Fiery, Fierce, and Five Foot-Nothing.

December 1, 2014.  Two years ago today, my grandma passed away after a battle with breast cancer. Her journey was full of ups and downs. One day she would be feeling well and she was able to do everyday things such as work, running errands, and spending time with family. Then, the next day she would feel ill, not have much energy, and be in lots of pain. My grandma was a fighter, the most selfless woman I've ever met, and she had such great love for people, but that's not what I want to focus on here.  While my grandma was one of the greatest human beings I've ever had the pleasure of knowing and loving, what I want to talk about here is the pain, heartbreak, and loss I experienced after she passed.  I will never forget where I was, what I was doing, and how I felt the moment I found out that she had died. I will never forget the sinking feeling I had in my gut, knowing that I'd never see or speak to my grandma on this side of Heaven again. I'l...

Flash back to spring of 2013. I am 20 years old and I'm in my sophomore year of college. One spring day, I get invited over to one of the star basketball players dorm rooms to watch a basketball game on TV. What starts out as a time of fun and laughter ends up in pain and suffering. I didn't ask for it. I didn't want it. I didn't consent to it. I was raped.  Despite the fact that I had spent the ages of 14-20 willingly giving away pieces of myself and handing over my innocence, I never thought I would experience something like that. The worst part of it all was that someone I trusted told me it was my fault. From that moment on I decided that I would never open up about it again. So there I was, going through each day trying to convince myself that it never happened and trying to pretend that I was okay. I spent the next year torturing myself and stuffing it down further and further in the hopes that it would one day disappear.  Fast forward to January 2014. I have ...

Well, I've officially been married for 23 days, and let me tell you, it has already been a learning experience.  For example: I absolutely cannot get my husband to put the toilet seat down.  Or to close the shower curtain after he's done showering.  Or to push the Keurig back up against the wall when he's done making his coffee in the morning.  Or to make the bed after he wakes up since he is still sleeping when I have to leave for work.  Now, before you go off and tell me that my expectations are too high, or that I am living on fantasy island, or that I'm being an OCD freak, or that I'm being totally and completely ridiculous about these things, please keep reading and hear me out.  Before we got married, I knew that Levi wasn't fond of putting the toilet seat down. I knew that he wasn't an all-star bed maker. I knew that he wasn't as particular about things as I am, and that was perfectly  OK .  In my 23 short years, I have he...

Have you ever been in a situation where you needed provision? Whether it be financial, material, spiritual, relational, etc. We've all been there, right? In a state of need. I'm not talking about the "need" where really we just want something but call it a need. I'm talking situations where there's a very real need and you have no idea how it's going to be met. You plan and brainstorm and try to figure out how you're going to get what you need to the point of having so much anxiety and stress that it turns into fear that your need isn't going to be met. What if I told you that's not how life is supposed to work? Yeah, we should plan and think of creative ways to come up with the provision to get what we need when we need it, but we shouldn't stress about it or worry that we aren't going to be provided for.  My fiancé and I have been planning our August 20th wedding since the beginning of April when we got engaged. I had many moments e...

Levi and I have been in high gear planning for our wedding that's coming up on August 20th. It has been quite the adventure since we got engaged almost a month ago. It's been exciting, slightly stressful, crazy, and full of adventure. I say slightly stressful because we, mostly I, have had moments of feeling like I don't know how this wedding is going to happen, but then I'm reminded of the goodness of God and it pulls everything back into focus.  When it comes to planning, I am extremely organized and I love to plan, so I'm fairly confident this wedding will be planned before August. LOL. Who am I kidding, it will definitely be planned well before then, but getting from A to B is going to be a process. We have decided on making the decoration in order to be more frugal. I love creating things and seeing the end product after putting work into something so doing decorations for my own wedding is probably going to be one of my favorite things the next 3 mon...

I have officially been engaged for 12 days. And let me tell you, it's SO exciting! I love wedding and future planning and getting to do all of this with Levi. I want to start documenting our engagement over these next 4 months to share our story, our plans, the excitement and adventure of it all and to show the ways that God has and is going to bless us in this new season.  To start, I should probably go back to the beginning of April. Levi and I had been pretty busy in the weeks following up to our engagement for various reasons. One of the main things was that he was one of the people in charge of the Restore Conference we had at church the last weekend in March. During the week before the conference, Levi had mentioned that the Saturday after the conference he wanted to go on a date. Just the two of us. I thought that sounded like a great idea, so we started trying to figure out what we wanted to do. He dropped the name of the restaurant we had our first date at,...

Throughout my teenage and early young adult life, I never thought about why I did the things I did. I would make a choice or a decision based on situations or people around me. I let the world, people, entertainment, and media dictate the things I did or said. I never had a "why" for anything. There was never any substantial reason behind why I did certain things or made certain choices. I made choices and decisions based on what I thought was right or wrong because of the guidelines and rules other people had given me, not because of my own perception of right or wrong.   It wasn't until I came to a place of complete brokenness and hopelessness that I received a "why" for my life.  Before I came to Kansas City, to World Revival Church, I was dirty, full of shame, full of the world, following the trends and patterns of the young people around me whose lives were headed nowhere. I was walking around in grave clothes, watching my life pass me by. I was b...

The following is a blog post I wrote after I decided to let go of my broken, dirty, shameful, depressing life and do my best to follow Jesus.  I spent the 6 months prior to this time at KSU. Those 6 months were the hardest times of my life. I had slowly lost all friends I had and struggled to make new ones. I felt directionless in my life. I didn't have any hope for a future. I spent so much time in my life doing the wrong thing and pursuing the wrong things and I felt like I was too far gone to be rescued. I was ready to settle into a life of loneliness and depression and to embrace the consequences of my sinfulness.  I was so low, on the verge of suicidal thoughts, ready to give up on everything. Then, something happened. I realized that I had absolutely nothing to lose. There was nothing in my life that I was afraid of giving up or that I loved so much I couldn't let go of it. I was so desperate for something real, for something worth living fo...

I can't tell you when it started. I can't tell you what happened exactly. I don't have a time or a date. It's been gradual. It's been subtle. Sure, my life is good and I have a lot of good moments. Things aren't bad for me and I think a lot of people would assume that my life is great, but what they wouldn't know is that it's been a struggle for me in the last few months.  From the outside looking in, it would appear as if I have things figured out and that I'm pretty solid. However, on the inside, that's not the case. I've been feeling my relationship with God drifting away. I don't dislike God or want to go off on my own without him. I don't have the guts to walk away from everything that I've known the last almost two years since I've been in Kansas City and attending World Revival Church. I'm too afraid of what my life might be like if I walked away from God. But that's not what the issue is. It's as if a w...