I cannot describe to you My love. I can only give it to you. It is beyond the Cross. Go through. The Spirit alone can communicate what lies on the other side. 

-excerpt from Come Away, My Beloved

"Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends." -John 15:13

I bet you've never heard of the man. Well, I felt the need to give this man the credit he deserves and the recognition I am sure he never receives. 

This man invented something we pretty much cannot live without. The trash bag. What we do without this wonderful, multipurpose, compact object? Can you even imagine life without it? Where would we put our trash?!

Thank you Mr. Harry Wasylyk for your very beneficial invention. We apologize for taking this commodity for granted.

There are different comfort zones I have in different periods of life. During the school year, my comfort zone is being at school and being with my roommate and CBU friends. During the summer, my comfort zone is getting to hang out with my high school besties once again. As the summer progresses, I find comfort in being at my home church and being with my church friends and family. This summer especially, after going to England with my church, I feel like I am even more closely knit to my church family. 

Now here lies the problem. The fact that I have three different comfort zones which have nothing to do with each other kinda scares me. Maybe it's a fear of the future. It scares me to imagine life without CBU and my CBU friends. It scares me that time flies and that these two years are gonna disappear in a blink! It scares me to think that my high school friends are moving on. They seem to be on the train track of life while I am just wandering aimlessly without even being on the track. It scares me to think that my church friends come and go. They move on in life too. People move, people go to different schools, and frankly, some just change churches. 

It's strange that I am even thinking like this because I have always been someone that likes change. But at this point in my life, I think I am most comfortable in my routine. Sometimes, I wish I could just freeze time. I wish I could stay 20 forever or even go back to the younger days. I don't want to grow up. I don't want to move on. Maybe it's just being unsure of the future that is making me scared. I wish I could just see ahead into the future and know what God has in store for me. But I guess that's the whole idea of faith. What is faith if I am not trusting in Him to guide my future and give me a peace about?

One thing to cling to, I have God's promise of a future and a hope. 

So here's to my future, wherever God may lead!

My mom and I walked into Mervyn's today. I spotted it--the perfect bed set for the new school year. I saw it and I coveted. $79.99. Whoa, way too expensive. Wait, sale sign...$59.99. Ehh, still too expensive. Wait, another sale sign...and another. $47.99 and $39.99. Ah! Which is the real price? I pick it up and start walking...I scan it at the price check and it says $59.99. Bummer! I see a worker and tell him, "Umm, excuse me. This bed set scanned for $59.99, but there's a sale sign that says $39.99." "Well, do you want it?" "Huh?" "I'll give it to you for $39.99 if you want it. Just take it to the register and tell them to page Francisco." "Ok! Thanks!"

Basically, Francisco saved today's shopping spree. Thank you Francisco!

Pretty much, I like to vent. But I'm learning over and over, when I hold things in and forget to vent, it's just all around better cuz then I forget the whole reason I even needed to vent in the first place! Instead of repeating the same story 2 billion times and reliving the moment, it's easier just to kick it to the curb and forget about it! So...that's my new goal. I'm allowing myself only a few vent sessions per week. Yeah, I know that doesn't sound like I'm cutting back, but if you know how much I currently vent, that is a BIG cut back!

Also, I just had to say, there are a few pictures from my England trip that I am pretty proud of. So I'm gonna show them off. Enjoy! (And I apologize if you have already seen them on myspace, facebook, or flickr. lol.)

I pretty much dwelled on this statement when I was in England. I didn't take any vitamins (besides the ones already in my food, haha) and I was even semi against hand sanitizer. Well, here I am, exactly a week after getting home from England...and sick. I feel like poop. I had a fever yesterday and even had to miss church! It was horrible. And to make matters worse, today I was supposed to join Jen and her friends and family at the beach and I can't. I miss you Jen!

It's weird--this whole saying goodbye to everyone before they move back into school thing. I'm tired of doing this every year. At least we wont have to do it anymore after we get out into "the real world." Two more years! Yes!...?

Anyways, the trip was wonderful and such a blessing! Thank you to all of you for your prayer and support while we were there. 

When we first got to Woolacombe, the weather was super hot for England, which was actually kind of strange. I even got a farmer's tan again--bummer! The Sunday after we got there, a bunch of us went to the Calvary Chapel Woolacombe service that morning which was so awesome cuz it was outside on the grass overlooking the ocean! Talk about worshipping God while being surrounded by His beautiful creation! 

The next few days we spent going around to different towns and passing out flyers for Creationfest and sharing Jesus to people we met on the streets. Praise God for opening the eyes and ears of so many people! The day my group went to a town called Braunton, I was with Gaby and Kristi. We were getting a little discouraged cuz it was such a small town and it seemed like everyone had already got flyers and didn't wanna hear about Creationfest again. We sat down on a bench and were just kinda hanging out together when a guy walks behind us. Gaby gets up and hands him a flyer and tells him it was for a free music festival that weekend. The guy makes a comment about how he was amused by our American accents. (It was definitely a God thing to open the doors to talk to this guy by using something as simple as our amusing accents.) Anyways, we get to talking to this guy. He asks us, "Do you mind if I smoke?" and Gaby so spontaneously says, "Not if we can tell you about Jesus!" It was so amazing! We got to talk to this guy for like 45 minutes! He didn't get down on his knees and pray with us at the end of the conversation, but I definitely believe seeds were planted. (And he did let us pray for him before we left.) It was devastating to hear his story though. This guy had faced so much hurt in his life and had been hurt so much during his childhood from so-called religious people. He kept asking us the typical "How can a loving God...?" questions. Please keep this man in prayer if you remember...and I'm sure you'll never forget him once I tell you his very catchy name...Ozzy Osbourne. Anyways, that was just one of very many stories I have. Please pray for this man and pray for everyone else that was spoken to before, during, and after Creationfest. Pray that God would water the seeds that were planted and that these people would be opened to the truth!

The ministry opportunities did not end after our morning runs! Each of those nights, we went to Creationfest Roadshows! Those were pretty awesome as well! But then came the actual event. Setting up for Creationfest was interesting. It was pooooouring rain and it was so extremely muddy on that field. But that only made things more fun especially since we went out and bought rainboots. (Definitely a good investment!) When we finished setting up, they gave us our assignments. I was so happy to find out that I got retail! It was so much fun getting to sell merchandise and meet the bands and sooooo many other people! Shout out to the many friends I made from Christian Surfers UK! Basically, I could go on forever about how much I loved Creationfest, but this blog is already getting long! (But if you wanna hear any more specific stories, just ask me and I'll be more than happy to share them!)

Creationfest ended on Sunday, tear down was on Monday and then Tuesday we drove to Kingston University. Wednesday was our London day which was a lot of fun! I got to do some sightseeing and some shopping and then we came back home the next day! Pretty much, this trip was all around amazing and Lord willing, I will be able to go again next year!