How He Loves

He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realise just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

And oh, how He loves us so,
Oh how He loves us,
How He loves us all

Yeah, He loves us,
Oh! how He loves us,
Oh! how He loves us,
Oh! how He loves.


We are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If grace is an ocean, weÂ’re all sinking.
And Heaven meets earth like an unforseen kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I donÂ’t have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way…

Hey Y'all! :)

yes. I say 'y'all'. And I'm not ashamed. :p In this particular part of the good ol' U. S. of A., only hicks and visitors from the South say 'y'all'. But who cares. I juts want to try and get rid of as many stereotypes as possible. All they are, really, are an excuse to needlessly judge people. That's not our job, people. It's God's. :)

Ok, rant over. Moving on...

It's been kind of a busy week. My friends came back from Belize last Thursday, and Saturday at Church, we had a sharing service so they could talk about all the crazy-awesome things God did down there. Sunday we had Church and I had to work that evening. This week has been spent really cleaning and organizing everything, touch-up painting, and more cleaning. I'm also in charge of meals and keeping the kitchen clean and in order. It's been rather challenging though, as everyone's been busy, and right now we're all on different schedules, so we're all eating whenever we have the time. And, unfortunately, it seems we're never all here together.

Anyhoo, I have to go to work in a couple hours. I tried the sweet tea from McDonald's (A large is only $1!!), and honestly, I'm only looking forward to working so I can stop and get some sweet tea on the way. ;) It's good stuff.

I finished my quilt!! :D YAY! WOOT! HURRAY!! I haven't gotten around to taking a picture of the finished product, but will probably post a picture tomorrow. Maybe. We'll see.

I've been reading a lot. Currently, I'm reading "When God Writes Your Love Story" by Eric and Leslie Ludy. I just started it today, so I'm not very far into it, but it's really good thus far.

That's all I have time for today. I have a few "article-type" posts in mind. It's just finding the time to sit down and actually write them. :) Have a great week!

And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the prophecies, but test everything; hold fast to what is good. Abstain from every evil thing. 1 Thessalonians 5:14-22

Pictures!

This is kind of a defining moment in my blogging "career". It's the first time I've ever blogged long enough to have a post 'worthy' of pictures. Very Exciting. ;) Ok, moving on...

All the pictures are actually going to be from yesterday. I forgot my camera this morning. oops.

(btw, sorry the pictures are in the wrong order...I guess it doesn't really matter...i'll try to fix it eventually ;))


my sewing table/desk




My quilt. It's almost done now. I sewed the binding to the top last night. Now all I have to do is hand-sew it to the back. :)


Trent is an "Abatar" (Avatar)


Trent's 4.




This is Ethan. He's 5.



The boys are very adorable, but they can both have very bad attitudes. All day Monday was spent seeing how far they could push me, and how much they could get away with. Well, the conclusion was--not far. They figured out that whining and throwing a fit on the floor is NOT how they're going to get want they want from me. All day I was dealing with tantrums over ridiculous, petty things (i.e. trent threw a fit because Ethan "made him forget what he was going to say). It took a lot of patience and a frequent prayers of wisdom and sanity. ;)

Today went much better. Since they had gotten used to me, and they knew I wasn't going to put up with anything, or give into their screaming, we actually had a lot of fun. And we worked on saying "please" and "thank you", and not hitting your brother to give you what you want, but asking for it nicely. It went better than I thought. By the end of the day, they were being polite all on there own, without me having to remind them. :)

Thursday is the last day. They'll be at their mom's, so I won't have to be there I think 'til around 7:30. I'm trying to think up something to do. I like taking them to a park or something where they can be outside, but I need a backup plan because it's supposed to rain all week.

That's about it for tonight. I've been up for 18 hours, and frankly, I'm pooped. :p I hope y'all are having a good week.

Happy Monday!

Day one of nannying. It's 8am and the boys are still sleeping. Thankfully when I got here I was able to sleep for about an hour, so hopefully I won't be a complete zombie. :p I've having a hard time thinking up things to do with them. Generally I'd take them to a park of something, but it's so hot today. Their dad gave me some mondey for food and stuff, but there's not enough there to take to a place like Chuck E. Cheese or anything. I don't think he left me a house key anyway, so I think we're probly just going to spend the day inside doing who-knows-what. I'll figure something out. All it takes is a little brainstorming. :D

I've been reading "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" by Joshua Harris. I've never dated and have never wanted to, but the book is still good encouragment. When I'm finished, I might do a review...but don't count on it. I'm a terrible writer. :\

Well, time to fix breakfast! I have my camera and will hopefully take some pictures throughout the day. Have a great Monday! :)

For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake -Philippians 1:29

Saturday...

Today, I woke up at 7:30. Kind of early for a Saturday, but the sun was shining in my window telling me it's time to wake up. :) I spent some time in the Word, and straightened things up in my room, and vacuumed. We're in the process of moving, or at least selling our house. There's a real estate agent coming tomorrow evening to talk to Dad and Mom, and see the house and everything, so we've been cleaning and organizing like mad all week. Deep, deep cleaning. Like under the refrigerator. In spite of the tedious and seemingly ridiculous cleaning, I had the motivation I needed to really clean out ad organize my room.

Anyhoo, back to today. I had to work this morning (I work at a local restaurant) from 9:30 'til about 2:00. 4 1/2 hours in a 900 degree kitchen and our hot, humid, 95 degree Missouri weather are not a good combination. I was glad to get into my nice air conditioned car. :) When I got home I did some more cleaning and more organizing. I actually found the binding for a quilt I started about 3 years ago. All that's left to finish is just sewing the binding on. I have so many unfinished projects right now. I should probably try to finish them before the next school year begins (SENIOR YEAR :D). I'll keep you updated on it goes, and hopefully post some pictures of some of the things I finish.

One of my really close friends left on a sort-term mission trip to Belize yesterday morning. While she's gone, I'm taking over her nannying job for her. She nanny's two little boys (4 and 6). They're a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to watching them. What I'm NOT looking forward to is having to wake up at 4:30 AM! to get to their dad's house my 5:15. It's still dark at 5:15 in the morning. thank goodness for coffee right? :D

Well, it's getting late, and we have church in the morning. Plus I think I'm getting sick, so I need to get as much sleep as possible. So good night all! Hope you're having a fabulous weekend! :)

Here We Go

Hello world! I don't exactly have the best record of keeping up with blogging. The best I ever did it was everyday for probably about two weeks. Then it died. But that was a long time ago when posts consisted of "Today I woke up, took a shower, did school, went to bed...blah, blah, blah." Who wants to read that? Then a few months ago, a few of my friends and I decided to start blogging on a different blogger. I had one official post, then it ended.

Hopefully, things will be different this time around. Now my blog has purpose. I have a vision. I have goals.

Goal #1: I pray that this blog will be uplifting to everyone (if anyone) who reads it. I want to encourage girls to follow God, and not to give up on Him when things seem to be falling apart. He has a plan. That plan is perfect. If you only get one thing out of this blog, I hope that it's TRUST. "Confident expectation of something". That's one of my favorite definitions of "trust". We *have* to expect that God knows what He's doing. We *have* to be confident that He knows best. We *have* to expect that He'll do what's best for us. Then we can have true hope and joy in this fallen world.

Goal #2: Accountability. Eventually on here I'll give my testimony. Until then I'll say this: I've done a lot of stupid things from having a lack of accountability in my life. I know, that's no excuse. I, alone, am responsible for my actions. However, we need people to keep us accountable. We're all fallen humans. Sometimes, even when we're trying so hard to do what's right, we end up doing the wrong thing because we haven't got anyone to call us out on our actions.

Goal#3: This goal is pretty simple at first glance. And it is to serve God by serving others. That is my prayer for my life. My wish is to serve others, and through that bring glory to my Savior. I pray that God will strip away all pride, and vanity, so that I may truly be a servant. That's where I got the name for this blog.

For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. -Mark 10:45

Ok, now that I got all the deep stuff out of the way, this will also be a place where I share pictures, and random day-to-day things about my life. That's one of my favorite things when reading others' blogs.

Well, I think that's it for now. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. :)

--Melanie

testing...testing...1,2...testing...

Just trying to figure out how everything works. I'll have a real post up soon.