Where I have been this summer

There has been so much change in my life lately. I guess that that is part of why I love Summer; there is always so many things that happen unexpectantly and I never quite understand why, but always later on God shows me his purpose. Do you ever feel that way?

Well, this Summer has been exhilarating and busier than any other; Which is ironic considering that in May I was worried about what I would even do to fill up my time. I remember being upset because I could not go on a mission trip like I had before and my usual position of camp counselor was unavailable since the summer camp I used to work at closed down. I know that my attitude at that time must have been terrible, but to me it seemed like my whole summer would be.... shall we say, boring. And to top it all off, I was not able to go on the youth beach retreat because I had signed up to doggysit my grandmothers dogs (And I don't even like dogs!). -You can probably tell from this paragraph that I have had my fair share of complaining moments, which is something that I am still working on.

I ended up unexpectantly getting signed up for 2 VBS's, the first one I was a leader and the second one I was the photographer. I absolutely loved doing both, and can now see some of what God was teaching me at that time; I learned how to lead a group, have more patience, and have fun :) . I also was an assistant art teacher for a week.... I am still wondering what all God's purpose was for me on that one. It was definitely a new experience though. Then I got to Doggysit. I was kind of nervouse about this one because it required me to stay the night at my grandmothers house... alone.... and for 10 nights..... I know for sure that I most definitely relied on God during that time because it was a bit (more like a lot) scary. Especially considering that my house always has 8 people sleeping in it and my dad is always the one to lock the place up at night. But I did have three dogs with me and they would bark if anyone or thing came near. And last but not least, our house sold after being on the market for 6 weeks :) . Which also means that we have been busy packing and boxing things up. And in about two weeks we will be out of this house and staying with my aunt until we find a new house for us to buy. We feel so blessed though to have sold this house so quickly and in time for the new school year.

I guess now you can see a little of why I haven't been blogging for a while.... It will be good though once school starts because I get my own laptop from the school since it's a web academy, and then I can blog even if the rest of my family is using the home computer.

Oh, and the other thing I've been doing is helping my mom with our homeschool soccer league. It's almost time for the season to start and so we have been receiving registrations and entering them into our database and such. I'm looking forward to another good year of soccer! :)

I hope all of you have had an amazing summer full of surprises and that preperation for the coming school year goes well. I'm looking forward to catching up on all of my blogging friends posts from the past few weeks! :)

I have another post in mind, so stay tuned ;)
~Adriana

Childhood Dreams...

  “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”

~C.S. Lewis

I'm sure we have all had childhood dreams, whether you imagine yourself having a beautiful white horse and riding off into the sunset with Prince Charming, or a Knight in shining armor - We all dream of one thing - A Happily Ever After.....

But what happens when Gods plan for your life is different then the one that you have dreamed of?

That is the question that I have been asking myself since the beginning of this year. Lately it seems as though everything is happening too fast. I feel like my childhood days are slipping away from me and soon I will no longer have the luxuries of care-free days and dreaming for I will be off into the adult world of working and going to college. When I was younger I used to dream of being on American Idol and becoming a famous singer, or an actress.

Although childish, I have dreamed of being a singer practically all my life. I tend to look up to famous singers like Francesca Battistelli, or Natalie Grant and hope that someday I can sing songs that touch peoples hearts. But in truth, God has blessed me with many gifts but singing has not been one of them.

A few months ago I went to the worship pastor of our church and asked if I could audition to be apart of the worship team. And so I did, and as you can guess from the above writing, I didn't make it. I was so embarrassed and crushed. I was embarrassed because I honestly did believe that I could sing, and crushed because I felt as though all my dreams were being smashed and that they were likely to never happen.

After that happened I gave up on the idea of singing. I didn't want to give up on those dreams, honestly I wanted to hold onto them and hope that they would still come true. But I didn't feel as though God was calling me to do that, and so I let them go. What made it most difficult was that I had always thought that God would find a way to fill the desires of my heart -Which was to sing- but the thing is that it doesn't work that way. Yes, it does say in the Bible that he will give you the desires of your heart -but on one condition, that you delight yourself in him:

Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. ~Psalms 37:4

I don't think that I ever once asked God if singing was a part of his plan for me. I think I always just assumed that it was, and I guess that that is were I stumbled - by making my life plans without asking if that was what I am called to do.

Now, I am not trying to say that it is bad to dream, but rather the contrary. God has given us the ability to use our minds creatively to imagine ourselves and what we want to do or who we want to be. But he also wants us to come to him and seek his purpose in our lives. He wants us to get to know Him and what his 'dream' is for us. Perhaps if I had done that sooner on in my life then I could have saved myself a lot of heartache, for I could have started focusing on His goal for my life rather than my own
.
It seems that all my life I have heard pastors speaking on seeking God and the plans that he has for you, year after year I have heard those sermons yet somehow I managed to be oblivious of it.

Now that I have recognized my fault, I have begun to search for a new dream, but this time, one that God agrees with. For He knows what is best for me and can fulfill the true desires of my my heart, even when I don't see or realize those desires.

I pray that all of you sisters in Christ can continue to seek God with your dreams and desires.

Have a blessed day,

Miss.Adriana

A Post After a Long but Eventful Week!

Hello Everyone!

Right now as I type I can see the sun outside and I am listening to my favorite station on the radio. *Sigh* things couldn't be more perfect! Well anyways, I know I haven't posted lately so I thought I would give y'all a recap on whats been happening in my life :)

• Last Monday (June 27th) we put our house on the market in hopes that another lovely family may come across it and claim it as their home so that we can get a house more suitable for us. So since my room has been clean, I thought I would photograph it and show all of you what it looks like, but let me just say that although I like my room, it was painted when I was 11.... And so it is starting to get a little bit on the young side for me 

  I still love my room dearly though, for it is the one place that I can seek refuge when I want some quiet time.

• Thursday came and I went with the Youth of my church and headed down to the beach - Which was amazing!!! I love looking out on the waves and seeing the beauty in all that God created :)

 

• Friday I went to my Grandmothers house and we cooked together, and we made Vanilla Pudding -Yum!!! I love making homemade puddin'! 

  When I got home from cooking I had to rush to clean-up because we were having an Open House the next day

•  On Sunday I went to my Morning Bible Study and Nightly Youth Group - I love going to the bible study and digging deeper into the bible, and youth group is so much fun. We have such a great group of highschoolers at my church :)

• Monday was the Fourth of July, of course :) That was pretty fun because I got to bake some Goodies. Yum!

• Tuesday I picked up a bit and then..... Drum Roll please...... I got my driving Permit!!! It was the first time I had ever taken the test for it and I passed! So my mom and I went to an empty parking lot yesterday and practiced driving. She said I did great... at 4 miles per an hour! haha, now if only I can go a little bit faster ;) 

• I also finished an art project last night! I was very happy because I tend to half start projects but never finish them, and this summer I had made a list of goals and one of them was to practice my drawing. So I was pleased to have completed a task :)

•  And Lastly, today I am going to play Softball with my friends from church. Yay! I absolutely love softball! I'm not the athletic type of person, but the one sport I at least have a chance of being good at is Softball, so I am super stoked to go! :D

Before I sign out and continue with my chores, I thought I would share a song with you that I have come to love: 

 

 Have a wonderful summer day!

~Miss.Adriana

Some Beautiful Nature

Hello,

So I was planning on making a post with a bunch of pics last week, but I wanted to finish editing all my pictures so I can post them all. So, without further a due, here are some pictures of the beautiful nature that God created :)

These flowers are absolutely beautiful!

I love the sunlight that is pouring down :)

I love the festive colors!

 

This is my absolute favorite picture! They sky and sun look so beautiful!

Such cute lil flowers!

They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in it's season, and their leaves do not whither. ~Psalms 1:3

So very colorful!

A bright red bush

I love this tree, I'm not quite sure why though ;)

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ~Matthew 6:22

A Little Wasp

*Sigh* I love all the pretty things that grows here in Oregon :)

Well, hope ya enjoyed the pictures 

Have a blessed beautiful day!

~Miss.Adriana

S.A.S. Weekend!!!

Hello!

So here is a song that I have been hearing on the radio that I really like! I think it has an awesome beat that is very unique compared to other songs that I listen to :)

Have a blessed day!

Miss.Adriana

Trying to get a lil' Creative!

Hello! =)

So this summer I told myself that I would try and work on my graduation cards for next school year because I want to have plenty of time to make them perfectly cute. So I googled some pics of cards that other people have made - And I must say that I love all the creativity!

So Perhaps these card will inspire you as much as they have to me:

Supper cute!

I like the styling of this one

Simple and Cute!

Pretty!

I love the layout of this one, but I think it would be neat to make it more mature looking by adding a fancy ribbon instead of the blue one, and using a more mature paper and replacing the pic of a butterfly with a pic of a person

Haha, I like the innovative idea!

Adorable!

I love the crafty look of this one!

I like this one as well :)

So Elegant!

So what did you think?

Now I am like super excited to try making some cards like these!

Have a great day!

Miss.Adriana

The Problem I am Resolving...

Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses. 

Proverbs 10:12

I wish that I could say that I cover all offenses with love, but I'm afraid that I don't all the time. I'm not sure about you, but I have noticed that I have a bit of a.... hmm, how should I word this.... competitive problem? I guess I tend to feel threatened by others, or feel less then antiquate at times -Which is really jealousy but I like to try and tell my self that the person is really just bragging and a 'brat' and if people really knew them then they wouldn't like them so much. ok... that probably didn't make any sense... Let me tell you of an exemple of what I mean;

I have a few friends (their really more of acquaintances) that are super nice to some people and aren't to others. Kind of like they pick and choose their friends and they act nice to people of authority but are only friends which their peers that they feel are 'cool' or 'popular'. And what I have found is that they tend to brag about things, which tends to really bug me. Of course theirs nothing wrong with not appreciating the quality in people who like to 'toot their own horn', but what I discovered in myself recently was that I was carrying resentment in my heart toward them -which is wrong. And I guess to 'cover up' my resentment I was telling myself that if people really knew what they were like, then they wouldn't like that person -which was a sign of my jealousy because I wanted to be popular like those people. I tried to tell myself that I was so much better then that person because I didn't act like that person... ::sheepish grin:: In truth, I was acting just like that person but just in different ways. 

And if you haven't figured it out, I was one of the people that wasn't chosen to be friends with these other girls, which has often led me to feel less than attequite - when really I shouldn't be basing that on whether I am pleasing to the eyes of others but that I am pleasing to our Lord and Savior.

So why am I telling you this? I guess I just want to encourage you that if you too struggle with something like this then you are not the only one. I know it comforts me to know that others make the same mistakes that I foolishly make. (Not that it's good that others make mistakes)

Some of these verses have really convicted me in this area:

But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth.

James 3:14

For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. 

James 3:16

Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man's envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind. 

Ecclesiastes  4:4

But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. 

Galations 6:4

I encourage you to do as I and diminish any jealousy/resentment issues (if you have any of course). It's something I am currently working on myself, because I don't like what resentment is doing to me as a person. And if those people that I spoke about are truly wronging people then they will have to own up to their actions, but I need to own up to mine and not judge the people around me.

Stay strong in the Lord sisters in Christ!

~Miss.Adriana

Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long. 

Psalms 15:4-5