Oh, the excitment!

Recently Bayside of West Roseville asked me to do a 4 piece collection for their new youth room. When asked I jumped at the chance (of course)! Each piece goes with a word theme they chose for their youth group. I am SOOO thankful and feel so blessed to be given the opportunity to do this, thank you Bayside.

Here is the first piece I just finished this morning: "Rooted"

(click picture to make it bigger)
The tree is a combination of paint and pages from a book for some class I never went to, so obviously I never actually USED it...so why not put it to good use right? :)

I will continue to update this post with each piece as they are completed.
Hope you like them!
xoxo

Not mine.

I re-read the book of Jonah today. It's funny how every time I re-read the story I am always a year or two older, and I always get something totally different out of it. When I was little I would read the story almost as a "scare me straight" tactic. I'd read it and tell myself to always do what God told me or else I'd end up in someone's belly. This time I read it and the entire climatic part of being swallowed and saved from the fish didn't even phase me. It was at the end that I found something to hold onto. At the end of the book Jonah sat outside the city of Nineveh to wait to see if God would destroy the city. God arranged for a huge leafy plant to to grow next to him for shade so that he could be comfortable waiting, but God also arranged for a worm to come and eat the plant the next morning. Naturally Jonah get's angry and God asks him, "Is it right for you to be angry about this?"

The plant grew quickly and the plant died quickly. All under God's command.
Jonah didn't make the plant grow. God did. The plant wasn't Jonah's. The plant was God's.
THAT is what got my attention.

Nothing is MINE.
My future isn't mine.
The house I currently live in, isn't mine.
My life, isn't mine.

Is it right for me to be angry that "nothing is happening to me at the moment?
Is it right for me to be angry my parents are moving and I will immediately be forced to grow up and live on my own?

No. They are not mine, they are god's.
God gives, and god takes away.
AND THAT IS OKAY.
Those blessings will come and go, and I will become a stronger person because of it.
I need to cling less onto things and more onto God.
I need to remember to enjoy the blessings I have when I have them.
And when they are taken away from me I will stay faithful in prayer for God's will to be done.

Just something to remember!
xoxo nic.

Forced positivity is still positivity people.

I went to lunch with a friend yesterday. We desperately needed to catch up and our conversation went quickly from surface "What have you been up...blah blah blah" to a much deeper "How are you? How are you REALLY?".

We spent a solid 2 hours sorting through the the deep and icky in our lives. Which was honestly, awesome. It was a lot of listening and a lot of talking and I'm so glad we did it. While pouring out a couple of his personal troubles he really stressed how important it is for him to not forget the positive in his life. With all the things going wrong for him he literally had an on hand list of the good things happening despite all the bad.

Talk about a humbling moment...

At that moment I realized I will never survive this life if I continue my negative nancy mindset. Yes, some really crappy things are going on right now, but as silly as this sounds I honestly feel like God's blessings are the main course, and crappy things are the appetizer. If you can just get through the nasty, the delicious and filling meal will ALWAYS follow.
Downfall always precedes the blessing; God won't ever leave you hungry.
Honestly, I am not in a happy mood about any of this. But I am going to force myself to be joyful about whats to come. I love joy. Mainly because having joy doesnt mean you have to have a constant smile on your face and poop rainbows. I'm allowed to be upset. I'm allowed to be angry. But if I choose joy, none of those emotions are allowed to ruin my day. Because through all of this, I choose to have hope for some incredible blessings to come.






xoxo nic.