Fulfilling Passion

" I have one desire now - to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy and strength into it." Elizabeth Elliot

I've had this quote up above my desk on my wall for a little while now, it's something I look at each day and pray for each moment, that I would always remember my goal and purpose while the Lord has me here. That I would remember the relative short amount of time I have on earth to serve Him with. Eternity is something I don't think we can ever really grasp, we are finite and so the infinite is completely beyond our comprehension.

The desire to serve with all of me is a difficult one to live up to. It shouldn't be, just giving a moments consideration to everything that God has done me and me being so completely undeserving should be enough to make me want to do everything in my power to serve and love him in the way that he has loved me. But it is very difficult, very few Christian's have a deep passion for Christ.

The other day I was talking with a friend about hunting, it's really tough to get away from that topic at this time of year, not that I have anything against hunting, actually I rather like it. but talking about it so much gets old pretty quickly, and it starts to sound like the same story over and over just from different mouths. Anyway, as I was with this friend, he was talking some about how hunting is such a big thing for so many people, they have a passion for it, they want to talk about it all the time, there's a certain thrill in going out and being on the chase, shooting a buck, and then dragging it out of the woods(that part isn't quite so exciting). So much effort is put into making the time to go out and do it, having the right tools and exacting your own skills to be able to be the best that you can at it.

But how often do people put that same drive and passion into their walk with the Lord. It seems that we will focus on anything other than that, maybe not hunting in particular, but we all have things we love and get excited about. Most of them being things that in the long run will matter very little. But we fear to lose them, we want God to give us a desire for Him and focus on His Word, but we won't rid ourselves of the things that distract us from Him.

When we do finally put those things aside we find that He more than fills up any void that they might have left behind. We're talking about the Creator of the universe here, how could anything be more important to us than our relationship with Him?

"How sweet all at once it was for me to rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose!... You drove them from me and took their place... O Lord my God, my Light, my Wealth, and my Salvation." Augustine

Some Late-Night Thoughts

The life of a homeschool graduate who's main desire is to fulfill her calling as a wife and mother can sometimes be a strange, uncertain journey. I suppose that everyone has uncertainty's in their lives, but I have to say that at times it can be very difficult to be in the above position in that there really is nothing I of myself can do to get to that position I believe God has called me to. In pursuing a career there is a lot of action that each person has to do to reach it. As far as being a wife and mother I can train and prepare myself for it, but when it comes to it actually happening I am completely dependent on a man pursuing my hand. I am very much okay with this, I have no fear, knowing that if God has truly called me to this He will bring the right man at the right time.

But while I have no fear I do have uncertainty as far as where I am to go before He brings this about. I have something of a fear of pursuing anything in much depth, mainly because all I really want to is to be a wife and mother and so hesitate to devote much of my time to something I won't use or need in the future. At the same time my life is not about waiting for things to happen, it's about redeeming the time that I have before me, using it to the best that I can.

All of that to say I'm rather confused right now as to the direction things are going in. I have a lot of uncertainty right now, and lately have just been coasting, avoiding making any real decisions of what to do with my time.

And now I'm really not sure where to go with this post. I had hoped when I sat down and started writing that more things would come to me as I went but it's not working so well.

My mind is spinning with things and I can't seem to settle down and focus on any one of them. It's also a lot later than I should really be awake, though I've found that I write better late at night when the house is quiet, not that our house is ever particularly noisy considering that we are all girls, and our favorite activity is reading. :-) I think my juices just flow a little better late at night. At times that can be fun and when I'm in the middle of it, it works out really well, but what seems like a great idea at 1 a.m. usually ends up having been a bad one when I then have to get up in the morning and go through my day. On that note I think it's time I ended this and caught a few winks...

Ahh... A Tag

I was tagged a bit ago by Daughter of the King, and for an inexplicable reason haven't gotten to it till now, because of my lack of creativity right now it is quite a relief to have this tag, thanks Sarah!

Okay, so she asked nine questions which I will now answer and then I will come up with nine questions of my own to tag nine other bloggers with. Here goes!

1. What is your favorite book and why?

My favorite book is the Word given by God, for reasons quite obvious. But as far as other books, it's Jane Erye. I really don't know why, my mother finds it depressing, but has been one of my absolute favorites for several years now.

2. If your could pen the name of your own memoir what would it be titled?

Hmmm... I really have no idea, probably something with Greek roots.;-)

3. What is your favorite song, and what is it's meaning to you?

My favorite song changes constantly as I find new things to listen to and my own perspective of things changes. Breathe has been a favorite for a long time, it embodies what my life is for, God and Christ are the very air that I breathe, ever there and all that I am. The bread I eat, without which I am lost.

4.What is your ideal blogging/writing atmosphere?

Well, I usually write sitting/laying on my bed, I would like to do more on my desk, but I have no electrical outlets in my room there is one right outside my door and so my bed is the only place

the cord can reach. Usually I have music blasting through my headphones and I like to pretty much shut everything else out. I find I write better at night when the rest of the house is completely quiet.

5. What is your favorite movie genre, and why?

I enjoy a lot of different genres, but I guess my favorite would be historical films. I love watching things that I know really happened, they have so much more depth and significance to them.

6. What is your favorite tv show, and why?

We really don't watch a lot of tv at my house. Of the shows we've bought my favorite is

Stargate: Atlantis. Why, well I enjoy sci-fi, other than that I'm really not sure why.

7. If you could have the skill of playing any musical instrument which one would it be?

Well, I play piano, guitar and cello, I would love to be a whole lot better at all of them, and if I had to choose another one it would probably be the violin.

8. Who is your favorite author and why?

I have a lot of favorite authors, it would be very difficult to pick just one. C.S. Lewis, J.R.R.

Tolkien and George MacDonald are favorite fantasy authors, mostly because of their

incorporation of biblical principles in a lot their stories. L.M. Montgomery I love for here perspective on simple everyday lives rather than huge dramatic experiences.

9. Why do you write your blog?

Great question considering that I really don't write a whole lot and talk a lot about lacking inspiration. :-) I think for me it is a creative outlet, a way I can express myself and my beliefs using images, words and music. I can search things out and share with others the things that move me and challenge me. I can speak of my Lord and the amazing gift He has given me in being able to serve and know Him. It is also a way of speaking about things that I am uncertain about actually doing face to face with people.

I don't think I'm going to tag anyone right, mainly because I can't think of any questions, but

please feel free to answer these ones, and let me know in a comment so I can see your answers!

Now I'm going to follow suite to another of Daughter of the Kings recent posts, What I've Been...

I've been listening to... It's a Wonderful Christmas by Micheal W. Smith, I know it's a little early, but I love this CD, and listen to it all year round.

I've been reading...

I've been watching... We're on the 8th season of Stargate, I still like Atlanis better, but am enjoying this as well.

I've been enjoying... hot cider!

I've been wearing... sweaters!

...and scarves!

Time for Knits

Alright, so it's been a while since I've posted anything, I'm very sorry about that, just haven't had a lot to say lately. We're still working on getting my health back to it's "normal" state, if that even exists for me. It's actually going really well, I've been doing a lot better and am now able to get things into more of a routine, although I really need to work on getting up earlier. It can be rather difficult when there's not a whole lot of incentive, I'm not doing school or working so have no place to be in the morning, and so usually do a lot more sleeping and taking my time getting up and going than I really should.

I have been starting to get back into doing more projects lately though, here's some lovelies I found that I would really like to do!

We'll see how much actually comes of it. Anyway, I'm afraid I don't have whole lot else to say right now, sometime in the next few days I'm hoping to get the next "Lady in Waiting" post written... we'll see how that goes!

Until then, au revoir!

Lady of Devotion

"Much too often people view a single woman as though she should be pitied rather than envied. Nothing could be further from the truth. A lady in waiting has the advantage of being able to develop her love relationship with Christ without the distractions that a husband and family inherently bring to ones heart." -Lady In Waiting: Lady of Devotion
The past week has been a difficult one for me, I've been struggling with some things for a while as far as how I am physically and it all seemed to culminate in this past week. I've been getting dizzy spells and passing out, and have a constant headache that seems to get worse with time rather than wain. We are getting some things figured out with this, most of it we believe is due to iron deficiency and low blood sugar, things that will take a while to build back up. In the mean time I've felt rather stuck. I can't move around a whole lot because of the pain(one of the times I fell I hurt my back). Also my family doesn't want me doing a whole lot and going over while in a potentially dangerous situation, so far I have been fortunate in that each time I have collapsed there has been nothing for me to hit my head on or anything. So I've mostly been in my room or on the couch, this has been rather frustrating to me as I feel that there is things I should be doing. But even writing this our is difficult because of the headache, I'm finding it hard to focus on things.

As I was contemplating this earlier this morning I was growing increasingly frustrated. Not only withe my current situation but with other things going on in my life. I've been reading John MacArthur's The Anatomy of the Church, and while I find it very helpful and insightful, I always come away from my reading somewhat discouraged, I can read these things and be challenged by them but cannot actually do anything about them, God created me a woman, so, while I can serve in the church, it is not my place to speak about these things, that is the elder's and men's roles.

But God showed me something, I'm sitting here unable to move around and do things as I normally would, I have a lot of time on my hands, and I'm seeing all these things going on around me that concern me, but am unable to do anything about... not true, I can pray!

Prayer is something that is very often neglected in my own life, not that I don't do it, but that it becomes somewhat rote. I do it because it is what I have always done, and often I am praying pretty much the same thing over and over.

I have often read and have come in many circumstances to see the truth of this, that when you are experiencing difficulties and struggling in your walk, one of the best things you can do is get the focus off yourself and start serving others. I was unsure of how I could do this until I saw the potential this time in my life had for warring in prayer. Rather than sit here and pray that I start feeling better and get back to my life I started thinking of all the people around me that I know are struggling in one way or another and need prayer. It's basically everyone. So I just started praying for specific things that I know are going on right now that need prayer, I started about 9:30 this morning, went till noon, and found that I have just started on the tip of the iceberg, the Lord just kept bringing to mind more people and situations that need prayer and encouragement.

Fall Fashion

I was hoping to go out and do some pictures for the Autumn Modest Fashion Showcase at Marie Loves. But unfortunately haven't gotten any opportunities to get things out and do a photo shoot. I still plan on trying but am not too hopeful of the actuality of it coming to fruition.
So... that said I thought I'd put up some Polyvore sets of my Fall wardrobe and what I wish was my fall wardrobe. =D











As you can see and could tell if you've read past posts, I have a very strong inclination towards tall boots and long jean skirts. If I could I would wear them at all times of the year, but really fall is the best time for it, it just feels more appropriate. I'm so glad it is finally here!

Changes in My Life

Well, I still cannot access the internet on my laptop, but the family computer is up and running. I had several posts I had planned on doing the past couple weeks and lost all of them halfway through writing them out.
Things have only really started slowing down for my family within the past couple of days. It felt so strange throughout the days just before the wedding, I knew what all was going on but none of it really felt like it was actually happening. On Thursday the 16th, we did as much of the more "last minute" shopping that we could, there were still certain things that had to be picked up the day of, but we designated that to other people. Thursday was supposed to be a fairly relaxed day, our friends from Ohio were flying in, we were going to pick them up at the airport at about noon, then spend the afternoon visiting them. They ended up missing their flight so would not actually arrive till midnight. So we came home and unloaded everything, then ended up meeting with some friends who had flown up from Arizona for lunch. My grandparents arrived late afternoon, we had dinner with them, then went to a "sister shower", Roman's sister Rayia had put together for Caitlin. Rayia, it was lovely, thank you so much! A great time of getting to just spend some "sister" time together, I think Caitlin really felt that she was able to get to know you all and bond a bit more through that.
My father, Hayley and I went to the airport about 11:30 to pick up the friends and our aunt. After getting them settled and everything down for the night, went to bed about 1:30 a.m. The next morning was spent doing the flowers( Again, thank you so much Rayia!), making frosting for the 312 cupcakes (much thanks to my aunt Anna for that!), and loading up all the decor, food and various little things you need to pull a wedding together.


At the church, it was mostly getting the reception area put together, Caitlin likes things very simple so the sanctuary was very quickly put together, mostly just candles up there.
But downstairs it was a little more hectic, trying to get a bunch of round tables set up in the most advantageous way can be very difficult, especially when you have several different people who have very different ideas of way it should be done, eventually it all came together, mostly due to *ahem*, myself... well, it's true! =D
After that it was fairly simple, getting the decor put out and all the lights put up, although, really there has got to be a better way to store swag lights so they don't get that tangled! I think the most trouble was just getting some doorways and such covered up so that we didn't have certain "ugly" things showing.
Rehearsal started about 4 p.m. and went pretty quickly, they had written out the order of everything beforehand so we just had to follow directions. Ran through things a couple of times, mostly to get the timing of the music just right. All the music was played by friends, Caitlin walked down to The Seaside from BBC's new Emma, a gorgeous piece wouldn't mind using myself.
After rehearsal went to the dinner, Rhonda did a wonderful job putting it all together, though I'm afraid I wasn't really able to appreciate it all as I was pretty close to falling asleep on my feet by that point, and because of all the activity and being on my feet all day was in a lot of pain from my hip. When we got home I did Caitlin's nails and took a shower, slept very well, thankfully, not sure I would have made it through the next day otherwise. Most of the morning was spent doing hair, I did Caitlin's, which took about an hour to curl and another 45 minutes to put up. Then had mine done by Megan (fabulous job, Megan! and you used 18 less pins than the last time.=). Also helped with my two younger sisters hair and did Hayley's make-up. We got to the church about 11 a.m. Got dressed then did pictures of the ladies. After that it was pretty much just sitting in a back room waiting. It felt really odd, usually with events and such I'm out in the midst of everything, setting things up or making sure that all is just as it is supposed to be. To just sit and wait without any idea of how things may be was an entirely new and not extremely pleasant experience.
But everything went quite smoothly, the whole ceremony seemed rather surreal to me, I wasn't at all nervous or anything like some warned I might be, wasn't even emotional, mostly because it just didn't feel to me like it was all actually happening. But now for some pictures, we havn't gotten the photographers yet, these were taken by a friend and my grandma.

Anna, putting the "cake" together.

Waiting for the bride...

"By the authority of God, I now pronounce you husband and wife!"

They walked out to Marie's Wedding on bagpipes, how cool is that!

I couldn't resist, isn't she adorable!
The Mallery and Carstensen families, a little lopsided, but we're working on it. =)
And the Carstensen family, finally with a son in there!
The bridal party, we were told to do something goofy, as you can see, some of us are good at it... others not so much
"Oh, you horrible man!"
And victory for the guys...

So after the wedding things just seemed to fly by, as maid of honor I had to give a speech at the reception*shudders*, not my favorite part. I tried to write something out but it wasn't working for me so I ended up just winging it, you'll have to ask someone else how it was, as I really cannot remember what even I said. Then there was signing of the marriage license, and I assisted Roman's brother's in kidnapping Caitlin and then holding her for ransom, we were able to get about $280 for her.
Then went out sabotaged their car, mostly just writing on the windows and some balloons, but we also wired the horn to the brake.
I didn't feel like I really got a chance to say goodbye to my sister as there was so much going on and so many people around, but then it's not like she was really leaving, they live close by and I really see her quite a bit, but it is definitely not the same.
Finished cleaning everything up about 7 p.m., much thanks to the Underhills, Haymonds, Mason's and River and Rosh, we would have been there a lot later if not for all of you. After cleaning up, we ended up having all the family from out of town come to our house, picked up some sandwhiches from Subway and just visited for a while, everyone left around 11 p.m. Then I got to bed around 12:30 ( it took a while to wind down). Got up a 5 the next morning to go with my dad to the airport to see the Fellraths off. It was really the only opportunity I got to visit with Kirsten, otherwise I probably would have just stayed in bed. When we got back I wasn't pretty well awake so did all the dishes from dinner the night before and cleaned the kitchen, then went downstairs (yes, the kitchen in our house is upstairs) and organized all the boxes of stuff that had just been unloaded and dumped the night before. We went to church (I was running on lots of coffee) but didn't stay for the meal and afternoon service, came home for a quick lunch then visited with my dad's family from California(most of my mom's had left that morning).Showed then Roman and Caitlin's apartment and went out to dinner.
The next few days were spent getting all the wedding stuff back to it's rightful owner's and/or packed away. I am now moved downstairs, the upside's of which being that I am no longer sharing a room and even have my own bathroom, the down being that it is unfinished, about 3/4 is sheetrocked, the floor is plywood, no paint and no outlets. But we hope to get it finished up gradually so hopefully someday I'll be able to post about my finished room!
So, I was asked to post about my birthday which was 2 days ago, I am now 19! Really, it was quite a relief to me to be done with 18. I didn't really do anything for my birthday, so don't have much to share, and no pictures were taken... sorry, they would have been rather boring anyway.
I did have my new brother-in-law and his wife over, and we had a quiet, relaxing evening together.

My father brought me a dozed red roses!

My parents gave me a digital camera, so maybe you'll start seeing more pictures of my life in general on my blog.

And my sisters gave me a new jean skirt(they are staples in my closet, like a pair jeans, but a lot more expensive and difficult to find). And from Caitlin and Roman, the Horatio Hornblower series, can't wait to watch them again.

Okay, so this is really long and it has now been several hours since I first sat down at the computer. Soon I hope to get back to the Lady in Waiting posts, as I will have a lot more time now for doing all that. Hope you got a glimpse of the blessed day in our life and big change and that I didn't bore you all too much.
In Christ, His Handmaiden