Saying Goodbye To My Dorm

This post has come a lot sooner than I thought it would...

My lease at Kennesaw is finally over.

Talk about bittersweet.

I can't wait to a cheaper dorm, because $580 a month for my teeny tiny dorm room with no kitchen is absurd. I'm moving to a $555 dorm that has a stove, a living room, a washer and dryer. That's $25 cheaper for a lot more things than I have now. Only negative part is that I'm going to have 3 roommates this go around instead of just 1. Hopefully we'll all get along *fingers crossed*

Even though I'm sort of looking forward to changing scenes, this room has been my home for the past year, and I hate moving around. I think I just finally truly settled in the place, and now it's time to pack up and move on again. I just barely finished decorating the place, and here we go again.

So you guys got to see what my dorm looked like while packing up, but here's what my dorm looked like before moving time came around:

My poster from my Life Teen 'graduation' that the class of 2013 made for us, surrounded by two beautiful butterfly portraits that I bought this year:

My butterfly boards that I got from Wal-Mart hanging over my closet:

This is by the door to my room. The cross that Luis gave me for my 15th birthday (we weren't even dating yet!) and a key hanger that I bought this past year:

The shoe hanger over my door... honestly one of the best things I bought all year. Along with a cute little "I <3 Me" pillow door decor thing that I've had forever:

My (somewhat) organized closet:

My awesome coordinating bed. The fact that my comforter and pillows match make me happier than you can imagine. Plus my and Luis's little stuffed animal family in the corner:

My calendar, which is pretty much the only decor I haven't taken down yet, because I'm afraid that because it's a stick on, I won't be able to save it until the next dorm:

My lamp, courtesy of Luis, and the super messy makeup and jewelry drawer behind it.

I also have a little frame that hangs over my bed with the "Don't Quit" poem, a Mother Theresa quote plaque, and another cross hanging over my make up/jewelry station that I didn't take pictures of.  (Do you see the butterfly/love/Christian theme of my wall decor??) I worked so hard all year to make this place homey, that now I'm sad that it's so super empty and filled with boxes. I'm going to miss it.

But hopefully my dorm this upcoming school year will feel just as much as 'home' as this one felt, and I'll make friends with my new roommates.

Here's to a great, new home!

Packing Up

I have been packing nonstop like crazy these past two days.

My lease expires this weekend and I hadn't really started yet, so that's always a problem....

So Luis and I have been going crazy on my dorm. I have so much more stuff than I thought I did! Kitchen stuff, bathroom stuff, decoration stuff, school stuff, makeup stuff, random stuff that I can't throw away but also don't what to do with it stuff, paper stuff, memory stuff, extra stuff. It's insane!

I started the packing really organized. All the decoration goes inside this box, all the kitchen stuff inside that box, books in this one, clothes in the suitcase, etc etc. But then I realized how much STUFF I have, and changed gears. Now it's, oh this one fits here, that one fits there, I think I can shove this one here.

Plus there's that tedious part about packing and cleaning that goes like this: "I was looking for that!" "What's this?" "I forgot about this!" "Oh, I remember this... Good times!" "Let me read this." and nothing ever gets done because I'm too busy reminiscing or reading.

I brought a crazy amount of boxes home from Chick-fil-A, hoping and praying that they'd be enough to put everything up with. I did forget that I have 3 suitcases, 2 laundry baskets, and tons of those big Ikea-like bags that I could also put stuff in. Plenty of storage space, thank goodness.

I'm here emptying everything out. I took everything out of all the drawers and out of all the cabinets and all storage space in my room, but the thing that makes me feel like I'm moving the most is my empty closet. I've been sleeping on a mattress without and linens other than a pillow and a quilt, and it's my empty closet that gets to me.

Go figure.

All my clothes are so neatly folded into my suitcases (read: my bulging, overfilled suitcases), unpacking them is going to be a pain and a half.

Everything is starting to look so empty.. Things are going inside boxes, boxes are going inside Luis's car. It's kind of emotional, thinking about leaving this place that's been my home for almost a year now.

Anyways, Luis and I are finding ways to enjoy ourselves while packing... Especially since the dorms give us these awesome bins to roll our stuff (and ourselves) around in!

I was slightly reminiscent of the Taylor Swift "22" music video, and I bet I was having just as much fun as she was shooting it.

Plus, on a quirky aside, we lucked out and got bin 116, which, for you non-Lecrae lovers out there, is pretty much Lecrae's anthem. Romans 1:16 I am not ashamed! I went to his concert last year and we chanted one one six at the top of our lungs, because we're not ashamed of the Gospel!

But now we're wrapping up and it's time to say goodbye to my dorm...

Bye bye...

Hello My Name Is

Child of the one true King!

I am currently 100% obsessed with this song.

It's so uplifting and beautiful.

I mean, how often do we go through our lives looking at ourselves in the mirror thinking "My goodness, I'm so ugly, look all these physical features that could be better about me? Ugh, I'm such an idiot, why did I do that?? I'm so confused, what am I supposed to do with my life? I feel so lonely and broken inside."

Or how about those times when other people are the ones putting us down?? Using words like 'loser,' 'stupid,' 'Oh, he's such a liar,' 'she's a gossip' and reminding us of all our insecurities?

We're so quick to put ourselves down, and so quick to remind ourselves of our past shortcomings and failures. We find it hard to love ourselves and let others love us. This song does an amazing job of reminding us that no matter what kinds of shortcomings and failures we may have had, God looks past those and sees us for who we truly are, His children.

He has broken away the chains that tie us to our past sins and regrets, so we can live in freedom in His love and mercy.

I Refuse

This is a really powerful song that really applies to the message on my previous post.

I just wanted to share this song, it's really touching and a call to action for all of us.

Good Triumphs Every Time

After last night's rant, I feel like I should take a step back and do a second post.

I was angry and upset last night, and all I could see was the bad. That's what most of us did, and that's what brings people down so much. We see something bad happen, and we see all the evil in the world. We see how twisted and sick and cruel is this world we live in.

But go rewatch the videos from last night. Not just the ones I posted, but all the ones you watched too, because if you're like me, you watched dozens of them. Go back and watch, and instead of watching the explosion and looking at the people bleeding on the ground, look at all the people running towards the explosion.

First responders were on scene immediately. No one knew if a second bomb was in place, or if anyone was going to follow up their bombs with gunfire or anything else. The two bombs were seconds apart, and when you watch videos of the first explosion, you can see people helping even before the second one goes off. And even after finding out there are more bombs, they don't stop, they keep going, keep helping. It's beautiful.

There is tremendous beauty in the midst of all the disaster.

God is so good. He never let's the devil make a move without responding with a better one.

"Look for the helpers. You'll always find people who are helping."

Sandy Hook school shooting?

• A teacher, Victoria Soto, hid her students in a closet and sacrificed her life for her students.
• The principal, Dawn Hochsprung, gave up her life in an attempt to stop the gunman and protect her colleagues.
• The school psychologist, Mary Scherlach, was also shot in this same attempt.
• Another teacher in that meeting, who's name was never released, pushed the door shut because there was no lock, so the gunman couldn't get in. She was shot through the door.
• One of the custodians, unnamed, risked his own life by running down the hallways, warning everyone to lock up and protect the children.
• A little six year old boy, Aden Licata, grabbed several of his friends and ran out the door trying to get to safety. A mother who happened to be at the school picking up her children early, saw Aden and his friends. She took them with her and they all went to the police station to wait.
• Another teacher, Kaitlin Roig, took her students to the bathroom, locked the door, and pushed a bookcase in front of the door to protect her students. She kept telling her students that she loved them, so the gunshots wouldn't be the last thing they heard.
• One of the kids hiding in the bathroom told Ms. Roig and his fellow classmates that he knew karate and would protect them.
• Abby Clements, also a teacher, opened the door to her classroom and quickly pulled in students from the hallway.
• The music teacher, Maryrose Kristopik, locked all her students into closets with instruments in front of them. She then stood by the doors, holding on the handles not to let the shooter in. 
• The librarian, Maryann Jacob, led the children to safety by crawling, and then gave them papers and crayons to keep them busy and calm.

I make a point to try and remember these names, and I intentionally try my best to forget the gunman's name. It is not worthy of recognition.

Yesterday's bombing? Yes, somebody, or even a group of people, hurt these people by setting off two bombs and having 2 others planted. 176 injured and 3 dead by the last count I saw. But there is a light in these numbers, because the good still outweigh the bad.

• People were in the hospital within 10 minutes of the first explosion.
• Allan Panter, a doctor who was just waiting for his wife to finish the race, jumped right in to start helping victims, treating them as well as possible on the spot.
• An unidentified event volunteer helped a 78 year old marathoner get up seconds after the explosion.
• All off-duty Boston police came in to help with the tragedy.
• The racers who weren't hurt kept running, and they kept running all the way to the hospital to donate blood.
• In the few hours after the attack, so much blood around the country was donated that the Red Cross issued a statement saying to schedule blood donations for a later day, because they had all the blood they needed.
• Even after the statement, people still kept piling in to donate blood, so the Red Cross started setting up future appointments for all the people queued up outside their centers.
• You can see people run towards the explosion site in the videos and start tearing away at the fences and rushing to help the injured, undeterred by the pools of blood surrounding them.
• One unidentified man took off his belt and made a tourniquet to stop the bleeding of one legless individual. After making sure that individual was okay, or as okay as one could be in that situation, he turned around to help others.
• Dozens of marathoners took off their shirts to work as tourniquets  as well.
• Men carried other men, women, and children away from the scene. 
• Joe Andruzzi, former Patriots player, was one of the ones carrying away victims. His three brothers were also responders at the 9/11 bombings.
• Volunteers wheeled a countless number of victims away from the scene.
• Two soldiers who had just finished the race ran straight into the explosion.
• Carlos Arredondo, a peace activist, helped a legless man onto a wheelchair and pinched his artery all the way to the ambulance to prevent blood loss.
• Countless people opened up their homes to anyone who needed a place to stay after the attacks, as two hotels shut down as precautions. A Google document was started with numerous people offering places to stay or rides for others affected by the tragedy.
• People also offered clothes, meals, and showers.
• Restaurants around the area started offering up free meals and places to stay for those affected by the explosions of the day.
• The owner of El Pelon Taqueria was one of these, offering up free wifi, cold drinks, outlets to charge phones, and a place to stay if they didn't want to be alone. He honors his workers for not going home when they could, and those workers who were not scheduled came in to help. They also insisted that people only pay for their meals if they could.
• Make Shift Boston, an office space, opened up it's doors to the public for water, phones, and internet.
• Oleana, a restaurant, offered warm meals to those in need.
• Several airlines, including Southwest Airlines, waived their fees for changing flights for the runners and attendees.
• HopeMob, a crowdsourcing funding website, offered financial assistance to family members of victims in need of airfare. 

After everything is all said and done, I won't try to to remember the names of the people who caused this tragedy, but I will remember the amazing love and support that poured out from all over the country and beyond. That's what I want to remember. That's the light in the darkness. That is God's Hand in the tragedy. Even in the ultimate darkness, when Christ was crucified and darkness overwhelmed the earth, brought about the ultimate light, resurrection and eternal life. Because the darkness of night has to come before the light of the morning.

For every one twisted person on this planet, we have thousands more that are willing to work hard to help to undo the damage.

Because at the end of the day, good triumphs evil every time.

My God's Not Dead, He's Surely Alive

While I was driving home tonight, this song came on the Fish.

Like any song that is meant to speak to us, one line stood out to me more than any other. I know this song. I know most of the lyrics, and I sing along every time. I actually quite like the song. This line has never meant anything, nor am I sure that I knew this line before tonight, but when I heard it, it struck a cord.


"Let hope arise and make the darkness hide. My faith is dead, I need a resurrection somehow. Now I'm lost in Your freedom and this world I'll overcome"

"My faith is dead, I need a resurrection somehow"

"My faith is dead."

Cord struck. Ouch.


How easy it is to get wrapped up in the everyday trappings of this life. Wake up, get ready, go to school, go to work, do some homework, go to sleep, then wake up to do it all over again. Then comes that time when you wake up late one morning and forget to say morning prayer because you're in a panicked rush, and before you know it, morning prayer is no longer a part of your morning ritual. Then you have a super long day and you can't wait to lie down in bed and knock out. You're just SO tired that you think your bedtime prayer can wait until morning, after all, God will understand that you're too tired. Even the Apostles fell asleep on Christ, right? Then before you know it, you stop praying before going to sleep.

These little things keep on building up and building up until you end up forgetting how to pray completely. And it's hard to sit in church and focus without prayer. All of a sudden, Mass loses all the meaning it had to you before and you start drifting off, thinking about other things, completely irrelevant things, maybe even sinful things, when you should be focusing 100% on the Eucharist before you. Mass without its meaning becomes unimportant and suddenly you start finding reasons why not to go to church, and when you do... You become a prime example for going through the motions.

And without prayer and Mass, sin becomes so easy, and sometimes it even seems harmless. Once you lose prayer and church and that fire that kept you going for so long, sin is there waiting to take over your life and show you the path straight to Hell. Where there was once a burning passion for my God, there is now a shadow created by the darkness of my sin.


How on earth did I fall this far?


When you fall, you don't notice until you're too deep in to just brush off your scraped knees. You're so deep in that you end up having to claw and fight your way out of the quicksand that the Devil has so cleverly got you trapped in. And the worst part is, when I realized that I fell, I was too exhausted from the fall to try to get back up. Sure I've prayed every blue moon to God to bring me back to Him and to pick me up and reignite my fire, but I didn't do anything about it. I've been sitting here, wallowing in my self-pity that I'm in the dark, asking God to pull me out of it, but I haven't done a single darned thing about it. Asking God to help me is all great and dandy, and it's exactly what we're supposed to do, but how can we expect for Him to guide us towards the light, when our backs are to Him? How did I ever expect Him to fix anything, when I was barely trying to get out and actively working on digging myself a deeper hole?

But the good news is that I have absolutely zero doubt that once I turn around and start actively trying to get out of this pit I'm in, God will be right there to pull me out, brush me off, and bring me back to His Path. And there's no better time for me to start the fight than now. It's during these forty days of Lent that we are all supposed to be growing closer to Christ as we get closer to His Resurrection.


Today's Mass Psalm reading even kind of ties in with it.
Psalm 34:5-7 I sought the Lord, who answered me, delivered me from all my fears. Look to God that you may be radiant with joy and your faces may not blush for shame. In my misfortune I called, the Lord heard and saved me from all distress.
Psalm 34:19 The Lord is close to the broken-hearted, and saves those whose spirit is crushed

In my misfortune I am calling, and I have faith and trust in the Lord, that He will hear me and save me from this distress. All the parts of my life that I now find lacking, I know will all fall back together again, in an enriching and fulfilling way as I turn towards God. No more will I have my back turned against Him, because I want, I desperately want and need that radiant joy that comes from knowing Him and walking in His paths. It's deliverance time. I'm ready to repent, and turn myself over to God once again, to be saved and loved. No more shall I be broken-hearted and crushed, because I'm turning myself over for a true spiritual makeover.

And I'm changing the empty prayer I've been saying for so long now... I am no longer praying to have the faith life I once had again; I'm praying to have an even better and stronger faith life.


So come shake the ground with the sound of revival, because I'm ready to be on fire for God again and overcome this world!

Meditating on Scripture?

They say that reading Scripture without meditating on it is like swallowing food without chewing first. However, I am quite terrible at this meditating bit that people so often talk about, so I'm trying something new. I am going to write about the message that the Bible verses are speaking to me, as well as whatever background whatever I use to 'meditate'. Hey, everyone's faith journey is different right?

So here it goes...

Today (or yesterday, depending on how you count your days.. I count a day over when I go to sleep, so February 19 1AM is still the 18th to me) I decided to read the daily Mass readings that pulled from this lovely website. The readings were:

Leviticus 19:1-2, 11-18
Psalm 19:8-10, 15
Matthew 25:31-46

And of course I ended up reading Leviticus 19:3-10 and Psalm 19:11-14 too. So some of the verses I'm reflecting on are included in there too. I'm just going to put the verses that stood out to me and what I thought about them.


The first verse was right at the beginning: Leviticus 19:3 "Revere your mother and father, and keep My Sabbaths. I, the Lord, am your God"

This one stood out to me because throughout this chapter, all of the Ten Commandments are mentioned at some point or the other, but these two came first. Also, I think that whenever certain points of the Bible that I am familiar with come up again in other parts, it just pops out to me, kind of like a friendly face in a crowd of strangers. Also, I had a little bit of Catholic guilt in there, because I've been bad about making it to Mass every Sunday over the past couple of months. I think I've probably missed as many as I've gone to and I feel pretty bad about it ): I think I'm back in the groove though; I'm working on it at least/

Verse number two was: Leviticus 19:16 "You shall not go about spreading slander among your kinsmen; nor shall you stand by idly when your neighbor's life is at stake. I am the Lord"

The first part didn't really strike out to me, it was the second. "Nor shall you stand by idly when your neighbor's life is at stake." I interpreted this in both the literal and the figurative state. Earlier today I was doing some stuff and looking a pro-life things, even had a conversation about it with a pro-choice person. Reading this verse really just brought all that back. I can't stand idly when my neighbor's life is at stake. And who is my neighbor? My roommate is. So is the kid down the hall or down the street. So is someone in a neighboring county, city, or state. So are people in Mexico and Canada and Brasil and even Europe and Asia and Africa. Everyone is my neighbor as far as Christ is concerned, because everyone is my brother or sister in Him, even the figurative "Samaritans" that aren't considered to be like me or even have the same beliefs. But that's a really cutesie thing to say, until you realize that the unborn child is also your neighbor. "Nor shall you stand by idly when your neighbor's life is at stake." I can't stand by idly while children are being mass murdered every day, by their own parents.

The second way was a lot less drastic. But still, how much does it cost you to help someone else? Make their life a little better? My neighbor is the homeless man who sits at the intersection holding up a sign, and I can't stand by idly while his life is at stake, even if all I can do for him is give him a Chick-fil-A coupon or a dollar. My neighbor is the single mom with 5 kids whom she's struggling to feed. How can I stand by idly while there's legislation popping up to reduce financial aid for these families and take away her children's only means to healthcare, when I'm 18 and able to vote for someone who will help her? That weird kid in class is also my neighbor, and how can I stand by idly when his life is at stake with people making fun of him?

That's just a glimpse into all the thoughts bouncing around in my head about this verse.


Which ties right in with the next verse: Leviticus 19:18 Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against your fellow countrymen. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. That's the pinnacle of the Christian faith. It ties right in with everything I said above, but it also surprised me. When I think about God in the Old Testament, I think of a strict Dad with lots of rules and full of fire and brimstone. He's the strict Daddy teaching His kids how to live their lives right, and once we enter the New Testament, He's still the same strict Daddy with the same rules, but now He also shows His loving and compassionate side. But here it is, the number one theme of the New Testament sitting in the third Book of the Old Testament. I didn't even know that was part of OT Doctrine, and I consider myself well-versed in Scripture. I guess it's true when they say you learn something new everyday.

Take no revenge and cherish no grudge. Again with the kindness and compassion. What happened to an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? Well, that make the whole world blind and in need of dentures. I think it just goes to show that there is no two Gods, or two different view of God from OT to NT. It's the same God with the same teachings all throughout, it's just us that don't pay attention to all the details, only the ones we want to. God had been teaching these things long before He sent Jesus down to drill it into our heads.

I am the Lord. This phrase is repeated tons of times throughout this chapter and I'm not sure why. Just some food for thought for later...


Those are my thoughts on the first reading for today (the 18th). Maybe I'll do the other two readings tomorrow, or I'll just skip over to tomorrow's readings, but now... It's 2am and I have an 8am class tomorrow.




Good night and God bless

The Beginning Of A New Era

So I feel like it's only right that I mention somehow that the world was supposed to end today, and last October, and last May, and in 2008, and in 2006, and in 2004, and in 2000, and in 1999, and in 1994, and so on. People are always full of apocalypse theories, and somehow, tons of people fall into the End Of The World mindset every time. Sad. Although I'm not going to lie, it was brutally windy last night.

Anyways, as the world is ending, I'm sitting in my dorm, on and off cleaning while blogging, pinning, tumbling, tweeting, and Facebooking. I need a life! Although I can't complain, today is my day off from work and I had a great time celebrating my best friend's, Carlin, birthday all the way up til 4am last night/this morning. We had a ton of fun XD

But on a more serious note, it does feel like the world just might be close to it. So many horrible things happening every day all over the world, and it's heart breaking. I still cry every time I think about Sandy Hook. I can't imagine what was going through the mind of that man to slaughter 20 little babies in cold blood. You have to be sick to do that kind of thing. And to make matters worse, those stupid Westboro people are planning on picketing those poor children's funerals.
They're already disgusting and do terrible things, but little kids??? Really??? You have to further worsen an already unbelievable tragedy by picketing poor, innocent babies' funerals. I refuse to acknowledge them as Christians, because their actions are absolutely NOT condoned by the Church or the Bible's teachings.
I'm usually much more loving, but this is the end of the line. Finding love in my heart for people willing to do this is much too difficult for me. I'm more upset by them than the shooter, at least he had the excuse of mental illness. Sigh... I hope they receive the official classification of what they are soon, a hate group, so they can be banned from picketing innocent people's funerals soon.

Yet, maybe some good might still come from Sandy Hook. I don't know, but since the tragic shooting I've seen so many posts from famous and influential people about bringing God back. It's true though, every time tragedies occur, we automatically blame God. How He could let these things happen??? But we try so hard to keep Him out of our schools and governments, that can we really blame Him? My two favorites so far have been Ben Stein's and Huckabee's from Fox News account of things. Even though Stein's isn't directly about Sandy Hook (it's about the White House calling their Christmas trees 'holiday' trees), it's still a beautiful message and it relates directly to what's been going on with everyone's post-Sandy Hook questions. Then Huckabee's video is also incredible. I love it. He puts it out just like it is and I think it's an amazing message. Both of them say the same things: That we've spent so much time and effort trying to get rid of God's influence in schools, governments, and lives, that we have no right to ask where God has gone during our tragedies. Yet, while the tragedies are happening, God is still there taking care of us when we need Him, even though as soon as we've recuperated, we'll turn our backs on Him again.

Here are the links to what I'm talking about:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151195531403915

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=4174330156740&set=a.2125237610707.2104648.1238881931&type=1&relevant_count=1

Both of them are very wise men, and people are listening, I hope. These aren't the only ones of the like that I've seen, they're just my two favorites. Who knows? Maybe changes are coming, maybe there really will be an improvement of things. If more people start thinking like this more, maybe there just might be a betterment of things. I pray and hope and wish that people will listen, that people will improve, that our government and our nation and this world will improve.

And maybe that's just my wishful thinking. But God knows, and He won't let us fall without giving us a safety net to catch us.

God bless America, cause He knows we need His blessing now more than ever. And watch over your new little saints in Heaven.