It's a world of laughter a world of tears, a world of hope and a world of fears

hello blogeritas. I am so stoked about this weekend about this weekend and Thanksgiving! Praise the Lord for breaks and the beautiful state of Tennessee. I am obsessed with my family, Praise the Lord for them as well. Thank you, Jesus! I've been staying at the Rileys this week, gah not living at the B for a week is the best thing I could have ever done for restoration of my soul. I am glad to be alive. I sing in the morning on the way to work, I spend time with the Lord every morning. I dont have to get dressed in the living room and walk get home to a dark room and wake up to a dark room. I can live life on my own schedule. Its the little things in life really. I am trying so hard to learn about simply walking in obedience and trusting the Lord. I am here to change the world, and make a difference in people's lives. I get to choose whether my life is stinking exciting or just plain stinkin. There are going to be good days and bad ones. There are going to be new crushes at some point. Those were fun, ya know the real ones that actually last a bit opposed to the 2 second ones I've had this year. One day I wont be here. I wont live in the B, I wont work at the B, I wont go to class... none of that. And when it's all said and done I hope to look back and know that I lived every second of my existence to the fullest. God is such a cool kid. Im lucky to call myself a servant. Help me live up to my title Jesus. After all, as they say in the hood, playas gotta play.

the office, 76 lb bag of snickers, laughing so hard i slobber, my new fave outiit, eye twitches

1. I am a loser. I have fell in love with the office. Some may ask, why does this make you a loser. Well, as I have previously mentioned I hate to be left out. Okay, well then. I am a loser because I only started watching the office because I felt left out because all of my friends thought it was funny and I didnt. So, i have started at season one. And, I must be honest now and say that I have officially watched three seasons as well as the commentaries. Embarrassing, I know. They are now my friends...my FUNNY friends. I find myself praying for a hilarious husband after every episode. Biblical, I know...that's what the Lord wants you to desire in a good husband...comedy. Right? Right! okay...

2. My roommate is gone for the day. There is a MASSIVE bag of snickers by her bed. I want to eat every single snickers, but I am practicing self-control. It is 1:00 pm, she will be back sometime tonight...pray for me.

3. Before I wrote in my blog, I read someone else's blog. I laughed really hard for a really long time. I thought there would be zero consequences for that action. That is until I start to type and feel my wrist become moist. eww. I am gross.

4. I bought pj pants at old gravy(aka old navy) for $4. They are pink with a bow, I also bought a green tank top for $4.Thus my new favorite outfit exists. I love pajamas. the end.

5. So, last year I went on a date with a guy. During this date my eye twitched the ENTIRE night. Because of this mistake I made in my life by dating said human being, God has decided that sporadically for the rest of my life my eye will twitch. Sigh, I think it is some sort of deteriorating disease, you should also know that I am homophobic. No, I meant ...um...hypochondriac. sorry, i really did say homophobic in my head on accident. my apologies.

sigh...

So, thus far my semester hasn't been the greatest. I wasnt kidding when I said I am bad at change. Living at the BCM, being a staff member and not just being a student who is super cool and always up for playing with everyone...it really is hard to tell what else has been not good, i've just been in a funk with no excuses. Another thing is that I hate being left out. And this semester I felt like God left me out...gah, i hate being left out. Everyone my age is moving on and getting married or engaged, I don't even know if I would want to do either of those things right now...but I didnt want everyone to do it without me either. I wish that I could sit here and say that I am super spiritual and even though I was left out I was super perfect and faithful no matter what, but the truth is...I was super mad at God. I was so angry with Him for leaving me out that I tried to leave him out of my personal life. I was all about praying for ministry and other people and for me and international students but I wasnt letting him in at all. If He wanted to leave me out then that was fine, I would leave him out as well.

And I was doing that without even knowing it. Until this past week when the Lord opened my eyes and showed me first of all that i was mad at him, and second of all why i was mad and what the consequences were. And then last week...last week the clouds moved and the sun shone down and I felt good for the first time this semester. Genuinely happy and excited about life. God more than loves me. God loves to wow us. I hate when plain words arent enough to describe something. The words I know just aren't enough. God is...exquisite, that word just barely begins to describe a tiny morsel of His beauty. Maybe I can try to explain...

I know very little about international ministry. I am learning but I still know very little. I am also a procrastinator and I have also never been to an international event. That being said, we had our first SNT this past saturday...well Melissa couldnt be here and I tend to be a little too laid back about things but I always just assume that everything will be fine. So, when there is no one here at three I simply thought great, more time to go tailgate! So tailgate i did...then I get a phone call at about 4:45 from Heather who is flipping out because no one is at the BCM cooking. I of course am not aware that this is a huge deal but apparently they typically start cooking at 1. haha, oops. So i start by calming heather down and then I proceed to hunt international students. Everyone ends up being found and they start cooking. Apparently they were also very stressed out by the lack of time but i just kept telling everyone to calm down, and that everything was going to be wonderful. Which of course I had no idea if things were going to be good or not but i knew the gospel was going to be shared and that was enough for me! Well, people start showing up, and then the room fills pretty quickly when Heather comes to me and tells me that there are 75 international students in the room. I am again not aware that this is a huge deal, until she tells me that she has never seen this many students here before. Then I look around and see a full room and I start to think about how many of these students may have never clearly heard the gospel before...and I knew that God was so excited that I was completely inadaquate because no part of me looked around that room and congratulated myself for great planning and excellent inviting... no, i knew better, saturday night belonged to God and I am so thankful I got to be a part of it!

One last example, I have been praying along with a lot of my family that my grandfather would become a believer. My grandmother has invited the preacher to talk to him and tried to get him to accept Christ but he just hasn't. Well, on sunday mornings they arent able to get out so they watch Joel Osteen along with other people on tv for church. I always try to explain how much I hate this and how they should just spend time with the Lord instead, but since I am the youngest member of my entire family people tend to ignore me, which is typically a good thing. This is no different, my mom was hangin out with them this morning and they were watching a preacher on tv when at the end they ask if you would like to know the Lord then you should repeat the prayer after them...she said she heard someone talking and looked across the room to my grandfather who had his head bowed and was praying to recieve Christ. She then told me that she was overwhelmed by the holy spirit and walked outside to cry and pray. Praise the Lord that He is wonderful and perfect and can and will work in places we have never dreamed of. This weekend just reminded me of how He would love for me to do ministry with him but in no way does he need me so when i dont step up its my fault.


"My grace is sufficient for you my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Corinthians 12: 9-10

Grown up?

"Hello, Snotface! Yuck! What happened to you? Look at you. You're all older. You're even uglier. Uch. I'm sorry. I'm gonna have to be sick all over you immediately. Lie down."
Drop Dead Fred

I've always promised myself that I was never ever going to grow up. It goes against everything I believe in. Fred could only be your friend if you never grew up, you can only see Santa Claus and the Polar Express if you promise to never grow up. You can only believe in the magic of Disney World if you never ever grow up. I always want to be able to love everyone the way kids can. I want to be able to look at you with an open mind and just love without asking any questions.
But lately it seems that even I am desiring to be a grown up. I just don't care if I'm out watching people have a dance party til 2 am anymore. It's not that I don't love the people that are there and want to want to be there...the fact of the matter is that I just really would rather be not there. Ha, it's weird because it's almost as if I find myself craving a quieter existence. And I feel like that is not me...I am having such a hard time thinking through what grown up Kristi looks like. Ugh, Fred would be so disappointed. But I guess I don't live to be peter pan forever. I don't serve an imaginary friend in a movie... I serve God. And part of me thinks that if I have this weird need to grow up a little, that maybe it doesn't mean that I won't cry at Disney World fireworks, and gasp the first time I see Santa's in the mall every year. Maybe it just means that I will grow up and still love things the way I always have, but for the Lord and however He sees that fit. Gah, my life seems so simple to me this year...but I often find myself feeling confused!

Change: to become altered or modified

"Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death." Anais Nin


I looked through the thesaurus to find a beautiful synonym for the word to change to use in my heading. Not to my surprise, there aren't any. That's when I knew, I could change the word, the sound and the look but underneath it was the same meaning. Change is change...and there is no way of getting around it. That's why I simply settled for the definition. I love words and usually understanding what they really mean makes everything so much better for me. However, nothing makes this one better. I spit on the word change. I make a throw up noise in my head every time I hear it. And I know Im whining and being annoying but thats the best part about blogs...y'all don't have to listen you can simply stop reading. : )

We are packing up the gables 3_3. Nobody ever asked me if this is what I wanted. Haha, I am being so annoying but I literally am terrified when things change and I fight it tooth and nail the entire way. It's typically a knock down drag out fight. Me and change have gone many, many rounds. It always wins. Gah, one thing I hate worse than changing is losing.

And I know that I have it pretty dang good. Many people would look at me and say what is changing?! I am aware that this is a pretty small change. But I hate it none the less. I am just scared is all that it boils down to. But, for now...I am done being super annoying. I am going to pay tribute to my apartment and all 4 roommates that have existed there. Even though I didn't always necessarily think so...that apartment was good to us.

Rachel Smith is a interesting human. Some of my favorite Rachel Smith memories that make me laugh the most happened when she didn't even know she was being funny....as well all know we spent a great deal of our time fighting :) So anywho, one day Rachel was mad at me(surprise?) it was a dish issue(surprise again?) so Rachel decided that she would get me back by hand washing the dishes and not putting them in the dishwasher. And there were a lot of dishes. So after washing them she realizes she needed a place to dry them so she lined towels in front of my door and laid all of the dishes on the towels! Ha, that was amazing to come home to a zillion dishes in the hallway. Rachel used to always dance in the kitchen to Fergalicious and she had those moments when she would pretend she was "working on her fitness" there was also the day that before I had even gotten out of the shower she had decided that she was mad at me, so i walked out the bathroom door and she chewed me out. Everything was so dramatic and stressful then but it all seems so funny now. But all in all, Rachel was a good girl and she loved and served Jesus with all of her heart...she was also always there if you needed to lie in her bed and cry.

Angel Riley is somewhat of a weenie. Now, that we have that out there I think my next story will make more sense. Angel will pass out at the drop of a hat. One morning she woke up and didn't feel good so she was on her way to get a glass of orange juice so it would help her. Well...on the way she passes out and crashes into the TV knocking it off the stand and knocking a pot down in the process and I'm pretty sure she knocked several more things over. The next morning we woke up and were surprised by what had gone on throughout the night.
Angel was the teacher/mom of the apartment always light years more grown up in her heart than the rest of us. She was the nurturer and the one with actual boy experience to dish out. She was a good kid, and I'm glad God gave her to me for a couple of years.

Laura Hawkins is ... lets see.... well, there aren't many words that describe laura to be honest. We spent most of our time wondering where the heck she was. I think the thing that I appreciated most is that Laura is so "girly". I LOVE this about Laura! She would be the first one to offer to punch a boy in the face or key a guys car for you. Laura Hawkins should have been a spice girl so she could talk about girl power a lot. In the same sense, you could always count on her to watch a sappy movie with you or dream about love...or talk about a boy. And no matter how illogical you were being Laura would never judge you or make you feel dumb...she is always there to simply sit and dream with you! She is the most supportive friend a girl could ask for, I am so thankful that she lived no more than a few feet from me for a year!

Natzart Riley is... gah, she is just one of my favorite people! And I love talking about how much I love her because it's not that she is exactly like me and we think the same ways about things, its not that we just clicked right off the bat, its not even that we completely understand each other all the time. It's the fact that there were times when we didn't get it at all and we had no idea why the other one of us acted the way they did. Its the fact that I came to college to grow in the Lord and God stuck me with a girl who didn't give any slack and told you when you were doing something that she disagreed with. It's the fact that she has listened patiently to my over dramatic stories and watched me talk about who I was going to fight and seen me sob over something stupid...for three whole years. We've dreamed and cried and had our hearts broken...we've both been vulnerable with each other when that's not something that easy for either one of us to do. We didn't meet until we were 18 years old, but in a way we grew up together. Don't get me wrong, she's hilarious and there are many stories to be shared...but I've already written too much so I'll just say that Nat was the only one to be involved in a drive by shooting while living at the Gables.

So now my dramatic-12-year-old-girl heart bids farewell to the place that had fireworks thrown at the door, and massive people who fell a lot living upstairs as well as baseball players with endless parties, to the place that people would follow you to the door but never quite attack you, to the place that held at times the most versatile group of males the world has ever seen, but more than anything I'm saying good-bye to a place that has kept me cold(i hate being warm ya know) and demanded that i live in genuine community with other girls. And in that genuine community I have grown more than I can even tell at this point. I've also gotten to watch other people grown. I'm overwhelmingly sentimental. Goodbye, apartment 3_3...you will be sorely missed.

Summer lessons.

A list of ranting & confusion brought on from this summer:


1. Let's get something straight here. I am not fake. I'm not, I refuse to believe it. If it's important for someone to know me then they should just stick around and get to know me and stop making me feel bad and calling me fake. grrr... ha

2. I love summer, and if I were to guess from May how this one would've played out thus far...I would have never in a million years seen what has happened.

3. It's a little odd to be staring ahead at a year where your living and working on a college campus but not allowed to date a college student. The future looks a little bleak in the heart area...

4. I am not sure at all of how my relationships with my friends are supposed to look once I become a staff member. I assume that I'll mess up a lot, here we are.

5. I am going to live in the BCM. Natzart will no longer be my roommate. For the first time since 2005, I will not live with nat. ooohh...sadness.

6. God is smarter than me, bigger than me, stronger than me. I am doomed to mess up time and time again. But He will reign forever in perfect sovreignty...this is something I have held onto tightly this summer.

7. I will be a staff member at the B. I wish everyone knew me as a freshman so they could all mock me in harmony. ooohh...the irony of life.

8. For some reason...lately I have began to cling so tightly to certain people in my heart...like when a baby is afraid that their mom or dad will leave them. What is the deal with that... its dumb to need them. down right dumb.

Then sings my soul...

I think that I live most every day of my life thinking about myself, never letting it penetrate my heart that Jesus died on a cross. And when you say it like that the significance of a great sacrifice gets lost in the repetition of that sentence that we have heard all of our lives. However, sometimes I stop and I remind my self that we're not talking about some far away guy who I've seen on countless movies and tv reenactments around Christmas and Easter. The times that I become truly heartbroken are the times that I make myself stop and realize who Jesus really is behind all of the stereotypes and clichés. That the same perfect friend that takes care of me when I'm crying in my bed and I feel like no one else is there, who can grant me peace when everyone else only seems to say harsh words that pierce my heart, who fills my heart with such intense joy that I feel like I cannot possibly be expected to contain it ...the same person/deity/friend that does all of that for me and lives nestled so closely to my heart, he was killed. And not only was he killed but people hit my friend who I care about so deeply...they spit on him and yelled at him. It would almost be better if they would have just killed him. But to know that they broke his heart and hurt his feelings hurts me so deeply. And I keep using they...because the truth is that when I really stop and think about it and begin to realize that I am one of them, that pain is almost unbearable.To think that I just walk on by him when he wants to hang out, that I reject him...that I fail to mention Him in so many of my conversations. I would never treat even an acquaintance like this. Even when I am messing up and being mean to someone or hurting someones feelings or saying things that I shouldn't say...at the very least I am acknowledging these people. And the times that I can see all of this so clearly...when it's all I can do to just lay on my bed and cry out to him. And all I have to say is I'm so sorry Dad over and over again. It's in these times that I can feel Him the closest. It's then that I know He's right there with me. And I deserve much worse...I know He should be mad at me, I should be in so much trouble...if he were human we wouldn't even be on speaking terms. But instead the creator and king of everything is happy to be with me. He genuinely enjoys taking care of me. He gladly accepts me back into His arms every single time. The weight of not deserving it is so overwhelming, but I don't care because spending time with Him is what I long for. And because i spend a lot of my time trying to fill my desires with other random things, when i finally get it and approach the throne of perfection...I don't even care to sit around and tell him how much I don't deserve His love. He is more aware of my flaws than I may ever me. So I simply sit at his feet and try to soak up his beauty, and the peace that comes from being so close to him on the mountain top, the infinite joy that comes from being completely loved which I often times try to find in people. These are my morsels of heaven...sitting at God's feet. I think it's incredible that before I have these moments with Him, He always shows me the gospel first. I am always on my knees crying out to him for forgiveness and grace when He lets me feel His incredible presence, even if just for a moment. I hate when things sound churchy or fake. Let me reiterate that, I despise, loathe, detest when things sound churchy or fake. This is the real gospel...presented through a shallow mind and crappy typing skills...it kills me that some people may never get it like I'm getting it in this moment. I hope that if your reading this it was comprehensible, I pray that by taking a couple of seconds to read my random blog you got a reminder of the gospel and that your day could be impacted by it. I pray that we would live everyday as people who have been dramatically impacted by something huge in our lives...there should be such an evident difference...wow. I'm rambling...apologies...I've just been awed by greatness and I wanted to try to share the best way I could.

Favor.

excessive kindness or unfair partiality; preferential treatment

God shows me favor. My Dad shows me favor. My Mom shows me favor. My sister shows me favor. My niece shows me favor. My grand-parents show me favor. My friends show me favor. I am reminded day in and day out of how absolutely beautiful my circumstances are and how I have nothing but wonderful things in my life. Mass quantities of people care for me deeply. I don't know very many people who can say that. I am sure I just sound overly confident in this moment but really it's a reminder that I'm not alone. That even as I live in this odd transitional period in life that at the end of the day I still won't be alone. That no matter how many friends get married or move away or just move on with their lives period that at the end of the day I'm still not alone. I am such a people person by the very nature of my being. I desire to love and be loved so intensely. I believe that God will always answer my prayer for people. I believe that if I ever get to the point in my life that I feel like there is nobody around who needs to receive and give love, then I am an idiot. Most importantly, I believe that if God's love is flowing through me, ready to be handed out whenever necessary then I will never want for anything except for more and more of the love of Christ.

To love and be loved. I am so excited about the life that is laid out before me. Those are my two goals, that is my incessant need. That is what keeps me awake at night and keeps my head spinning throughout the day. The urgent desire of my heart to love and be loved. Praise the Lord that these are high in the ranks of his desires as well!

Lord, I give myself to you. My God, I trust you.

What i would not give for that statement to proclaim absolute truth in my life. If the fact that I daily give myself to God and more than that...if I completely trusted Him. My God, why did Pam have to hear her daughter die? My God, why don't I have a perfect plan for next year? My God, why do I have to be by myself right now. My God, I trust You. You are always right...my ways are ridiculous. Why do I always think I could do it so much better than You? Some days are confusing and hard, while loads are beautiful and fun but none the less at the end of the day all is lost if I can't trust. David is so smart, obviously not perfect but blatantly smart. He uttered some of the most beautiful words we will ever be able to say and hopefully at some point, to mean. "Lord, I give myself to You! My God, I trust You." Ps 25:1 amen...

back to school...

Welp, here we are again...school. In my head I hear, "seems like only yesterday we started." Praise God its only January...but I am no fool. I've been a senior before and its no secret that your last semester passes faster than ever. Who knows...maybe i wont graduate. Til then, I vow to hang out with people and love them more than last semester. I vow to have more meaningful late night Natzart talks and I also vow not to take for granted there being 2 beds to sleep in when i get scared of monsters.