hunger.

i would love my dog Copper, if he didn't always beg. i drives me absolutely nuts when i'm sitting at the table and he just sits there looking at me begging. and if i give him a piece of chicken he'll be happy for about ten seconds but as soon as he's swallowed it-he wants more. more. more. more. i don't know how that dog can always be hunger, but he's never satisfied. he's always hungry for more. he always wants more.

while working at the mall, especially around christmas, i see this quality not just in dogs but in people! sure, it's often little kids begging their parents for an icee to go with their pretzel but i see it in adults too. black friday shopping is absolutely nuts...i saw numerous people fighting over stupid things that don't even matter...just so they can get more. another ugly christmas sweater, another pair of jeans that you don't need, the latest and greatest ipod. why does it matter? we're consumers..always wanting more.

recently i was in the windy, snowy city of chicago. my heart broke at how many homeless people i saw. shivering. starving. dying. my heart was torn the most when i saw this lady going to the bathroom in the middle of the sidewalk. she was shivering and had very thin clothes on. how sad is it that we take toilets for granted. i can guarentee you that this lady has never had an ipod and probably only has one outfit, yet we go out and fight for the latest and greatest. it just doesn't seem right. jesus said, 'for i was hungry and you gave me something to eat, i was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, i was a stranger and you invited me in, i needed clothes and you clothed me, i was sick and you looked after me, i was in prison and you came to visit me.'

i hope and pray that we do not turn into my dog. instead of begging for another 'piece of chicken', lets help those who are really in need.

hospital gowns, vicoden, and iv's.

here lately i feel like i've been to the docter/hospital more than i've been home! long story short, i had a fancy kind of infection in my lower back, i was having so much pain i could barely walk or even sit down and so my parents took me to the emergency room and they did a minor surgery and said i was all better. after a few weeks i had a follow up appointment with my docter, thinking everything was ok but once he did some tests he came back with bad news...my infection was back and it was a lot more serious. as soon as he said this i began crying (as you might have read in previous blogs im very emotional;) my docter told me i was going to have to have emergency surgery that next morning. and so when the next morning rolled around my dad and i got up before the roosters and went to the hospital. as soon as i got there they made me take off my clothes and put on a silly hospital gown!!!!!!!! i will never wear one of those things again..just saying. after i was dressed they put a bunch of iv's in me and soon enough i was asleep. after my surgery i figured i would feel much better (thats the normal thing to think right??) but after all my vicoden (miracle medicine) wore off i was in the most pain i have ever been in. my temperature is usually 96..not 98 and for two days i had a 102 fever. i remember laying on the couch crying..i couldn't move, i was in so much pain, and i literally thought i was going to die. i called out to god more those two days than i have in a long time. when i was going through that pain i got to thinking and found out that i wasn't ready to die. i had relationships in my life that i needed to ask forgiveness from, and most importantly i needed to get my relationship with god back on track. i know god didn't cause the infection inside of me but i do know that he has worked good out of it. i realized that christ has gone through so much more pain than i have..and he went through it for me. i've learned to rely on him with every circumstance in my life. i've learned to ask for forgiveness. i've learned of his great love for me and that he is the ultimate healer. he's had his protecting hand over me this whole time. i've learned to trust him with everything i've got, for only he knows my future.

i'm a teenage girl..im allowed to have breakdowns

im an emotional, chocolate-craving girl..what can i say? most of us are:) though my breakdown today didn't have to do with boys, pimples, or what i'm gonna wear tomorrow...surprisingly it had to do with school. i dont know what got into me, but i started crying at the dinner table tonight. my family was talking about the new year and how fast this past year has gone which made me realize how fast my life is going. everyone told me that highschool would go by fast but i had no idea how much truth was to that. i still have two years left but it's just crazy to think about. i've been at blackhawk for eleven years!! i've had the same friends for eleven whole years! i remember being in fifth and sixth grade thinking the year 2013 seemed so far away but now, it's just around the corner. i'm gonna be a junior in highschool in a few months. i'm gonna get my drivers license soon. i only have two more years living at home! well as i was crying at the dinner table my dad told me that highschool's just a chapter in my life and that i will enjoy the rest of the chapters just as much as i'm enjoying this one. i'm so thankful for my school, friends, and family. i am extremly blessed.

ugh why me?

This past week, my house got broken into. Not just my house, my room specifically. The very first thing I said when I found out was, 'Why did they have to choose our house?!? Cherry Hill (big houses) is right down the road and I'm sure they all have better stuff than here!!!!' I was angry, not just plain angry, I was spitting angry. I felt so violated, my own room. My messy (yet organized) room. It's mine-not theirs! So why did they have to go in there?? Well, for the next several sleepless nights as I laid in bed ready to take on anyone who tried to break in again (in all reality I would've screamed bloody murder if someone came in when I was home) I realized I needed to trust God. I asked him to protect me and he did. I asked him to help me soften my heart so I could surrender my fears unto him. I don't understand why things such as this happen, but I do know God has a plan for me. Those sleepless nights, I learned to trust him. I learned to surrender my worries, my fears, my anxieties to him. He is the ultimate protector. As Bob and Larry would say, 'God is bigger than the boogeyman.....'

silence.

Voices shouting. Cell phones beeping. Brothers fighting. Vacuums roaring. Dogs barking. Doors slamming. Teachers demanind. Bells ringing. Music blaring. Alarms buzzing. Faucets running. Engines starting Stoves sizzling. Toilets flushing. Washers/dryers rumbling. Televisions piercing. Fans blowing. Noice. It's ALL around us. And sometimes, we don't even realize it. We wake up to it and fall asleep to it. When was the last time you sat in complete silence? I couldn't tell you the last for me. I say I can't hear God, and I've finally found out why. My life is a noise mixed in with everyone else's noise. It's like my life is an Ipod stuck on shuffle with an infinite amount of songs. Some noises may be peaceful, classical music but others are hardcore screamo. Hundreds of noises running through my head day after day. It's so hard to be silent. It's so hard to isolate ourselves from societies 'Ipod.' But we must. We must spend time in solitude with God, for he may be speaking to us, but all we're doing is zoning him out with our earphones.

cliche is a weird word.

'dear god, thank you for this food, bless it to our bodies. amen.'
'how are you?' 'good how are you?' 'good.'
'i'll pray for you.'

cliches. let me start off by saying i dont like the word cliche. it sounds weird. its spelled weird. and i dont get why theres an accent over the 'e', it bugs me, therefore im not putting it there.

anyway, i feel like people are so cliche all the time. we fall into a routine and then never change. for example, i paint my nails every thursday night and do my eyebrows every sunday night. why do i do this? because i did them once, i got in a routine, and i never stopped.

if i were to take a poll, i gurantee you that most people only pray before dinner and or bed. why is that? and usually when people pray before a meal, we're so hungry and wanna eat that all we say is thanks for the food, amen. do we even know who we're talking too? the creator and sustainer of the universe and all we abruptly say is thanks for the grub, amen. i wanna know who the person was that came along and said..'we should only thank god for dinner.' we should talk to god ALL the time, not once a day and not only because it's cliche. we should do it because we WANT too.

another annoying cliche, (other than the word itself) goes something like this, 'o hey how are you?' 'o im good, and you?' 'im good.' ok what kind of conversation is that? like for real, you might as well not have even had it. it drives me nuts when someone says, 'how are you?' while walking away. they might as well have said, 'im gonna ask you how you are but i dont reallycare so im just gonna walk away.' im guilty of it too, we all ask people that simple question yet never really care what their answer is. and when someone asks us the question in return, we give the one-word, cliche answer-good. majority of the time we say good just so the person will be satified and walk away. we need to strive to be a people with loving hearts who truly care how someone is doing.

lastly, 'ill pray for you.' im gonna tell you write now that i have said that phrase numerous times and havnt meant it or done it. i think its something we say just so we feel good about ourselves, when really we should be caring about the person we said it too, and striving to pray for them as often as we can. prayer shouldnt be taken lightly yet it is such a cliche phrase that so many people just say it because they feel it as the right thing to say at the moment.

i dont want to be cliche. i dont want my life to be cliche. i dont want to go through the motions of painting my nails on a thursday and doing my eyebrows every sunday. i want my life to be genuine-not cliche...because after all, cliche is a weird word.

ants on an anthill.

so i work at the mall...and let me just tell ya, there are SO many different types of people in this world. i find it rather entertaining to stand back and just watch all the people go by. the hustle and bustle of the mall. different types of people coming and going from every which way. but where are all these people going? and why is everyone always in a rush? why do most people get mad at me when i say they have to wait three minutes for a pretzel? really?..like whats three minutes gonna do? kill ya?
but for real, where are all these people going? people move so stinkin fast. it reminds me of ants on an anthill. i really dont know what the ants are trying to do on their little hills but they're always moving so fast! i don't know where all those people are going in the mall, i dont know what they go home to,,,,do they go home to an abusive spouse? do they go home to a homemade meal ready for them when they walk in the door? do they go home to an empty apartment? do they even have a home? so many different types of people in the world. and im one of them. we all may seem so different but we have at least two things in common: we were all made and crafted by the almighty god who loves us and......we all seem like ants on an anthill.