What an interesting life

Welcome back, strangers. I haven't posted anything on my blog in almost two months. During this time, people would ask me why I had abandoned it and I would tell them, "My life isn't interesting enough to talk about right now. All I do is go to school, work, keep up with my fantasy football league, and study." It hit me recently that telling people my life isn't interesting is a big fat lie. My life is interesting when it comes down to it. Since I last posted I've:

• Started my third year at Baylor, I'm taking 16 hours of classes and treasurer of the Child and Family Studies Organization
• Turned 21! 
• Started nannying two of the cutest girls on the face of the planet. Katy Jo is about 3 and a half and Annabelle will be 2 in December. 
• joined a Fantasy Football league. Even though the draft was one of the most stressful things I've ever done, I absolutely love doing it. I'm the only girl in my league and I feel like I'm doing pretty decent against all the guys!
• led a group of 7 high school girls at a D-now in Port Aransas. More on that later
• been continually messed up by God in the best way possible

So to all you people that I've talked to about my blog recently, ignore what I told you. Lets get into more detail on some of the things mentioned above.

First, I'm in a Functions of Ministry class this semester. For our main assignment, we have to create a Bible study or sermon. I've led Bible studies and small groups before but actually creating the Bible study is a completely different story. We had to look at the passage in multiple translations, define words in the original language, read a few commentaries, and then decide what the main lessons are. I chose to create a Bible study and was assigned Proverbs 31. Now, we had a list of passages to choose from and I chose Proverbs 31 at the very bottom of the list but that's the one I got assigned. I'm not gonna lie, I literally groaned when I saw what passage I was assigned. Proverbs 31? The passage talking about the perfect wife? The passage that I've avoided because I knew I would never live up to those characteristics? Yep. Sure enough. However, now that I've looked closer at this passage, it's definitely not what I've always thought it was. This passage isn't telling us exactly what all Christian women should be like. It's showing us an example of a wise, Godly woman while another passage gives a visual of a woman that will lead away from God. It's not saying that every women should buy and sell land, make clothes for her whole family, stay up late, and wake up early. It's telling us to be wise. Creating this Bible study was super intimidating for me and that's why I mention it. It scared me to think that I had to interpret the scripture in my way and tell people what I took as the main lessons. However, I think it taught me a lot and taught me how to create things on my own which will definitely be a useful skill in my later career. 

Secondly, I was asked to lead at a D-now weekend in Port A that took place last weekend. For those of you who don't know what a D-now weekend is, it's pretty much an in-town weekend retreat within a youth group. It's packed with devotionals, growing closer to the Lord, bonding, fun, food, and staying in host homes. Honestly, leading up to the weekend, I was really stinkin nervous. I distinctly remember driving home from Waco and having a knot in my stomach because I was so nervous. I've led weekends like this in the past, but they've always been with girls that I know. I had no idea who the girls in my group were. I didn't know their personalities, their families, where they are with their spiritual walks, I knew nothing. By the end of the weekend, I figured out that that was a good thing but for the time being, I was terrified. On Friday night, we were supposed to go over 2 different sessions and we didn't even get through half of the first one. Instead, we just talked as a group and got to share things from our lives. Let me tell you, some of the things that these girls had been through was rough. Things that no one, let alone high schoolers, should have to deal with. At first, I was overwhelmed. I have never been through anything close to some of the things they had experienced. Then, from the encouragement of some people I texted in a panic, I realized that I was there for a reason. I was put as their leader to love on them and show them that Christ is the ultimate healer. By the end of the weekend, I fell in love with those 7 girls. They were sweet, loving, and some of the craziest girls I had ever met and they touched my heart in such an awesome way.

This is my group at the beginning of our afternoon activity. I think if I had taken this picture at the end, we would've looked pretty exhausted. We played a game called "Bigger or Better." Each group started out with a paper clip and had to go door to door asking the person if they had anything to trade that was bigger or better than what we had at the time. The very first person we talked to traded their 1920 Tandem bike made in France for a paper clip. We were pretty ecstatic to say the least. And we won which is always nice. 

My lovely group of girls after church on Sunday plus the youth minister's adorable son. 

As you can tell, my life has been interesting this semester and I don't see it slowing down anytime soon. But I love it! I'm definitely looking forward to Fall Break next weekend when I can go home for Seafair and relax a little big though!