It seems the answers are never clear

Hey Guys! I don't know how many of you are friends with me on Facebook that look at this (I'm gonna go out on a limb and say all are... I'm not thinking I have some following from randos. Which is completely ok. Ha.) Anyway, Here's a quick update in case any of you saw my status that read something along the lines of "hearing back from Sturgis just made my life much more complicated"- I received an email from the first study abroad grant I applied for as was awarded $2,500. Which is really good! Praise the Lord for his provision in letting me get that money, but it also complicated things. I told my CRE I'd let her know if I'm coming back as an RA after I hear about this scholarship because I felt it would give me a good guestimate of how much I'd be left to cover, which at this point is over $10,000 out of pocket. Seeing as I don't have that and the deadline for the other honors application is in October I won't fully know where I'm at until way after I need to tell my CRE I'm coming back or not. So anyway. Now begins long days of prayer as I wrestle with if I'm going to study abroad or come back as an RA. So if you could please just pray for clarity in that- that God's will will be extremely evident in all this that'd be wonderful.

This goes back to what I feel like God's been revealing to me lately- That he yearns to give me the desires of my heart and often times I don't even know what that is until he lets me know. I know that I've been longing to study abroad for a long time and have been looking forward to this opportunity. However, I've also been incredibly blessed this year as an RA and feel completely confident that this has been God's plan- I just don't know for how long he planned on my being here. (Neon signs or the clouds morphing into my answer would be great right about now.) Either way, I'm sure next year will hold even more amazing things to discover and everything, I just feel such a weight in trying to figure out what exactly it holds. As I asked before, please keep me in your prayer, they're so greatly appreciated.

Till I write again!
Jacks

P.s. Here's a canvas I painted this weekend. I'm kinda proud of it- which is why it's basically been posted everywhere. Haha

Gearing up for Summer

The title of this post is kind of misleading. Northwest Arkansas is supposed to get snow tomorrow and all I can think about it spending 10 beautiful weeks this summer in San Diego on a CRU summer project. Can you say, Excitement?! I wrote my support letter today and I've been brainstorming names to send it to- lets just say coming up with 100 people is really difficult... Anyway. I'm excited to see the ways God will provide and the ways he will work through this whole process. I know in my own little mind I can only see so much, so I'm ready for him to bust apart my definition of "can" and see what happens.

This past weekend I helped with RA interviews, which was an interesting process. I've never had the opportunity to be on that side of an interview before and it definitely taught me a lot about what to do and what not to do in a professional interview. I'm curious to see who gets hired for next year, who'll be in my building and everything. RA is an interesting job, one that people often times don't have a clear idea or picture of what it actually entails. I know we got some people who just assumed baking cookies would be enough to get the whole floor to come out and hang out. I didn't want to be that mean person who pops their balloon animal like Gru on Despicable Me but at the same time, I wanted to help them realize that the job is harder than they think. Just because they were involved doesn't mean everyone else will wanna be involved. Anyway. That's enough of being cynical! Ha.

I'm still debating about what I'm gonna do for next year with coming back as an RA or studying abroad. Waiting to hear back from scholarships are some of the most painful things I've had to do haha. But that's not the point of this post. (Yeah. It takes me two paragraphs to actually get to the point. What's it to ya!) So. These past few weeks of the semester God's been teaching me a few things and I thought I'd share them since that's what I do anyways.
First. With Valentines day coming up, can't say I'm in a super excited mood for that. Really though, I'm going on my 20th Valentines day single and I'm completely ok with it. I've come to realize that the energy I waste thinking about guys and relationships and what I could have or whatever, is useless. God knows the desires of my heart. He knows exactly who I find attractive, what I like in a guy, and yet I continue to insist on finding him myself. I think sometimes God sits up in heaven and looks down and shakes his head at me. "There she goes again. Thinking she knows best."This time though, I'm giving up. If every moment I thought about a guy was replaced with thinking about him or about things that matter, how much more rewarding would my life me? Lots. So lately I've begun to discover the joy of just focussing on God, and letting him take control of that part of my life. It's freeing and terrifying at the same time. Who knows, I could end up being one of those creepy cat ladies. But as long as I'm praising God, I'll be ok.

The other thing God's been teaching me is that I am BEAUTIFUL. (I lost any guy who reads this right here... that's ok. They should hear this too.) I look at myself and see the things I'd like to fix but God looks at me and sees the things he made perfect. I am who I am, regardless of how I think I should be. I have flaws. And yes God calls me to take care of his temple, but to sit there and think that I am not beautiful is to say to the God of the UNIVERSE that he made something ugly... and honestly? You just don't do that. Being beautiful isn't just what's on the outside, it's the heart that's on the inside. It starts with getting rid of negative thoughts- and I as much as anyone else can be my own worst critic. It starts with focussing on the fact that God finds me beautiful and then discovering what that means in my life personally. Society isn't allowed to define me anymore. I don't give them the approval to tell me if I match up to what I "should be". So to everyone out there this Vday. You are beautiful. And to borrow some words from the Help,

You is kind, you is smart, you is important.
Till I write again!
Jacks