Beautiful

Beautiful.

When I was younger, my family and I would go to Town Center Mall. We would eat in the food court, and then take turns going to stores we each liked or all liked. The Disney Store was painted dark blue at the time, there was a big screen on the wall in the back that played clips of Disney movies, and they had giant stuffed animals in the back. Sometimes we were allowed to pick out something and Dad would buy it for us. We usually got ice cream. We always went to Walden Bookstore, and were allowed to get one to two books, and that was our last stop of the night before going home. My brother, Chris, and I would read all the way home, holding up our books in the dark so that the car lights behind us would shine lights on our books. Getting a book at the end of the night was the best part of the trip.

I had a best friend named Sara Volkodav from 2nd grade to 5th grade. We were the type of best friends you read about in books, and I couldn't have chosen a better best friend. We both got glasses in 3rd grade, which made people ask even more often if we were twins and we tricked a few classmates. We went to each other's houses all the time to spend the night, eating junk food, playing video games at her house, riding our bikes, watching The Brady Bunch at 2 AM before going to sleep, and laughing so hard we cried. We wrote notes to each other, we had matching clothes, we had our parents write to the principal each year for us to have the same teacher and we did, and we talked on the phone all the time. We began to drift apart in 6th grade and I wish we were still friends, but it's been a long time. She is still a part about my childhood that I cherish though.

In 6th grade I saw two 7th grade teachers in the hallways and at assemblies that were not only beautiful, but seemed so cool. My 7th grade friends who had them said they were the best teachers ever. I prayed that I would get those teachers for 7th grade, and God said ok. :-) Nikki Holsomback taught me math, and Wendy Cole taught me Language Arts and Social Studies. Both were in their late 20's, Christians, so funny and caring, and they were so great. They listened to my sad middle school dramas when I was having a bad day, they told me I sang great, and they were just encouraging overall. When I had to go to a new middle school for 8th grade, I cried so much because I thought I would never see them again. But after high school I got back in touch with them, and had lunch with Wendy several times and got to help out in her 6th grade class on days I didn't have college classes, and saw Nikki then as well. Although I only get to see them every once in a while, I'm beyond blessed to still keep in touch with them.

At the end of 7th and 8th grade I went to Florida for a mission trip, helping with VBS at a little church where the parents were migrant workers and they left their kids there, and helping build a house or clean up areas that needed it. That was the beginning of my love for mission trips. In the middle of those trips we went to amusement parks like Islands of Adventures which is my favorite amusement park. From the end of 9th grade up til the end of 12th grade we also went to Jekyll Island for a youth conference called Fun In The Son and got time at the beach and pool as well as heard great speakers and great worship leaders. One was David Crowder just before he became a big deal!! Those fueled my love for God and helped me learn so much. I took many other trips during middle and high school and have so many great memories from the things we did and the people that were there.

I had so many great teachers in high school I can hardly begin to describe them. Not only in the way they taught, but they people that they were. I still keep in touch with some of them. They made me look forward to going to school, even when I didn't like the actual work. From 10th grade through 12th grade I had a tight group of girl friends that were answers to prayers. We went to prom together, all our birthdays, had classes together, shared lockers, wrote notes to each other, prayed for each other, and I couldn't have asked for a better group of friends. We went our separate ways after high school - most are married and some with kids now, one living across the country and others all over Georgia. Sometimes I just want a day with each of them again, to catch up on these past 7 years.

Two trips to Kenya are forever engraved on my heart. When I was 19, it was the first time I had a feeling that this was what life was about, giving all that you had. Mentally, physically, financially, emotionally... all for the glory of God. Not just meeting people's physical needs, but showing them that God is what life is about.

I always prayed I could work at a bookstore, and God finally said ok. I haven't liked most of my jobs for a million different reasons, but I see where God's hand was in that job. I spent too much money on the books there before I even put them on the shelves (I always had stacks for the end of the night and bought them faster than I could read them), I hated alphabetizing boxes, dealing with crazy customers, and dealing with difficult management and coworkers. But I also met people there that were awesome. One person was a guy named Travis. After I quit we were just friends on facebook, but 8 months later I told him I wanted to hear about his first mission trip to Slovakia. At that point I'd been in college for four years and had no close friends and when he told me about the bible study through Northstar, I went.

To have such great friends in high school to going to little to no friends for four years of college was more of a trial to my faith than I could ever have imagined. I asked, why would God say no to me having friends and a community of believers, because we're called to be the body of Christ? I'm not even sure what the point was of that four years of my life. But to find the bible study at the Bartons was like when you finally get water after being so dehydrated that you think you might just die. Not only was it what I needed to continue my walk with the Lord, it also brought me friendships I will remember my whole life. Though some people have come and gone, and some will be leaving soon as well, it's a time in my life that I just want to soak up. Sometimes I'm terrified at the closeness of these people to me, because they go away at the drop of the hat. God has called some of them to other countries for a  year, or to move farther away soon. And as that terrifies me, these people slowly drifting away or immediately going away, I know that He will continue to bring more beautiful people and memories into my  life.

Slovakia was never a place I had even heard of, much less thought of going to. When things didn't work out for me to go to Kenya last summer, I still wanted to go on a mission trip and had always said, "Some day I'll go to SK." One night Bryan just said, "I need the deposits down this week if you're going." That night I gave him money and said I'm in. Being in Slovakia and traveling with my best friends was a trip in itself! Stressful sometimes, but cool too. Long story short and thirty reasons later, the passion that a lot of people feel for Slovakia, I have that passion for Kenya. So while I'm not saying I'll never go back to Slovakia, I just know the next time I go out of the country I want it to be to Kenya. I wish I loved it as much as those who go, but it's ok that God calls us to love different countries or else only one country would have a bunch of Christians in it! :-)

This person.... we'll call them 111582 just for kicks... over the past few years has been one in my life to bring out the best and worst in me. The one to make me laugh the most and cry the most. The one to make me reconsider how I act, how I dress, what I read, what music I listen to, and how I give and love. Funny thing is that I take a ton of pictures, but I am only in group pictures with 111582, and I pretty much never took pictures of them. If anyone had blackmail on me, it's 111582, haha. But it didn't really cross my mind that they would ever use it against me because of how much I trusted them. With everything. Too much I guess. And as it goes with life, God gives and takes away. And as we are hurtling into the future with no pause button, I sit and see the end of this chapter, and watch the book close. You know when Noah's ark was finally finished and it says that God closed that big giant door?  Genesis 7:16, "...Then the Lord closed the door behind them." So it is that God closes and opens doors that we have no say in. He has the ability to do both. Not me. So I sit looking at this closed door just knowing that God has a reason. Even if I never know why, I am thankful for the time God let me have with 111582.

Beautiful.