Sweet Southern Pearl

By now everyone knows how much of a complete mess I am about moving back to HP from Boone. When I left Boone on Sunday, I cried for about 45 minutes as I drove home, down the mountain, under the heavy clouds. The sobering thought that when I came back, I'd be packing my bedroom up literally made me sick. I felt a deep sadness just gripping and overwhelming me.    At this time last year, I was very apprehensive to move to Boone. I'd made the decision to live in Boone for my second year at App, but right before it was time to move into our apartment for the school year, I was second guessing myself. I was worried I'd be homesick. I had only lived at home because going to HPU, it just didn't seem necessary to spend $40,000 extra to live on campus when the school was right up the street from my parents' house. After graduating, though, I felt like I needed to live away from home and see what else the world had to offer. I wanted to live in a different tow...

"...Lookin' to find a way through the day, a life for the night Dear Lord, you done took so many of my people I'm just wondering why you haven't taken my life, Like what am I doing right?" I've been to four funerals this year. Three of them were people who were pretty young. I tweeted a couple weeks ago, "I've been to more funerals than weddings this year. I don't like this." But really. I've actually felt like I'm getting numb to it all, after everything the past few years, and asked God to restore a softness to my heart. I know at funerals, you're supposed to talk about the person in the best way possible, highlighting the great parts about them and about their lives... But I'm being totally honest when I say, the people that we have lost this year were some of the closest, dearest, most sincere, and best people my family has known. The words spoken about them were true, and the impact they made on so man...

Lately, I've been inconsolable about leaving Boone. I've had such a wonderful experience here. For the past few weeks, my mind has been flashing back over my time here for the past year.  It's been both making me smile and hurting my heart at the same time.   I always meant to write a post about my experience here last summer, in my very first apartment with my very first roommate (I lived at home when I went to HPU... so I could save $40,000).   Last summer, I got my first taste of really living on my own. I didn't want to at first - I didn't LOVE Boone yet, and I just wanted to be at home with my family and friends, in my comfort zone. I did not want to spend my summer in the mountains where it didn't feel like summer. I did NOT want to take summer classes again. But I had an amazing roommate (Stephanie) who I grew close to. We had so many great Jesus and relationship talks, and that was just what I needed. I also needed to be away from HP to begin ...

A few Sundays ago, our pastor used this illustration: Think of all the things you put together to make a cake. If eaten individually, they wouldn't taste very good. A raw egg wouldn't taste good by itself. Dry cake mix wouldn't either. And so on... That's how it is in our lives - there are situations that, in the moment, don't taste very good. They aren't fun. They're hard to accept and hard to deal with and sometimes may even seem unbearable. BUT God takes these situations and mixes them all together and with everything else in our lives, and suddenly, it all tastes good. All the ingredients mix together to create something tasty and wonderful, and you look back at all the raw ingredients and smile because all of a sudden, they're not painful anymore and they no longer leave a bad taste in your mouth because they are part of the reason that you're where you are today. Think about that when going through hard times. They might seem hopele...

She's actually a genius. A lyrical genius!!!!!   I finally came to that conclusion back in the fall, after hearing her song "Red" for the first time. The album version is good, but the CMA Award performance with Alison Kraus and Vince Gill is hauntingly beautiful. That's the version I fell in love with.       ..........................................................   Loving him was like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street Faster than the wind Passionate as sin, ending so suddenly Loving him was like tryin' to change your mind Once you’re already flyin' through the free fall Like the colors in autumn So bright just before they lose it all Losing him was blue like I’ve never known Missing him was dark grey all alone Forgetting him was like tryin' to know somebody you've never met But loving him was red Touching him was like realizing all you ever wanted was right there in front of you Memori...

A few Sundays ago, our pastor gave a sermon that has really stuck with me. It dealt with Hebrews 12. As I finished the book of Job yesterday, and have been dealing with uncertainty about the future // nostalgia about the past, I've been able to pull out my notes from that sermon // read Hebrews 12 and really use those things to help me right now. I'm writing this because I have a feeling I'm not the only person in the world going through something similar right now (that's why I write most of the stuff I do...).   The points I wrote down were:   "I am so focused on Jesus that I cannot see anything else in my life." This is so hard. When we have problems, they tend to consume our minds and all of our thoughts. I know I overthink and literally, if something is bothering me, it has the potential to become the only thing I can think about. But focusing on Jesus as much as I should would make it so that there wouldn't be much room for focusing on...

Some really fun things happened in late May/early June that I never got the chance to share...     Like getting into our FIRST EVER Luke Bryan concert when it had been sold out for weeks, and we drove to Charlotte without tickets and somehow found someone that gave us tickets for $20.   BEST CONCERT EVER, even though it was raining.     My Facebook status the next day:   [[[ "Last night, my ride-or-die, Ashley, and I drove to Charlotte for the sold-out Luke Bryan concert that we DIDN'T have tickets to. We were planning on listening from the parking lot because you only live once right? Some people called us crazy but HAHA WE GOT IN FOR TWENTY BUCKS AND IT WAS ONE OF THE BEST CONCERTS I'VE EVER BEEN TO!! It was an outdoor concert and pouring rain the whole time and I even woke up this morning with my hair still wet but now I firmly believe that "RAIN IS A GOOD THING." ]]]         ANOTHER Luke Bryan ...