Pumpkin Patch Dreams

Hey friends!

Sorry I've been a bit MIA from the blog lately. Life has been moving pretty quickly for me.

Some updates:

I'm a senior this year graduating in May, hallelujah! My degree will be Business Management with a concentration in Human Resources. What am I doing post-graduation???? Don't ask me, because I don't know! It's fine, everything's fine.

As you have probably seen on my social media, I've been traveling quite a bit as well. So far I've gotten to visit Disney (again lol), Wisconsin, and Chicago; and it's only October! I'll be making my way to Austin, TX in a couple of weeks for a concert, with more exciting trips planned throughout the year.

I'm still involved in Chi Alpha Campus Ministries serving as a freshman girls' lifegroup leader. I couldn't be more thankful for the community the Lord has given me while in college. There is nothing like it; I've never met people with a more authentic love for God and for people than here. It is an honor to spend my time in college investing back into a ministry that has invested so much in me.

Last weekend, all of the freshman girls' lifegroups went to a local pumpkin patch together, and then back to my house to paint pumpkins/hang out together. It was so much fun spending time and getting to know the girls all in one place, and I can't wait to see how they grow with Jesus and with each other throughout the year.

I've been getting a lot of joy out of using cam cam lately, so check out these photos of the girls' sweet beautiful faces living it up in the pumpkin patch!

Twist & Shout: Chicago

Hey friends! 

Today I'm sharing some photos from a short day trip to Chicago! And by "some" photos, I mean A LOT. 

This past weekend was my dear friend Maggie's wedding in Appleton, Wisconsin. My friends Kennedy and Charles live in Michigan, so I flew in to Detroit, and we road tripped from there. On the way back to Kennedy's house, we had an extra day until mine and Olivia's flight back, so we stopped in Chicago for a few hours to see some of the sights! Lately I've been feeling a bit of the travel bug, so I jumped at the chance to see a city I've always wanted to visit. 

Olivia, Kennedy, Maggie, and I all roomed together on my first Disney College Program in the spring of 2016.

Our first stop was Navy Pier, right on Lake Michigan. 

T-Swift And The Problem With Hardened Hearts

I think the most cringe-worthy moment of 2017 was the moment I heard Taylor Swift's new song "Look What You Made Me Do." 

Okay, so hear me out. Tswift is my girllll, and her songs were the anthem to my teen angst; so I'm not going to sit here and bash her as a person or her new sound or how she's not the same, etc. Music artists change their sound/style all the time, and there's not much you can really do about it. Am I a "Teardrops On My Guitar" over "Blank Space" kind-of-girl? Yes, but irrelevant.

My concern here is for this twenty-seven year old girl's heart and the message she projects to people all over the world. 

Taylor Swift is probably one of the most (if not the most) well-known name in pop culture. This girl has had some crap happen to her, and she's done some crap to other people. Regardless of what's true or how I feel about her personally, her song gave me actual anxiety just by listening to the lyrics. She openly claims to write music from personal experience, so we know these words come from her heart. 

Here are some of the most concerning lyrics to me:

Beauty In The Broken

There are two types of people in the world...

There are those who cry out to God and profess their love and devotion in the hard times and times of need, but ignore Him when life is going pretty swell. 

Then there are those who turn and worship God when the blessings rain down, but bail when it gets tough. 

Neither of these places are good to be in. I'm not saying this is a constant attitude in your walk with God; just a tendency toward one end of the scale than the other. 

I'm in the second category.

With the realization that all good things come from above, it's easy to give praise to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ when you feel #blessed. But when hard times come or things don't seem to be going your way, the presence of God is questioned in the midst of the mess. Suddenly it's easier to feel betrayed and frustrated at the lack of understanding in what is happening and why. 

I used to pray that the Lord would just zap away my pain in a matter of moments. I believed in faith in the power of Christ to bring healing in my brokenness. I wanted out of the painful season as soon as possible, and so that would be my prayer... God just wash away the pain, take me out of this now. 

But over time, the Lord has taught me something so incredibly sweet about His character in the midst of pain.