Oh How He Loves Us

"Oh God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;

my soul thirsts for you;

my flesh faints for you,

as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,

beholding your power and glory.

Because your steadfast love is better than life,

my lips will praise you.

So I will bless you as long as I live;

in your name I will lift up my hands." (Psalm 63:1-4, ESV)

Have you ever been running on a really hot dry day and not carried your water with you? Your throat and mouth become so dry and your strength begins to drain as dehydration sets in; all you can think about is getting to water before you pass out. 

I rediscovered this underlined passage in my Bible last night, and it really hit me in the face.  It's just so beautiful to me, and a powerful wake up call. 

Think about it, this passage is basically telling us as Christians we need to seek God as if we are thirsting to death.  He is our water; He is our strength.  We need to constantly be striving for God.  We must continuously work to become closer and closer to Him.

In this passage, David writes that God's love is greater than life.  How completely and breathtakingly beautiful is that?  God's love is greater than the mountains; than the sunset on the beach; it's greater than this whole earth. It's greater than life.  I don't know about you, but that just makes me smile.  

God's love is greater than life, and we have His love.  He loves us!

God's love is kinda like that glass of ice cold water you finally get to on the hot day after running.  It pierces your dry throat and revives the strength you didn't have before.  When you are weak and straining to remain standing, God's love saves.

What really hit me in the face about this passage was that I really haven't been working hard to become closer to God.  I kinda put God on the back burner last semester, and it showed.  I was miserable.  (Now, not to say you can't go through hard times as a Christian and while seeking God. But Philippians 4:11-13, Paul tells that in whatever situation we face, no matter despondency or prosper, we can get through it with God.  We can find contentment in God; He is our strength.)

So yeah, I'm not perfect. Totes obvi. I constantly forget to put God first in every situation.  But I'm working on it.  I'm just so grateful for his unconditional love.

I hope that this passage makes you as happy as it made me.  :) 

And Then That Word Grew Louder and Louder

Hey Everyone :)

Okay so today has been so wonderful.  This week had some rough spots, but for the most part it was great, and I am so excited about what's coming up! 

I'm participating in the sorority recruitment at my college and today was the first official day of rush! It was so much fun! And might I say, I'm officially exhausted. If the standing in the hot sun didn't wear me out enough, the smiling sure did! :D It was great and I made soooo many friends.

Aren't we so cute?!

Anyway, back to the blog challenge.

Favorite Quotes and Bible Verses

(Please note: any Bible verses I quote are being quoted from the ESV)

Bible Verses:

• "For I am certain that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." --Romans 8:38-39
• Psalm 28
• "But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received form the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God." --Acts 20:24
• "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous.  Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord you God is with you wherever you go." --Joshua 1:9
•  "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." --Jeremiah 29:11
• I pretty much love every single Psalm

I could just list and list Bible verses all day :)

Quotes:

• "Be a true heart not a follower." --Ed Sheeran
• "Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire." --St. Catherine of Sienna 
• "Hold on to what you believe in the light, when the darkness has robbed you of all your sight." --Mumford & Sons
• "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain."
• "Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God." --Corrie ten Boom
• "Faith sees the invisible, believes the unbelievable, and receives the impossible." --Corrie ten Boom
• "Get over your hill and see what you find there with grace in your heart and flowers in your hair." --Mumford & Sons
• "Smart is sexy." --Ashton Kutchar

Okay well those are just some of my favorite quotes and verses.

What's one of your favorite quotes and/or Bible verse? Leave a comment below! I'd love to hear them :) 

I hope you all have a great weekend!!

The Joy of Nothing is a Sweeter Something

Heyyyy. So I forgot to post yesterday, so here is  the yesterday (Wednesday) post.

I nearly forgot about it again today. Until now.  And it's 2am.  I'm tired.  So guess what? It's gonna be a short blog post.

Go see what Victoria wrote.

What I'm Excited About

I'm excited about this weekend.  It'll be a four day weekend because I have no classes tomorrow and Monday is a holiday. I'm going to see the 1D movie with Victoria and some other cool people, I'm going kayaking, I'm going to not have classes, and I'm going to sleep. So excited.

And I'm just excited about life right now.  I love living in my dorm, I'm excited about my classes, hanging out with my friends is so much fun, and just living and moving forward and enjoying life. It's all exciting.

Oh and I'm excited that the new Foy Vance album came out.  It's really good.  :)

~~~

Okay goodnight! :)

What Time Is It? The Time of Our Lives!

Late again. You might as well get used to it.

Day #4!!

Today's topic is....

First Day of College

It's slowly beginning to sink in now: the responsibility; the need for balance; the excitement of entering a new world.

And today helped me face these things even more.

Today I had my first day of classes at my university. It's so hard to believe that college is starting! This is real!

I'm just going to give you a basic summary of how this day went for me.

It all began when I woke up by the dreaded and annoying sound of my alarm at 7 o'clock this morning. I got ready and then headed down to the cafeteria with my roommate for breakfast. 

After that we both walked up to the technology computer doctor place to get our computers fixed. I ended up being there for 2 hours. Woohoo. But my computer can use the wifi now :)

Then I went to the campus health services place to get cold medicine. (I would get sick on the first week of school.) The nurses were all so nice there! It made me happy.

Then I went back to the cafeteria to meet a friend for lunch.

I went to another cafeteria with another friend so she could get lunch.

I went back down the campus to get meds and soup from my mom. (She had to come into the town so she brought me some get-well noodle soup.  Presh right?)

Then I walked back up to where the cafeteria was to mail a whole stack of letters.

Then I walked back to my dorm with my friend so she could eat her lunch and so I could crash.  By this time I had basically walked all over campus.  And I have a sprained ankle so my foot felt like it was going to fall off. (Okay just exaggerating a tiiiiiiny bit there..)

Back in my dorm I drank some fruit punch Kool-Aid and my day instantly got better.

I then went to my first class at 2pm. (Yeah, my schedule is spoiling me.) It was college algebra.  I'm allergic to math, so this class wasn't too exciting, but the professor really seemed to care about us knowing the material and seemed to want to help if we have trouble (which I'm sure I will), so that was really nice.

Immediately after this I had History of Western Art.  Now, first off I was pretty nervous about this class because I had the bright idea of looking on Rate My Professor and the professor for this class had some pretty bad reviews.  And then I found out that it is pretty much one of the hardest classes of it's kind. Yikes.

But I ended up liking it.  A lot.  The professor seemed actually pretty cool, funny and she appeared to care about her students and their success in the class. Now, she's not going to hand out grades.  This will be a tough class.  But I'm excited about it.  I love art, and I love history.  So this class seems like it might be my happy place.

After that I was starving and so I went to the cafeteria and got some food and met a pretty cool person that is majoring in art. (I'm thinking about doing something with art so it was neat to be able to talk to someone who is actually doing that.)

Then I came back to my dorm and crashed and did math homework.

So it's been a long day.  But I really did enjoy almost every minute of it.  It got me super excited for these next several years.  I'm sure it's going to get tough, but all adventures are, and they all are worth it in the end. 

I think this year is going to be so much fun! And I'm so happy that I am going to a college with some of my best friends and also meeting new friends. It's wonderful.

Alright.  That's it. :)

Happy Monday!

Go read about Victoria's first day at college! (We're going to the same college by the way..)

Get Out, Get Out, Get Out of My Head

Ok so I recently had a revelation.  

Not  a serious one.  I'm actually making this post because I'm trying to take my mind off of everything I'm stressed out about and I just want to write about something mindless.  

So I'm going to talk about ONE DIRECTION!

Insert *"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"s and "EEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKK"s* here.

Ok so this post isn't about fangirldom.  Nor is it about 1D hate.
Ok so this post isn't reeeeeeally about One Direction in particular.  I'm just using them as a very good looking example.

This post is about dealing with celebrity fandom syndrome.  You could even call it CFS. No actually you can't.  Because there is a legit chronic illness that uses the acronym CFS.  It's called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. And I have it.  And it's not fun at all.

So anyway. This post is about realizing you have fangirl syndrome, and learning how celebrities are just people and learning to chill out about them.

I'm going to give this post another title:

~~~FACING YOUR INNER FANGIRL~~~

*Please note before you read any further that I am merely a 17 year old young lady with a MacBook, love of writing, an overactive imagination, and plenty of crazy personal experiences.  Take any advice within this blog with a grain of salt. This is more for mindless entertainment.  I'm not a shrink. *

Once Upon a Time, back in my senior year of high school this past February, I wrote a research paper on whether celebrities should receive special attention or not.  The thing was 12 stinkin' pages. When I wrote this paper, after hours. and hours. and hours. of research and tears and blood and sweat, I came to the conclusion that no, celebrities should not receive special attention.  I came to this conclusion for 4 reasons:

1. Celebrities are just people like everyone else.  Their jobs just so happen to involve acting or singing or professional sports playing.

2. Fans' extreme obsession can have negative effects on the celebrity.  Like fan mobs.  People get hurt and the celebrity can become emotionally scarred from all the attention and lack of being able to live a normal life.

3. Fans can be scarred because they begin to look upon the celebrity as their role model.  This is actually good in some circumstances: Ed Sheeran kicked his butt and worked hard to get where he is-- he seems to have a good work ethic.  Something that many people lack.  However, when I was 12 sooooooo many girls completely IDOLIZED Hannah Montana/Young and Innocent Miley Cyrus: young "country" super star supposedly grounded in family stuff and working to pursue her dreams as a singer/actress.  Ok.  But now who do you have?  Miley Cyrus: trying to be up-and-coming superstar who seriously flaunts her body in some pretty scary ways.

4. Your ultimate concern becomes your religion.  You worship what you hold sacred.  If you hold stars sacred, guess who're you're worshiping? CELEBRITIES.  And if celebrities are your ultimate concern, your religion kinda becomes Hollywoodism. That's frightening.

I know what you're thinking: "Mary, I really couldn't care less about your boring research paper."  Yeah.  It was boring.  But now I'm getting to the fun part!

What I didn't realize when I wrote the paper is that giving celebrities attention isn't necessarily bad.  When we give attention to celebrities, they are able to make a living, and we are able to see that they are normal people like us with some pretty awesome careers and have some crazy stupid moments and some rough days.  What we don't need to do is worship them. 

We don't need to let our inner fangirl consume us.  And this is how to fight her:

Look at this picture:    

I don't own this picture! (I got it off Pinterest...)

If your inner fangirl isn't screaming aloud right now, give yourself a good slap in the face to wake her up.

Reality is, the members of One Direction are hotties who are talented vocally and have adorable accents.  I mean, who doesn't like a guy with an accent?!

Two days ago my friend informed me that while she was sitting in her practically front row seat with her cousin at the 1D concert, Harry Styles waved at her.  And then she fangirled.  And then Harry laughed at her.  She practically had a moment with Harry Styles, awkward though it may have been.  Needless to say, I was pretty much green with envy for the rest of the day.  And very mad at myself for not coughing up the money last summer for a ticket to that concert. Oh well.

I would be lying to you if I said that I wasn't a fan of One Direction. I would be lying if I said that I didn't know every one of their songs and that I didn't have posters of certain members of the group taped to the back of my bedroom door-- in a total noncreepy way.  (But I've never classified myself as a "Directioner." I don't like to label myself.)

I've thought about how cool it would be to meet them and hang out with them and ok maybe date one of them.  DON'T YOU DARE LIE AND SAY YOU HAVEN'T.

But yesterday, I do believe I conquered my inner fangirl.  I came to a realization.

It all began when I showed my grandmother a picture on Pinterest of the British guy who waved at my best friend.  Yeah, I was still jealous.  And do you know what her response was? She said (and I quote): "Oh God, he's ugly!!" 

My dear, sweet, spunky grandmother.  She has no filter for her words.  If Harry Styles was within hearing distance of her she probably still would have said it.  Not that she's mean.  I think she's one of the coolest, sweetest people ever, and I love her to an extreme.  She's just brutally honest.  A trait I actually admire.

 I however believe that Mr. Styles is not ugly.  But when she said that I took a deep look at a picture of his face.  You do the same. Try to contain yourself.

I don't own this picture either! I got it off Pinterest as well..

Um.  Do you know what I see? A person.  A person who is living his dream.  A very good looking person.  But a person.

And reality is, every person is beautiful and fantastic because God made them.  And He's perfect and doesn't make mistakes.  

What I think happens is that we as stupid crazy humans come up with our own individual idea of beauty and "hotness" and judge people by it, instead of looking at the individual gorgeousness and talents in those around us.

Seriously. How many gorgeous guys are in your school or at your job?  I know there are plenty.  Do they have British or Irish accents?  I guess that depends on where you live.  Can they sing well?  Probably not.  But I'm sure they have some sort of cool talent.  If they don't then they're a loser and you shouldn't waste your time on them. :P

Anyway, lots of babbling later, my advice for over coming fangirldom to you is:  WAKE UP AND LIVE, PEOPLE!!!!!!!! GO OUTSIDE, GET SOME SUNSHINE, TALK TO SOME CUTE NICE GUY YOU ACTUALLY HAVE A CHANCE OF TALKING TO (just be careful.  don't come across as desperate or sluty.  That's not gonna get you a good guy.  Trust me.) GO OUTSIDE AND SPIN AROUND WHILE SINGING "BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY"!!! THIS IS THE REAL LIFE. LIVE IT. WAKE UP AND SEE THE BEAUTY AND EXTRAORDINARY THINGS IN THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU. yep.

In conclusion, yeah I think it's okay to know One Direction's songs (or have a favorite actor and watch their movies), and it's ok to think that a member of the band is gorgeous (or that actor is gorgeous).  It's ok to think Jennifer Lawrence is cool.  Which is good because I think everyone does.  

But keep in mind that even though that member of 1D is super hot, you most likely will never meet them, and you absolutely are likely to never. ever date them. or marry them. They may seem like Mr. Right, but you don't know them.  You may think you do, you creepy little stalkers, but you don't.  And what's important is that THEY DON'T KNOW YOU. But there is some hottie guy in your life that does. And some fascinating people in your life that do. Go talk to them. Mmmhhhmmm.

Celebrities are PEOPLE who's lives are in a snowglobe for everyone to witness. They're going to make mistakes. And so are you.  It's ok to look up to them, but don't wrap your life around them.  Because, yet again, they're people, and they're going to make mistakes. Try looking up to people you can actually talk to, like a family member, a teacher or something.

If I was a celebrity, I would want people to love my work, to be a fan of my work.  To like me because I was good at my job, and support me because of that.  Not because of my personal or physical appearance.  Think about it.

Ok this was a long post.  If you actually read the whole thing, I'm impressed.

--Mary

I Just Came to Say Hello

Well, hi :)

If you have looked to the right you've probably noticed that my name is Mary. And I love Jesus. And like chocolate. And really want to see the world. So since you know my name, and all of that, I'm gonna skip the introduction of myself. 

Okay so let's face it: first blog posts are always awkward.  And when I say awkward, I mean like momentarily forgetting the name of your coworker you've worked with for 6 months when saying hello to them, receiving a Christmas present from someone that you bought nothing for, and realizing when you are out in town that you probably should have worn the beige underwear with your light colored dress instead of the bright blue.  Yeah, 1st posts are awkward. I think they're awkward because you really have so many expectations for them, and so many ideas and things to type, that to the reader you most likely end up sounding like a 4 year old with too much sugar.  Or you have no idea where you're going with the post (like me) and end up rambling about awkwardness, blue underwear, etc.

My plan for this blog is to blog about pretty much everything.  

In exactly 10 days I will be graduating from high school. *insert extreme happiness here* This summer I plan to do absolutely nothing except what sounds fun (ok I'm still gonna work, and clean, and stuff.), go to Ireland to tell people about how awesome Jesus is, and then go to college.

COLLEGE. Hello. I'm excited. And only sllllllightly nervous.  I mean, I've been homeschooled all my life (but I'm not one of those all day TV watching homeschoolers.  I actually kicked my butt in school, mind you) , so its going to be a whole new world.  And I believe I will have lots to blog about: decorating a dorm room on a minimum wage budget, eating in college in a healthy style (or trying to--I really like pizza, okay?!), and I'll probably even vent on crazy things.

It's exciting.

So what's up with the blog name?  Well I like cherries and enjoy painting.  They make me happy.  And it's very hard to choose a name that isn't taken.  Not everything has to be deep.  :P

 Ok I've blabbed on loooonnnnnnngggggg enough.  And I really wanna go eat ice cream now.     (I just got this new computer and so I'm not eating or drinking within 5 yards of it because I'm a klutz.)

Oh and since I just got this blog I'll be changing some things around and such.  Just FYI.  Feel free to give feed back.  Unless it's negative.

--Mary