These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

I have compiled a list of my 8 favorite things for you! Including explinations of why they are my favorite. Oh, and they are in no particular order. Enjoy! Also, I've tried adding pictures and it's not working! I'm very angry at it so I'm going to try on a different, newer, computer later and see if it'll actually work. 1) Pinterest Oh my gosh! If you don't know what Pinterest is your are missing out. It's the best waste of time! Pinterest is a pinboard-style photo-sharing website that allows you to create and manage theme-based image collections such as events, interests, and hobbies. So basically it's an enectronic pin board. There are many different categories like movie, humor, tattoos, weddings, clothes and SO many more. A pin starts with an image or video you add to Pinterest. You can add a pin from a website or upload an image right from your computer. Any pin on Pinterest can be repinned, and all pins link back to their source. A board is where you organize your pins by topic. You could pin ideas for remodeling your bathroom to your House Projects board, for example. Boards can be secret or public, and you can invite other people to pin with you on any of your boards. Below you can see all 33 of my boards. There is always something new to look at and that's one of the main reasons I love it. 2) Quest Community Church I LOVE MY CHURCH. It's the place were I know, without a doubt, that I matter. I've been attending for almost 9 years now and I couldn't be more in love with it. Jesus is made SO clear there. The community I get to be a part of is amazing. They love me whether I'm awesome or whether I'm sucking at the moment. From the earliest days, Quest has been a church dedicated to “transforming unconvinced people into wholehearted followers of Jesus.” As a church, we have an unrestrained passion to see people from all walks of life see Jesus for who he really is and begin a relationship with Him. Thousands of people in our history have done just that. Lives have literally been changed forever. And you're so welcome and wanted! Don't feel like you have to dress up and put on a mask of "everything ia alright". We're people, we know hard things happen. That's why we have people on stage every week telling their stories of redmeption. Every thing from rape, addiction, divorce to pride, anger, and unforgiveness. I would love to go on and on about it but if you're interested check it out for yourself! www.questcommunity.com 3) Movies I LOVE to watch movies! Going to Midnight premiers is one of my favorite things to do. I love basically all kinds of movies EXCEPT horror! I cannot watch those movies...they terrify me! Some of my favorite movies are... Pretty Woman She's the Man Harry Potter (althogh the books are better) Hunger Games (again, the books are better) Pitch Perfect Crazy Stupid Love Horrible Bosses The Avengers (and any of their seperate movies. Oh and Thor 2 comes out tomorrow!) Jumper (which I always am given a hard time about liking this movie) The Notebook The Princess Bride and basically anything Disney. and the list would continue if I didn't want to bore you... 4) Tattoos When I went to go get my first tattoo and my friends told me they were addicting, I didn't believe them at first but it's absolutely true! I have one and have already planned out my next 3. I think they can be works of art that tell about things that matter to you. My one tattoo says "trust God like you trust Gravity" which asks the question, when you get out of bed in the morning do you question whether or not your feet are going to hit the ground? No? That's the kind of way I want to trust Jesus. I eventually want a Little Mermaid tattoo too because my middle name is Ayrielle and I just love her! Oh, and just in case you were wondering; YES they hurt! But I'm a little bit of a whimp anyways... 5) Fireworks Fireworks are beautiful! It's one of the main reasons why the 4th of July is my favorite holiday. I love the bright lights and the big boom sounds they make when they explode! 6) Disney Disney is AWESOME! The Little Mermaid is my favorite Disney movie (since my middle name is Ayrielle I basically am her anyways). I love all their classic movies and the new movies have continued to be great also. They also make some fantactis movies teamed up with pixar. Some of my favorites are... Monsters INC. Peter Pan Toy Story Finding Nemo The Incredibles The Lion King and of course all of the princess movies! 7) Spiders Stick with me on this one...spiders are BEAUTIFUL! I love the way they look. Now I will NOT pick them up and play with them but I am not scared of them. I just love them. 8) Rain The rain is FANTASTIC! I love the way it sounds. I love the way it smells. I love the way it feels on a warm summer day. I get the best sleep when it's thunderstorming during the night.

"A Father's Love"

I am LITERALLY crying right now because of how beautiful the story I just read is. I came across this story on buzzfeed (one of my favorite websites to waste time on)and I just had to share it with you as my next blog post. The story is called A Father's Love.

I don't know about you but being a girl I am looking forward to my wedding day along with the moment where my father gets to walk me down the isle. My dad is very important to me. He's so much stronger than he believes he is and he is alwyas there for me. Even at 21 I still go sit on his lap. (It's also a good tatic to ask him for something becuase when I sit on his lap he hardly ever says "no" to me!) I am in the process of trying to convince him to go wedding dress shopping with me when the time comes. Something that I've been in the process of for about a year now, even though I'm no where near getting married.

Anyways, back to the main reason I'm writing...this blog post: http://www.fotolanthropy.com/the-evans-family/ Like I said, I am LITERALLY crying right now because of what I just read. It's a story about Fred Evans and the surprise he gifted his two daughters and wife with. I'd try to explain it in my own words but I think Katie, the owner of the blog, does it much better than I could.

"After learning he had just months to live, Fred wanted to surprise two of his daughters and wife with a special gift. An inspiring story of a Father’s love to his family...Fred Evan’s was recovering from a double lung transplant when doctors discovered metastatic melanoma. Because of the medications he was taking to keep his body from rejecting his new lugs, Fred is unable to endure much chemotherapy to treat the cancer. Upon this discovery, Fred was given just months to live...Fred has four children, three daughters, Martha, Gracie and Kate and one son named Daniel. Two of the daughters, Gracie and Kate are not married. As a daddy, Fred wants to make sure he got the opportunity to walk his other two daughters down the aisle and give them away...After Fred walked Gracie and Kate down the aisle, Fred announced he had one more bride. Karla was so confused at first but she was totally surprised when Fred told her he wanted to renew their vows that day...Roland, Karla’s brother officiated the simple ceremony, as they each promised to continue to love each other for the rest of their lives...Fred Evans received his wings on July, 25 2013."

Please go read this whole story on the Fotolanthropy blog! It's worth the time. There are also pictures of the whole thing which pulled on my heart strings...hence the crying. There are also many other stories of amazing love, hope and faith on this blog. It's a beautiful way to celebrate life.

My Story

I grew up in the church. As far back as I can remember I went to church. I have pictures of me in cute little dresses outside my house, ready to leave for Easter Sunday. This quickly became my favorite thing about going to church, being able to put on a dress because I was definitely a girly girl. Through church I learned about Jesus through the Bible but they were nothing more than just stories to me. I believed Jesus was real but never experienced Him for myself. This routine continued on for quite some time and I thought it was normal. Learn about Jesus, be a good girl, and look good on the outside. It wasn’t until my family found our way to Quest Community Church that I started to see people experience a personal God; One that wasn’t just up in the sky looking over us but taking people’s hands and walking in a relationship with them. At this point in my life I had a lot of hurt stored up in my heart. A reoccurring event in my life was losing friends. I’d make a friend, have them for about 2 years and then we would get in a big fight and never talk to each other again. This hurt lead to me not trusting anyone. I had a lot of hurt I was holding onto and chose to play the victim in all these fights. At the same time I was in a constant battle with fear. I was always scared. Scared of bad things happening out of my control, scared of letting people know the real me in fear of being made fun of, and fear of never being accepted, loved, or cared for by anyone. It got so bad sometimes that I would physically make myself sick and even had to go to counseling for a season because it got so out of control. So in the middle of not having any friends and just feeling like I was worthless Jesus intersected my life. I started hearing about how Jesus died on the cross just for me. If I was the only one to respond to his offer of pure love He still would have chosen to die. Even knowing all of this I still tried to look perfect on the outside but I was very messy on the inside. I had sinned, big time, on many occasions, and I started to feel the weight of that. But I chose to ignore it and continued to let the enemy’s voice speak loudly to me and tell me I wasn’t wanted. Something kept drawing me back to the people I saw at Quest, I still kept seeing person after person trust that Jesus was real and step into a relationship with Him. These people were different than the friends I had fought with in the past. Instead of fighting with me they fought to make me feel loved and fought for our friendship. I didn’t understand why, I was nothing special. But they saw me through Jesus’ eyes. Eyes that actually saw me. I didn’t have to hide or pretend to be someone I’m not. Jesus was pursuing me through these friendships and I started to notice this the last few months of being a senior in high school. I had had an experience a few years back to where the head knowledge of knowing that Jesus loved me transferred to my heart. It wrecked me and from then on I believed that I mattered to Him. This experience brought me closer to Jesus but I was still missing the fundamental piece of having a relationship with Him. Senior year I found myself on a bus with a bunch of other high schoolers traveling to different states with my youth ministry. I got on the bus just expecting a fun week, but Jesus and other plans. Plans to interrupt me, take all my fear away, and finally hold me as I became His. I had been struggling with doubt of whether or not I knew Jesus for a couple months now and hadn’t told anyone because fear of being judged by people and fear of what people would think of me. Jesus spoke to me real clear the last night of the trip, through a Disney song actually, because He knew my heart that well. He said, “Brittney I have a whole new world for you with a new fantastic point of view.” It was such a sweet and gentle way for Him to say that I didn’t know Him and because of this when I got to the gates of Heaven He would have to send me away saying, “I never knew you.” And even though fear was yelling at me and trying to pull me away from the Truth, Jesus made it very safe for me. I got to talk to people who cared about me and ask them what giving my life to Christ actually meant for me. It meant I would have a Protector for the rest of my life and be welcomed into Heaven as a daughter of the Most High King. It was after I let Jesus take my fear that I got to lay all my sin out at the foot of the cross, ask for His forgiveness, receive His forgiveness, ask the Holy Spirit to come live in my heart, give Him control and asked Him to lead my life. That was on July 16th of 2010 and I haven’t been the same since. My life is still sometimes and I still make mistakes but I get to live in His grace.  Now, instead as being defined by being unwanted or not being good enough He has redefined me as loved, pure, and vital. I have friends who love me for me, I don’t have to walk around afraid, and I get the privilege of helping put people’s hands in Jesus’ as they move from death to life. As we say, and believe at quest, “Everyone who runs to Him makes it.” Everyone includes you.

Snakes on a Bed

Welcome to my blog! Let me just say something before I get started...I suck at writing and I hate it. The only reason I'm doing this blog is for my ENG 303 class at EKU and since I have to do it I might at well have some fun! Let's see how this goes...

I figured I'd start out with this story a friend told me back in high school.  Which, from the title of this post you might have guessed it is a story about a snake. Well you'd be correct! The story started by her saying this is a friend of a friends story that she had heard the other day. This friend has a pet snake that she lets sleep in the bed with her.

First of all, who would have a pet snake?!
Secondly, why in the world would you let it sleep with you?!

But back to the story...so she loved this snake. When it came time to go to bed she would lay her snake righy next to her and it would curl up and sleep there. After a few months she realized the snake had stopped eating the food she would feed it. A couple days after that she noticed that when she layed down to go to sleep her pet snake would stretch out next to her instead of curling up.

She got really worried and took her snake to the vet. She was telling the vet all about what was going on with her snake and the vet got really worried and told her she needed to get rid of the snake ASAP. She was so upset and asked why. The vet said that the snake was planning on EATING HER and was sizing her up to see if he could fit her in his body! That's not all though, the vet said that she shouldn't release the snake into the wild because it would find its was back home!

My reaction to this story: OH MY GOSH THIS IS NOT OK!

Well upon starting this blog I wanted to tell you all this story so I was doing some research to see if this had happened more than once. After a few minutes and about 3 different websites I found out the very disappointing fact that this story is NOT true.  As disturbing as this story was I so wanted it to be true because it was fun to tell people and see their reactions! Sorry if I disappointed you all with this last paragraph but I couldn't let you go on believing it was true and live under the lie like I had to for so many years.

Hope I didn't ruin your day too much :)

Thanks to listening to my story!