Trying to find a place

This song lately has really spoken to me. 

Hello Lovely Readers,

I had a post all set for today but I rescheduled it for Monday so I could write this more honest post. 

I feel like I haven't really written anything. I feel like I have made a lot of list and posted a lot of pictures. So this post is kind of random combination of the things I have been going through.

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Remain in me, and I will remain in you.

-John 15:4

My relationship with God has faded away, I am sad to say. I am still a believer but for the last few months I months I have not made it a priority in my life. I could justify myself by saying that I have been really bus as I try to finish school but I don't know how true that is. Mostly because this fading away I feel started back in March. But this blog post is not so much focused on my fading. It  is more about the impact on my life.

On Sunday I was sitting in church leaning up against the wall not paying attention to the sermon but instead thinking about the curriculum for children's church. I was on my phone looking up the passage and some how got to John 15 and I read John 15:4. I have probably read it a hundred times and could recite it as an over used verse. But since Sunday I have realized hoe true it is for me. 

Lately, I have felt like something is missing in my life. I feel like a lot of my fiends lives are changing, they are graduating school, getting in relationships, having babies, or other things. And I feel kind of stuck. I think of things I want in my life or want to do in my life and how I can't get them. At least not now, and maybe not until I finish school (2 more years). And sometimes this stuck feeling overwhelms me. It makes me sad when I feel how my life is missing something. 

But is my life really missing something?

No!!! If I was listening to God I would know I was exactly where I was suppose to be. The school, the program, I am in has been a dream of mine. Since I was in high school. God has blessed me in pursuing this dream. He has long protected me.

Once I went on a retreat in Gloucester, at a friend's house on the ocean. During a quiet time I found a place sitting on the rocks. I couldn't focus on my reading so I found myself staring at the rocks below me. When the tide was coming in it looked like one rock was "protecting" the rock behind it from the crashing waves. Then the longer I sat there I saw the tide go out and I saw what was the second rock holding up the first rock. Since then I have seen the symbolism of God in these rocks. He is the first and second rock both protecting me from the hard waves and holding me up.

On that trip I found these rocks and 

since then I have had these rocks on my dresser to remind me.

But as I admitted my walk with God has been on the wean, so the little voice inside of me has come in and told me, my life is missing something. I am seeking people around me get the "things" I want and to be honest I am jealous. It doesn't help that emotionally I have felt like I have been a yo-yo.

Going back to the verse "remain in me and I will remain in you." I have seen this in my life. The more I remain in God the little voice that tells me I am constantly wrong goes away and it speaks softer than a whisper. When I remain in God I hear a voice that tells me I may not have everything I want but I am all right. 

Right now though I can't hear God speaking to me. I have often wished God would tell me what to do like the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" but he has never spoken to me that way. Most of the time it is just a feeling, or things my friends and family say that lead me on my way. Since I haven't been really seeking God out I haven't had that feeling or God's whisper. And I miss it. 

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Last time I read the bible I was reading 2 kings.* It seems to be a long list of kings with names I don't now how to pronounce and really no stories or life lessons I can relate to. I need a book to read. I have list of book I want to read but I am not for sure what I should read. Any suggestions.

*- I wrote this in my school notebook but I have not wanted to post it till I was done with school. Yesterday and today I have taken time to read my bible. Yesterday I read John 15 and 16 to get more content around the verse. Today I went back to Ephesus, it is like my comfort blanket, I go back to it whenever I don't know where to go. Today I read Eph. 1:11- "In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will." I know at the heart of it I know God is working out everything to His will and though it may not be exactly what I want it is what is suppose to be happening. 

I need to stay more constant with God, which is hard, but it is always rewarding. 

Summer plans

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Hello lovely readers,

I am happy to say I am done with my semester in school. Now I have a month and a half off before Summer School starts. My dad has already asked me what I am doing with my time off.

1. The most practical answer work more hours at my job aka earn more money.

2. Read more fun more fun books. I am currently reading Catching Fire but I have a few other books I want to get through.

3. Write more. Rather it be this blog or my story The Sister of Pine Haven.  I have a few blog post in draft that I am working on and hope to get them published soon. 

4. Some family is visiting. My dad and step-mom are coming in May and my mom is coming in June before summer school starts. 

My dad and step mom:

From my college graduation 

My mom and I:

At the Biltmore Estate

5. My birthday party- I love celebrating my birthday, I love planning my birthday. I am in the works of arranging a party where my friends will hopefully donate money for my trip to Honduras.

(Yep I still need to raise funds so please let me know if you are interested).

6. Hang out with friends. 

Some of my friends
thanks... Mikhail Glabets Photography

7. Lastly I have to report for Jury duty. 

So those are my plans for my month and a half off. 

Getting me through Finals

I am happy to announce I am done with this semester.

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Though other semesters have been rough I feel like this semester I have spent more time in the library working on papers. I have grown accustom to spending almost the whole day in the library, learning the different schedules of when it was busy versus when it was quiet and finding it conquest when I left the library around 11PM.

While finals were tiring I have learned a few things to get me through this time.

1. My 5 PM coffee was great... though now I have to wean off it (this will be hard).

2. Learning to deal with distraction. While I work better at the library it is still hard to stay focused all the time. But it is good sometimes to be distracted. Here is a video from "Easy A."

3. Get out of the library. Back in February my friend invited me to two concerts and if I had taken a look at my schedule I would have seen that these concerts were in the middle of finals time and probably would have turned them down. But because I didn't do this I had preset times that I couldn't be in the library. 

4. Find something that is calming. I love kids, I work in my church nursery and last Sunday I went in even when I wasn't on the schedule. This little boy was very tired and kept leaning on me and pushing on my belly with his head so finally I gave in and laid down with him. I didn't actually fall asleep but my friend took a picture of me as if I was sleeping. Eventually I had to wake the boy up but after that he was very clingy and it was wonderful for me to feel so wanted. 

5. Keep telling yourself "it will get done," every semester I get stressed and I think I will never get this done I have to tell myself it will be done even if some nights I don't sleep that well. 

For all my friends going through finals, this song is for you...

Song: Be Calm

By: Fun. 

The Help

Last August I went to go see the movie The Help and I finally have read and finished the book. I know this will not come as a surprise but the book was much better than the movie. But I am sad to say if it wasn't for the movie I would not have read the book. 

When I saw the movie I updated my Facebook status about seeing this movie and I learned that the movie had a back lash from the African American community because it glossed over the harsh realities of the Civil Rights movement. To read more of that post click here. The movie may have glossed over some of these facts but I thought the book did a good job of displaying some of these realities. But at the end of the book Kathryn Stockett writes a little a bit about her own life growing up in Jackson, Mississippi and the maid she had growing up. She also writes that she will never understand completely the plight of African American women who were maids back then but she writes that this book was to show women were not that separate but the same. 

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The book revolves around three women who will change their part of the world. The chapters switch off being written in either Aibileen, Minny or Skeeter's voice telling the story of how these women gain their own strength in the face of adversity also known as Hilly Hollbrook.

I like Kathryn Stockett cannot understand the true plight of what all these women went through back then. So I while I admired Aibileen and Minny I related to Skeeter. She is fresh out of college and wants to change the world. At first isn't sure what she wants to but then she finds her voice and  the people she wants to help.

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She graduates college with no engagement ring on her finger and she wants to get a job, this goes entirely against the norm of society. She is also characterized as a scrawny young woman with hair so curly/frizzy it is unmanageable. And her mother and her have a constant tension over the fact her mother wants her daughter just to be "normal". Tensions rise between Skeeter and her mom when their life long maid, Constantine, is gone when Skeeter comes home from college. Constantine is the one person who loves Skeeter just the way she is and Skeeter loves Constantine more than any one.

Constantine and young Skeeter
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Skeeter knows she is not like every girl in Jackson but for awhile she tries to just blend in but when she speaks out she finds her strength. She faces rejection from the people she thought were her friends and she finds friends and family in an unlikely place. She also discovers her place in the world.

Skeeter and her "friends"
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I don't want to give away any spoilers to the book for those who have not read the book or watched the movie. But it should be on your reading list. I could not end this book review with out mentioning the two strongest characters in the book Aibileen and Minny.

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Aibileen has a quiet strength. She has spent her whole life doing what she is told to and silently she obeys. But she carries around the pain every day of having lost a son. Still she gets up every day to raise a little white girl a little girl who is not well loved by her mother. At first she doesn't believe she has a story to tell, then she doesn't want to risk telling her a story but she gains motivation to speak up and through telling her story she learns she has more of a voice than she ever thought.

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Minny always had a sassy mouth. Which has gotten her into a lot of trouble over the years with both her employers and her husband, who is very abusive. However she has a deep dark secret that  in the end protects the women of Jackson. She learns to let people behind her guarded shield and care for them.

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Trailer for the The Help:

Kathryn Stockett in The Help
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