little treasures;

Today, I:
- Wiped 3284961377808369 snotty noses
- Was slapped in the face twice (by a 5 year old)
- Swept up a whole lot of glitter
- Stopped a child from eating white glue
- Sniffed out many dirty diapers
- Played peek-a-boo from under a blanket for about half an hour
- Learned speech therapy strategies, and some simple sign language
- Received lots of cuddles and heard lots of giggles
- Was reminded of all of the reasons that I love children, and all the things that I am excited about in the future

I love kids. I love how fulfilled I feel when I leave my incredible placement. Every Monday I get the chance to work with some of the most amazing little people in the world. They make me laugh, they challenge me, and inspire me and always make feel so blessed to have the passions and talents that God has given me. Each week I feel more confident in my abilities and more confident in the path that I'm on. I feel like every Monday has given me a small glimpse into what God has in store for my future. I am so, so grateful. It is an absolutely incredible place, and even the hardest days there, even the biggest challenges, fill me with such joy.

I love kids.

grace and peace to you;

Today, I'm thankful for peace and grace.

On Sunday, my pastor preached on the antidote to anxiety - prayer. At this time of year, there was nothing I needed to hear more. I was reminded of the fact that peace, real peace, comes from Jesus.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

So why have I been troubling my heart with so much anxiety and stress about school? Does my peace come from perfect marks? No. Do I only have peace when I'm not drowning in essays and exams? No. Will God ever give me more than I can handle? No.

Peace from Jesus is not at all like worldly peace. It isn't conditional. It is constant and it is a gift. And it is always available to me. I'm realizing I've been terribly selfish in the past week or so. I've been so focussed on the load on my back, the schoolwork, the marks, the essays, the exams, that I've let my focus slip from the needs of others, and I've also left Jesus out of the equasion. I felt as though today God was saying to me "Andi, do you want to be stressed? Or do you want this gift I've given to you? This peace I've given to you? Take it, it's yours." And when I told God I want it, when I asked him to penetrate me with that peace, the anxiety was gone.

I also had a lesson in grace today.
I received a gift, a blessing that I didn't deserve. It came in the form of a second chance on an essay. An essay I got a D on, deservingly so. And today my professor reached out and told me he wanted to help me. He gave me a second chance to redeem myself when there was absolutely no reason to. When I absolutely did not deserve it - I deserved my D.
Isn't that what Jesus did? Reached out and offered us a second chance that we absolutely did not deserve?

Don't I have so much to be thankful for?
Why do I insist on moping and wallowing and being sorry for myself at this time of year when Jesus came to give me life, and life to the full?

I have been looking at the world so narrowly. And today God reminded me that He offers me peace and grace so that I don't need to do that anymore. He has opened my eyes to a life so abundant. So full of blessings, and joy, things that go far beyond these two weeks. Far beyond essays and exams, and bad marks.

It was a good day. One where I felt as though I had so many reasons to be anxious and stressed, and all I could do was breathe in and out, and remember Jesus' many gifts to me.
It was perfect.

tripping on my words;

Oh hello. I'm Andi. You might remember me? Sometimes I post random musings on here in an effort to make somewhat of a contribution to the world of blogging.

I'm also the girl who started a tumblr account a month ago and has posted, oh, zero times.

Yeah, as far as blogging goes, I'm a failure.
I'm a failure because I have a fear of not being good enough. It's a terrible predicament because I love to ramble, and talk, and write. But I read several blogs of people who have good things to say. Heck, great things, even. And I wonder what I could possibly contribute.

What could I ever say that would be worth reading?

Maybe you can relate. Maybe you think I'm crazy.

This is all to say that I want to try harder at this blogging thing. And I'm going to stop doubting myself in one area of my life.

masterpiece?

Eph 2:10
For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

Why does Satan work so hard at convincing me of the opposite?
And why does it work?

I hate feeling as insecure and unsure of myself as I do.
I hate that I don't know how to not feel like this anymore.

knock, knock;

Whenever I am conscious of Satan's presence, I try to follow the formula once offered by a little girl: "When Satan knocks, I just send Christ to the door."
- Billy Graham

Good advice, "little girl."

a juggling act;

I've spent a huge chunk of this year thinking about how I can actively love others. How I can share in the lives of the people I love. How to go beyond just facebook messages and texts. And I made a decision months ago to do it better. But it seems the more I try to do it the more I feel like I come up short. The more I feel like a disappointment to others, and to myself.

I'm not sure where my thoughts are going but I needed an outlet to pour into. All I know is that camp is 3 weeks away and I'm feeling the urgency. And all of the people around me are clearly feeling it too. And it's all making me feel somewhat like a failure. Like the more I hear "I need to see you more before you go away" the guiltier I feel for going away, and the more I realize that I haven't invested my time the way I've wanted to.

I feel like I'm being stretched very thin. And like I'm being pulled in a million different directions, And it doesn't really matter which one I choose because inevitably I will disappoint somebody I love.

And I'm frustrated. Mostly with myself I think.
I know I shouldn't be stressing out about this and I should be thinking about the exciting summer I have ahead of me.

This is just one big rant with no conclusion. I suppose I just wish I was better at balancing things.

mama;

I have a really great mom.

Sometimes I'm afraid that she doesn't know how much I appreciate everything that she is to me.
Sometimes I'm afraid that I don't even know how much I appreciate her.

It's amazing how the older I get the more I come to acknowledge the little things that she has done for me. All of the hugs, all of the meals, the pickups, the drop offs, the comforting words, all the times I've cried on her shoulder, the laughs, the games, the conversations, the loads of laundry, the doctor visits, the advice, and so so much more, every minute, every day, all of it has had an incredibly huge impact.

I have a really great mom.

She's a strong, beautiful, smart, loving woman.
And though we have our differences (and trust me, we do), we are a perfect fit. And I'm incredibly thankful for her.

a moment of contentment;

Last summer changed a lot of things for me.
Up until then, it was just school, home, work. But last summer added camp into the mix.
And so, with this summer fast approaching I am becoming increasingly stressed out. It's unbelievable to me that after a mere two months in that place it's hard for me to picture my life without it.

I keep taking myself back to one of my favourite moments of the summer. It was a cool August evening and I was seated on a stump by the Explorer campfire. The lake was on my right, and my campers sitting close to my left side. It was a beautiful, calm, peaceful night and I felt so at ease. Toward the end of the campfire, came prayer time. In an instant the silence was broken by tiny voice upon tiny voice calling out to God. Even as I sit here, I can hear that beautiful sound in my mind. Tears fill my eyes and goosebumps prickle my skin just the same as that August evening.

In that second, I can remember being so joyful, so peaceful, and so content.

It was just an incredible moment that I am so thankful for, and that I'll remember forever.

love is;

Have you ever realized what a privilege it is to love someone? Have you ever stopped to consider how incredibly blessed we are to have the opportunity to love others?

It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately. How grateful I am that God gives me the responsibility of loving.

I'm unbelievably saddened by how frequently I hear about people taking this privilege for granted. Somehow, people have distorted love into something that is completely self-seeking, something that is all about taking and hardly about giving. I don't know how it got that way, but I'm reminded of what Scripture tells me about love.

"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13

That he lay down his life.

That we lay down our desires. Our wants. Our needs. For others. For the ones we love.

I'm tired of watching people be hurt by the ones they love, who somewhere along the line forgot to love them back. People who at some point started to ask the question, "but what's in it for me?"

The thought of falling into that trap scares me. It's scary because it's a trap that'll take my eyes off of Jesus and off of the example He set of what love is. Because He is the ultimate example of love. He did lay down His life for the ones He loves. He showed us what it is to be selfless.

I want to always love with that in mind. I want my love to be real, and honest and selfless. And I never want to take the opportunity to love someone for granted.

And I pray that others will love like that. Completely with others at heart, and completely laying their lives down in the process.

Isn't that what God has in mind?

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

in Christ alone;

There in the ground, His body lay,
Light of the world by darkness slain.
Then bursting forth in glorious day,
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory,
Sin's curse has lost it's grip on me!
For I am His, and He is mine,
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

Mary;

Jesus says, "Mother, I couldn't stay another day longer."
Flies right by me and leaves a kiss upon her face.
While the angels are singin' His praises in a blaze of glory,
Mary stays behind and starts cleaning up the place.
- "Mary" by Patty Griffin

I wonder what it was like to be Mary. To give birth to the boy who would someday save the world. To learn more from your son than you could ever teach him. To live with the knowledge that someday he would be killed for the good of the world.

To watch him be scorned, beaten, humiliated and hung on a cross.

I'm always, always baffled by her. If there's any woman in the Bible that I would love to sit down with and talk to, it's Mary.

I wonder if she was terribly conflicted. I wonder if she knew it had to happen, but wished it wouldn't. I wonder if she tried to stop Him. I wonder if she tried to convince Him otherwise. I wonder how hard that woman prayed.

And I wonder about the pain she must have felt watching Him hanging from that cross in agony.

I mean, I can't understand the way she must've responded to His death. How could she watch her son die in such a way? Did it even register with her that her own life depended on His? Or was she blinded by the pain that only His earthly mother could possibly feel?

What was going through her head? What was going through her heart?

It's fascinating to me, to think about the people who were closest to Jesus. The ones who touched Him, who spoke to Him, who were with Him in his first days, and who were with Him in His last days.

I wonder what Easter meant to them, and I then I think about what Easter means to me.

Easter fills me with the largest range of emotions.

I'm so so thankful. Thankful that He laid His life down for me.

I'm ashamed. Ashamed that He had to lay His life down for me.

I'm sad. Sad that He endured such incredible pain.

I'm in awe. In awe that He showed the world His unfathomable glory by rising from that tomb.

I'm filled with love. Love for the one that showed, and continues to show me love that is so pure, so true and so real. Love that gave everything for me.



I wish you all a blessed Easter, one of contemplation, love, reflection and celebration!
(He is Risen!)

that's my shepherd;

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

I am the sheep.
Sometimes I get lost, sometimes I run astray. But He is faithful, and He will always pull me back. He keeps me safe, He is my refuge.
He provides for me everything that I need.

He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters,
he restores my soul.

He gives me peace. He gives me rest. He gives me silence.
He knows when I am broken, and He puts me back together again.

He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

He knows what's right, and He shows me the way.
He points me in the direction that I need to go in, so that I can bring glory to Him.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

There is nothing that I can't handle - because He's at my side.
Early fears are futile, with His hand on my shoulder, there is nothing to be afraid of.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

He readies me for whatever I may face.
I am prepared.

You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

The blessings He bestows on me are endless. They are more than what I could ever dream or imagine.
I have so much to be thankful for.

Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,

Every day. Every hour. Every second.
He'll be right there behind me.

And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Forever.