland from A Pearl of Great Price for awarding me!! :)

1. Thank the person who awarded you.
2. List 7 random things about yourself.
3. Award 15 others this award.


So, #1 - just in case I did not make this clear: thank you so much, Ireland!! That was so sweet of you! ;) As I was telling her, I'm a bit embarrassed that she viewed my blog in its sorry state, and I was explaining how un-award-worthy my blog is, when it dawned on me - my blog fits one of the (lesser known) definitions of the award!


ver·sa·tile (adj.) - 1. Able to adapt or be adapted to many different functions or activities. 2. Changeable; inconstant.


Inconstant - describes my preferred pattern of posting perfectly! :) I mean, I suppose could start a new trend on this blog of mine and start posting more regularly...maybe...think it'll work? It would take a miracle. Goodbye! (sorry...another Princess Bride quote :) ya think I've watched that movie too many times? my family quotes it all the time...)


Now for the 7 random things about me....


1. My eyes are blue-green, like my dad and my older brother.
2. I finished (home)school last week!! Next year, highschool...(still homeschooled)
3. I am taking Spanish on an online class over the summer, my choice. I'd like to one day be able to speak Spanish just about fluently.
4. My family is leaving on either the 15th or the 16th for our trip! So excited!!
5. My dad's birthday was yesterday!! We had such a great time, and I made this delicious dessert for him! Only instead of chocolate frosting, I made and spread ganache on top (my friend's idea), stuck it in the fridge, and then we ate it later. Yum...
6. I'm looking forward to, Lord willing, getting my permit this year, as I am turning 15 on November 16th!
7. I - er, my mom coupons. Well, I help. :) Any fellow couponers out there?


And I award....


1. Alisha at Mercy's Miracle
2. Anna at f a n a t i c a l
3. Chloe at Blooming in Christ
4. Emii at Girlz 4 God
5. Melody at Rejoice Always!
6. Melody at 100 Things to do Before College
7. Rachel at What Do You Expect?
8. Sarah Elizabeth at Learning to Trust God
9. Sophie at My Happy Place
10. Talia at Girlz of God
11. ...
12. ....
13. .....
14. ......
15. .......


Um, OK, so I didn't make it to 15. :P I tried really hard, but I only made it to 10. :( Ah, well. I already knew it would take a me a while to round up even just 10 people to award and then comment on their blogs letting them know I've awarded them...which is why I put this post off for a day or two. :P BUT, anyone else who wants to do this - I award you! ;)


Anyway, I hope this satisfies y'all for now, because I right about now, I feel satisfied just writing! I need to write more often (as my record of posts clearly shows)...


Love and blessings to you all! May God's peace guide us throughout the day as we serve Him...and be reminded by Him to serve Him - not others, not ourselves, but Christ, our Savior and Lover. <3


P.S. My friend and I sidewalk chalked yesterday....in the rain. ;) It was quite amusing, and I'm very sorry I was too lazy to take pic of it. :P We were very proud of our (slightly smudged) balloon and flower and tree and butterfly and teddy bear and - our best - the earth with purple, pink, orange, yellow, and white children circling it, holding hands. ;) When was the last time you sidewalk chalked? Or...have you - *gasp* - never sidewalk chalked?!

bullet lists are wonderful things

There's so much I want to say.


I was thinking, before I even started this post, about what I wanted to write...I started to count how many different topics I wanted to blog about. The number was somewhere around 7, I believe, and is rapidly increasing as I think of more things I want to just get out there.


Now, I think you all will agree with me that if I go ahead and pour out my heart about all those topics and events, you will never reach the end of this post (neither will I, for that matter) and I will have merely accomplished a way-too-long-I'm-so-tired-of-reading-this-my-eyelids-are-about-to-glue-shut post that will bore you all to death.


So. The normal solution would be to pick out one or two things for this post and either forget about the rest or save some for later. However, I am not normal, if you haven't noticed. Thus, I am going to condense several of these topics to just a couple of sentences, throw 'em all (including some other things I think of) on a couple of bullets, and hope it all works out. ;) Here we go...

• Last week we had some very, very good family friends come down from North Carolina and stay with us for a couple of days. We had such a great time with them!! I wish I could tell you every detail...but I can't. :)
• Also, last Friday evening and all day Saturday (excluding Fri. night), I was with my friend's youth group (which I've been attending for over a year now) at Acquire the Fire!! We had such a great time. The worship band, the speakers, the drama, the concerts - they were all amazing. Christ was certainly present, and many people gave their life to Him!
• I am currently loving this song - heard it on the radio, looked it up - never heard of the guy, but, wow, his voice is amazing! Yeah, he's unique, but I think he's really great. ;) Here's a link to the lyrics, btw (you might need 'em).
• Oh, and this song. :) {click here for lyrics}
• My friend, her family, most of her youth group, and several college kids that her older brother knows (and I know most of them, too, incidentally - they are homeschoolers, you know) are all taking part in the Justice Revolution. The JR is a book that her dad and another guy (I believe) wrote, a kind of daily devo containing a 21-day challenge to raise awareness about several injustices in this world - poverty, abortion, human sex trafficking, child soldiers, etc. {Yes, slavery is definitely still present in this world, and more so than ever...it's heartbreaking.} You can check out some of the teens' videos on YouTube here and here.
• Mom and I spent some time together yesterday afternoon, one-on-one, and had so much fun!! :) We got ice cream at Coldstone and painted our nails at the park!
• We, my family and I, are most definitely planning to take a road trip this summer, for about two and a half months or so...and I'm so excited!!! :D Unless God tells us that this His not His Plan for us, right now we believe it is, and we spent some time last night as a family planning it out - we've already got almost the first week down! (Google Maps is an amazing thing.) My mom and dad already planned out the whole
  (tentative) route, but last night we just started from the beginning in more detail.

Sooo...that wasn't too long, right? :) Just bits and pieces of my life lately...


Hey, and thanks to the girls who said they were praying for Nicholas!! Trinka, Tess, and Emma - I showed my post and your comments to him yesterday, and he loved it. ;) He was allowed to play in the last basketball game for a couple of minutes, and he did great - speaking of basketball, both our JV and varsity teams get to play in the first round of the tournament this Monday (woot-woot!), so please pray that everything goes well and no one gets hurt!! We had one of our best varsity players fracture his wrist two games ago. :( Prayers for him would be great, too!


Love and blessings,
Nicole <3 John 5:24

childlike

via Google Images

Sometimes I just want to be a kid again.

A little girl, who doesn't feel the need to tell her brother not to put a dripping wet cutting board into the cabinet as "clean", who hasn't yet learned to default to directing her brothers around carelessly. A little lady who is not yet desensitized to the ways of this world, who is utterly repulsed at the irreverent misuse of God's holy Name. A young child who enjoys running around outside in the sun with her little friends, who isn't worried about that guy who just tagged her to be 'it' - isn't worried about what he thinks of her, her clothes or her hair.

Who loves life. Who worships God in surrender, with abandon.

Does anyone else here long for that? Long to be childlike, as Jesus commanded? Wouldn't that be amazing? Don't you love it when you just laugh with your siblings, family, friends - just being enthralled with the joy of pure life?

I love life, this forgiven, free live He has given me. I hope I can learn again to enjoy it as much as Jesus does.

^"And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

--Mathew 18:3-4

p.s. A big, huge thanks to Emma Margaret, who designed the current theme for the blog! :) You can visit her blog here or order a blog design from her here. Thanks, Emma!