So my youth group is having a Rec Night this saturday, right. Well, I had this brilliant idea! Use social networking sites to invite people to it! So, like any facebook-addicted person, I made an event on facebook and invited everyone that was in the age range that was in my friends list.

You would not believe how hard it was for me to click every single person in my friends list. So many times I kept thinking “Oh I’m going to offend this person” or “my christian friends wouldn’t like that person” or “I’m not sure if I want them to see that I’m a religious fanatic”… well, I’m happy to say that even though I was thinking those things, I clicked on their names anyway. Anyway, last night I was praying for the event and I was just in awe cuz I had just invited 50 people to it. So I prayed and prayed that everyone would come and everyone would be receptive and that it would all just go over well. Well, I have one of my friends already saying yes, they will go. so I guess the facebook endeavor was a success!

I love it how going to any extent is worth one person coming. ya know? That’s awesome! I know that if someone went to this great extent to get me to hang out with them and all this stuff and when I finally said yes, they had a gigantic party and felt like their life was finally complete…. I’d be totally stoked. Well, here’s the thing. God did that for us. He went to great extents to get us to hang out with him. And whenever someone accepts his invitation and comes to the party, his day is made. His “life” is made, so to speak.

Just my thought for the day. God cares. I care. I can’t wait or people to realize just how big the caring is and how far it reaches out.

Yeah, so one of my good ol’ friends, Klassickayla is doing this “Do a new thing every day” thing. So it’s pretty cool she does cool stuff like eat wasabi peas and fly kites and watch awesome movies with yours truly…. well. Here’s how the story goes. (click on her name to get her side of the story!) We were sitting in Mcdonalds after Youth Group like we always do, and she’s like “Hey Grace, I need something new to do today.” So we’re all like “You should dance in the middle of Mcdonalds!”

Well, she didn’t go for that, but she did go for riding cargo in my Dad’s Suburban. So we were sitting back there where there’s a shovel and a blanket and some old pieces of wood from making campfires and we see this absolutely amazing car. It’s a station wagon! Woot! Anyways we had fun oogling it, but it was really slow, so we passed it right away(this story is starting to sound like my emo kid story, so I’m going to spice it up) Then we started talking about relationships.

I can honestly say I’ve never had an intense conversation with someone while huddled up in the back of my dad’s monster suburban. Expecially not one that is so important for teenagers, girls especially, to talk about.

Basically we talked about having friends who can look past themselves and be genuine and care about each other. I am humbled by the fact that someone from the outside coming in thinks that my youth group has those kind of people. I remember when I was just coming into youth group and was thrust into this incredibly clicky system where everyone was a certain way and if you weren’t a certain way then they wouldn’t be bff with you. You kind of had to have an outgoing personality to be even noticed. Me being a shy 6th grader at the time, I was not outgoing by any means. So I got pushed to the side to watch. Thinking about how far we’ve come since then just humbles me. I don’t even know how it happened that I turned into the one that decides how newcomers are treated. When did I become the one that either makes or breaks someone’s Youth Group experience? I don’t remember when I became so…. influential? When I became the big kid in the “In” group.

This leads to another topic that was discussed in the back of the truck. When did I grow up? When did I realize that I’m not the little girl that aimlessly walks down the middle of the street, unaware that a car could come careening around the corner and hit me? When did I realize that I’d grown up? How did it happen, and how can I undo it? The scary part is, I can’t undo the fact that I’m 16 years old and have nothing substantial to say about my life. I think that in the past year I’ve made more of myself then I’ve made in all the 15 years before that. and even still, when it all adds up, I’m just a bit of sand on a beach. How does this happen? How does one lose so much of their childhood? when does one wake up from a blissful dream and realize they’ve wasted half their life dreaming about the astro-turf on the other side?

In case you haven’t noticed yet, I’m utterly befuddled by this.

Thoughts, comments, concerns, critisism? I’m open to comments(Comments, not spam.) so have at it, I’ll try to respond as soon as I can.

btw! Check out Kayla’s blog at KlassicKayla.wordpress.com ***thumbs up***

So here’s a little tidbit. One of my students was really crabby tonight and actually started crying in the middle of the lesson because she didn’t practice, and I was making her play her songs anyway. I kind of feel like an ogre!

“Lay Down My Guns”
Sanctus Real

Well I just need a place to lay my head
Forget the chain that hangs around my neck
These guns are not as heavy as the hearts they defend
I can’t wait to get back home where I can find some rest

When I lay down my guns and lift my hands
Surrender to Love and live again
May this desert reach its end where my new life begins
When I lay down my guns and lift my hands

And I have seen the devil in this place
And I lost myself when my friends found the grave
When you’re this far from Heaven
It’s hard to keep the faith
I’m barely holding on
I can’t wait to

Lay down my guns and lift my hands
Surrender to Love and live again
May this desert reach its end where my new life begins
When I lay down my guns and lift my hands

And I’m laying down these burdens
Taking off the weights
And I can’t count the miles that I’ve walked to find my way
To lay down these guns
How I need to lay down these guns

Lay down my guns and lift my hands
Surrender to Love and live again
May this desert reach its end where my new life begins
And I’ll abandon my defenses and live to love again
When I lay down my guns and lift my hands

Lay down
Lay down
Lay down my guns

I like this song. It’s astute and makes one think. comment please and tell me what you think.

There were so many things I did.
So many choices I made.
they didn’t seem to effect me
But all I was thinking about was me.
I didn’t think about you
and the knife I’d plunged in your back.
The pain it gave you to see me
ruin my life and sell myself for
a fraction of my worth.
It had nothing to do with my independance
It had everything to do with my identity.
With every poor choice I made,
I mutated my identity,
and made it something else
what everyone else wanted to see.
On the outside I effortlessly self-destructed.

But in reality,
it took everything I had to put one foot
in front of the other
knowing that I was going the wrong way.
With every twitch of a muscle
the memory of you stabbed my conscience.
It was painfully hard to move,
Scared of looking back and seeing
the painful road I’d taken
Afraid of my guilty conscience.
Every step of the way,
all I really wanted was to turn around.
To kick off the stiletto heels
wipe off the makeup
And run back to where I belonged.
Safe with you
wrapped in your arms.

Now I’m farther then I realized.
You seem so distant,
so far away.
Now I’m stuck here
afraid to go back,
unwilling to go forward.
My conscience is impossible to ignore.
Impossible to push into oblivion.
The memory of what was
is always standing beside me.
Watching me waste away.
Watching me give and give
give pieces of my identity
Pieces that can never be recollected
restored, glued back into place.

Here I stand,
Staring at a memory
Yearning to take but one step
to turn back the clock
and undo all the mistakes.
But still afraid.
Scared of rejection, condemnation.
Ashamed of the tatters I wear
Ashamed of the grime and dirt
Ashamed of the burden’s I’ve bound to myself.
The pressures begin to build.
My strength begins to fade.
Everything I’ve built for myself begins to crumble
The weight is nearly crushing.
The tears begin to build
along with the apology in my soul.

Suddenly I’m falling
through the past,
through the mistakes
and into your arms.
Before me lies the road that I’d strayed from.
Behind me in the distance
lies the past year and a half.
You stand facing new beginnings
Your back to everything I’d done.
You begin to lead me forward
cautiously I follow,
still glancing behind.
I stammer and stutter
try to get the words out
that had been building up
my apology my explanation.
You don’t judge or condescend.

You forget.

I cannot lie, I have no words to say. At least no words that can express how I’m feeling at the moment. I can try. Eagar, loved, yearning, hungry, discontent, happy, lucky, hopeful, hesitant, exultant, depressed, unmotivated, lucky once again.

One word for all of that? Perhaps conflicted. I am eagar to see what God is going to do in Youth Group in this next season. There are so many awesome things going down that are just so amazing, I want to be a part of it. But I don’t want to put myself “out there”…. ya know what I mean? I don’t want to go out of my way to get people to come to youth group. I know that sounds horrid, but that’s kind of where I’m at. I’m not motivated to do anything right now, actually. I’m blogging when I should be catching up on Advanced Algebra. The only reason why I’m blogging right now and not playing spider solitaire is because spider solitaire doesn’t numb the confusion, it just shoves it aside. I feel so weird for even admitting I’m confused on the inside, because around my friends I’m so self-assured and confident and so…. okay. But I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not “okay”. This doesn’t mean I need therapy and whatnot, this doesn’t even mean that I’m not happy with life. I’m very happy with not being okay. If I felt okay with where I’m at right now, I’d be even more not okay then I am right now.

God and me haven’t been that close lately. I’ve been discontented with my life because I don’t have God as a regular part of it. I really need to buckle down and not let go of the one thing that never moves……

Anyway, life is good right now because it’s finally slowing down. Here are the things that make life good. The snow is gone, it’s raining outside, spring break is a few weeks away, and with that, my sweet 16. I’m almost caught up in Algebra, my teachers are awesome, my friends are not fighting with each other, My show choir took first women’s at our last competition on saturday, jazz band on friday was amazing because everyone came together and I made some friends. I’m getting in control of my life once again and I have time to hang out. My parents are paying for my passport. There’s a happy one. I”m planning on going to Mexico this summer, I’m going to de-tassel on one of the best busses in Nebraska. I’m probably going to get more piano students. Things are simply looking up. I”m thoroughly enjoying this….

But you know what, I give such a different me to my friends then I give to myself. The me I show my friends is happy and chipper and quirky and okay. The kind of person you wouldn’t expect to have problems(friends, if you don’t agree with this, feel free to comment). But that’s not it at all. I’m just human. I feel so ethereal when I talk to my friends cuz I only show them what I think they want to see. and then I get home and I write a blog post and I’m beating myself up over it because I don’t want to have friends that I don’t let see the all of me. I want friends that see it all and love it all, no matter how ugly. I think I have friends like that, But I just don’t test the hypothesis.

In a way, I’m becoming more and more introverted, yet more and more extroverted. I’m a lot more agressive about making friends and interacting with others, but I’m secluding myself more and more. I withdraw into myself and I don’t talk about my probelms with a lot of people. Which is good, but I still feel slightly dishonest in doing that. Not that I should be sharing every single thing about me, but it’s like I have a lot of things that I feel define me, and when I don’t share it’s like I’m keeping a piece of me away from them. I guess it’s gotten better now. I don’t think that my past defines me as much as I used to. But I can’t lie that I don’t still think about my past and that i doesn’t affect my life.

Anyway, that’s just another look into my mind. I know, It’s convoluted. Welcome to the mind of a teenaged girl.

What is it with me and never doing what I’m supposed to in French Class? Well, today is legit. We have a sub, so me blogging is perfectly acceptable. As I asked to come up here. Anyway, the choice was either stay and watch a really boring and insipid movie in French or come up to the library and blog. I chose to blog.

Anywhoo, I am happy to announce that tonight is the beginning of Dare 2 Share. I’m super excited about what God’s going to do this weekend. It’s going to be hard getting through these last three classes. and lunch. wow. It’s gonna be pretty insane tonight. Our Youth Group doesn’t have a chick sponsor, and there are three of us girls going to dare 2 share and the accompanying lock-in. We get the nursery all top ourselves. It’s going to be wicked. mego rules. like I said. French Class.

Anyway, to sum up the last paragraph, I’m really really impatient to get to Dare 2 Share. I just want to get there and do it and get it done and have fun. This week has been unbelievably long.

So, apparently two nights ago I was yelling about a tummy ache in my sleep all night. I got the worst nights sleep ever. Cuz I would only sleep for a little bit and then I’d wake up to a tummy ache and then after a while fall back asleep again… only to repeat. My mom woke me up at 4am cuz she heard me yelling and was confuzzed. Anyway, to contrast the terrible night two nights ago, I had a wonderful night’s sleep last night. Except for the awkward dream where I was playing a real life rpg where I got chased by ax murderers for fun. Talk about stressful dream! But the reason why I say it was nice is because I slept the whole night through and I didn’t move at all in my sleep. I distinctly remember falling asleep with my knees bent on my side facing the wall with my hands folded in front of me, and a blanket over my head. Guess how I woke up? Talk about freaky! That’s never happened to me before.

Can’t wait for Dare 2 Share. Toodles. Pray for us this weekend.

The Proble with blogging is that I can’t talk about stuff that involves people that I know are readers. Cuz frankly, there’s a lot of stuf on my heart right now, but if I it it out here and wanted to get some outside input, I’d just end up with a bunch of hate comments from people that I know in real life. and if I let it all out and talked about some real issues going on in my life, I’d get protests because it’s all kind of… relational. one person might think I’m misrepresenting their actions o attutudes, when really I’m just saying it as I see it. grrr, I’m in a bind.

Needless to say, the stuff on my mind has me reverting to emo practices and I’ve been yelled at so far today for being “cynical” and “Pissy”. Well, Darlings, I wish I could say it has nothing to do with you, but frankly it’s “relational”. and I’ve been swearing about it and on the verge of tears all day. so….. read between the lines. I’m not doing too hot.

Insomnia is bad. It keeps little girls up late at night and causes them to not be all there the next day at school where they fail French tests.

I’m afraid blogging on French quiz days will become a very common thing.

anyone know where I can get a free neck massage? I’m desperately in need of one. like I feel like every single muscle in my back has decided to compact. It hurts like none other.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but this semester has been a lot harder then last semester. Or maybe I”m just unmotivated. or maybe both. Anyway, despite taking two music classes, I’m still swamped in homework. Mainly from Math, French, Career Ed, and World History… AKA all my classes except the music ones and biology. hopefully things will get better though. I think it wouldn’t be so bad if I weren’t going through some major drama on the friend front. Although I will admit, I am very surprised that I haven’t flipped out and become a hermit yet and I’ve been in the thick of the fight for a few weeks now.

Basically I’m having some issues relationally, although I’d like to think I’m getting better at it…. who knows, we’ll see. My one joy is that my relationship with God is… booming? and he has shown me direction for my life. It helps as a high school sophomore who has just started getting contact from colleges to have direction. and I know you people(dear readers) don’t know about the college mail yet, but there you have it. I’ve gotten letters talking about how I will fit into their programs and I’ll get scholorships if I “find myself” on their campus. I don’t even know what the jesuite’s were thinking on that one.

I’ve officially decided that college junk mail has got to be the most retarded stuff ever. They don’t even know how to use appealing phrases they’re all “Believe in yourself and you will acheive great things” Like seriously, who actually believes that?

anyway, now that I’ve rambled my way off topic, I’m going to share what’s on my heart right now. Cofusion. difficulty. I don’t know where my life is headed at this moment. Things could be drastically changed before the end of the month and I’ll have an entirely new group of friends. I might have a bunch of weepy freinds on my hands. I might get my old boring blissfully happy life back where the only worry is keeping my face turned the right direction in biology class and not getting frozen solid milk in the lunch line. but at this moment, I can’t really say it’s any of those things. but I’m not too worried about it. Now, Im’ going to share something I learned how to do from those retarded letters

God isn’t going to change.

how was that for a cliche? as a rule I don’t say things that are cliche unless I”m being retarded or completely serious. at this moment, I”m going for serious. God doesn’t change. He doesn’t bail out when I make decisions that he doesn’t like. He doesn’t judge me because my hair is the wrong color or I have love handles. He doesn’t ignore me because I’m just pissing him off with my antics. And the plus side is that he listens. and he gives advice. As I have learned in the past few weeks, humans have issues doing this… and when they do listen and give advice, it’s highly likely they don’t understand and they’re just saying words and hoping it’s applicable. God doesn’t do that. He is consistent in caring. He understands. He comforts, and he provides a solution. and it’s not just one of those watered down solutions that works for a while and then gives you a really bad rash. His solutions work 100% of the time. So, no matter my issues or how hard life gets, I can rely on him. He’s not going to let me down like everybody else.

There, you’ve had the long overdue blog post.

So, at the Show Choir competition yesterday my choir placed fourth out of all JV and Women’s groups, and was the only Women’s group to place in that venue. And the other choir at my school(the Varsity group) got third out of the whole competition. Pretty awesome. Just wanted to share the Lahve(haha, choir).