We are His group

"Okay class. I've placed everyone into a group for an impromptu group project" 

Being 22 years old, I have had the unfortunate pleasure of being apart of many group projects in high school as well as college. But after being in countless group projects, I noticed that what I wanted was not what everyone else wanted in the group. There were too many of us in the group who wanted different things. 


There were the junkies, who just wanted to get by.

"BRO- you just do it. I don't really care how you do it. If you think it looks good, I think it looks good" 

There were the flirts.

"Oh my gosh. Tony. How weird that we're BOTH in group 5 together? It's like fate!" 
No, it's not fate. There's 20 of us in the class, and 4 in each group. Get ahold of yourself Cindy.

There were the jocks.

 

"Let's just huddle up and see what we wanna do here."

*We all think - FINALLY, a leader!*

"But seriously, I have practice tonight and a game tomorrow so I really can't commit to a group project. You guys think you could put my name on the Powerpoint and we'll just call it even? Since, after all, I am the quarterback bringing in all the W's. Am I right?"







There were the nerds who had all the right answers, but they were talking in almost a foreign language with all the big words in their vocabulary  that everyone kind of shut them out.

After naming all of the key players in a school's group project, I realized that life is a group project coordinated by God. But we're all so busy with our own agendas that we forget we're part of a group. 

The junkies  are the nonbelievers. They really don't care as long as they get to go along. As long as you're doing good, they'll go along for the ride.

The flirts are the ones giving Christianity a bad name by choosing a life of impurity. They make excuses for their behavior with porn, premarital sex, and sexual impurities by saying things like "I'm doing everything else right, so what if I slip up and follow the crowd in JUST this area?"

The jocks, are what most of us are - a wanna-be leader. Unfortunately they have a lot of other things on our plate and still can't commit to being the best Christian they can be. Because, after all, they figure they're bringing in the W's in some other more important area of life.

Finally, the nerds are like the one's who are in a deep relationship with Jesus. And that's a great place to be! It's a place that many of us are striving for. But often, the nerds are speaking with such big vocabulary that those who may be new to the idea of Christ don't understand and instead of being able to bring people to Christ, they scare others away. The nerds unable to meet people exactly where they are because they're too busy trying to hoist others up quickly to a level they're not ready for.

But God - He's the group leader; the perfectionist of the group. The one who wants everything to be spotless, pure, and rid of sin. He's got the perfect plan for how to orchestrate the best group project known to man. But not enough people in the group to help. Some of the people He does have in His group aren't fully paying attention. Some have their own agendas and think that as long as God does it, it'll turn out just fine. But this is a group project. One that requires us bring it back to God, the group leader, and see how we can put it all together to make something wonderful. God doesn't want to do this all on His own. He needs His group. We are His group. And until we realize it - this group project isn't going to succeed and run smoothly.

"It's not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What's important is that God makes the seed grow. The one who plants and the one who waters work together with the same purpose. And both will be rewarded for their own hard work. For we are both God's workers. And you are God's field. You are God's building." - 1 Corinthians 3:7-9 NLT

"These were his instructions to them: "The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields." -Luke 10:2 NLT

Social Media Destroys Relationships

 I think that the best relationships are the ones you don't see projected all over Facebook. We don't need to see you write your boyfriend an "I love you boo boo bear :) <3 <3 xoxo" post to his wall only to have him be the only person to like it. Save that for a text message.

Social media is also the passive way that we go about sending messages to our significant others. I can't say I haven't been guilty of this, because I'm sure I have. But girls who one day tweet about their boyfriend LITERALLY being the best person in the world, and then the next day tweet about "like is it so hard to text me once in a while?" No. That is a conversation you need to have with your boyfriend. Not with your 245 followers, one being him and on the off chance that he actually gets on twitter and sees that (because most boys are too busy for that), I mean, really?

I will be the first person to tell you that having high standards is completely fine. 
I've been out of a relationship (just say it --- single) for the past three years.
Have I been pursued? Have I gone on dates here and there? Absolutely.
But my standards are high, and I don't think that's a bad thing.
But social media has gotten to the point where we pour our heart and soul out on EXACTLY what we want.

GIRLS: I know it's fun to dream about THEE perfect guy. Let's be real, we all do it. But posting things about "I want a guy that...." and then it goes on to say that you want a guy that buys you ice cream in the middle of a rainstorm and kisses you while slow dancing to Luke Bryan is just ridiculous. That's not real life. And your boyfriend isn't going to bring you Taco Bell at 4am because you're hungry. That guy doesn't exist.
What you're doing by posting stuff like that is making the good guys RUN FOR THE HILLS.
Boys don't do this as much, but if I liked a guy and I saw him posting stuff like "I want a girl who is a size zero with 36C boobs, who makes me home cooked meals and drinks beer while watching the Pacers game with me" I would be like FOR REAL? and run. Because those are such specific things and it's asking a lot. That's exactly what you're doing by posting pictures and being like "YES! AMEN!" Guys won't think you'll settle for anything less.
Don't get me wrong - you deserve the best. But before you go post that picture or status about how you want a guy who will apologize after a fight even if you're wrong, play with your hair, surprise you at school with a bouquet of flowers, and will skype you at midnight just to tell you he misses you, THINK about the fact that there may be a guy out there who isn't perfect, who won't do all of these things but instead will keep you laughing and smiling and may just make you realize that all of those things look good on paper but HE is real life. 

Stay beautiful <3

MUST BE THIS TALL TO RIDE

You're at an amusement park and you're so freaking excited that you finally get to ride the roller coaster all of your friends have been raving about. You're in line. The anticipation is absolutely killing you! 

You wait and you wait, hours and hours pass, but adrenaline is pumping through you so fast you don't even notice. When you get to the front of the line after much time and patience, you notice a sign that you hadn't seen all the way in the back of the line. 

MUST BE THIS TALL TO RIDE ROLLER COASTER

NO!!!!!!!! You're exactly one inch too short! There's physically nothing you can do. You can't magically grow an inch in a second. You're distraught. You're angry. You feel like you just wasted your time and you're so sad that you don't know which way to turn except back to where you came from. Home. 

This has been my past three months. I decided to get ahead of the game and I began searching for internships in January. I finally found one in West Palm Beach, Florida. FLORIDA. The sunshine state (just really felt I needed to reiterate that I would be LEAVING Indiana and going to some place warmer). There were several bumps in the road throughout the journey of acquiring this internship and I noticed several moments of miscommunication between me and the organization. The major miscommunication happened exactly 25 hours after I had purchased my plane ticket to fly down over my Spring Break in March and go through drug screens, urine analysis, and fingerprinting before finally being interviewed (which was supposed to be just a formality). I knew that God had a plan and that if I wasn't supposed to go down to Florida, all of this miscommunication would have occurred less than 24 hours before I purchased the ticket; I absolutely would have cancelled my flight otherwise. 

So I ventured down last week to get everything sorted out. I think the worst part about being in Florida for a job interview was that I didn't have a car. Getting from place to place was not fun, walking the Bypass dressed up in a skirt during the heat of the day. The miscommunications continued while in Florida, and I shrugged them off like it wasn't a big deal. I truly felt like I was being called to Florida for the summer and I was going to make this work. And that's when God finally put his hand down on the table and said "Game Over Jess." My interview was cancelled due to an emergency at the organization, and with poor communication, I have yet to be contacted by them again. And I'm not going to chase them. For an unpaid internship that I was making myself available to them for? That I paid $300 in airfare to fly down specifically for them? Yeah. Absolutely not. I believe that was God's way of finally closing the door. And you know what it felt like? Not being tall enough to ride the roller coaster you'd been waiting for hours to ride. 

Am I bitter about the situation? Of course. I think that's acceptable at this point. It's only been a week since it all happened. The one thing that has been hardest for me to shake is the feeling that my thorough planning well in advance (January) has been for nothing. Those three months were absolutely wasted. I was trying to avoid scrambling at the end of the semester to find an internship or job, and here I am in March, with six weeks left of school. I'm almost out of time and I'm back at square one against my will.
So where am I headed to now you ask? Well. Like I said earlier in my analogy, when you've wasted all your time and you're so sad that you don't know which way to turn except back to where you came from. So I'm headed back home. And maybe that's okay. Maybe that's where I need to be this summer. 

God's a mysterious guy. He's got so much up His sleeve. I just wish He'd show me a glimpse of what He's got in store for me once in a while. But what fun would that be? I'm trying to remember to be thankful for the things He has shown me already. Yesterday, one of my professors was walking out of his office with his family. His little eight month old daughter I know from the nursery on Sundays. I was so excited to see her! She smiled at me and blew me a kiss and my professor goes, "Jeez Jess, I think she remembers you." And as they walked away, I couldn't stop smiling. And then I realized - that's why I'm doing this. One thing that God has shown me is my undeniable passion for children. Right now, I just have to keep remembering that and trusting in His timing. 

Stay Beautiful <3 

An Even Better Plan

Valentine's Day. I barely noticed the holiday this year. Not because I'm one of those people who passionately hates the holiday and would rather watch the world burn than celebrate it alone; but because I was genuinely happy with my life and didn't feel as if I needed a significant other to make that day worth it. Valentine's Day landed on a Friday this year, so I went out for ice cream with my friends and it was great! No wallowing in self-pity and wanting, waiting, and wishing. I had a great night full of laughter and friendship.

I remembered today that I had wrote a blog on Valentine's Day last year and I felt it necessary to go back and give it another read (click here if you haven't read before). As I was reading it I was thoroughly impressed with how far I've come. I was dealing with a lot of issues last year and things that I needed to get under control before I let someone else into my life. This year, I still struggle, but not nearly as much as I did before and I can only thank God for that. 

Last year, I was also struggling with not being ready; perhaps because I needed to be alone in order to tackle the opportunities God was calling me to. And I believe, after looking back, that that was a big reason for my seasons of singleness this past year. There is no way that I could have handled having a boyfriend last semester; with volunteering twice a week at Lutheran Children's Hospital in Fort Wayne for four hours every Monday and Wednesday with an hour drive there and back, on top of a 10 hour a week job, and a full class load... I barely made it out of last semester alive! This semester, there's still so much I'm doing. I volunteer every Wednesday night and Sunday morning in the nursery at my church. Which is exactly where I need to be twice a week in order to stay sane; loving on the babies, teaching them how to crawl and walk is something I could do everyday for free and be completely happy. I think that's how God establishes our passions. If it's something you could be 100% happy doing for FREE, you know you're in the right field. I don't need anything in return when I'm with children and babies. 

It also dawned on me today that I will be graduating college in ten months. Ten very short, fast months if it continues at the pace it's been going. In these three years at college, I haven't had a single serious relationship. I've "dated" once or twice but nothing significant. When I pictured what my college years would look like when I was in high school this is not how I saw it. I had a plan (let's laugh about that together). I also had this idea in my head that I would be married by 22. That's in 7 months...so unless someone super extraordinary sweeps me off my feet, I gotta let that dream go, unfortunately. 

If there's anything I've learned while being away from home, in college, and while building a deeper relationship with Christ, it's that life never goes the way you expected it to. But the crazy thing is, that the way you expected and wished for - isn't your best. Isn't that crazy?

What I believed to be ideal for me -- dating someone all through college, getting married my last semester, having babies and living happily ever after -- that's not my best. And that's definitely been a struggle for me to accept. The fact that there's an even better plan that I may not even be aware of yet, has me in complete awe of God's blueprint for my life. 

He is faithful. And my verse that I've been holding onto this past week has been: 

"The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still." - Exodus 14:14

I also discovered this song this week, and highly recommend it. Pieces - Meredith Andrews
"Rest in who He is. He knows how to make your pieces fit." 

Stay beautiful.
Because God has an amazing plan for your life, if you let Him take the lead. 

Dear Mom

Tonight,  I had a super humbling experience.

In my town, school, life - I'm known as the baby whisperer. Any baby, anywhere, anytime, I can calm down. with EASE.

Most days, I take this little gift for granted. When I see a baby crying, I almost take it as a competition for myself to see how quickly I can calm him/her down. But today...today, there was absolutely nothing I could do.

It was a regular night at the nursery. Me and the baby were having a fabulous time playing with blocks, laughing and smiling and learning how to walk. Then, all of a sudden, she started wailing. Screaming at the top of her lungs and just bawling her eyes out. So I picked her up and started to hop her up and down as I walked because this is usually a method that works pretty well. Nothing. So I grabbed her pacifier. Nothing. She was screaming so loudly that it was hurting my ears. I was feeling defeated. We texted her mom and her mom came in and as I handed the squealing baby over, she immediately rested her head on her mom's shoulder and started quieting down. 

And it dawned on me. 

Sometimes you just need your momma.

I may be a baby whisperer and have a huge passion for children, but there's some things that only your momma can help with.

I've found myself in these positions lately even as a 21 year old. So many times this semester already, have I had to call my mom and she's said just the right things that no one else could have said. Or if they did, they wouldn't have meant as much. Her love, guidance, support, and encouragement for me is constant. She is my constant and my best friend and I'm so glad that God blessed me with her to be my mom. 

"She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. She watches over the affairs of the household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: "Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all."" - Proverbs 31:26-29

Love you mom! 

Simplify

I have a lot of stuff.

My closet is so big that at home I have to take up an entire closet in the office to fit all of my extra clothes. I have a "winter" and a "summer" wardrobe which takes up my entire closet each season.
I have 20 scarves, numerous amounts of shoes and jeans, and too many t-shirts to count.

I have a lot of stuff.

When I'm happy and am headed out for a fun date, what do I want to do before? I want to go buy a new outfit.

I have a lot of stuff.

When I lose a few pounds, what do I want to do to celebrate? I want to go buy a new outfit.

I have a lot of stuff.

Why though? Why all of this stuff? What is this going to do for me when my life ends? If I were to die tomorrow what would people say about me? "She sure left behind a lot of STUFF." That's what they'd say.

It's been said to me before that girls dress for girls. And this could NOT be more true! I can wrestle myself to death with what I'm going to wear out to a date, and in the end...if he's a gentleman and a really good guy, the guy I should be looking for to marry, he's going to like ME.

He's not going to care about the tight strapless bra I'm wearing to hide underneath my tank top that shows underneath my cardigan. He's not going to care about my uncomfortable shoes I'm wearing because it was the only thing that matched the stripes in my sweater. He's not going to care about the fact that I had to change out of my comfy jeans because they had a tiny rip at the bottom and put on my skin-tight, super uncomfortable jeans. He's not going to care, and neither should you.

I think everyone gets so focused with what people will think about them if they wear this or that, and honestly, people see you and then forget about you once you walk away. I can't tell you what half the people I passed today were wearing. But probably 75% of them REALLY stressed out this morning trying to figure out what to wear for church.

Dress for YOU. Instead of worrying about your outward appearance, we need to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Because in the end, THESE are what matter. These are things that people remember.

Were you compassionate towards them when they needed a shoulder to cry on?
Were you kind and smiled whenever you saw them in the hall?
Were you humble?
Were you gentle with the words you chose in stressful times?
Were you patient when they needed someone to just listen?

Or were you too busy focusing on yourself? Too busy focusing on if they're noticing the rip in your belt, or the small mustard stain on your chest? I know I've  been guilty of this far too many times.

These are the things that Jesus asks of us. I read a book recently where a man talked about making lots of money and how he lived in a such a beautiful big house and one day decided that he and his wife and two kids could live comfortably in a smaller house.  They could then use the extra money they made to donate to those who couldn't afford such an easy lifestyle. And I thought to myself, if God ever called me to give up the things of this earth and follow him...would I be able to do that?

So I've started to make a change. I do like my stuff, but I want to be clothed with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience instead. So I gave away half of my scarves. I threw away the clothes I didn't need. I tossed the t-shirts that weren't necessary. And I've officially been on a shopping fast for the last month.

I don't NEED new clothes.
I WANT new clothes.
But I WANT Jesus more.

Stay beautiful <3

"Jesus answered, "if you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in Heaven. Then come, follow me." - Matthew 19:21

Yours Ways Are Greater, God.

This weekend, my family will officially be moving into our new home. It's overwhelming, honestly. I've called this home my "home" since I was 3 years old. Forever, basically. It's bittersweet because I know this is what is best for us.
After a lot of prayer and guidance, everything- from selling our house, to buying our new house just fell into place really smoothly.
Am I sad? A little bit. I definitely cried when I left home to come to college this year because I knew it was the last time I'd be leaving "home." It'll definitely be weird to come home during breaks to a place that isn't technically my "home." But I know, after some time, it'll feel normal again. And I'm 21 years old...Hopefully in the next 5 years I'll have my own home.

One thing that I think I'm coming to terms with is the fact that I don't control my life. God does. And that, if you know me, has taken A LOT for me to be able to do. To sit back when things don't exactly go my way, and say "Not my ways, but Yours." It's really been difficult, but in that I have been able to find peace.
Just the THOUGHT of giving my life over to God completely made me extremely anxious. Even sometimes nauseous. I would give Him a little piece of my life as if He was a baby that I was trying to feed grown-up food to and saying "Here, chew on this for a little bit and then you can have more when I say so." 
When I was only giving him little parts of myself, it was hurting Him and I both. He wanted ALL of me, and I was uncomfortable only giving him little pieces. The peace that I get now when I realize that He is in control is indescribable. There's an overwhelming sense of hope that I get when things don't go as I had originally planned. Because the first thing I think of is, "If THIS wasn't what He wanted...I can't even fathom what He's going to give me instead because I KNOW and I TRUST that it's going to be better than what I had wanted at that particular moment."

Something I know a lot of high school and college students struggle with is giving God control over their relationships. I have struggled with that too (and sometimes still do). For the longest time, I was dating a guy who wasn't right for me in any way, shape, or form. But I wanted him SO bad. I wanted us to work. And the kind of emotional attachment I had with him was something I thought no one could live up to. And it's taken me some time, but I'm now seeing that even when you think you have it all figured out and it doesn't work in your favor, God's going to trump whatever you thought was perfect and give you something even better.
So basically, I think my overall goal of this post was to encourage you. If things aren't going your way, or if you're feeling overwhelmed by school, work, or relationships. Be content. Because God's plan for your life is amazing. And if you're completely happy with your life right now. Revel in that. But remember that if things turn south soon...it's only going to become BETTER than what your originally had. I've quoted this verse in another blog post before, but it still reigns true in this instance as well.

""For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways," declares the Lord. "As the Heavens are higher than the Earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts."" - Isaiah 55:8

http://youtu.be/TAPpunj-dMM
Be Still - Bethel Music

"Stop thinking so much
and just let go

Be still my soul and rest
Humbly I confess,
in my weakness your strength is perfect

For You alone are God, there will be no other
And You have won my heart more than any other
So I will give it all 'cause you gave it all for me"