Being God's masterpiece.

So, I got a new tattoo, and I figured if I show you and tell you the story behind it on here, then I won't have to explain it so much. Not like I don't want to explain it, but this will save me a few explanations. :)

The Statue of David started out as an idea that someone had and just a simple piece of marble. He was nothing exciting. When Michelangelo began his journey carving out David he saw him as a finished masterpiece, he was perfect. As he carved him and chipped away for so long, and he would talk to him through this whole process. He would say over and over again "venuto avanti, venuto avanti" What that means in Italian is "come forward." Michelangelo saw him before he was formed and called him constantly to come forward. He wanted to chip away the pieces of David that he didn't need and that were not a part of the big picture.

Michelangelo calling David is like God calling us. God wants us to let him into our lives so he can chip away the pieces of us that we don't need. He just wants us to be his masterpiece. If we let God into our lives and let him work on us, we will be his perfect masterpiece. Just like David is to Michelangelo.

That is why I got that tattoo, it will be a reminder for me to always allow God to work on me and make me better and better. I also want to be able to share with anyone who asks, what it means to me and why I got it.

Mona Lisa

Yet another lyrical based blog. That is what I should call my blog! Forget the "just one in six billion".... if all I did was based on lyrics then I would totally change the name to "yet another lyrical based blog"

The name of my blog is besides the point. The point is, I had a song stuck in my head, and poof, something to blog about came to mind. The song is Mona Lisa by The All American Rejects. They are the only band I can think of off the top of my head that has never disappointed me with a song. That is another side note... now to really get to the point.



You can sit beside me when the world comes down,
If it doesn't matter then just turn around.
We don't need our bags and we can just leave town.
You can sit beside me when the world comes down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C88pmXssR_k
^Music and lyrics^


As I am singing this morning, I realize what I am saying and I wonder, if I was singing this to someone, who would it be? Who would I want to sit beside me when the world came down? If it was my last day on earth, who would I want to be apart of it? There are so many people that come to mind! I just love too many of you all to choose a few.

So, this is a shout out to those of you who I would want to be a part of my last day on earth. I would need my family whom I love dearly, and my adoptive families that I don't know what I would do without, and my good friends that make my life so much better.
I am so thankful to all of you in my life, every person in my life has impacted me in some way or another. Whether it be the tiniest little thing, or a life changing way. I love you all and thank God for your presence in my life.

And mom was SO mad!

So, I have not updated in a long time! Wowza. Here is a brief over-view of what is going on with me and the reason I wanted to blog.
1. I am fervently praying about what is the next step in my life. I am looking into missions and want more than anything to get out of this country (not like I am dissing on America, but I just think that there is so much more out there) and explore God's amazing creation, and while I am doing that, I want to show God's love and passion for people.
I am working on applying for YWAM DTS's. That stands for Youth With A Mission, and I would go through a Decipleship Training School. The schools are six months with a 3 or 4 month lecture phase and a 2 or 3 month outreach. Please keep me in your prayers as I apply and as they review them. I want the right doors to open and the wrong ones to close.

2. I have sworn off boys for now. After two situations recently, I have decided that my life would be much better spent focusing on God instead of boys... who knew?! So, I will not have any boyfriends until I feel God can be the center of a relationship that has a real future. I have a feeling this won't be for a while, and that is just fine with me.

3. I have been happy, truly happy, for the first time in probably forever. I feel like I am making God the center of my life more and more, and as I do this, I feel what true happiness is. I feel at peace with much of my life, I still have much to improve upon, but things are going better and better with time.

Now, for the reason I wanted to blog today...
My sister and I had a great convo today. It wasn't anything important really, she called for directions... But, our conversations never end with the reason we called. I made the "your mom" comment as we were talking about blogging and how I need to get caught up. From there we referred back to stories we often re-tell each other over and over again. We have decided that almost every story we have ends with "And mom was SO mad!" or "And mom would have killed us!" We even end our fortune cookies with those statements instead of the usual "in bed" or something else naughty.
So, I thought I would share some of the stories that end with those statements. But, I won't tell any of the "Mom would kill us" stories in case she reads this and then decides that she is not happy about what we did. I think this is best for not only myself, but for my mom and sister as well! I would love to avoid a conversations similar to the ones we used to have! I hope you enjoy instead of thinking how horrible of a child I was.
My sister and I used to go sliding down the stairs when we were younger, something I am sure many of you did. We would use our sleeping bags that had very slippery outsides on them, and crawl in them as best we could to get as much speed as possible to slide down the stairs. At the bottom, we would usually hit a wall, so we learned that putting couch cushions against the wall is helpful... it took us a while to figure that one out though... There was one time that I was going down backwards and hit wrong and actually flipped over, it was way cool, but when my mom found out.... she was SO mad!
Another time we decided that it would be a really good idea to jump from the deck to the pool. And it was, but not to my mom. There is probably a good 10 feet from where the deck sits to get to the pools edge. And of course the pool is surrounded by cement. Now, in our defense, we landed easily in the middle of the deep end. But that was not good enough for my mom... She pulled the whole, "If you slipped and fell wrong, you could have died." Yeah, well, we didn't. But just like the last story, mom was SO mad.
Ashley and I went "mud wrestling" one time. More like played in a big mud volleyball pit. It was quite fun, but being the dorks we are, we forgot that there was no running water where we were, we didn't have a change of clothes, and we only had two towels. So, we drove home in our very very muddy clothes. When we got home, we were literally covered from head to toe. It took a long time to wash the mud off of us, and we were getting mud out of our hair and ears of weeks. But coming home like that made mom SO mad.
Also, when Ashley and I tell these stories, mom gets mad. We just have too much fun recalling all the times we got into trouble doing stupid stuff that we would do all over again. I am pretty sure we will have great stories like this the rest of our lives. We like it that way.

This is the end of the blog. I will try to stay caught up better, since I really have no excuse to not be caught up. I hope you enjoyed.