{Overflowing}

I love getting the opportunity to spend Sunday morning worship at other sister churches & with other congregations I am always amazed how I can see so many different members of God's family gathered in many different areas of the country serving & praising the same God. Churches have different orders of events, run their worship in different ways, even host pot locks in a different manner, when you grow up Church of Christ, pot locks are a staple in a strong church family. There are always different standards of dress & the child care can take all forms of little to full structure during services. There are always the more conservative churches & the more progressive. But at the end of it all, we are all gathered to worship & honor our one good God. It is all about the common good that is shared from congregation to congregation wrapped around states to countries. The size of the church ranges from thousands to just under a hundred, we've seen them all while taking tour routes for our annual college choir tour.

Sometimes, I think that we spend too much time focusing on the quantity of the worship. We count the hours of the service. Head to the church building Sunday mornings for worship, then trek back on Sunday nights for fellowship. Mark Bible studies and Wednesday night classes off our calenders. Hit up a few workshops. Host youth group events. Take part in a service project. While focusing & counting numbers in church attendance, we forget that these aren't just a specific number of hours we need to mark off to make some sort of "Heavenly Checklist" of good deeds & time spent in a church pew. We count up the offering given up by members. Sure the things & gifts we give are important & our congregational attendance helps our family to grow, we forget why we were called to worship. You can be involved in hundreds of "church sponsored" events, but not have your cup filled. We tend to spend all of our time focusing on quantity & numbers, rather than the actual quality of worship in which we are partaking in. We can dedicate our lives to serving, but not grow from our own helping hands.

The church service that our choir attended this tour was in Garden City, Kansas. We decided to visit during the middle of a snow storm, but made it to & from safely. I sat in the padded pew & listened to the preacher give a sermon on wearing the Armor of God. The song leader lead us in songs with chants of victory, battle cries, & not being afraid with God on our side. What I witnessed & took from this specific church gathering, was that this was an actual church family. These people were vulnerable to each other, genuine. They were open & honest about their fears, like when an elder stood up for the opening prayer, he cried to his family about the stress & worry he had concerning his mother's decisions to be made about her cancer treatments & options. During the communion table talk, the speaker pulled up his eight year-old son & spoke about a plague that could only be cured by the shedding of his son's blood, & he expressed how he would struggle with giving up his son to become the cure for all. He spoke on how Jesus' parents had to come to peace with knowing that that would be the outcome of their own son, & how Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son Isaac as an offering to God. What touched my heart the most though, was a young boy, who couldn't have been any older than nine years-old. He stood up in front of the congregation during the congregational sharing & announcement time to thank his spiritual family for their prayer concerning his friend who had been sick. I saw hope in this boy's eyes. He was so genuine & sincere in thanking his family members for their prayers & their concern for his friend's health. His innocent praise of thanks was heartfelt. It was truly a beautiful moments for me to witness. Then once finally all packed on the tour bus, our bus driver offered up a prayer over our journey & travels.

I witnessed a quality worship time while in Garden City. For what I am extremely thankful. The quality of the worship I witnessed this morning gave me hope of being a part of a strong, spiritual family. I all too often fear that there won't be a spiritual influence in my life, but then God slides on in & throws in a "don't worry, baby, I've got you, always." Sometimes God's face is found on young boys. I saw my hope in that little boy today, & I am thankful for times like today that I am able to see God at work.

My cup is full.

Peace & love.
B.

{Published}

When I set out to write new posts on here, I really struggle most times to even come up with a topic that is relevant to me. Sure you can hit up the topics of gratefulness, & thankfulness, & family during holiday seasons. Joy & being carefree comes with spring & summer. Stress & anxiety comes with midterms. Relationships always hit some sort of curve ball when you hit winter. But I always struggle with not being generic. Then at the end of it, I realize that I'm not being honest with myself & that these are things that I really need to express myself on, that's why I started this blog in the first place!

I always sit down, laptop in front of me, usually a cup of coffee beside me, ready to blog. Blogging is almost like a marathon, where you have to type & type, & then if you for some reason stop, to fix a typo, or someone distracts you, then you lose all train of thought & you're stuck drinking the entire cup of coffee next to you & then your refill & you have absolutely no idea what your main point was to even start with. So then you head right back to the drawing board, & before you know it, you're on refill number six or seven, have three or four different drafts typed up, or you're stuck just staring at a blank computer screen wondering why your life isn't more eventful. Okay, so maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm some sort of obsessive blogging freak who wants to change the world with only nine followers...

I set out with my mind locked & loaded on writing a blog post & it does nothing but make me feel like my life is all but normal for a girl who lives in the middle of Nebraska, at a conservative Christian college, rocking both a suit jacket & pom poms for school activities, just trying to complete a degree that I signed up for when I was 18 years old. Normal.

Here's the deal, every time I sit down to write one of these blog posts, I obsess with it being perfect. I read over it about 102 times, try to fix all my spelling errors, which most of the time doesn't really do much because I always notice them after I hit the PUBLISH button, & do nothing to make my blog stand out. The font size & type always reads NORMAL. My blog format is SIMPLE. I set out with the dreams & desires to change, but then I get to my prime stomping ground & platform area of followers, I resort back to the same ole, same ole, & it is frustrating.

I try to change the world, but struggle to find a way to change myself. You know the saying old habits die hard? Well for me, my old habit is biting my fingernails. I know that may be gross to some of you, well that's because it is, but I seriously cannot cut this habit! I've tried the nail polish trick, I've tried just keeping them trimmed short. I have tried time after time to quit this habit, but I cannot figure out how to cut it out of my system. Life comes with a lot of habits, daily routines that we fall into. Wake up, do one thing, then the next, until the end of the day rolls around you set your alarm & wake up the next day to do it again. Since when did life have to become so boring?

I know everybody has dreams & aspirations, there's places you want to be & see, people you want to meet & know, things you want to be & do. Life is supposed to be exciting. But just like my blog posts, they're normal. Nothing extraordinary. True story, I wanted to be a writer not too long ago. I wanted to write books. I think the part of me wanting to be a writer is funny because I hate to read. So why I desired to write a book is beyond me, but I wanted it, more than anything. I came up with these super generic story lines that fit into a high school girl's mindset & desires, & over & over re-wrote the same over-dramatic, extreme climax novel with the same characters, just in different forms & with new names. I was like the female version of Nicholas Sparks, just less famous, & a few movies behind.

This is now my writing outlet. & I let anyone read it. It's not extraordinary or super enticing. It's just some chick from Iowa, living in Nebraska, trying to break the routine of life. & you know once you figure out that life can be more exciting outside of your penciled in schedule, you begin to see the joy in summer, become thankful for your family around the holidays & everyday in between, recognize which relationships mean the most to you, & put aside your stresses & anxiety as you go about your carefree ways of life.

Peace & love.
B.

{Mind Over Matter}

So birthdays, those are a thing. Crazy how another year can go through triumphs, knock downs, set back, accomplishments, and then flip around in circles thousands of times. But in the end, you just up your age, & move on to the next day. I have never been the biggest fan of birthdays, mainly because I've cried on my birthday for the past several years, but hey maybe that was because I was stuck eating gluten-free? Who knows, not important anymore.

Sure you can add another year on to your age count, you accomplish mile markings like: "Pre-teen," "Teenager," "Can drive a car," "Buy a lottery ticket," "Can vote," "Beat teenage pregnancy," "First legal drink," "Over the hill," "Mid-life crisis," "Menopause." Decades mark your age, your body begins to show it. But what is growing up? Is it your age, or is it your mental state.

I'm sure we can all name several people in our immediate & relational lives that we deem as 'immature' for their given age. They still act like "boys" or "middle school girls,"
& what we do is roll our eyes & avoid them at all costs in order to save our I.Q. points. I think that these maturity absences create a gap between people. In relationships specifically, there has to be a mutual mature mindset which the relationship is centered around.

Just like in college, you wouldn't throw a freshman into an upper level core course class. There are prerequisites that must be taken in order to fully fulfill the requirements of the course. Just like in life, there are requirements to growing up, & that all starts with your mind. Sure, physical maturity plays a huge role in growing up, but let's not demean the mental aspect.

A few months ago, I stumbled across a posting from right when I turned 16. It's funny to me, at the time I wrote it, I'm sure I thought I had everything right, felt pretty confident in myself, because you know, everyone at age 16 is so mentally mature... Ha but let's be real, that hopefully was not my peak.

Here's that posting, just for a little enjoyment for you all, & a throw back to little ole sophomore in high school Bailey, also, please enjoy the awkward cake photos:

Some say I've grown up, to me I'm still that little farm-girl who is three years old licking snow off the ground. I don't like to think that I'm growing up and getting older, that leads me closer and closer to being on my own, sure I'm so ready for that, but not yet, not right now anyways. 

I want to be the 16 year old who: ...thinks of myself as strong on the inside.  

...is always there for people when they just need someone to talk to or just a friendly hello  

...is a caring friend and fun to be with  

...believes in herself  

...doesn't care what other people think of her, but of what she thinks she can be  

...does her personal best at everything she tries  

...focuses in class and doesn't sleep  

...makes her parents and family proud with the choices she makes  

...is a friend and loves everyone  

...doesn't judge other people by their outside appearance 

...shows God's love in her actions   

...is happy and smiles for no reason 

Okay, not bad, kind of sappy, kind of dorky, but it was goals that were driving me. I set these mental goals for myself, that I then have gone & broken every single one of them since then, but that's besides the point. I wanted to be a good person. A person who loves & cares. It does break my heart to know that I do fail though. Growing up, & maturity takes steps forwards, & steps backwards.

I could set goal after goal again in my life right now as I prepare to finish college this May. To enter the "mature world of adults" BLEH. I can sit in the kitchen of my apartment, up way too early for my 8 am class, fret about the next step in life, praying to find peace, looking for patience in God's timing, just searching for the right timing & answers. Thinking, "So this is what it feels like to be an adult" & then preparing for the day. But then at the end of this day, turns into a new day that makes me just one day older, one more day of experience, one more day of joy & love. & I'm content, and pleased at where I'm going to be.

"A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones." -Proverbs 17:22

Peace & love.
B.