Life.......

Life. It's so confusing.. sometimes I think about my life and I think that I've done a lot.. yet I realize it still holds so much and I'm excited and I can't wait to see what happens.. Yet, when you look at it from a big perspective, it seems so... depressing.. People in debt.. relationships breaking, children being left, broken families, abused wives and or children, thousands of babies killed each day, murders, financial struggles... I mean it seems like the negative never stops and the more I am immersed into the world and I talk to people who don't know God.. it leaves me with such an emptiness and aching pain in my heart and soul that won't go away.
I am so incredibly thankful to be a child of God, because honestly, everyone else in this world really has no hope and I don't know what keeps them going.. because if it wasn't for God and some of my good strong friends.. I would rather not be here. I wouldn't see a point for any of it. Anyways, that's what's been going through my head a ton in the past couple of months...

During the month of June I:

1-I Rode in one boat

2-I Fished for the first time and caught 4 fishes :)

3-I Flew in four airplanes.

4-I Rode in 10 vehicles.

5-I Burnt myself, while cooking more times than I can recall.

6-I Had my life touched in amazing ways.

7-I Had my spiritual eyes opened in two very amazing ways.

8-I Got sick three times.

9-I Cooked a sickening amount of food.

10-I Had my heart break into a million pieces when I had to release a bunch of children into the hands of my Savior, Jesus Christ, not sure if I would ever see their smiling faces again or feel their little arms hug me.

11-I was in 4 states, two in which I've never been.

12-I Experienced "life change" in my own life.

13-I cried more tears than I thought I could cry.

14-I sacrificed some things in order to be able to go to camp.. but what I sacrificed is nothing and through me God was able to use me to impact others lives. I don't know what could be more rewarding than that, right there.

Continue to:
Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not onto your own understanding, in all your ways and He shall make your pathways straight.

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!!
Thank-you to all of the soldiers who have and are serving! I appreciate your selfless sacrifice that you have given for ME!

Today I bought a train ticket. It's from OKC to Fort Worth. It was really cheap!! =)

A week from today I will already be in Nashville. Time sure flies by! LOL. Yeah, I'll be "flying" to Nashville.. If you don't get the joke then it's my fault. I think lame things are funny...

Well, I have lots of stuff to get accomplished this week.

PRAISE THE LORD!! That's what I've been learning lately.. that no matter what I'm doing or going through I need to praise the Lord... You do too! Scripture says so! =)

Over this whole past school year I've been going to a Bible study and basically we went over a chapter a week, give or take a little. We studied the book of Matthew. Throughout the whole study I got things here and there, but not until we finished, which was a little over a week ago, did I realize how much I learned from it as well as have had a chance to apply to my life. 

Here are a few of the things that I really, really loved throughout the study.

*When Jesus told Peter to come out of the boat and to walk on the water. Peter really DID walk on water with Jesus.. that is until He stopped trusting in the Lord. This is so applicable to my life! I mean, how many times do I say that I'm going to be "focused" on this task and that I'm going to go and accomplish this or that and that I'm going to trust God.. Only to find, which you will find in any major task and even the simplest tasks, obstacles in the way and I take my focus off of Jesus, just like Peter did, and I begin to sink and fall underneath the weight of waves, which in my case are the trials or the insecurities in my life. My favorite part though is how Jesus comes and pulls Peter up out of the water.. He saves him.. Just like He does with me every time I stumble.

*I love the relationship between Jesus and Peter.. In some ways of course it doesn't relate to my relationship with Him, but at the same time I see so many things that fit me that were in Peter's life. The thing that I learned though, was how the word that describes the look that Jesus gave Peter, I think it's in the Greek? I'm not sure, after he had denied Jesus three times, just as Jesus had said, the look that Jesus "looked" at him... Get this! Was the "look of love"... Wow! That takes my breath away every time I think about it... I mean, how many times have I screwed up and done wrong, yet Jesus loved me so much that He gave His own life to save me. Even though my sins are what nailed and held Him to that cross, even when I mess up He still looks at me with the "look of love" because He loves me THAT much, that even my sins can't stop Him from loving me.

*I think the thing that had the most impact on me was studying Jesus' trial and crucifixion. It brought me to tears the more I learned and the more I came face to face with the reality of it all... The hardest part is knowing that as He hung upon that cross, His Heavenly Father couldn't even look at Him, because He bore my sins and the sins of the world upon His shoulders and God cannot look at sin.. So, Jesus really was alone during that time, more than anyone else in this entire world will ever know what being "alone" is like.. I can't even begin to imagine the shame and the pain. Trying to imagine the physical pain that Jesus went through, in my opinion, I think what hurt Him the most was looking at those sinning against Him and not even knowing what they were doing. He is the most compassionate Person you will ever come in contact with. So for Him to see that, the sin and the ones that would never confess Him as their Savior.. it must have hurt even more than the nails or the crown of thorns..
One other thing, Jesus was SO humiliated, yet He did it for our freedom. I'm just going to paint a picture in your head really quickly. Imagine Jesus, wearing His robe, the one they placed on Him to ridicule Him. Now, think of His robe representing righteousness. When they nailed Him to that cross, they stripped Him down to absolutely nothing, He was naked. In the Bible it is always talking about not "exposing your shame." So the way that I look at it is, Jesus took off His righteousness, took all of our shame, in the way that He was stripped and "in shame" and had to hang that way on the cross until His death.I think that that would represent all of our sins laid upon Him.. and through Him taking our sins and our shame, He places His "robe of righteousness" upon us, so that it will cover our shame as well as our sins. I don't know if that makes sense, but that really spoke to me.

If anyone reads this, hopefully it can bless you in some way. If not, maybe you didn't read it through.
All I can say now is that I love you, because Jesus first loved me.
Now, go out in the world, whether next door, or across the sea, or in a foreign land, I know for me it wouldn't be easy to go live in another foreign land.. but I do KNOW THIS, if God calls me I will follow Him, because maybe that will be my cross one day, because it WOULD be sacrifice and it would be hard.
Go make a difference for JESUS and walk in His grace, His love, and His strength.
Love you!

The long awaited post!!

So... pictures say a thousand words! Enjoy.

So.. Jacki and I had fun playing outside.. Nothing says "sister bonding" like playing in the mud, eh?

So.. Jacki got a hamster. So, yes, everyone, this is Tammy.. the hamster.

So.. my Joni left me for a month to go up to OKC to do some amazing ministry work and I had the privilege of riding the Amtrak train up there with her for like five hours and then I had to ride it home all by my lonesome. Oh yeah, I did get to see some amazing friends while I was there though.

At the beginning we were having F-U-N!!

This was about 3 hours into the trip... 

Yeah.. I was tired.. 

This was right before we got off... Seriously, I felt worse than I look.. so you can just imagine, I was feeling YUCKY. Headache and all.  

Yeah.. she tried to entertain me.. but it ended up just being annoying.

The cutest kids in the whole world that I get to babysit!

I love these kiddos!

Tessa and I. Jesse was trying to figure out how to use the camera. haha.

Yes, he IS a handful, but a very cute one.

Okay.. so we're so much a like that it's actually scary.

Check it out! He's hilarious!

My beautiful sister-in-law!!

So my other sister Christina came for a visit while Joni was gone.. She's pregnant and she already LOVES pickles... So, yeah, get ou tof her way! She's hungry.

Yup... who knew? I think this little Bartlow is going to like sweets.

Yup. We had a little mini baby shower for her... she's teething!

I got this for Baby B. It's SO soft and it sings.

Yeah, this is Liz, my brother Jer's girlfriend.. She likes to come over and hang out.. and then she steals MY phone and talks to MY bro. haha. I love ya, Lizzy.

So.. I got pretty sick a while back.. and I had this nasty cough.. Well, Jack-o, my little sis decided that it would be a GREAT idea to tape this thing to my mouth so I wouldn't cough germs all over her. It was pretty funny.

Jer and Liz.

Liz and Jack-o.

Christina and Liz. They're matching!!

Jacki and I.

Christina, my wonderful sister and I. Having a blast!!

Saying goodbye... I love and miss you, Christina! Hopefully I can come visit you soon!

So.. on a side note.. life has been crazy as of late.....

I cannot wait to be an aunt coming this September.

Hopefully at the beginning of June I will be flying to Nashville for about a week to visit my brother and my sister-in-law and then after that I'll be flying to OKC for about three weeks to work at a summer camp. I'm going to be working in the kitchen! Using all of my "mad cooking skillz". Then after camp I'll most likely ride a train home for about five hours. AGAIN! haha. It'll be good though.
Once I get home from camp, my brother Josh will already be here and will be here for about a week and then once he leaves I'm going to buy his car from him because he's leaving the states. So, I am very excited about finally getting my "own" car...

I'm STOKED about summer! haha. I never use that word.. Shows what happens when I'm posting in the "morning" haha.

Well, most likely, no one is going to read most of this, but a week ago I really bombed something and made a mistake and had to definitely learn the lesson that hard way. That lesson though, let me tell you, is plastered to me and, wow, I'm thinking through almost everything I say because I don't want to hurt friends again.. or myself.. but most of all my Savior, because ultimately He is the One that suffers the most from my mistakes... because it IS MY SINS that have nailed Him to that tree. It's amazing to me how Jesus was nailed to a cross, but that is really a "tree" and He is the Son of God, which makes Him, God, but the thing that stands out to me is that, He is "Creator"... He created that tree and still He humbled Himself to be nailed to that tree. I mean, He has ALL power and He created the very thing that He hung upon as He drew His last breath. It just shows how unselfish God is... So, in all that to say, I really messed up. I walked, I stumbled, I stumbled so hard that I fell flat on my face, *and the most amazing part,* I humbly looked up from my place on the ground and I saw Jesus standing there with His loving and forgiving arms open to me ready to heal my broken heart. Jesus is the ONLY reason I live... Every hard lesson I'm realizing that more and more.

Well, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I've missed "writing" my thoughts on here.. even if it is gibberish. Maybe it won't take a year or so before I do it again.

Peace and Love from Above to All! Trust Jesus with EVERYTHING you have...