Below is the lyrics of a wonderful song called “Forever Reign” by Hillsong. I’ve bolded the lyrics that spoke to me the most 🙂 You are good, You are good When there’s nothing good in me You are love, You … Continue reading
I’ve started a new section in my journal for goals and dreams and such. It’s supposed to help you have a clearer vision of where you want to be in life and the more you think about and envision what you want, the more you subconsciously and consciously start to make decisions that will get you there. Here is what I’ve started with, I’m sure I’ll add more as time goes by.
Well first and foremost I want a pet monkey and I will name him/her Faden!
So I probably don’t want a bed exactly like this but this is kind of sweet.
 Instead of a father/daughter dance, I think I want a father/daughter performance at my wedding. He has been trying to get me to sing with him since I was little.
 A home with a view
Vacations like this!
 To fall in love
 To eat at this restaurant!
This is a house! Like the bed, I’m not sure I want a house like this but I do want one that’s unique and one of a kind. Whenever I do decide to stay somewhere long enough to actually own a house there, it’ll be weird like this one.
 To be fully immersed in the Lord and follow His path for my life.
To go to more Cru parties and “geek” it out with more believers!
 To touch lives and be touched by others’ lives. I want to make a difference and I want to make friends that last a lifetime.
 Never to feel insignificant.
 To travel, volunteer, and spread the message of God’s love through my life, in my own way, through the gifts that I’ve been blessed with.
 To get my non-profit organization, TAGGS off the ground. My goal is to pay for the counseling services of at least 100 veterans a year to help them transition back into civilian life in a healthy way. This will lower drug/alcohol dependency, mental health disorders, and homelessness in the veteran population.
                  
 I’ve been a cheerleader for a few years, I started off doing competitive cheer in high school and I never really thought it was fair that only some kids get to experience competitive cheer because it’s super expensive. In fact, there were girls who got $30,000 cars for Christmas at 16 I was just happy to get my $1500 car lol. So what I want to do is open my own gym and be able to pay gym dues and tumbling lessons for kids whose families can’t afford it but are still interested in competitive cheer. I love all things cheer and being a cheerleader has changed me in a lot of ways. Plus, since my college team doesn’t compete I’ve kind of been missing the competition life so it’ll be fun to get back into.
  Kind of corny but I have always wanted to be serenaded lol. Also, I want this as my wedding song one day
So some of these I don’t have much control over and the rest are a little ambitious, so I’ll start small, I’m getting my monkey.
I almost cried lol
Here’s a letter that I wrote in prayer in hopes that I get some help keeping my purity promise: Dear God, I pray that you help me. I don’t want to let you down and I don’t want to break … Continue reading
The video below talks about EXACTLY what I’ve been saying for the longest time! I see my friends stress over grades and keeping their 4.0 and for a while I bought into and felt like a failure if I didn’t get a good grade. I’d get mad at myself, my teachers, and friends who did better. And if I got one of the highest grades I would walk around like I was holier than thou. But our self worth is not dependent on what society has tried to make us believe.
My freshman year of college was hell. Literally just bad thing after bad thing: I went to a school in New York and quickly discovered I’m a small town girl and got into some drama which is rare because usually I stay out of it. I literally had a suite mater threaten to knock my out, I had suitemates who would literally go behind their friends and boyfriends’ backs and cheat with each others boyfriends or other guys on campus. Then when I finally transferred schools I got extremely sick. I was blacking out, could hardly walk, I felt like I was dying because I was like that for a couple months. Once I finally got better I had to have a bunch of meetings with teachers and administration about my grades which obviously weren’t good since I could hardly walk to the bathroom so of course I didn’t go to class! Then as I was walking back from a terrible meeting (I was told that I was being put on academic probation) I got a call from my mom telling me that my grandmother had just died. Wonderful. She was an amazing woman, she knew me better than I know myself and just like that she was gone and I wasn’t even with my family to grieve. So I obviously missed more school to be with my family and go to the funeral.
That summer was hell. I felt like my whole world was falling apart; my GPA had fallen tremendously, I was losing hair, one of the most important people in my life died, and despite my good health record I was still sick and in and out of the doctors office with scares of possibly needing a cat scan and a bunch of other tests. I think I prayed to God that He would spare me the bullshit and end my life a bunch of times. Everything, literally EVERYTHING that I had ever depended on to get me anywhere in life was taken from me all at once. In the blink of an eye, gone. Freshman year of college is supposed to be fun and you’re supposed to party and make friends, explore campus activities, etc. I think I went to one party. One. It was the worst year of my life and when summer hit I barely came out of my room because I didn’t want to live quite honestly. What pissed me off the most was the way the school treated me, all of these things happened in the span of a few months, keep in mind and they acted as if I still could have somehow came to all of my classes and done well on all tests. Are you fucking kidding me!? I seriously remember telling my biology teacher that I needed to go home for my grandmother’s funeral and that my health hadn’t been so well and she looked me in the eyes and pretty much told me my grade is my fault and I shouldn’t be missing so much class. Are you kidding me bitch? Luckily, I have wonderful parents who called a few of my teachers and chewed their asses out, it didn’t help my GPA but it did make me feel a little better that my parents had my back.
When my dad called to try and appeal my grade the administration said they only make exceptions for death to a member of the household. Really? So it wasn’t enough that I was bedridden for 2 months or that my high school GPA was good or that my first semester GPA at my other school was outstanding, no, you only make exceptions for household deaths. You have no idea how much I wanted to burn this school to the fucking ground.
But eventually I realized I’m still alive, I’m still me. Even though everything important to me had been taken away, I’m still here. That had to mean something. So I got out of my room and decided I’m not going to let a bunch of people who don’t know me or my story tell me who I am. My GPA does not define me, even though my body seemed to be giving up on me I didn’t let my health define me either. I decided to show the school that, no, I don’t have a 4.0 but that doesn’t mean anything. All a 4.0 means is that you’re really good at memorizing shit that doesn’t matter and kissing ass. I came back to campus and rubbed elbows with the president of the school, vice president, and other administrators not because of my GPA but because I was proactive and decided to do things my way. And do you know what they told me just based off one conversation? They told me how sharp I am and that they want me to stay at this school. They told me the world needs more people like me and that I’m a problem solver and a leader.
Take that Bio-bitch.
My point in all this ranting is that our society has become impersonal. Our educators care more about their damn tests than what’s happening in their students’ lives. Even though that was the worst year of my life I’m glad it all happened because if it hadn’t I wouldn’t have learned the lessons that God was trying to teach me:
-my favorite verse, Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” In a time where I wanted to die that was and actually still is extremity comforting. Amen to that.
-after my grandmother died I cam across this brass sailboat at the mall that had these words embroidered on it, “The Will of God will never lead you where the Grace of God cannot keep you.” It was like He was right next to me with His hand on my back saying, “I know the tides are rough right now and you feel scared and helpless but you will get through this.” So I obviously had to buy it.
-don’t let them tell me who I am. When someone tries to tell me who I am and where I’m going and what I need to do, I can now look them in the eyes, and say, “I don’t live to serve you, I’ll not only tell you who I am but I’ll show you and believe me, I know where I’m going.”
-I realized that the only one I should try to please is God because when the shit hits the fan and your friends and family don’t understand the pain you’re going through He’s the only One still there holding your hand saying, “we’ll get through this”
There’s this video that someone put on facebook that just preaches everything I’ve been trying to teach people through my own experience. The gist of it is, hate school, love education and don’t let anyone else decide who you are and where you’re going. I highly recommend you watch and share.
This semester I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’m going to do with my life and my degree. I’m at the end of my Junior year already, it’s getting scary!
We had our annual spring choir concert tonight and I am sad it’s over. I still have 3 more semesters with the choir but knowing certain people are seniors and are leaving kind of makes me sad because I know I’ll never sing with this particular group again! 😦
Before every concert all 80 of us get in a huge circle for some jokes and inspirational music-related quotes then the seniors share about their time with choir. I almost cried a few times because this has definitely been my favorite group! One of my closest friends from cheer leading is graduating and my roommate is graduating as well! 😦 Sad day!
Listening to all of the seniors share about how being a part of chorale has changed their lives made me think back to when I joined as a sophomore. I remember being so nervous at my audition and then so nervous at my first practice with the choir. I remember getting so frustrated because I couldn’t read music and I walked out of practice a few times and told my friends I didn’t think I was good enough to be in the choir. Everyone was so welcoming to me and told me not to quit and not to give up and that I made it past auditions so I must be good enough. The choir director, the people in choir, even our accompanist offered to help me learn to read music and if all else fails play it by ear. I stuck with it and I’m so glad I did because even though I’m still really shy about singing in front of people being in choir has given me so much confidence. I started choir singing like a mouse now I’m one of the loudest in my section lol.
I’ve been singing since I was able to talk but the first time I fell in love with musical theater was when I was in high school and me and my best friend went to see Wicked which is now my favorite musical. I remember starting college resenting my parents because I wanted to be a musical theatre major and they told me there wasn’t many jobs in musical theater for black people. My brother defended me and told them they should let me because he thought I was a really good singer and a good actor, but my parents said they didn’t have money to throw away on me studying a dead art that wouldn’t get me work. I argued that if I go to a school known for their alumni I’d get a job, they didn’t want to hear it. I know they enjoy hearing me sing but this situation just made me feel like they didn’t believe that I could and that I wasn’t good enough, so I stepped away from the theater and away from music but I guess I couldn’t stay away; I got involved in theater again, took a piano class, and joined choir. My sophomore year I and a group of students went to see Billy Elliot and it was like I fell in love all over again. All I could think about was how much I wanted to be on stage. People don’t expect this from me because I’m really shy and quiet but I love musical theater because I think the art of it is that when the actor has run out of words to explain the way they feel, they sing. Simply speaking doesn’t do their feelings justice. I love how I can feel what they feel when they sing and I love acting because I like being someone else and since I’m so reserved it’s fun to portray a character that is so unlike me.
So my parents and I reached a compromise, they told me not to be a major but to be a scholar and if, after I graduate I still want to go to AMDA I’d have to pay for it myself. Maybe I will because no matter how much I stay away from the theater and how much I stay away from music it finds me and I’m drawn to it anyway and it’s like I never stopped. It’s an unexplainable feeling, it’s as if you’re so happy you could die right now and you feel like your life is complete. You know what you’re supposed to be doing.
I am so confused!! This is what I know:
The point that I am trying to make is that I’m a very diverse person, I hate school because I hate waking up everyday with a schedule, knowing what the day will bring: wake up at 7:30, class at 8, break at 9, class from 10-12, lunch at 12, lab at 1, choir at 3. every mon wed frid, it’s always the same boring ass shit, going to classes that bore the hell out of me sitting there thinking why the fuck would I care about the circulatory system of a damn fish? Am I going to be a marine biologist? Hell no! I had to get up for this? Seriously? I hate school. I like not having plans and going where the day takes me. I’m the kind of person who has an achin for some bacon and gets up and goes to the store just to buy bacon. I seriously did that once in the middle of the night lol.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do in life and I think that’s the point, I think that God gives us gifts and appreciations for things and that it’s a sin to ignore them. If you’re a dancer, dance, if you’re a singer, sing! If you’re like me and have a hell of a lot of interests, do all of them! I’m a psychology major who sings, dances, cheers, coaches, fund-raises, advocates for non-profits, started her own non-profit, and cooks. Maybe one day I will go back to school and study musical theater, maybe I won’t; maybe I’ll write musicals, maybe I won’t; maybe I’ll open my own competitive cheer gym, maybe I won’t; maybe I’ll go to culinary school for the hell of it, maybe I won’t; maybe I will travel to London and go to the Adelphi Theatre (I really, really want to so I won’t even say maybe I won’t because I’d better!)
We don’t know what life will bring us, we just know what we enjoy and I think it is a shame that so many people go through life thinking we have to choose just one thing and stay with it for the rest of our lives. How are we supposed to do that!? We are all dynamic and we should all be able to explore our interests freely. One of my psych professors talked about how in some countries people major in what they love and make money from it but how in the U.S people major in something they can tolerate so that they can make money from it. That’s our idea of happiness. What a shame because in their 40s they realize it’s all a lie, my dad is starting to realize this now actually, they’re not happy with their picket fence and their dog and keeping up with the Jonses. It’s a system that needs to change because all it gives us is a bunch of stressed out people who aren’t happy and aren’t fulfilled teaching their children to be the same. It’s so rare that you find parents telling their children to embrace what they love and fully supporting their dreams. When I changed to psychology my cousin looked at me and said, “can I strangle you? You know how much psychologists make, right?” I said I refuse to live my life thinking, “what if” and being afraid to live. I’d rather enjoy what I study than be miserable now so that I can be a rich and miserable person later. WTF kind of sense does that make? I’m young, I want to live, if I have kids I’ll teach them to do the same. I’m a Christian and I believe that if you follow God’s plan for you, which contrary to popular belief is usually what you love doing because it is God who put that in your heart, then you will be okay. People will talk till their blue in the face about Jesus and God and blah blah blah but look at their lives, if they live a life of worry and fear, they’re not living like a true believer and I point that out to them and they are silent. This is what a Christian is, this is what we are supposed to do,
Romans 12:2-do not be conformed to the world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
So many people think that verse is about caving into lust and greed and what not but it is about life in general! WE ARE NOT OF THE WORLD, SO WE NEED TO LIVE LIKE IT! So often people can’t tell the difference between a believer and a non-believer because the lifestyles are so similar. A believer does what they love because it was God who put that love in our hearts in the first place, a believer doesn’t worry about tomorrow because tomorrow will worry about itself, a believer IS different. But so often we see Christians who are the exact opposite of all of those things!
I’m so tired of people telling me what to major in, how to live, what to say, how to act, and what is good and acceptable and perfect. What is good and acceptable and perfect is what is in my heart because it was put there my The Perfect One, Himself. I say this to my parents all the time, “do not worry about me, your job is done, I answer to God now.” But telling parents not to worry is like telling them not to breathe.
I don’t know where life will lead me but I follow my heart and thus follow God in doing so. The beauty of life is that we tell God our plans and He laughs at them and says, You think you know, but you have no idea.
That’s why I’m a Christian, I love knowing I don’t know.
There has got to be more to life than majoring in something that is kind of interesting to go to classes that are bring and stressful to get a job that you can tolerate.
I talked to one of my friends who graduated from grad school a couple years ago and he is now working a job he can at least stand. I told him about how unmotivated and bored I am with school and he told me to suck it up and that we all have to do it. We all have to be unhappy now so that we can be okay later because that’s the way our society is set up.
Well I don’t want to be okay, I want to be amazing. I want to learn things I can’t learn in a classroom, I want to see things average people don’t and I want to touch lives and change people and be changed by people. I don’t see the point in staying in school at this point because I am so bored and unmotivated.Â
There’s more to life than tests and papers, there’s more to life than marriage and babies, and there’s more to life than getting a tolerable job. Basically, there is more to life than “the American dream” and I want to experience and see the more in life.
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It has been officially 6 months since I decided to stop dating for a year! Woohoo! I recently got hurt yet again by my ex who I was just friends with,, but trying to remain friends with him did more harm than good. I think I was just holding on because I was afraid of what would happen if I finally let go. What if I never find anyone else? What if he starts dating someone before I do? What if he gets engaged all of a sudden? I like to say I don’t live my life based off what ifs because then I’d never do anything so I had to walk the walk and cut him off.
What happened this time: He knows what a big deal sex is to me and my feelings for him but he decided to yet again fool around with other girls and ignore me. I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t mad. I was just fed up. I’m tired of the push and pull. This isn’t the first time he has chosen the possibility of fooling around over being with me. That’s why we broke up in the first place but I just kept hoping he would mature and change. I finally decided that I do deserve someone who loves me more than his own urges and that I do deserve to be treated with respect. So I wished him the best of luck and told him I didn’t want to talk to him ever again and instead of feeling sad like I thought I would I feel good and like a weight has been lifted because I no longer have to continuously forgive someone who has hurt me so many times and I no longer have to try and be who he wants or what he wants and do things to make him happy. I live for a God who accepts me regardless of my faults and who doesn’t hurt me so who am I to give a lesser man power over my happiness and my purpose?
I do feel like crying a little just because I am hurt and I really, really tried to make things work and I felt like I gave myself to him and his happiness but I literally can’t cry because I just can’t help but feel relief that I no longer have to tip toe around to try not to make him angry and I no longer have to please someone who didn’t appreciate me at all. I can finally really allow God to mend my broken heart.
All in all I’m glad I went through this experience because it has taught me about God’s love and about love in general. Plus, now I’ll know a good man when I have him and I’ll appreciate him all the more.
These lyrics speak my relationship, enjoy.
Scandals of the Virgin Bride 