Great Reminder

My dear friend Lisa sent this passage to me and I absolutely love it! It is a great reminder for me to focus on my relationship with God and the rest will fall into place. It's by my desk and I read it everyday. I hope it brings some encouragement to your life.


Everyone longs to give themselves completely to someone,
To have a deep soul relationship with another,
To be loved thoroughly and exclusively.
But God, to a Christian, says,
"No, not until you are satisfied, fulfilled and content
With being loved by Me alone,
With giving yourself totally and unreservedly to Me,
With having an intensely personal and unique relationship
With Me alone.
Discovering that only in Me is your satisfaction to be found,
Will you be capable of the perfect human relationship
That I have planned for you.
You will never be united with another until you are united
With Me alone,
Exclusive of anyone or anything else,
Exclusive of any other desires or longings.

I want you to stop planning,
Stop wishing,
And allow Me to give you the most thrilling plan existing,
One that you cannot imagine.
Please allow Me to bring it to you.
You just keep watching Me, expecting the greatest things.
Keep experiencing the satisfaction that I Am.
Keep listening and learning the things I tell you.
You just wait.
That's all.
Don't be anxious.
Don't worry.
Don't look at the things you think you want;
You just keep looking off and away up to Me,
Or you'll miss what I want to show you.
And then when you are ready,
I'll surprise you with a love far more wonderful than any
You could dream of.
You see, until you are ready and until
The one I have for you is ready
(I am working even at this moment to have you both ready at the same time),
Until you are both satisfied exclusively with Me
And the life I prepared for you,
You won't be able to experience the love that
Exemplified your relationship with Me.
And this is the perfect love.

And dear one, I want you to have this most wonderful love,
I want you to see in the flesh a picture of your
Relationship with Me,
And to enjoy materially and concretely
The everlasting union of beauty, perfection and love
That I offer you with Myself.
Know that I love utterly.
I Am God.
Believe it and be satisfied.

~ St. Anthony of Padua

End of the Semester

I am finally done with classes and it is such a great feeling!! I finished all my reflections and papers for my junior block field experience and I only have two finals left. Here is a picture of Mrs. Schroeder's second grade class and I on my last day with them. I fell in love with these kids. I had no idea that I would like teaching students that were this young, but I loved it! They made me a precious book with letters from each of them. I love it! I learned so much being in their class for 4 weeks and I am so pumped to be a teacher now!

This weekend my apartment mates and I decided to have a cookie decorating party. We had a pretty good turn out and I had a lot of fun. Emily played guitar for a while and some of us played Mario Kart. We still have a lot of cookies left over, so feel free to come over and get some!

Lately I've been praying a lot and God has really been doing a work on my heart. I've been struggling with understand what God's plan for me is, but he is teaching me how to be persistent in seeking Him and to be patient while waiting on Him. It's hard but I am making it through. I recently dove into 1 Peter and I got a lot out of it. I would encourage all of you to read it! Here are some of the verses that I think God specifically wanted me to read. I love it when God speaks to me.

• 1 Peter 1:22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply.
• 1 Peter 3:3 Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.
• 1 Peter 3:8 Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble.
• 1 Peter 4: 7-10 The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray. Above all, love each other deeply , because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various form.
  

I have one exam on Tuesday and one on Thursday...I cannot wait to be home!! Good luck to all who are studying for finals!!

Sorry it's been so long

I have been slacking when it comes to blogging. I have been very busy with my junior block field experience and I have another crazy week ahead of me. But I promise that when I need a homework break this week, I will write a very insightful post. I am loving being in the second grade class that I'm in. I love the students and I love being able to teach. My professor came to observe my lesson today and it went very well!! I was so relieved!!

Here's what I've been up to lately:

Toby Mac came to HU!!

Going out for Emily's 21st birthday a week early, since we won't all be 21 on her actual birthday

I finished my reading bulletin board today!

Thanksgiving

As the holiday season comes around, I would like to stop and take a moment to reflect on the things I am thankful for.

• My Saviour and his unconditional love for me
• My family [my parents, Evan, the Cripe side, and the Rookstool side]
• My amazing best friends [Bradie, Cassie, Joni, Emily, Brittany, Beth, Carrie, Kellyn, Steph, Brittney, Ben, Dustin, Jordan, and Alex]
• The good times in life
• The struggles I have been through over the past 20 years and how they make me stronger
• Izzie
• The education that I am receiving at HU. I cannot wait to be a teacher!
• My past, present, and future [I am thankful for how the past has shaped me, how the present is everchanging and I look forward for what is to come in the future]

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Music Review

Recently I have been listening a lot to John Mayer and Carrie Underwood. They both have a new Cd's that came out in November and they are both really good! I wanted to share them with you!

John Mayer's CD is called Battle Studies and one of my favorite songs is Half of My Heart which he sings with Taylor Swift. I like a lot of the other songs too [Perfectly Lonely, Assassin, Who Says & Friends, Lovers or Nothing]

Carrie Underwood's new CD is called Play On. I don't really like most of her past Cd's, but my friend Jordan told me that I had to check it out. And he was right, it's so much better than her other ones. The songs are much more mature. My favorite song is Change, but they're all so good!! What Can I Say is also really good! It's a duet with Sons of Sylvia.

So if you're bored today, you should check out some of these songs! Have a great Saturday!!

New Moon <3

Last night at midnight I went to see NEW MOON with my roomies and two other friends [Michelle and Ashley.] We got to Jefferson Pointe around 9:30 and then we all got some Cold Stone! So good! However we had to eat our ice cream in the freezing cold while we stood in line. But it was worth it to get there early because they let us in the theater at 10:00. We found a theater that was pretty open and got some great seats! The wait for the movie went by pretty fast! As you can see below that I am for TEAM JACOB!! I have been ever since I read New Moon.

EYE CANDY!!

Bradie and I were so excited!!!

We had to buy candy for the movie so of course we got New Moon candy

We had to wait in line and it was freezing! We were also cold because we were eating Cold Stone in line ha!

We got some great seats and we were ready for the movie!!

I had to buy a Jacob Black cup!!

The movie was so amazing!!!! So much better than Twilight! I am for sure going to see it again!! We had a great time and I wasn't too tired today when I went to my second grade class in the morning!

NASHVILLE!!

This past weekend I went to Nashville, TN and let me tell you it was one of the best weekends of my life!! Steph, Ben, Alex and I drove down to see Jordan at Belmont! Jordan didn't know that Alex was coming and he was very surprised! The look on his face was priceless!! Jordan showed us his campus, all the sweet places in downtown Nashville, the celebrities houses and the Grand Ole Opry! It was awesome! I don't know why I live in Indiana ha. I took a bunch of pictures but these are just some of my favorites!

Only 3 more hours to go : )

The lights of downtown Nashville

Sweet view of the city from a bridge

I love this picture and I love my amazing friends! They are my oldest and closest friends! I love you guys!!

Toby Keith's house

The gated neighborhood where Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood and Joe Don from Rascal Flatts live! The houses were HUGE!!!

Group picture in front of the Christmas tree at the Grand Ole Opry Hotel. They hotel was so nice and nothing like I expected!

The Grand Ole Opry!! I wish we could have gone inside!

Such a good restaurant!! We waited for an hour, but it was so worth it!!

I love this girl like crazy!!

Ben was so funny and he was the DJ for basically the whole trip. He picked great non-screamo music and he put up with all our pictures : )

Jordan was obviously the official tour guide of our trip. I never get to see him since we live so far away and it was great to be united again!!

Alex was able to take time out of his busy ND track practices to come with us! I was so very glad!! It was great to catch up with him!

We had fun standing on the side of the road for about an hour, can't you tell?

We walked to a sweet restaurant and on the way we took a picture with the Belmont sign : )

Amazing cookie dough egg rolls! The egg roll shells were like pasteries, not actual egg rolls.