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Sunday, January 29, 2012

On Memorizing Scripture.

How can a young man keep his way pure?
By guarding it according to Your Word.
With my whole heart I seek You;
let me not wander from Your commandments!
I have stored up Your Word in my heart,
that I might not sin against You.
Psalm 11:9-11

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:16-17

If you don't already memorize Scripture, the verses above should reinforce the importance of this area in faith. I think that people often get too caught up in everyday life to take the time to reflect on and memorize the Word of God. I know that I am often guilty of this very problem and this issue has been on my heart for a while. We should not forget the memory verses we have learned, nor should we stop learning new passages. Can you imagine how happy God is when His children recite His words back to Him? 

I know that there are a lot of different methods to memorize Scripture…I have heard of people who write down the verses over and over, put memory verses on the mirror, have accountability partners to make sure each of them is memorizing…the list goes on and on. I am just going to share what works best for me, which is what I learned through my church in Auburn.

Obviously the first thing is to find a verse that I want to memorize. This is usually pretty easy. 
I write down the passage in my journal and on a notecard.

Then I write down the first letter of every word on the inside of my wrist. (This may sound weird, but it really helps when you forget the next word and need a hint. This is also is a great conversation starter and reminder to constantly be focused on Jesus throughout the day).
Remember the notecard? I then take that notecard and place it in the front of my box.

Here's how the box is organized:
The last four verses I've memorized go in the front. I review these four every day. After I know the verse completely and need to add another one to the front, I move the notecard that's been in the front the longest to one of the sections that are divided by days of the week.

The rotation goes on as I continue to memorize new verses and eventually I will add sections for days of the month and move the notecards from the days of the week to these sections where I will review them once a month.
Make sense?
Mmkay good.
I probably explained that way more complicated than it actually is. Like I said, I learned this last year and it has worked great for me and I encourage people to try it. You won't regret having God's Word treasured in your heart!

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Life lately.

1. Eating at my new favorite restaurant in Auburn. See Kelsey's post to learn more about this awesome place. Don't worry, Cracker Barrel, you'll always have a special place in my heart.
2. Wearing my new rain boots due to the repeated torrential downpours.
3. Driving to Birmingham on a school day to reach a verdict on when I will have to lose my wisdom (teeth).
4. Studying the Word of God with coffee in the mornings. Can life get any better?

Monday, January 23, 2012

SEEK


"The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him."
Lamentations 3:25

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

DIY photostrips

After reading this post on creating DIY photostrips out of instagram pictures, I decided to make my own. I used regular pictures along with the instagram ones. Instead of using Photoshop, I just used a Word document and scaled all the pictures to be 1.8" by 1.8" Then I made a folder to format my photo strips and just dragged them to the page!
 I saved myself some time by just printing the pictures from my own printer on glossy photo paper and cut them out. The edges may not be perfect, but it only took about 15 minutes total and I'm pretty happy with how they turned out!

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Pursuing God

If you haven't read The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer, I strongly recommend it. I read it over the break and will probably be reading it again soon. Tozer includes beautiful prayers at the end of every chapter and I thought I would share one of them that has been especially inspiring to me…
Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.
James 4:8

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

"I Won't Give Up"

I'll make this short to balance out my last post.

Jason Mraz's new single.  "I Won't Give Up."  It's awesome.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

10 Highlights

So basically over Christmas break I was just way too busy doing stuff to blog.  Now that I'm at school waiting for class to amp up, I have time to catch up on everything I didn't bother taking the time to do.  Thus, blog posts.  Yippee.  So here are some Christmas highlights (in no particular order).  (Warning: this blog post is long.)

1.  Watching movies.  A luxury I rarely partake of during the semester.  I think I watched one or two the whole fall.  My list of movies watched over the break includes but is not limited to:  Crazy Stupid Love, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Elf, It's A Wonderful Life, Super 8, Warrior, Horrible Bosses, The Help, Larry Crowne, Dodgeball, et al.  Redbox is my best friend.


2.  The Alabama Theater.  My family, Charles, Alex, and Kevin went to see "It's A Wonderful Life" here. Also, the wedding reception of my sweet friends, Mike and Katherine, was held here a well.


3.  Workplay.  Alex, Kelsey, Katie, and I all got to go see Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors (with Andrew Ripp) at Workplay our first week out of school.  What a wonderful way to kick off the Christmas season.  You can read a little more about this trip here.


4.  The Hunger Games.  This trendy trilogy made for a fun read over the break.  I had been hearing about how great the books were, and the movie is coming out on Alex's birthday (aka March 23, 73 days)!!  Eek.  (The first book is currently free for the Kindle courtesy of Amazon.)


5.  The Poinsettia Debutante Ball.  My dear friend, Kelsey, was presented at the ball, and Alex and I had the privilege of going with some of our very best friends.  I'm really not that keen on dancing, but we all had a great time.  And I got to wear Mama's formal dress from high school -- really special.  For more pictures, you have my permission to stalk me on Facebook (I broke down and posted an album).


6.  The Weather.  I think the temperature got down to about 20 and up to about 72.  So it was a very bipolar month.


7.  Children's Hospital.  My family helped serve Christmas dinner (on Christmas Eve) to patients (hem/on and ICU) and their families.

trees at Children's
8.  Charles's Birthday. 

this goober turned 21!


9.  The little things.

Julianne and I goofing off with my new camera
Christmas goodies

Laughing at a REALLY bad parking job 
Julianne teaching Charles how to be a majorette

Sol Azteca

Time at Aunt Leigh's farm

9.  My family.



10.  Teddy.  Because he is just so cute.


Congrats!  You made it to the end of this blog post.  Happy spring semester!

Sunday, January 8, 2012

CAMERA & farm

Well this Christmas Santa was EXTREMELY good to me and brought me this jewel.


Behold, the Nikon D5100, the camera that has more features than I could ever imagine.

So obviously, I had to break out the camera while at the farm and have a quick photo shoot.  I'm still a new beginner novice inexperienced {insert other similar adjectives} photographer that doesn't really know what I'm doing.  So I just took a whack at it.  As you can see, Aunt Leigh's farm made my job pretty easy.  And Charles patiently posed as my model.  No one else really wanted that job, so props to him!

God Bless America

sunglasses


Three circles



Saturday, January 7, 2012

Freedom.

In the path of your judgements, 
O LORD, we wait for you;
your name and remembrance 
are the desire of our soul.
Isaiah 26:8
I am so glad that I had the opportunity to attend Passion once again. Not only were there great speakers and performers, but it is so apparent that JESUS remains the cornerstone on which the conference is built. I was able to be a small part of the 44,000 students that gave over 3 MILLION dollars to fight human trafficking around the world. I met awesome people and learned so much. Here are some of the main points that I took away from the week…
  • Life only works when He's EVERYTHING. Anything else is not real faith.
  • You can stand with humanity, or you can stand with Jesus.
  • All of us have a tendency to hide what needs the most healing
  • You go back to your sin if you forget that you've been cleansed. 
  • It isn't compassion until you allow yourself to be interrupted.
  • Whatever you expect God to do in the next month, double it. He wants to do MORE.
  • You won't build your life around Jesus by accident. You must make an effort.
  • Brokenness is the bow from which God launches the arrow of healing. 
  • The proclamation of His name and power starts the day you become alive in Christ. That's our mission, the reason we are alive. It doesn't mean that your story doesn't unfold, it means that you don't need to wait. Opportunity is now. 
The Lord is so faithful and I can't wait to see the results of the many new believers who are on fire for Jesus. MAY HIS NAME BE GLORIFIED