Charles

This picture is part of my project for my Portrait Project due on Monday. [I'll post pictures soon, either here or at my photo blog]

I didn't ask this guy his name, but I'll call him Charles. Well I asked Charles if he knew that Hershey's employs slave labor. He said he didn't and that he didn't actually eat chocolate. His father was a WW2 veteran and much of what they ate was stale crackers and bitter chocolate, so growing up they weren't allowed to eat chocolate.

I do not shop at Wal-Mart because they are products from slave-labor entities. I do not eat chocolate.

Charles said he was shopping [I was just outside the Hershey's store downtown] for his wife. He then mentioned how he was a Democrat and would obviously not support slave labor (or something like that). He was quite surprised to find out that I am a Republican and asked if I was 'anti-business.' "Well, not anti-business, I guess, as much as anti-slavery," I replied. It was an interesting experience. I think I need to go to Chicago more often.

...what day is it?

So I woke up at 9:04 today and I panicked. I flew out of bed in a rush to put on clothes for the day, madly whisking on shoes and about to dash out the door with my backpack. And then my roomie asks what I'm doing.

"I'M LATE FOR CLASS!!!" I so eloquently replied.

"Megan," Brittany began, "it's Tuesday."

Then I remembered. My first class was at 1:30 in the afternoon.

Hide and seek

His will is our hiding place.

-Corrie ten Boom

The only thing we should hide in is God and His presence. We can try to hide all we want in things in the world, but God knows right where we are. All the time.

Change

I have so much that I need to work on in my life. Just when I think I know what I am doing, I realize (with the help of friends) that I have been doing things wrong. I haven't been a good example of what a Christian should be.

I should be unselfish, mature, and putting others before me.

But what am I doing? I think about myself constantly, think about only me and only help myself. I need to change. NOW.

Broken

How can God love such a broken thing? How does He have such a perfect love? I just don't understand. It's a good thing I don't have to.

Lately, I've just been trying to sit back and think on God's amazingness. "Be still and know that He is God" is a hard verse to remember, but detrimental.

Yes, We are broken. Completely and utterly. We can try to cover it up all we want, but eventually everyone sees how broken we truly are. The truth comes out. We try to put all the grains of sand back in the jar, but it doesn't work. Let it out. Leave it be. God has a plan for each grain of sand. Each piece has always been a part of the vital plan called your life. God planned this from the beginning of time. Let Him take charge. This doesn't mean you can just sit in the back seat without a care in the world. Stay up in that passenger seat, alert, keeping your eye on the horizon. And be ready to let go of that sand.

bahahahahah

This is amazing! How A.C.E.

You know you went to an ACE school when.....

1. You don't know how to plot a geometrical equation, but by golly you know what gerunds, infinitives, and participles are and can differentiate between them on sight.

2. You ever diagrammed sentences with David Brainerd as the subject.

3. You watched missionary movies for a treat.

4. You still got star stickers to put on your chart even in high school.

5. You've looked back on a Check-up.

6. You ever got paddled in your church's sanctuary.

7. The highlight of your year was Convention, especially Internationals.

8. You couldn't stand Ace or Christi because they were too perfect, couldn't believe Pudge and Becky ended up getting married, and secretly admired Ronnie and Susie because you thought they were cool.

9. Two words: Wisdom Pages.

10. You knew more than your supervisors and monitors by the time you were in sixth grade.

11. You got hand cramps from writing the same word a gazillion times throughout the PACE in Word Building/Etymology.

12. You know what "'Baa Baa' said Ba Ba" means.

13. The American flag means to you, not "I'm proud of my country" or "I support the troops," but "I need to score."

14. To this day you look over your shoulder every time you use a green pen, a.k.a the supervisor's magic wand.

15. You know what A, C, and E privileges are.

16. You watched a video of frog dissection rather than doing it yourself. Heck yes!

17. Could never get a 100% on a test because you forgot to memorize the verse for the Pace.

18. You know what I mean when I say "six inch rule."

19. You make goal charts instead of shopping lists, and it gives you a high to cross each item off diagonally, bottom left to top right.

20. You've worked in an office since you were in kindergarten.

21. Stolen a score key and felt like you owned the golden ticket.

22. Carried a pencil tip to the scoring station

23. Placed red dots beside the correct multiple choice answers while standing at the scoring station

Does anyone else understand?? Oh I loved that I came across this. Pure gold.

=)

I'm going to be a bridesmaid!! First time ever. Pretty stoked about it! Yeah, Ben proposed to Britt about half an hour ago. I'm so excited. I get to buy a pretty long dress from David's Bridal (it's "free" since I have some in-store credit left over from the veil and jewelry). They just came back. Oh my gosh, what a cute story! He gave her this enormous bouquet of flowers!!! GORGEOUS. And had a picnic. They also went to a park and had fun there. Later they went out to eat, to the first restaurant they had eaten at together (before they were dating). He had made a movie of sorts of her favorite love songs and their pictures, of which at the end it said I love you Brittany Raye,...just one question, "Will you be mine?" After which, he got down on one knee and proposed. I'm so excited!

How cute are they?!

(My first ever chance to do engagement pictures is forthcoming.....)

Fashion Blog

I was just perusing the internet, when suddenly I decided I should start a fashion blog. Why? Because it's awesome (and I don't really know anything about it). Apparently, lack of knowledge + blog= more knowledge after five years?? I don't know. Anyway...another new blog at http://myattemptsatfashion.blogspot.com

Blog Title

I changed my blog title (including the banner graphic being redesigned). I am reading through a book, called Stronger Than You Think, by Kim Gaines Eckert. It is all about being whole without having to be perfect. It is making me realize that each of us is broken, yet we are each still a complete person.

Hello world.

I am broken and whole.

And I am stronger than you think.

Fairtrade Chocolate!!!

I didn't know that my school was selling fair-trade chocolate as a fundraiser for a missions trip. How awesome is that?!! It tastes so much better than any chocolate I've ever had. It's by Sweet Earth Chocolates and it is delicious! YUmmmmmm. I was going to save it for by next portrait assignment, but it probably won't make it. However, it is very rich, so it might hold out ;-)

I was pretty excited.....

Opening the chocolate....

Smelling the chocolate.....

Time to savor that chocolate!

Earthquakes

So I was just going to bed when the earthquake hit last night. I had literally just laid down for 2 seconds, when a 3.8 earthquake decides to make its presence known in Chicago. I wish they had names like hurricanes did. I'll call her Frieda. Well, like I said I was going to bed when Frieda came at four this morning. I felt two major shakes and looked around, but everything was fine. She was only here for maybe ten seconds, and after she left I thought maybe I hallucinated from staying up late. And then I realized Frieda was an earthquake. Well, I just can't imagine how absolutely terrifying the earthquake in Haiti was. That was a 7 point on the richter scale? About twice as much as last night here in northern Illinois. I was scared and confused for ten seconds. How much more confusing and terrifying was it in Haiti?

Slavery still exists

I just don't even know where to start. I mean, I knew there are still slaves in the world. I guess I just pushed it to the back of my mind. How could I do such a thing?! God's children are being whipped and punished, just so I can buy cheap things. They work for free so I can have a bar of Hershey's chocolate. (I am starting a Death by Chocolate Portrait project--stay tuned.) It isn't okay to just sit back while millions are people are enslaved around the world. There are more slaves now than there ever has been. There are child soldiers, people forced into prostitution and countless other kinds of traffiking. It is time to stand up and fight against this! As Christians, we should not be able to stand for this. It is time to fight back. You can do many things by even just staying at home. you don't have to travel the world to make a difference.

notforsalecampaign.org

We can make a difference!

Blogger in Draft

So I decided to use blogger in draft again. Just to see what was in the works. Amazing! You can add pages, so it is more like a website than just a blog. For this blog I just added contact info and about me tabs. But at my photoBlog I added quotes and links as well. Such fun! SO check it out if you want! And I urge all you bloggers out there to try Blogger in Draft as well!

You've Got Mail

I finally saw all of You've Got Mail. Such a great movie. It sounds cliche, but they don't make good movies like that anymore. No cursing, no inappropriate scenes or innuendos. Their relationship started out as a friendship....well actually more of a hate relationship that eventually turned into a friendship :) Anyway....I want to be more like Meg Ryan's character. She is so fun and quirky. Besides that, when she said mean things she always genuinely apologized right after. She apologized to the man who ran her small corner bookstore out of business.

I should be better than that. I shouldn't say hurtful things.

Besides it having a great soundtrack, awesome plot and pretty good morals (Tom Hanks' father is quite the philanderer), it is centered on books!! What could make it any better? Nothing. But then, I guess I am partly biased. Books are amazing.

When you read a book as a child, it becomes a part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your whole life does.

Sacred Singleness

I ordered this phenomenal book by Leslie Ludy from Amazon and it finally arrived in my cpo today. My goal is to get half way through it by tonight (it's only 184 pages). On every page so far I have at least one thing highlighted or underlined. It's so good. Making me see alot of things that I hadn't realized. But so far, the thing that it is stressing the most is that one can never be content with anything in life (specifically an earthly romance), unless Christ is your reason for living. And live a life completely abandoned and surrendered to Him.

Singleness is the incredible opportunity to be fully consecrated in body and spirit to Jesus Christ alone--to be undistracted by any other romance and free to be consumed by Him.