Discouraged

God, I know that the last thing you ever want from me is for me to feel discouraged in any way because You are what brings all of my joy to my life. I just can't help but feel like I am alone in my walk with Christ here at Tech. I don't know what I can do to get my friends to fall more in love with You...who am I kidding? I can't make people fall in love with You...but I can show them what being in love with You is like. I pray that Your light shines through me daily. I pray I am an image of Your love...but I fail and fail time again. Please, God forgive me for when I falter and lose sight of things above. Forgive me for being consumed with worldy things. I want nothing more than an incredibly intimacy with you...but I feel like I am failing over and over. I know the answer to my failure and I ignore it daily. You know my excuses God, You know I tell you things like "I don't have my own room so I don't want my roommate to feel weird or awkward (even though she loves You also) when I want to pull out Your Word and read." God, the list goes on and You know that...but You love me anyways. Lord, You know my heart. You know how much I long for a deeper relationship with You. Please forgive me for my failures. Why is it so hard to spend time with You when I am absolutely in love with You? It is so easy to spend time watching my favorite tv shows, reading my favorite blogs, or surf the web when I am looking for fashionable finds...I should spend any free time in the Word...and I shouldn't even have "free time"...every second should be "free time". Why do I have to be taking 18 hours and have literally some sort of school work to be done all day every day? WHY DO I KEEP MAKING EXCUSES GOD? Please help me with my excuses! I cannot do it myself...God please take away my distractions and my daily excuses...I want to fall even more in love with You. Please help me to not feel like just another face in the crowd...because there is no face in the crowd in your eyes. It is just really hard sometimes to find my place here at Tech. All I want is that amazing group of Christ loving people that I know I could call at any moment to just hang out with. I feel like I sound like such a loner but I do want to thank you for the amazing friends you HAVE given me at Tech. You know my heart and you know the prayers I have been praying since I got here. Sorry I am putting this out on a blog but I just really needed to write it. I love you, God :) Thanks for loving me as well even when I definitely do not deserve it!

New Beginnings

I'M BACKKKKK!

I have been meaning to blog for a while now but just couldn't find the best time to, and today I feel like it's perfect. I have been through a lot in the past month and I can't even tell you how much the Lord has done for me to get me through it all. I have finally surrendered my whole entire life to God. FINALLY. It is the most comforting feeling and I don't know how people who don't have Jesus get by each day. (This is why we need to tell everyone about his Everlasting Love!!)

Side note: I am currently listening to "O Holy Night" by the Glee Cast and I have never been so obsessed.

I just wanted to share how I have been working so much on myself lately. I have been praying that God would just fill me COMPLETELY of the Holy Spirit and the Fruit of the Spirit. I want to completely display: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. This is sooo hard sometimes. I get annoyed easily and I can be rude to my closest friends and family and I hate that about myself. I have been praying all day every day to just work on my amount of love for those around me. I pray that people who see me and get to know me and realize that I am not the person I am on my own; the love of the Lord is the reason I am who I am. I want people to think "There is just something about her that I want to have." I pray that I can look/act different than those who do not have the love of Christ in their lives. I pray this is also everyone who is reading my blog's prayer as well! It's definitely something to think about!

I want to live each day for God, instead of waiting for what He has in store for me in the future. I want to act NOW!

Side note: I am now listening to "Angels We Have Heard On High" by the Glee cast...a-ma-zing.

In my last blog entry I talked about the book "Crazy Love" and I actually finished that book a month ago and then moved on to the next book by Francis Chan called "Forgotten God". It's all about realizing the "tragic neglect of the Holy Spirit". This book was EXACTLY what I needed this past month. I only have a few pages to go of this book, sadly, and I have learned so much! I advise anyone reading this to buy both of those books and start reading...now!

I have been so filled with the Holy Spirit in just a month and it is so awesomely overwhelming. I want more of it! It's like a spiritual high :)

All I ask is for prayer for me and for those around me. I hope all of my friends and I can grow in our relationship with God together...not just a couple of us! Growing in your relationship with the Lord and having accountability partners is so important. I can see God moving in my friends lives and I absolutely love it! I love you all who are reading hehe

I really think I'm going to keep blogging more and more and actually have a successful blog, I'm really going to try at least.

Can't believe tomorrow is December...yay Christmas time!!

Praying for you all,

Holly

Start Over

Wow, I knew I was hearing someone crying for the past 19 days because of neglect...sorry blog, I'll try to never go that long again.

Lately, lately meaning the past two weeks, I have been working on my relationship with a certain someone. That certain someone being my maker, God. When I was down in College Station visiting my sister, Haley, we were in her room and I started talking to her about how I don't even feel like I am even worthy of spending time with God. This is because I have been completely ignoring him for a while now, a while meaning months.

I asked Haley if she has felt this way too and she told me "No." 

This made me feel as though my heart had just been broken.

The maker of this whole universe (I just got chills), the one who has given me so much grace and so many second chances time and time again...I have been ignoring him to the point where I don't feel his presence anymore in my daily life.

Haley told me that she bought a journal and put her bible right by her bed, and she wrote out a prayer to God and reads it to Him every night. Hearing her say this, I knew I had to change my daily routine drastically, not just spending ten minutes a night with God and then saying a half asleep prayer to Him when I was going to sleep. No, God longs for each and every one of us to LIVE for him! Every day we should try to glorify Him!

When I got back to Lubbock, that night I got my Bible and an amazing book I started reading this summer off my shelf in my room, the book being "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan. (If you do not own this book, I'm telling you now...drop whatever you are doing and go buy it.)

This book will change the way you live your life.

While I read it, I highlight sentences or key words that stand out to me. Some of which I

 am going to share now.

Something I read a couple nights ago was about 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 which states:

"Love is patient and kind; love does not boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices at the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends...faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

I have heard and read this verse a MILLION times, but it wasn't until I read Crazy Love that I truly understood it. Francis Chan, the author, challenges the reader to take the phrase Love is patient and substitute their name for the word love. (For me, "Holly is patient...") Do it for every phrase in the passage.

I strongly encourage those who are reading this to add your name in there and then think about the verse again. Don't you feel like a liar? I sure did.

Francis says, "Following Christ isn't something that can be done halfheartedly or on the side. It is not a label we can display when it is useful. It must be central to everything we do and are."

Sorry this post is so long but lately I have felt the love of Christ so abundantly that I can't even contain it. I promise, if you take the time to spend some MUCH needed time with the Lord...you'll feel the joy that the Lord offers!

God is so good!

-Holly

Spring Forward, Fall Back

Can I just say, I can't wait until the leaves are done changing colors and the weather stays at 65 or lower degrees all day?

I LOVE FALL

Today, I went with some friends to the mall (just to tag along) and I ended up buying 2 pairs of fashion boots.

But I just said to myself, "Holly, you worked for this money, you never spend money...you deserve it"

And boyyyy am I excited to wear them.

Everyone keeps asking me what I'm being for Halloween, but I don't have any clue and I'm kind of ready for Halloween to be over already...

Although me and my roommate (kelby) are planning on decorating our door very festive-ly and I am pretty pumped for that!

-Holly

Life and Dreams

Last night (or should I say this morning at 6:00 am) I woke up smiling, yes ... smiling.

I had a dream that my twin sister, Haley, and I were performing at Fall Follies.

side note: Fall Follies is a musical production at our church in Plano that is freaking awesome that I was in all through highschool.

Anyways, Haley and I were just thrown into the show with no practice at all. Apparently Fall Follies dealt with Christmas songs in my dream and we both started marching...yes, marching in a circle around each other singing "Tis the Season to the Jolly, Fa la la la la la la la" SO FAST. The music was on high speed, and when I say high...I mean FAST! So there you have Haley and me marching (or should I say running in a circle) just holding a microphone singing Christmas songs, then the song changed and we didn't know the words so we were just mumbling and all of our friends, I specifically remember Lexi, were just laughing at us because it was ridiculous. Then right before I wake up, the best part of the dream happens. Haley gets to the front and center of the stage and shakes her butt in the most ghetto way I have ever seen and thinking about it right now I am cracking up. I just told this story to my roommate, Kelby, and I was practically crying.

Then I woke up.

I love dreams, and I never remember them.

The post is so long.

-Holly

Candy Corn and Peanuts

New blog...

Well, first.*

This blog is for my ramblings (which I see is a very popular word in the blog world), and a place I can waste time instead of studying...which is clearly what I am doing right now.

My friend, Taylor, introduced me to candy corn and peanuts (hence the title) and I have never been more obsessed.

...I think this will turn into a problem, actually.

 

-Holly