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.

songs, rambles, prayers, God...what else do you need?

listening to ~ White Flag, by Chris Tomlin, at Passion and Free, by Dara Maclean

Well, now I'm wishing I had another excuse for not posting.  'Cause I kinda need one right about now.  But before I launch into a long, rambling post...just beware, this is about to become a long, rambling post.  Now, moving on...I actually do have half of an excuse!

...which turns out to be worse than no excuse at all...

See, I was going to fast from being on the computer, as well as reading.  For the most part.  That was the idea, anyways...but that's all it was, an idea.  Not something I really prayed about.  Not something I decided based on what God told me, what His Spirit was nudging me to do.  It was something I just figured would work for me so that I could join our church in the 21-day fast we've been doing, leading up to Easter (and could also come in handy as an excuse for not posting on my poor blog).

I just figured it would work for me.

not God.  i wasn't thinking about what God wanted.  what He knew i needed.

maybe He did want me to fast those things.  but i didn't take the time to really ask Him.

So...I've been looking at it as if I've failed.  I didn't stick to my fast (key word - my), didn't listen to God, my relationship with God wasn't magically changed...so I failed. And since I loathe failure...and who doesn't?...I've been ignoring it.  I was more focused on performance, I guess, than God.  What I wanted to do, instead of my Father.  And when that perfection-obsession results in failure and turns to guilt, I do my best to ignore it.  Er, try to.

sorry - this blog post has apparently been seen as a convenient spot to use as my current journal entry. which is surprising, since i haven't made an entry in my journal since...*getting out my journal*...6/30/2011. at 11:14pm, to be precise. ha. it's 11:05pm right now. can't you see i totally have my priorities lined up? of course you wait until your eyelids are threatening to glue shut for the next 24 hours, even tho you need to get up the next morning at, like, 7:30am - of course you wait until then to spend time quietening your troubled heart, to start talking to God...to start listening to His Spirit. to His loving, gentle Spirit.

O my Lord Jesus, my God. how i love You. how amazing You are. how messed up i am, how sinful. but You know that...You've known that...but You still love me. You give me life, life given freely. You give me forgiveness. redemption. hope. joy. how i don't deserve You. to even know You, who You are. but You push through my doubt and feelings of unworthiness and everything in me that rebels against Your love and You say...I love you, my chosen one, my daughter. you're forgiven. come to Me, and I will give you rest. come to Me, and I will give you life. come to Me, my loved one, my precious little girl. you are truly loved. I'll hold you in My love, warm you in My arms. come to Me. I love you.

amen.


Love and blessings - have a wonderful weekend, all! <3

happy birthday, Jesus

(Note: This is a post from my former blog - with Weebly - that I posted on here the day after, just to get started.  I'll update soon - lots of amazing things to share!!!)

So I was sitting outside earlier, reveling in the gorgeous weather that seemed like God’s wrapped-with-a-bow gift for Christmas, and had the sudden urge to sing.  That’s what often happens to me when I experience God’s creation, just the simple beauty of the warmth of the sun on my head and the slight breeze in the air, rustling the leaves and tugging at my hair.

And so I sang.  I think when God fills our hearts with His endless joy and love and grace, there’s just no way that we can keep from joyfully praising Him in our response to His Holy Spirit.

How blessed we are.  Jesus came to us to save us.  You.  Me.  To erase our sin.  Completely, no strings attached, asking nothing in return.  But how can we not give Him our lives?  God has given us His very own Son as a sacrifice for our disgusting sinfulness – if He has done even this, how immeasurable is His love?  What other greater thing can He do to show His love for us?  If there is, He will surely do it, pouring His love out on us like no other being can do, like no other love in the universe.

“He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?”  --Romans 8:32

How can we, in our right minds, resist His love?  Why would we?  He’s not pointing a finger at us, berating us for our wrongdoings – far from it!  We’re the ones who drown ourselves in guilt, believing the devil’s lie that God could never love or forgive us.  God has given us His all, His very Spirit!!  I stand in awe before His powerful love.  It surges over me, in me, through me, with power unimaginable.

Sometimes the little things in life help us to remember God’s love for us.  The small beauties, the wind whispering through the trees, the laughter with friends at church, the sun shining.

thank You, Jesus.  thank You for loving me.  thank You for forgiving my sin.  oh, how i don’t deserve it!  but Your love for me is greater than my unworthiness.  thank You, my Savior, for loving me so much that You literally gave Yourself away, nailed to wood in sin and shame.  thank You for rising again and saving me!  i give you my life…please take it and use it in wondrous ways, to Your glory and in Your Name.  thank you, Jesus.

happy birthday, Jesus.  thank You for Your gift to me.  my life is my gift to You in return.

i love You.  thank You for loving me.