giving of thanks

Reminiscing on Thanksgiving day 2012. At 4:00am I woke up inside the Hilton New York, curled my hair, slabbed on makeup and proudly put on my maroon Texas State University Strutters uniform. The cold, dark subway tunnel led me to one of the greatest experiences of my life. After my little sister and I got interviewed and my team missed our cue for the parade.. I walked (ran) the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade route in New York. Most people have watching the Macy's Parade in New York on their bucket list, I got to be in it.. how blessed am I? I continuously thank God for that day and that trip because it happened all because of His favor and provision. I had been offered a trip to be in the parade since the summer after my freshman year of high school and it was never a possibility for me to go, God orchestrated it so that years later I would transfer to a University that had a known dance team, I would soon make that team and that year we would be the first performers in that parade .. all the same year that my little sister had the opportunity to go. After making the team I found out about the trip and had already said that I was unable to go, but my director made sure that every single one of us was able to go and I am so thankful for her, my family and for all of the people who made this dream of mine come true.
This year on Thanksgiving I am in Greenville, South Carolina with my family, newest nephew Carson Allen asleep in my arms. Tomorrow we fly back to Texas..as a whole family. My sister and her little family are moving from South Carolina back to Texas with us which is something to be thankful for!



I've been reading the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp and it has changed my prayer life and the way I view the world around me, it teaches/ reminds you to give thanks in all of the little things, which could easily be made into the big things. There's a "joy dare" for each day of the year and today's joy dare is to give thanks for gifts in community; on this day I am super thankful for the community that helped get me to New York last year, my CBC community (even though i've moved and don't really go there anymore, growing up this is where i spent most of my time and got influenced the most), and my Young Life community who constantly pushes me out of my comfort zone and teaches me how to be a better Jesus follower.
I dare you to join this joy dare by finding this month's joy dare list from One Thousand gifts and verbalizing what it is that you are thankful for.

I pray that you all find something(s) to be thankful for today, I'm thankful for YOU!

click here to see a video of our performance!

Worship Post Wednesday

Worship [according to the dictionary]

noun ; reverent honor paid to God 

                                       

While that definition is totally true, I'm not sure it does enough justice to the greatness that is worship.

I was at a night of worship with All Sons & Daughters a few weeks ago where they referenced worship as "giving God His breath back" ...woah. LOVE that! I love looking at worship as a way of reminding myself of His goodness and celebrating Him, who He is and what He has done. 

Some have a mindset that singing songs at church is the only form of worship we have, and I would strongly beg to differ, but I also don't want to neglect the importance of praise and worship songs because those are such a great part of my own personal worship life (I'll probably write a separate post about that later). I think that everything can be worship if you are focused on giving the Lord glory and honor with what you are doing in that moment. Prayer can be your worship, the way you live your life could (and should) be a form of worship -- the list goes on!


 I was blessed to grow up in a church where they welcomed my ability and passion for dance and gave me opportunities to use that gift in our church services to "give God His breath back", to show that He is the one who gave me this ability and that I choose to use it for Him so that if anyone sees anything good or admirable in me or my dancing that they are seeing what is good and admirable in my Jesus, to show that sometimes I'm so full of joy that I can't help but dance and leap and just smile (because that's what I do!), to show raw emotion (even sadness) in response to His story or what He is doing in my life. Dance is just one of many forms of worship, and every form of worship touches His heart the same, "not one style of genuine worship is superior to another, the ground is level at the foot of the cross". Don't for a moment believe the lie that your unique gift / form of worship is not good enough. Worship is not a performance and it's not about how talented or "good enough" we are -- it's about the condition of our heart. It's not confined to a church building, it should be something continuous, it should be an attitude! I know I personally need that reminder.. a lot! 

I'm no expert on worship, but I have been poured into a lot lately in this area of my life and it's something I become more passionate about as time passes so I thought I'd sit down and take a breather and type out some thoughts :)  

Hope this finds blog finds you well, love you all!

Women of Faith 2013

This all started a few weeks ago when I called my mom and told her I wanted to go to the Women of Faith Conference -- by this time I figured it was too late, but some of my favorite people were going to be there so I figured it was worth trying, right?!
We talked about it off and on for a while trying to make a game plan because we had some connections. I planned to come home this weekend just in case, and good thing I did because instead of even having to use our sources, Mom won tickets! WHAT?! Yes. God blesses me like crazy ya'll. What an unexpected gift.
Day one was awesome

We got to go to a meet and greet with Mom's friend Lysa, who just so happened to be a speaker at the conference. Such a cute lady and such a speaker of truth. Loved getting to hear her speak this weekend.

To be quite honest, I have an unhealthy admiration for Kari Jobe and she was one of the main reasons I wanted to go to this conference. So naturally I was ecstatic that night one's concert was none other than .. Kari Jobe! So good!


While I knew Kari was going to be there, I didn't know that some other people from the Gateway worship team were going to be there too, so when I saw one of my social media friends Amber Rhoads up on stage that was another element of excitement in itself -- I had never seen her in person and here she was! This girl was awesome live, so naturally my first instinct is to tell her that she rocks and cross my fingers that I get to meet her, even though I weirdly felt like I already knew her.
Without hesitation she agreed to meet up with me today -- which leads me to day 2 of the conference.

First off, Christine Caine spoke.. love love love her.
Amber led worship with the other Gateway girls this morning then during our lunch break [get this] she comes to ME. Climbs up a jillion flights of stairs and goes straight to my seat. I was so taken back by this woman's humbleness. I was not expecting that at ALL. As if I needed more to like her, she proceeds to tell me and Mom [who I'm pretty sure is Amber's new number one fan..] part of her amazing story. LOVE that I got to share the Pink Out day of the conference with this fellow daughter of a breast cancer survivor. What a special moment.  -- And the kindness continues! Amber goes back down to lead worship again then comes back up to my seat to give me her new CD.







Speaking of her new CD.. GO BUY IT ON ITUNES! I'm listening to it right now, Broken Beautiful by Amber Rhoads do it do it do it. My favorite track is Broken Beautiful. Shocking, I know ;)
This girl made.my.day. ya'll.   What a joy it is to meet people who have almost been like worship leader mentors to me. Even greater is that her love for Jesus is SO real, and that was evident in her acts of kindness to make me feel special today. Seriously, everyone around me was talking about me whenever she'd leave, wondering why she came to see me. I felt like a million bucks.
So she's the real deal. Go buy her music, and go see her live if you can because she got some PIPES.

Amber ~ So so blessed by you today! Thank you for leading us in such sweet time of praise and worship this weekend. I look up to you for so many reasons and now I am so excited that I can [officially] call you friend! :)

Started off last week finding out I get to lead these guys in worship. What a blessing being surrounded by old friends and new and what a great thing YoungLife is on the Texas State University campus! So thankful for the freedom of religion.

We also had our very first Austin Stone at Texas State which ROCKED.

Super proud to call The Austin Stone Community Church MY church.

The week ended just as sweet as it began

Leadership retreat was a breath of fresh air and a splash of water on a dry soul. 

We sang songs in the dark, we learned how to be better fishers of men, we prayed for our ministry and we just had fun in each others company. Thankful for so many of these people's examples and for their friendship. 

A new school year is a blank canvas to be written on with dreams and faith.


I hope everyone had a great first week of school! Praying this one is a monumental one for me, and for you too! Don't be afraid to dream big, don't be afraid to go out on a limb and follow blindly where the Lord leads you.

God didn't let me go too long wondering why that whole SMA thing even happened. Before I had thought, maybe just maybe He's pulling an Abraham on me.. and He was. He confirmed it today as I was doing some reading through Kisses From Katie [awesome book, especially for those with a heart for missions]. But the Lord knew how much I enjoyed the Wimberley team and He knew I had just gotten comfortable. He just wanted to see if I would say yes to His call and lose that comfort for His sake, only to find out in the end that I don't have to. These people are some of my most prized after only a year of knowing them, and while I didn't risk my relationships with them by going to SMA  [they were all super supportive and I thank God for that because that would have made it so much harder] I would have definitely thrown plenty of Monday nights away that could have been spent being absolutely ridiculous with my friends.
Ceirra and James, I'm so glad that you guys followed the call with me.
If nothing else we have that long and agonizing day to look back on how strong we were in our beliefs and trust that the Lord would provide and that we would minister to kids the way we have been taught how. It also helps that we completed those extra trainings and have those fun memories to share that nobody else in our county has. Ya'll are incredible leaders and incredible friends.
I thank God for you and for our crazy experience.

Well you can pretty much ignore my last post..
After going through SMA training, an 11 hour day of meetings, headaches, almost vomiting, strengthening friendships, chick fil a,kids toys and bombarding our area director's house   -- all three of us that were offered the job turned it down. I could just delete the last blog post and erase it from my life because it's like it never even happened, but God was trying to teach the three of us something through that day/ the SMA experience, and I'm still not quite sure what it was to be honest with you. It's weird that all three of us had some sort of confirmation that we were supposed to continue with SMA, but in the end none of us did -- and that too was a peaceful decision. We met a great man and leader through the process, and I know I'm grateful for that new friendship.

It's a long story that took up an 11 hour day. It doesn't need much discussing besides the fact that I'm back at Wimberley and that is absolutely where my heart lies, so I am happy!