Barefoot Cinderellas

I Stumbled Upon this, and while it's rather long, I think most girls and young women should give it a read. The way you look and appear to other people may surprise you. The effect your appearance has on other people may surprise you. How your appearance makes you feel may surprise you. Today I was watching What Not to Wear and a 40-something year old woman could not recall a time that she had ever felt beautiful. I feel that this is the world we live in today and something must be done to change our perspectives about ourselves. And it's not just sex appeal, it's self-esteem and knowing that you are valuable and worth more than anything if only based on the fact that God created you. Trade in the glass slippers for some flats, and learn to love yourself the way God intended you to be.

Sex Appeal of Plain Women

"You made all the delicate inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous, how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed." Psalm 139:13-16

Victory in Jesus

"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king."
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)

I came across this and it sounded familiar, but having never read any of the LOTR books I knew I was mistaken. I'm not as complete a nerd as I could be, I have seen the movies and enjoyed them, maybe one day I'll have the time on my hands to read the series. That's not the point of this though. I've heard that there's a lot of symbolism in Lord of the Rings to Christianity, and while I haven't seen the movies in a good bit, I do like the reminder that I get from this quote. When looking at it from a Christian perspective, the truthfulness and reality of it are obvious. The things we pursue as Christians may not be flashy and fabulous like the fortunes of this world, but they still hold importance and are more valuable than anything the earth can offer. When we doubt and lose our way, maybe we backslide for a period, this doesn't mean we're lost. Once you have declared that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised Him from the dead, you will always be one of His children. That is a promise. Having a strong relationship with God over a long period of time will keep you from succumbing to the outside forces that try to destroy that bond. Does this mean that there won't be any adversity? No, and just as the frost comes every winter, we can be positive of the obstacles that we will face. In the second stanza, I just see the coming of Jesus and the reassurance of our eternity. Just reading it over and over again, and wow. It amazes me! We have the victory because Jesus will be king and He will be the light to this present darkness. I didn't mean to write an essay's worth of thoughts on this short passage, but God spoke to me through it, and I didn't want to forget any of it.

Looong Day

It has been a looong day, but fulfilling. It's the days that have the most crammed into them that seem to have the most reward. Class started bright and early as usual, which it's 9:30 right now and I'm in bed. 8 am's are beginning to take their toll slowly and steadily, but I'm still determined to win this race of waking earlier than most students would prefer. Straight after class I embarked on my job hunt. This in itself can be so draining, but I prepared pretty well with a list of the vets to visit and directions for the quickest way to get to all of them, and some extra resumes. I left these at some, filled out applications at others, but one vet asked me to come back today to go ahead and start with volunteer work! Talk about instant gratification. I had to run and buy a scrub top, eat a quick lunch, and head back over there. It was a great experience already. The environment is laid back and they are very eager to teach us what we need to know to help them out. I doubt it will be long before I'll be doing some important things by myself. The situation is exactly what I needed and God answers prayers one step at a time. We'll see how things work out, but I like this deal for now. When I got home we made a dinner of Italian chicken, pasta salad, regular salad, black eyed pea dip and rolls. It was so good, and fun. Our little family all grown up making dinner and eating at the table. Little moments like that are what make me love the college life. This is our time together and we need to make the most of it before reality takes hold of us even more than it already has. I'm getting a little long winded, but overall today was a good day and I ended up conquering about as much as I could have hoped.

Conquer All

School is off to a great start! I love my classes and find that time passes quickly when you're actually interested in course work. We'll see how long this lasts, hopefully until December! Tomorrow I'm going to kick butt and take names in my search for a job. I have 13 places to tackle, and then I'll move on from there. We'll cross fingers for good luck. I'm super excited to be back in the swing of things and am optimistic about how much I'll hopefully accomplish this semester. How many years does it take to get the whole college thing down? Probably four, and by that time you're about to leave anyway. Maybe that's why people stay for longer, maybe that's a good excuse. But I'm on my way to conquering all, at least that's how I feel at this moment. Also at this moment, I'm pretty into my Pandora and some new stations I've discovered, or rather they've discovered for me. What was the world before the internet? Quiet, I don't know. Speculation goes on forever and a generation slowly fades away. I'm thankful for it now though, and speaking of I need to do some homework, so until later!

First Day

Another first day under my belt and it feels nice to have the jitters and nervous anxiety over with! To start the day off, I missed the first bus I should have been on and had to wait too long to make me late for my first class. And of course once I get to the class the only doors to enter are on the front side of the classroom and the only seat left is on the very front row. Can you make this stuff up? Classes were good though and I think I will enjoy what I've gone to so far. My physics professor is Scottish and I know that I will never get bored in that class. His voice is entertainment enough. It will be a good semester and I will learn lots of cool things. On another note, the transit situation coming back from campus is... not preferable to say the least. The bus doesn't come into our complex at all so we had to hike from the road all the way back to our house. I know, at little drama queen, but at least we learned our lesson on that one! I'm looking forward to see what my second first day will bring and hopefully it will be better than the first!

Fall Beginnings

So Summer is circling the drain and I figured it was about time to write a new post. I've made it back to Auburn and can't be more excited about the new year that's ahead! I have my new room all set up in our new place and we're mostly settled except for a few small details. Thanks to some secondhand stores I got some pretty cool things to fit in my new room and I love the fact that they add "character" to what I already have. Classes start back tomorrow so I'm sure there will be more than enough stories to fill another post, and I'll be getting back on the bandwagon to post more often. But for now I'm just thankful for the time I had this summer to spend with family and relax and recharge and to remember what's important to me. Here's to the new Fall beginnings!