J.J. Heller

I found the first video the other day on a friend's blog, and loved it! I've fallen in love with J.J. Heller's music last year, and have found lots of encouragement from her words. :)

September!

Whew! It's been a long time, and a busy start to school. I'm sitting here in the middle of my floor wanting badly to update my blog, but not even knowing how or where to begin. So I'll just take a crack at it and then if it's a mess I'll mentally flip a coin and see whether or not I'll actually post it. :-) I think I've thought up this post for about three weeks now, and each time get distracted and never post it. I've tried to update all my pictures, so even though I haven't blogged, there's still pictures here.

School has started off with a bang! I have harder classes than before, but I am learning more than previous semesters. This past week was full of a few tests, a more than a few papers, quizzes, a project, and a presentation. As stressful and sleepless as it was, I still managed to make it through and have a bit of fun with friends!
There's so much I'd love to tell you about this past month, but don't think I have the time or words for it, so here are a few highlights since The First Day of School:
[it takes too long to get pictures up, so I'll try to update them on here later, but there's tons on Picassa!

• Lots of quality time spent with friends:
• A great picnic at the lake:
• Angela and I hanging out in my room taking a few fun pictures: 
• Awesome start to the school year with our youth group! 

•  A trip to Texarkana for some Barn Bash clothes and a stop at Olive Garden and then fun car pictures on the way home [taken by Angela, of course because I was driving. We're safe here!]

• Girls Nights!! We've had two so far and we're beginning to revamp them. It's going to be an all Friday event for whoever can attend. We have a name picked out based on a TV show, and we're going to have a no boys allowed lunch followed by fun the rest of the afternoon-usually movies, but we'll see how creative we can get with our Fridays! 

 

• The highlight of this month would probably be Barn Bash this past Monday. Our university has several "social clubs" (which are sort of like sororities or frats, but not as sketchy and not with the names of sororities...it's interesting..) and for an entire week the women's social clubs put on TWIRP (The Women Is Required to Pay) where the girls ask the guys out and go to a party, for example one night is 50s and another 80s and so on. The final night is put on by our Campus Ministries (not a social club) and is a Barn Bash. It's apparently the biggest night of them all. I've never been to TWIRP, it's not much of my thing. Well this year I decided to ask a friend of mine, Trevor, that I didn't really know very well. I met him through Becca and her boyfriend. It was definitely out of the usual for me, but I just decided to do it. What could go wrong, right? Well, turns out nothing! The evening was perfect! He was an awesome date and we had a blast! Dressed up like cowboys/girls, had some bbq, thankfully ended up not dancing. The actual bash part wasn't anything special. Just an excuse to get dressed up and go out. It was fun. We went with Becca and Adam to Taco Bell afterward and had a nice time chatting with them. We then proceeded to play pool for a few hours-where I kicked Trevor's tail and won all three games (if you ask him it's because of technicalities and because he "took individual risks on the events at hand and eventually they added up" in my favor, but I just say I won all three! ;-) Sweet!). It was a lovely evening, he's a super great guy, and has been a fun week ever since, besides all the school work this week. 

A few things God's been teaching me lately:

• Be patient in everything. He will work out things in His timing. And until that happens, He's got something great planned! And if what I'm waiting on doesn't happen, then He's got something even better planned, even if I can't see that at the moment.
• Love. It's such a simple word. We've been going through 1 John in Sunday School this month, and chapter 4 is for tomorrow so I've been reading ahead this week. One of the verses says that if you do not love your brother who you have seen, then how can you love God whom you have not seen? WOW. I mean, the whole book is filled with stuff that makes me say: "holy cow. what do I do with that?? How do I deal with something like that??" But this particular verse in chapter 4 stands out like crazy. I think it's because it's what I've been dealing with all week, and it's a huge reminder that i need to show love to everyone. Even the people that I'm closest to. Am I really treating them how Christ wants me to? This person will never be me or think like me, so I need to love her with the love of Christ anyway. And the people that I don't know well or that annoy me, I still need to show them respect and love them as Christ would. If not, then how can I fully love God?? I'm not sure if that makes any sense, but that's a bit of what I'm learning.

So there's my life in a nut shell.  I'm excited for the rest of the semester and to continue growing in Christ and in relationships with friends. :)

I have to run get ready to march at a football game, but I hope everyone is enjoying September as much as I am!
Love Always,
Brittany Nicole