Give Me My Heart's Desire!

I think it can be easy to read a verse in the Bible and totally get it wrong..well, for me at least. Or to change the meaning of it into something that you wanna read. Or just pay attention to the part of the verse that you like to hear, you know?

I kinda did that this week.

One of my best friends from Trinidad was supposed to be coming to the U.S. today. It's been planned for a while now. He had a ticket and everything! But he had to renew his passport for the trip. Honestly, it's crazy how this all worked out. At the same time that he applied for his passport, the government in Trinidad went on strike, so his passport could not be renewed in time. He supposed to be on the plane right now, but he's not. He was going to spend like most of the summer here, but now he's not. Everything has just fallen through.

Literally all week Iwas praying that God would somehow give Kerstan his passport. But he didn't.

All week, I clung to this verse that I was just so sure meant that God would give him his passport.. I'm sure you know the verse:

"Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart."

-Psalm 37:4

 I took this to mean that God will give me whatever I want as long as I love Him.

I pleased with God for this trip. All week I had an attitude that said, "God I love you! Now, can you give him the passport? Cause this is my desire!! And you know, you did say that you would give me my heart's desires...just puttin' it out there... *hint*hint*"

Buuuut...umm, yea.
Apparently that's not how it works, folks.
Apparently this verse translates to a little something like this:

Delight yourself in the Lord sooo much so that he truly will give you the desires of your heart...BECAUSE your desires will be transformed into what God's will is and wanting whatever it may be that He has in store for you. 

So this is my prayer:

God, No matter what it is. No matter how much it may hurt for a time. No matter what it may require of me - or whether I consider it to be good or bad - my heart's desire is whatever YOUR

desire for me is.

And even though I may not like my situation, I can have joy unspeakable because I know that this is Your will. Your perfect, beautiful, wonderful, amazing will.

Thank you Jesus.

Who am I?

Confidence is a funny thing I'm learning. 

I was talking to a friend about it the other day. Here's some [edited] parts on our conversation. (hahaha, I had to rewrite some of it because there were so many typos and stuff it was so hard to understand!) And just a bunch of my thoughts all plied together in a {slightly confusing} paragraph. haha(:

Ok here's the thing...

Whenever I think of confidence..I think of being confident in yourself. Like saying, "Wow! I am so good I can conquer anything by myself!". Or whatever

And so when people are like, "Hey, you need to be more confident!", it always confuses me because I'm like, "Well I actually can't do any of this on my own".

But, I'm starting to see confidence differently.

I'm starting to see that when people say "You need confidence!", that what they're saying is to be more confident in who God made me to be.

So I'm trying to figure out what that looks like for me to have confidence...to have confidence in Christ! And, what do I need to change? (And, I think it's gonna be a lot, haha)

First of all, I think that I'm realizing that I'm not totally content with who God made me to be. So, I need to become totally satisfied in Him. I need to be thankful for who I am though Him. And, to let people see Christ and what He is doing in my life...instead of a girl who isn't willing to be content and have her confidence stored up in Christ.

Because that's what confidence all boils down to: Christ.

We actually are not able to do anything on our own. We are incapable of even breathing without Christ. But! With Him, we can have confidence.

I think it's important for us to remind ourselves of our value (because of Jesus and what He has done with us) and who we are in Him...

I mean, I am daughter of The King! . . .that in itself is something beautiful! ♥

So, who am I?

I am a girl who is confident in who Christ is in me.

Sorry, guys. I know, this post is kinda confusing..because I started talking about like a million different things all at once...but hopefully you can sort of understand it. haha(:

I would love to hear your thoughts! Leave a comment!(: Love you guys!

Beauty?

Beauty.

Let's just all admit it. I think we could probably all agree that, if you're a girl...beauty has been on your mind at least once. (And, if we're all being honest...it's been on our minds way more than just once. ...Or is that just me? haha)

Like, what is beauty?
How do you define it?
What does it mean to be beautiful?
What do people think about me?
Would they look at me and say, "Wow, she's beautiful"?

Just about everything around us says that beauty is what you look like on the outside. You're beautiful when you have X amount of boys constantly following you. You're beautiful when you are the prettiest hair and you're skinny enough to "fit in" . You're beautiful when all of your clothes come from Aéropostale and Abercrombie & Fitch.You're beautiful when you wear make-up. You're beautiful when you are the most popular girl in school who everyone loves and wants to be like. You're beautiful when you are dating the quarterback on your school's football team.

You're beautiful when _________.
**Fill that blank in with whatever you want that we might say defines beauty.

[On a side note! I don't have anything against these things! Seriously, I don't care what brand your clothes are, who you date, or whether you wear make-up or not! ...Especially the make-up part. Make-up is great. hahah!]

Here's the cool part, though. I am learning that...

 None of those things are the definition of beautiful .

I have been learning what God says defines beauty.

"Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, 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 3:3-4)

It is amazing how different God views beauty compared to the world. This verse says that beauty is not what is on the outside...but what in on the inside. Beauty it not how we add things to ourselves to make us look good. Instead, what people should notice about us me is what is on the inside: a gentle and quiet spirit. When people look at me I want them to see God and who He has made me to he through His Son. 

That doesn't mean that looking pretty is a bad thing! It just means that what is important to God (my heart! ♥) should be the what I focus my time on. Because, here's the thing: External beauty does not last. People get old. Their sparkle fades. (I was trying to come up with something really catchy to prove my point, but..yeah. I've got nothin'.) But! there is an unfading beauty that is of great worth in God's sight; and it comes from inside. That unfading beauty is a heart/attitude of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, & self-control.

So, here's the question that's been on my heart for a while now: What do I want to be noticed for?

My mom always tells me, "Pretty is as pretty does."

Pretty on the outside is only pretty if it's pretty on the inside.



Thoughts? Questions?  Leave a comment! I would LOVE to hear what you guys have to say about this!

What's Going On Now?

Hey, Everyone!(:

Happy Monday! Happy 9th Day of December! And, Happy 15 Days Til Christmas!

Hope you are all doing awesome & being amazed and reminded every day of how truly amazing our God is.

So, I know...it's been awhile..again. (Why does that seem to be all I write on here lately?!) But, here's the deal. I'm actually not going to try to do a recap over what's been going on here for the past two months (...because basically it's been nothin' but school, and no one wants to read a whole blog post about that! Ew.) Instead, I'm going to be writing about what has been on my heart lately. Hopefully you will be encouraged, or challenged, or something and get excited about God even more!

WARNING: I'm not a Bible scholar. But, I am trying to look at the Bible and find out what it means for me. And I am excited to share what I have been learning with you in these next couple blog posts because it just gets me SO excited. So, take it or leave it. Thanks for reading anyway!(:

Love you guys & I'm praying for you!

-Valerie

PS...yay for Christmas break! I'm offically off of school until January 13th! ...and this is why I love college classes..haha

A whole month?

Wowzers...it's crazy that I have not been on here or posted on this thing in over a month!! *sigh*
Hahaha, I am realizing that all of my posts have started to sound like that now..

So much as been going on since I last wrote, and I have pictures and all of that cool stuff too..so that's exciting!

...Except, I have not uploaded any pictures yet..

sooooo...yeah.

That's not too exciting.

But hopefully I will have a chance to put pictures on here soon.

But it has been an incredible month of September..one that I will never forget! Uncle Bic came!! He is the pastor my mom, Si & Rosie met from Trinidad when they went this summer to do a VBS! Seriously, it was so fun. Like, I laughedSO much (...which, come to think of it..is probably not shocking to any of you..haha) But by the time he left, it was like we (everyone who didn't go to Trinidad) had known him for our whole lives. We even took a trip to Omaha, Nebraska and got a flat tire at 10:30 at night!

Good times, good times. hahaha :))

But, more about that later..

Anyway, it was really sad when he left...like, really, really sad. I miss him a ton.

But!! right after he left, Khemraj (another guy from Trinidad!) came for 2 weeks! He was SO awesome too! It was loads of fun hanging out with him..he is so funny ☺

Complementary picture from yours truly
of the guy from Green Eggs & Ham who does
not like green eggs and ham, apparently...

But, now it's like..."Well..now what do we do? This is so boring..."

Well, incase you're wondering...SCHOOL! That is what we do..

And I do not like it Sam-I-Am!

But, I'm getting used to it....


Enough about school, though...MOVING ON!

So I just looked out the window and it is raining cats and dogs out there!!
Now, I'm not 100% sure as to what that looks like exactly...but I am pretty sure it's prolly something like this:

And there is so much wind, I can feel the house like moving. I am scarred for life. It is an extremely traumatizing experience...bahaha! just kidding! (Well, about how scary it was...but the house really was moving!! Strange, very strange.) 

In other news..yesterday was the Fall Farm Festival at Marmon Valley Farm and I got to spend all day working in the concession stand with my wonderful friend, Kristen! So fun! ☺ I just love that girl! 

And then, we brought 5 of my friends home & watched a movie after everyone was done playing soccer in the indoor arena. (And, no. I did not play soccer..just incase you were wondering. hahahah) 

It was awesome to hang out with some super awesome people! I am so blessed. 

Mind Blown.

Hello, World!
It's 12:40am! Good morning!

Umm, wow. I should not be allowed to stay up later than 10:30 at night...

haahahaha!  I jest.  (:

Mostly.


Ok, but seriously...Hi!

 I'm glad that you're here..because!!

Cool stuff is about to happen...

Oh, yes. I'm about to blow your mind up.

Actually..

It's not really anything that I am going to say that is so cool...it's something that has been said already...in Romans 8, to be exact.

v. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?  

v. 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

v. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 

v. 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I was just thinking about this today...I mean, how cool is that?! There is nothing (in heaven or on the Earth) that can separate us from God's crazy, wonderful and unconditional love for us! In the good & in the bad. In the easy times & in the hardest times.

When it feels like your whole world is caving in and swinging way beyond your control...

know that you are loved. 

That you are cared for.

That you are cherished. 


And,  (v. 37!) we can know that during those tough times, we are more then conquers because of Christ and his wondrous love for us!


Mind blown!
That is all.

I am going to bed now (:

Growing Up!

Heyyy!

Summer is quickly coming to an end! I'm at my house sitting around the dining room table with my family, talking about what our classes are going to be, what we need to buy before school starts, and (one of my personal favorite topics..haha) what we're going to wear on the first day of school of school!

This year co-op is at an old school that a bunch of local churches and people bought for everyone in the community to use. I'm really excited about that! (I finally get a locker! ...Dream come true! hehehee!!) And Si & I are also taking online classes with Ohio Christian University. Co-op starts next Friday, and OCU classes start Sept. 9th... I can't believe that I'm actually saying this, but...I'm almost excited about school starting this year!

I cannot believe that I'm a junior this year! It's pretty exciting!! ☺ (Only 1 year of high school to go after this! Yeah buddy!) The weirdest thing is that Silas is a SENIOR & that Levi is in junior high.

Um, wow.

It is really weird to think that next year Silas will (Lord willing!) be starting College. Honestly, it's like depressing almost!...I mean, after this year, life as we know it our home will probably never be the same. But, you know what? I'm also really excited! Soon a new chapter of our lives will be starting to unfold! New adventures. New opportunities. New ways that the Lord will bring us closer to himself.

And in that, I find peace.

Seriously. How cool is that?!


So, last night was the Kick-Off  for our Youth Group at Church. It was so fun bringing Levi into the room, signing up, watching him hang out with friends, seeing his excitement while we played the games...it was great! I pray that these next few years he gets to spend in youth group challenge him and encourage him in his walk with the Lord. I'm so proud of that boy! Love ya, buddy! ♥