You're not shaken

i am trembling in the darkness of my own fear
all the questions with no answers
so grip me while i’m here
and i may never know why
oh i may not understand
but i will lift up my eyes,
and trust this is Your plan

when every little thing that i have dreamed would be just slips away like water through my hands
and when it seems the walls of my beliefs are crashing down like they’re all made of sand
i won’t let go of You now
because i know, oh, You’re not shaken

this weekend i....

-->played sweet games and ate tons of junk food with friends on friday
-->hung out with brittni and her fam on saturday before she officially moved to maryland
-->got coffee and caught up with david blanchard
-->skipped a trip to the beach and instead spent a lazy sunday afternoon hanging out with laura
-->painted my fingernails black :)

i'm thankful for such a fabulous weekend, because monday was no fun at all!


i'm a k-love listener and i'm not ashamed to admit that :) recently, i signed up to receive their "encouraging word" each day by email. it comes to my phone (around 330 am, i might add), but has reallly become something i look forward to each day. and these past few days of verses have been TOTALLY what k-love intended them to be - "encouraging words" - so i figured i'd share them with you!

"i cried out to the Lord, and he answered me from his holy mountain"
psalm 3:4
"spouting off before listening to the facts is both shameful and foolish"
proverbs 18:13
"for i am waiting for you, o Lord. you must answer for me, o Lord my God"
psalm 38:15
"for our present troubles are small and won't last very long. yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever"
2 corinthians 4:17
"don't let your hearts be troubled. trust in God, trust also in me"
john 14:1


*also* - i came across the blog post below, its a family who attends church with some friends of mine from college. definitely worth checking out.
http://trevkeva.blogspot.com/2010/07/how-god-prepared-me-for-hardest-day-of.html

wish i knew

maybe the hardest 7 months of my adult life...probably not maybe. i'd say change that to absolutely.

what are you preparing me for, Jesus? i know it has to be something big...

"i took my troubles to the Lord; i cried out to him, and he answered my prayer"
psalm 120:1

current playlist for today

glory to God - fee
desert song - hillsong
starry night - chris august
aware - salvador
majesty - delirious
the stand - hillsong


-coffee date with sara shill tonight! followed by lifegroup for the 1st time!!
-campus point lifegroup tomorrow eve!
-movie date thursday night with the best sister ever!
-beach this weekend!

sara pick showed me how to make the cutest blanket ever! i'm now addicted. so many more to come, i think! :)

sucked into the newest season of big brother already. and surprisingly, caring less and less about this season of the bachelorette.

boys are stupid...

but man, so are girls.

i think we have the best of intentions. and we want to think and believe the best about people, for the most part. but gosh, sometimes, we seem to be constantly setting ourselves up for disappointment.

it's like sometimes we can come across so naive or give ourselves such false hope, when really if we sit back and honestly view the situation it's easy to see what the right thing is or what is really going on.

and how often do we make things worse for ourselves? we ask questions and over-analyze and rethink the same things we've already been over 100 times. often, we already know the answers, but if we can get one response or action that seems even slightly different - we are going to read into it and skew it more than ever...just to give ourselves what is most often, more false hope.

i'm the worst at all of these things. being a girl - by definition, i believe - makes me ridiculous.

*keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life* proverbs 4:23

help me guard my heart, jesus. let me keep my eyes on You and not on the things of this world. only You can ever satisfy.

*hallelujah, He has found me - the One my soul so long has craved. Jesus satisfies all my longings; through His blood i now am saved*

in other news :)

-i got to see brittni last night now that she's back from honduras. tonight i get to see laura and shelley. and later -this week, i'll be hanging out with sara! what a fantastic week i have planned!
-starting point church has its first sunday morning preview services this weekend. 9am and 1030am at mission valley theater - you should come check it out!
-gum popping is a HUGE pet peeve of mine. i didn't know that until this weekend.
-i've got to go to the beach soon...i miss it. :(
-fb chat is awful and out of control.
-i say 'out of control' a lot lately.
-i think there's a skype date planned for tonight with chris hughes. yes!
-this past weekend was spent in pennsylvania visiting with family. riding in a car for 7 hours, each way, is not my idea of fun, but seeing my family each time is totally worth it! here's just a couple of fav. pics from the trip! :)

need a dog or cat? ;)

july 4th and 5th adopt a pet from the wake county spca for $17.76!!!

through july 3rd you can adopt a pet from the newly expanded wake county animal shelter for $25!!!

here's your chance to make some little furry friends life! :) click on the lines above (they are links :P) for more information!


i'm on twitter now. http://twitter.com/AshMac1101
i'm not one of those people who folds my napkin; i usually crinkle them up when i use them.
i really enjoy eating out alone sometimes.
the fam. is leaving tomorrow for pennsylvania for the 4th! :)

four men were killed in a car accident this morning. none of them that old. as if the story isn't sad enough, the comments people have made on it are even more sad and ridiculous. already people are making sarcastic remarks about "bad drivers" and how they killed their friends. or the suspicious reasons these men may or may not have been carrying their ID with them. they could've been "suspicious" characters and maybe the person driving did make some mistakes. even if that's the case, EVERYONE makes mistakes. what's most important is that four lives were lost today. four men - sons, possible brothers, husbands, or even dads. why is it so necessary that we overlook the really important stuff and immediately look to start pointing fingers and stating who made what mistakes. have we really become such an ignorant and heartless people? unbelievable.

i have amazing friends. i don't even think the word "amazing" does them justice. they come from just about every stage of my life. and daily i am loved on and encouraged by at least one of them, i feel like - even when i least expect it.

thank you, Jesus for so many wonderful, godly friends.

i would like this to be easier. thank you very much.

a little of what i've been learning...

it's funny how many times you can hear a bible story or an encouraging word or bible verse from someone, and just not really let its application sink in. there are tons of bible stories i've heard over and over during the course of my life, but never really taken anything from them or seen what truth i can take away from them and apply in my life.

a couple of weeks ago, my mom was talking to me about the story of shadrach, meshach and abednego. you can find it in daniel 3 - just in case you want to look it up. :) it's a story i've heard over and over and thought about how "cool" it is, but that's really it. i've honestly never put much more thought into it than that. multiple times, over the past 2 weeks, though - God has brought that story to mind and given me insight into how i can apply it to my life and where i am right now.

i've struggled big time the past couple of months with understanding why sometimes when i feel like i'm being obedient to God, do things turn out completely differently than i thought. if i'm trying to listen and obey and i have a peace about my decisions that i feel sure come from God, then why would i end up in the middle of heartache and chaos?

shadrach, meshach and abednego were totally being obedient to God. they definitely didn't make any mistakes by not bowing down to the gold statue that nebuchadnezzar had set up. yet somehow, they still ended up in the middle of chaos - in the middle of a blazing fire! but, God was totally there with them. and, in the end, it says they came out not even smelling like smoke. i mean, how could they give credit and glory to anyone other than God after that?

i feel like i'm standing in some fires of life right now - even after making decisions i thought were being obedient. but, i know that God is right there with me - even when i feel all alone or discouraged. and, at the end of all this - i know God is going to deliver me and i want to come out of this like shadrach, meshach, and abednego - not even smelling like smoke! it's exciting to think that at the end of all this i can look back and give glory to God alone for the way i know He will deliver me. even now, the way my heart and thoughts and attitudes have been growing and changing, can't be attributed to anyone other than Him!

while at camp, i was also struck by another sort of reality or truth that i can take away from this story. we talked a lot about God's plan for our lives and His direction and leading. one of the questions i asked the girls in my cabin one night during devotions was if they thought always knowing exactly what God's will was and what He had planned next would make it easier to follow. i'm pretty sure just about every girls hand was raised, saying they thought this would be easier. and honestly, before really studying and processing this bible story - i have to say, i would have totally agreed with them.

now for my new perspective. if i was shadrach, meshach or abednego i'm not sure it would have been any easier for me to follow God's plan for my life if He told me it included literally being thrown into a fire. especially once i was informed of the fact that it was because i was choosing to serve only Him and no other gods. i mean, my reward for obedience is something that is sure to lead to my death? i feel like that's a question i would be asking - but, i definitely don't think knowing that was God's plan for my life would make following it any more enticing. in the end, God still received all the glory and praise due to Him, but i don't think i'd have been all happy go lucky to jump on board with that plan! so really, knowing the plan, probably wouldn't have made things any easier.

i guess, to me, the reality of it is i don't know God's plan for my life. and, i'm never going to know exactly what He has next. what i do know, is that in good times and bad, He is with me every step of the way and i want to always be living in obedience to Him. regardless of my circumstance, i want to live my life so that when people look at me, they see Jesus working in me. i want my life to always point to Christ - whether i'm standing in the fire or not.

summer is officially here :)

*rascal flatts is on friday*i have a new purple blackberry*i still miss my puppy*my house is a wreck..but instead of cleaning it, i think i'll sit by the pool tonight*i want to read more books*i hate the idea of twitter...but sara might be convincing me to get one anyhow*bachelor jake and vienna are now broken up*going to back work after 2 weeks of vacation is hard*i'm struggling just a bit to find that place where i feel like i fit*haircut on thursday - whoo*my clothes are all too big - so last week i had 2 ice cream snickers bars each day to try and fix this problem*saturday i'll be sitting by the ocean*i'd be more than willing to overlook his jean shirt and give jesse from this seasons bachelorette my number*surprisingly, the past 2 weeks of camp were maybe my most favorite weeks of camp ever*heading to pennsylvania with the family for 4th of july*