Holding my hand

"The road to success is always under construction."

"...Nevertheless, I am continually with You;

You hold me by my right hand.

You will guide me with Your counsel

and afterward receive me to glory."

Psalm 73:23, 24

I stumbled upon this verse a few weeks ago when I was thinking through decisions regarding college. I was feeling stressed, uncertain, and confused about where God was leading me. So as I began my devotions one morning, I "happened" to open my Bible to this verse where I instantly fell in love and found a great deal of comfort.
Contemplating leaving home and attending college in a few short months leaves me nervous and afraid.  But I keep going back to this verse where I am reminded that God is holding my right hand, walking every step with me and leading me in His plan for my life.  I find myself turning to this verse over and over to say "thank you, God, for being continually with me and being my counselor, even when life is scary."
(And this applies to every part of life, not just college!)

Lord, You're beautiful

O Lord, You're beautiful;
Your face is all I see,

For when Your eyes are on this child,

Your grace abounds to me.

I want to take Your word and shine it all around,

But first help me to just live it, Lord.

And when I'm doing well, help me to never seek a crown,

For my reward is giving glory to You.

O Lord, please light the fire

That once burned bright and clean.

Replace the lamp of my first love

That burns with holy fear.

O Lord, You're beautiful;

Your face is all I see,

For when Your eyes are on this child

Your grace abounds to me.

This Keith Green song was part of my second ever post on this blog, but I'm posting it again because I still love this song to pieces.  :)  I often wake up with these words playing in my mind, reminding me that God is beautiful and that I need less of myself but more of Him in this new day.

For those of you who don't know, I'm a pretty big fan of Keith Green's music.  Something about his words are so real.  The songs he wrote give me so much to relate to.  Keith Green wasn't afraid to admit that the Christian walk is a struggle; as Paul says in Romans 7, part of me wants to die to myself and see more of Christ while the other part still wants to live in fleshly pleasures.  I am in constant need of the reminder that giving glory to God is all the reward that I need.  May God continue lighting His fire in my life!

Animals and outdoors

"Your mind is a garden, your thoughts are the seeds.  You can grow flowers, or you can grow weeds."

Although it's hard to tell, there is a faint rainbow between the trees!

Love so amazing

When I survey the wondrous cross

On which the Prince of glory died,

My richest gain I count but loss,

And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,

Save in the death of Christ, my God;

All the vain things that charm me most--

I sacrifice them to His blood.

See, from His head, His hands, His feet,

Sorrow and love flow mingled down;

Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,

Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,

That were a present far too small;

Love so amazing, so divine,

Demands my soul, my life, my all.

Love this amazing deserves more than I can give in all of my lifetime.  It is truly beyond my comprehension. 

The most important work

"Children are not a distraction from more important work; they are the most important work."  

-C.S. Lewis 

This cutie kept tucking his hands in his overalls.

I love that Ashnah appears to be face-planting here.  Of course, no damage was done and they were laughing a lot.

Showing off their Playmobil horses.  SO cute!

God's own voice

"And I heard a voice from heaven, like the voice of many waters, and like the voice of thunder..."

Revelation 14:2

A few months ago, after we had a lot of heavy rain, we went to a local waterfall to see what the increase of rain had done there.  The river and waterfall were both enormous and loud with rushing water.  Whenever I encounter places where the water is rushing so wildly and noisily, I think of Revelation 14:2 where God's own voice is described.  This water is just a small picture of the power and depth of our Maker's voice.

When the rainbow came out, it was such a fantastic sight.  And it reminded me of some kind of elvish homeland.

8 things I hate about scholarships

With college just 5 months ahead, my mind is totally full of college thoughts.  Getting college-ready is scary as well as a lot of mental work.  One of those mental jobs is scholarships.  Thanks to the high rate of college tuition, it takes a lot of scholarships to pay for it, too.  So far I've applied for approximately 20 scholarships, and I'm still not done.  Thankfully essay writing has never been a great trial for me, but I have found that there are frustrating things about scholarship applications.  So here are 8 things I hate about these applications:

1. Asking for my date of graduation
These scholarships clearly don't understand the concept of "homeschooler."  Seriously, I could give about 3 or 4 graduation dates.  I want the option of putting a different date beside each different subject of school.  They just don't all happen at once because I AM HOMESCHOOLED.

2. Requirements specified to schools, interests, or areas
Some scholarships are highly specified to certain fields, universities, or even cities.  So you spend hours reading through a hundred scholarship descriptions to try to find the 10 that will work for you; but by the time you get to those 10 (probably at the end of the list), you've zoned out long ago.  (Slight exaggeration.)  However, I can't complain about the Brinnon specified scholarships, which actually are pretty nice because I can count on lower competition.

3. Unclear or conflicting rules
If I misunderstand something, I could be disqualified.  I could write this whole essay without ever having a chance...but I'd never know it.  All scholarships should have painfully clear rules and then maybe a place to submit questions for the sake of clarity.

4. Unrevealed dates for announcing the winner
Who knows if the announcement date is in a week or 3 months?  So there you sit in suspense for months, never quite sure if you're going to get a call with an award.  By the time 6 months rolls around, it's probably time to stop hoping you'll be the one.

5. The word limit
The goal is probably for the judges to see how concise and impressive you can make your sentences.  When the word limit is low, just use a lot of big words and make it as eloquent sounding as possible.  I think this is the only option.  (I ran into a scholarship that even had a limit of 3 sentences.  This is where the "string theory" is useful.)

6. The word requirement
On the opposing side are those scholarships that want you to write an essay that is at least 4 pages in size 5 font.  After page one, it's time to start making stuff up and re-wording sentences just to make the word count go up.  At that point, the only goal is to put more words on the page and hope they come out making sense.  After all, as you write your essay, you start to realize that the judge probably just reads the first sentence of every paragraph.  Who has time to read an essay that long anyway?  And then the judging panel sits there over cookies and coffee, laughing at you for falling for their joke and spending hours on an essay in desperate hopes of winning the contest.

7. Scholarships with questions barely different from the last one
Although I don't mind writing essays, I have no desire to write all week just because each scholarship asks a slightly different question.  Can't there be, like, 3 uniform questions to ask for all scholarships?  It would be so much easier to write one essay and use it for several applications than to attempt to painstakingly readjust my writing to fit the next thing.

8. The question "why are you applying for this scholarship?"
And then they put a requirement of 500 words on it.  You use the same 3 words over and over until there is a paragraph of 500 words: "I NEED MONEY."  And you could also throw in the occasional "I am poor" or "College is expensive" if you want more variety for your essay.  WHY does this question even exist?  I'm just not quite sure how to be creative when it comes to this.

Quality thoughts

"The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts."  ~Marcus Aurelius

I really love this quote because I think it's completely true.  Discouraging thoughts about self, ingratitude toward life, and wrong thoughts about others lead to a life that weighs you down.  There is no satisfaction and fulfillment in this thought pattern.  We are only truly free and at peace when we limit ourselves to uplifting thoughts about life, others, and who we are.  Be satisfied in the life God has given you!

March photo challenge (4)

26. Floral: it's a bit of a trick to find something floral in March.  Although the weather is warming up a little, the flowers are not quite ready to make their appearances.  My sister and I have this dried rose bouquet in our room, though, which really comes in handy at a time like this.  This vase of flowers is made up of bouquets my dad and brother gave to both Tirzah and me at a recital we played at several years ago.  It was really special to us that they had brought us flowers, which demonstrated their pride and love, so we dried them and have had them in our room ever since!

27. Mail: everyone who knows me really well knows that mail time is my favorite time of the day.  I am easily excited by a "simple" piece of personal mail.

28. Circle: this t-shirt is currently hanging in my room because it's really special to me.  Funny how a t-shirt can have such sentimental value.  I got this shirt at our summer camp when I was probably 6 or 7.  Because Jeremiah was my hero and best friend through my growing up years (ok, he still is, but in a different way.), I had him draw/write on the back of my shirt.  Conveniently, this shirt shows the area that he was in Iraq, and I wore this with the greatest pride.  I think my favorite thing was that I was wearing his hand-writing.

29. Tiny: this is a tiny Playmobil flamingo and a family joke.  I was gifted this flamingo by my mom after a funny flamingo conversation I had with her, my sister, and dad.  We always laugh when someone mentions flamingos now.  

30. Cold: I have this super cool smiley face ice cube tray.  Unfortunately the bubbles that appear in the freezing process make the smiles a little harder to see.

 31. Green: what can I say?  I think Washington moss is pretty cool sometimes.

Goodbye, March; and hello, April! Make sure you prank somebody today. :)