Thanksgiving Week.

It doesn't seem like Thanksgiving week to me. I'm not sure if it is just because I have been so busy, but the time has seriously flown by. I feel like it was just summer time. Anyways, whether I believe it or not, it's already Thanksgiving. I wanted to take a minute to talk about things that I am thankful for, because there are so many.

Jesus. He gave me life, gives me everything I could ever need, and truly loves me.

My husband. My other half. The one who hold me when I cry, tickles me when I need a laugh, supports me in everything, and loves me unconditionally.

My best friend. The one I can count on for anything and everything.

My job. Teaching is so much more than a job, its a passion. My kids fill my heart every day and without a doubt they have changed my life and continue to  each day. My job also provides me with an income that allows me to have enough money for anything that I need and most things that I want. I also have the best coworkers, so blessed.

My family. I have two parents who love me, siblings who I have great relationships with, and extended family who all care about me. We may not all get along, but we come together when we need to and all love each other.

My apartment. As much as I am eager to get into a house, I love our little home together. It's clean, warm, and comfortable.

My friends. I have such a strong group of friends who I know will always have my back and are only a phone call away. We might not see each other often, but there is a depth to our friendships that will always remain.

My church. My husband and I have both been getting more involved in our church and it really is starting to feel like home. I am leading a group of high school girls now and he serves in the worship band. We are meeting more people and I am loving it even more.

I hope all of you are feeling as blessed and thankful as I am this week. Sometimes even when it's hard, it helps to focus on the good, because there is so much good in our lives even through the difficulties. 

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, friends! 

I hope you all have a wonderful day celebrating with your friends and family. I am spending the day at my mom's since my fiance has to work and then we will all go to church together this evening. Tomorrow we will spend the entire day with my family. I am so thankful for this time with my family, but more thankful for what Christmas truly means. I'm so thankful for Jesus, that He came to save me, save all of us. I can't think of any gift better than that. 

Wishing you and your families all the best. 

Weekending: busy, busy!

You know those weekends that are packed with fun, but leave no time to relax? That's what this weekend was. It was a blast, but when I finally got home Sunday afternoon I was wishing that i had more time to unwind before another busy week of work.

Friday night one of my friends organized a last minute dinner for our group of friends. Six of us headed to the Rock which is an awesome pizza place. I decided to have a drink because, why not! It was friday and I knew my fiance could drive and this drink isn't just a drink...its a bucket. So I had delicious garlic mozz bread, a bbq chicken salad, and this drink.I'm such a lightweight I defineltly couldn't have driven home. We invited our friends back to our apartment and played Rummikub and Sorry for a few hours.

Saturday morning I went to my best friends house to scrapbook my engagement pictures! She was scrapbooking her bachelorette party when we went to Vegas in April, oh the memories. It was a fun, relaxing morning catching up and talking about wedding stuff. :)

I went straight from my friend's house to my moms to go to a birthday party for some family friends. This family has 11 kids, it's wild, but they are the sweetest things ever. We were celebrating the 4 year old and 8 year old. The mom also just had a baby and so I loved getting baby snuggles from the adorably 6 week old.

Saturday night ended with one of my friends and I going to Winter Jam. It's a huge christian concert and it was a blast. Talk about feeling good and recharged by Jesus, that's what we got that night. Hillsong was the closing act and the sang 'Oceans'...with 20,000 people worshipping together and singing that song, it was quite the moment.

Sunday I went to church && then shopping with my mom! The goal was christmas shopping but I wasn't to successful. Thankfully I got a lot of ideas and came home and made some online purchases. I really need to get organized and on track shopping because I want to enjoy the holiday season and not be all stressed about needing to find presents. I'll keep working on it.

Then it was 5pm and I got home and my fiance was back (he went away sat/sun) and we just relaxed and watched Sunday Night Football and Once Upon a Time.

It makes me tired just thinking about everything I did this weekend...and now I'm off to school!

Happy Monday!

Linking up with Meghan!

what i'm hoping for in 2014.

As much as I feel like New Year's Resolutions are cliche, I still love the idea of making them every year and working hard to achieve them.

*Be intentional with my quiet time and journaling every day. I have read my Bible more this year than the other 23 years of my life combined and I love the changes that I see. My relationship with the Lord is growing every day and I want to stay on this track. There is so much to read and so much more to learn about Jesus and this year I want to continue that relationship with him and really dive into the bible.

*Make my health a priority. I have a gym membership, I need to use it. I know how to eat healthy, I need to actually eat that way. I have gone a couple months with eating lots of junk and not working out and now I need to get back in shape because I have a lot o big things coming up this year. I am a maid of honor in a wedding this summer and I want to be in perfect shape for that event. Not to mention the bachelorette party in Vegas for that wedding in April. If a weekend surrounded by 8 girls who are in perfect shape in shorts and bikini isn't motivation, I don't know what is.

*Further my education. Even though I just graduated with my Bachelor's last year, I am planning on starting my masters this year. Depending on my summer plans, I might start in June to get a few solid months complete before I get back to school. I know that it's going to be a lot of work but the feeling of accomplishment (and raise) makes it worth it. Plus, I would rather do it now before I have kids and other distractions.

*Go on a trip with my boyfriend. We have been together for over 4 years but since we were in college and then broke after college, we still haven't gone on a real vacation together. I think that is something we definitely need to accomplish this year.

That's what I will stick with for now. There are so many other, smaller, goals that I could add but then this list would go on forever.

Happy 2014!

Influence.

Today we had a day at school without kids for professional development. We all came into the day curious since they didn't tell us what we were going to be learning about. It ended up being all about character development and servant leadership (something out school is founded on) and it was a really wonderful day.

I wanted to share what I thought was possibly the best part of the day. We were discussing leadership and the definition 'Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less.' Individually we were asked to write down the top 15 people who we think had the biggest influence on the world. After we wrote out lists we shared them with the table, guess who everyone except one person had at the top of their lists....Jesus! I was so excited and encouraged by this fact. Even though I know that some of them may or may not be believers, it was refreshing to actually hear that name being talked about in school. Being a public teacher you can't be open about religion but there are so many times that I wish I could. We ended up making it a survey of all 100+ teachers at the training and almost 90% of them agreed that Jesus was the person with the biggest influence on the world. This made my heart happy.

Jesus has had such an influence on every single one of us. He came for us, he lived for us, he died for us. Nobody else can love us as much as he does. Knowing that most of my coworkers believe the same thing makes me even happier with the place that I work and was definitely the highlight of my day.

Worth

For a long time I have been wanting to serve in the Nursery at Church and today was my first day! I was a little nervous since I didn't know what to expect but it was a lot of fun. I miss when I used to nanny and take care of little kids so it was a blast to be able to read them stories and play with them. I think it will be a highlight of my week. But before I volunteered, I listened to a sermon that rocked my world, and that's what I want to share.

Today at church we talked about value and how people measure their worth. Our pastor made an analogy about the fact that something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Remember in the 90's when we all bought beanie babies because they are going to be 'worth' so much? Well right now those are all sitting in my garage gathering dust. Anyways the point was that our value is in Jesus. He came to this Earth for us. He was betrayed, abandoned, mocked, beaten, tortured, wrongly sentenced, and eventually killed, for us. Jesus really loves us, all of us.

Jesus died for me. I am a person of great worth.

Jesus died for you. You are a person of great worth.

When you are feeling sad, alone, discouraged, or just having a bad day, try to remember how much you are worth. You are on this earth for a reason, you have a purpose, and you were given this life by our great creator.

Jesus' Miracles

If I miss church on Sundays I love to listen to the sermons in my car when I am making long drives. Yesterday since I drove for almost 4 hours I decided it was the perfect time to catch up on the messages I missed from the past two weeks when I was on vacation.

Right now we are reading through the Gospels about the life of Jesus. Whenever I read these stories I am amazed by the love that Jesus has and all that he did for the people around him. He performed multiple miracles to make people believe in who he was and what he came here to do. One of my favorites is the story of feeding the 5,000. My dad used to reference this story when I was a kid and when I saw it in my reading I instantly knew what he was talking about. Jesus will always provide. He provided those thousands of people with their fill, it was a miracle. When he was in a boat in Sea of Galilee with his disciples they came across a storm. They were all worried that they would sink and drown but Jesus told them not to worry, to have faith, and he calmed the storm. This showed how powerful he was. Yes he could heal the sick, make the blind see, rid people of demons, but he also could control nature which was even more impressive to the people around him.

These miracles are impressive to read about, but I know that some people have a hard time making them relatable in real life. If I stop and think about my life, I know that I can see many miracles right in my own life. I have a brother who was born weighing less than two pounds. It was a miracle that he survived and now he is healthier than ever, just ran a marathon last weekend, and is taller than me! I decided to become a teacher and in student teaching I found that I was at the perfect school. There wasn't an opening there and I was discouraged and sad that I'd have to leave. One day I found out that the teacher in my subject area resigned and I applied, interviewed, and was hired. It was a miracle. Miracles are all around us if we open our eyes to see them.

In the sermon my pastor was talking about how Jesus is not a genie, you can't just call on him when you want and ask him to grant your wishes. It doesn't work like that, Jesus wants to be part of you life all of the time, not just when you need something. It made me evaluate my life, am I only calling on Jesus when I need him? Lately I have been striving to make sure to be more thankful than ever. I know that there are so many things in this life that I have been blessed with and it is important to take the time to thank Jesus for each of those gifts. Without him, I would have nothing.

What miracles have happened in your life? Thank God for them. What are you feeling blessed with right now? Thank God for the blessings.

Happy Saturday!

-J

Christmas in July

I think I've mentioned before that at my church right now we are doing a 'Cover to Cover' series in which we go through the entire Bible in about 9 months. Tonight we finally reached the New Testament!

Tonight I read about the birth of Jesus, a story we've all heard endless times, but I think it meant a lot more as I came across it quietly in my own personal reading. As I read about Mary I was struck by one of the verses when she said simply, 'I am a servant of God.' This was so powerful because she is a young woman who was just given news that meant her life was forever changed. She was going to become pregnant and give birth to the Son of God. Did she ask questions? Did she complain? Did she turn to Joseph and seek advice? Nope, she simply said that she was a servant and accepted the news.

Wow.

To me this really stood out and it made me think about times in my life when God might have been leading me somewhere. Was I willing to drop everything and serve the Lord? I honestly don't know if I have always been willing to do that. Reading this tonight made me see another example of someone so whole heartedly following the Lord and how beautiful it is.

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” - Luke 10-12

Happy Christmas in July.