Finals.

We all know that feeling of just wanting to give up during finals week.
Everyone has their faces shoved in their books studying for the end of semester finals.
The college kids are finishing up their finals this week and heading home for the winter break. I'm sure some of them that live out of the city are probably feeling that sigh of relief that they finally get to go home for a couple weeks. 
As for us high school students we're staying up late every night to study for the finals we have to take next week.
For me, I just sit here going through all my study guides for each class and I'll come across a few pages where I just think "holy cow, I don't ever remember learning this.."
During finals week everyone is super cranky and frustrated from the late nights, confusion on what they are supposed to do, and just wanting to be done and be onto break already. I will never understand the purpose for finals anyway. I mean, we already take test over the stuff during the semester anyway. Why do we have to take it all again but with everything combined?
Even though it seems rather purposeless and its frustrating, winter break will be here before we know it!

I guess I just have to say. We have to study. We have to try our best. And then when we get it all over with we can relax and enjoy our winter break!
Good luck everyone! We can do it!

Thanksgiving

-I know I'm a day late but happy thanksgiving! I hope everyone is having a fun thanksgiving break visiting family, eating food, playing games, chillin at home, or whatever.
-As for me and my family we are at the farm with my aunt and uncle and cousins. It's been lots of playing games, baking/cooking, watching movies, hunting, walking around on the farm. It's fun to get out of town and spend time with my family. When people ask me what's my favorite place in the world I always say the farm. I love it love it love it. Even though its only a couple hours away I love to come here to get away. It's so peaceful and beautiful. I feel like I get to take a break from all the chaos of life.
-I have so much I am thankful for but these are a few:
-my family: I am so thankful for my family. Even though we argue sometimes they mean so much to me. They are always there for me. We have so many hilarious times together. I love them so much and I don't know what I would do without em.
-my friends: I am so thankful to have the most amazing friends ever. I am so blessed to have best friends that I can talk to about everything and hang out with and be weird and goofy around.
-my church/youth group: I am SO thankful for such an amazing church family and youth group! We worship together, pray together, laugh together, play games together, pull pranks on each other. I am thankful for such loving and accepting people to grow in my faith with.

The Spofford Home

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to volunteer at The Spofford Home for Children. In case you don't know what The Spofford Home is, its a residential facility for kids ages 4-12 who have behavior issues, have been abused, neglected, etc. We got to play games, do crafts, and hang out with the kids. This is only one scenario but, I sat down with this little boy and he asked me to paint with him. Every time I would put down my paintbrush because I was done, he would say, "no! you gotta paint more with me!" It breaks my heart to know that such young kids are hurting because they don't have anyone. They are afraid. They don't feel loved. It really opened my eyes that there are so many kids hurting not only in our world, but right here in our community. All I want to do is do anything possible to make them feel loved, and let them know they don't have to be afraid because God is always with them.

Revival: Night #4

Revival
Night #4
November 14, 2012
Dr. Jim Diehl

"Christ is risen from the dead, trampling over death by death, come awake, come awake, come and rise up from the grave. Christ is risen from the dead, we are one with him again, come awake, come awake, come and rise up from the grave. Oh death! Where is your sting? Oh hell! Where is your victory? Oh Church! Come stand in the light! The glory of God has defeated the night!"

Notes from tonight's Revival service:

-->Don't give up just because the world is going the wrong way.
-->2 Timothy 1:6, 4:6
-->The fire isn't going to run forever if you don't put more fuel on it.
-->You need to put another log on the fire in your soul.
-->If you can't preach with fire in your heart, quit preaching.
-->Don't minister to people with a heart of ashes. 
-->Let the Lord stir up your heart to get the fire going again.
-->God has given us a spirit of power.
-->The Lord is here changing lives.
-->Let the Lord our God set us free from fear, and let him fill us with POWER and COURAGE.
-->If you do what is right, even if no one else is clapping, Jesus is clapping for you standing up for what is right.
-->Hatred is not born in our lives.
        -Hatred comes in our lives when we are hurt.
-->If we don't give our hurts to God, the hurt develops to bitterness.
-->Hatred is not going to get into heaven.
-->You've got to bring EVERYTHING to God.
-->Lord, set us free from bitterness, and set us free with LOVE
-->Give it all to God and you will be set free!
-->No matter what, God is BIGGER!

Revival

Revival
Night #3
November 13, 2012
Dr. Jim Diehl

These are some notes that I took from the service tonight:
"Lead me to the cross, where your love poured out. Bring me to my knees, Lord, I lay me down."

--> DON'T BREAK THE TRUST!
-->We are ALL worth more that $280.
-->God's rules for life are so that you will be SET FREE!
-->If we live like God wants us to, there will be FREEDOM and JOY! :)
       -if we don't, it will cost us.
 -->3 John 1:9
-->There are givers and takers in this world, be a giver!
-->There are murmurers and encouragers, be an encourager!
-->There are watchers and workers in the church, be a worker!
-->Do not focus on the problems, focus on the promises of God.
-->Don't jump off a bridge to rescue at hat.
          -FOOL
-->Jump off a bridge to rescue a child.
          -HERO
-->Too many of us shed blood over stuff that doesn't matter.
         -Don't shed your blood over something God doesn't care about.
-->Believe in the culture of LIFE.
-->Jesus died on the cross so we could have a personal relationship with Christ.
-->Develop a heart for the youth<3
-->85% of Christians gave their lives to Christ between ages 8-18.
-->Where the young people are in the church, the church is ALIVE
-->Ecclesiastes 12
-->1 Timothy 4:12-"Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers."
--> Young people + God = can change this world!

At the end of the service, Pastor had all of the youth(21 and below) come up to the front. The youth is what makes the church ALIVE. He had everyone else come up and lay there hand on a youth and pray for them. It was really touching for me because these are the people, these are the parents and grandparents that have walked along side with me since I was a baby at this church. These are the people that have grown with through dedication, giving my life to Christ, baptism. Through camps, retreats, and mission trips. I have to thank everyone, young and old, my peers, parents, and grandparents, I have to thank all of you for walking with me through everything, good times and hard times, thank you for believing in me, praying for me and with me, thank you for never giving up on me. 

Past Couple Weeks.

Sorry it's been awhile since I've blogged. I guess I'll just post what's been going on these past few weeks.

Normal life-
mostly I've just been doing school, going to work, hanging out with family and friends.
Family and friends are extremely important in my life and I don't know what I would do without them. I love been able to just chill and watch movies with them, go shopping, hang out, laugh together, cry together. Friends and family are my everything.

We had MNU Homecoming the last weekend of October. It was fun to go to the homecoming game with friends and to see a whole lot of people come together who hadn't seen each other in a long time.

Service Project-
That same weekend our youth group, The Vine Student Ministries did a service project an cleaned up trash in a creek near our church. It was super fun to be with some of the kids in the group and help clean up. It's amazing how beautiful God's creation is and we should do our best to take care of it.

FALL RETREAT
The Vine Student Ministries had our fall retreat the first weekend of November. We had 50 students join us. It was amazing. I love coming together with my youth group and worshiping The Lord and playing games together and connecting with each other. It's amazing to see some of the other students grow so much in their faith in Christ. And it's fun to see kids become friends with someone that had never talked to before. I need to say I am SOO thankful for my youth group and for everyone being there for me and for lifting me up when I need it. And for always believing in me.

That's just a little bit of what's happened these last few weeks.

 

 

Piano.

I don't think anyone understands my passion for piano. I don't think it is something that i am going to use as a career in the future but I love it as a hobby. When I am stressed out or angry or just fed up with life I love to sit down at the piano and play. I love to play until I'm calm. I've been taking lessons for 11 years. Yes, I get frustrated cause I just want to be able to play the song right away, but it takes lots of practice. And the best feeling in the world is finally getting it down. I even love just simple songs like twinkle, twinkle little star because I love the sounds of the notes on the piano. Right now I'm working hard on "Fur Elise" by Beethoven. I love it. Love it. Love it. I'm hoping ill get to take it to competition this year. I have to give all the credit to my piano teacher, Mrs. Koker, because without her, piano wouldn't be a part of my life like it is now.

I Refuse To Sink

No matter what life throws at me I refuse to sink.

Yes I will have my days where I struggle, but doesn’t everybody?

I don’t know when, I don’t know how, but I do know that someday God is going to take all of this pain away. He has a reason for it. I don’t know what it is but I’m putting my faith in him that he will take care of me.

Even when I have those days where I just want to give up, I know that giving up is not an option.

 I will hold onto hope.

 I refuse to sink.

Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation

     This picture was taken in October 2010 at the JDRF walk. We are supporting Audrey, who is in the middle with the blue hat.

     Tomorrow (October 6th) is the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation 5K/Walk in Kansas City. We are walking again this year for my little sister, Audrey, who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes just before she turn 2 years old.

     Audrey is now almost 11 years old (on October 11) and it is a daily battle to live with this disease.  

     Please support Audrey's team! Thanks! 

www.jdrf.org 

Jesus Calling.

I am a couple days late for Jesus Calling. This is for September 30^th and it's helped me a lot. Read this as if God is speaking to you.

 “I am perpetually with you, taking care of you. That is the most important fact of your existence. I am not limited by time or space; My Presence with you is a forever-promise. You need not fear the future, for I am already there. When you make that quantum leap into eternity, you will find Me awaiting you in heaven. Your future is in My hands; I release it to you day by day, moment by moment. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow.

I want you to live this day abundantly, seeing all there is to see, doing all there is to do. Don't be distracted by future concerns. Leave them to Me! Each day of life is a glorious gift, but so few people know how to live within the confines of today. Much of their energy for abundant living spills over the time line into tomorrow's worries or past regrets. Their remaining energy is sufficient only for limping through the day, not for living it to the full. I am training you to keep your focus on My Presence in the present. This is how to receive abundant Life, which flows freely from My throne of grace.”

Matthew 6:34

John 10:10

James 4:13-15

I wish I could say doing this was easy, but at least for me, it's not. Not worrying and just leaving it to God and letting him take care of it is extremely hard. But I've got to keep working on it.

TWLOHA.

To Write Love On Her Arms.

"To write love on her arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also invest directly into treatment and recovery."

"You were created to love and be loved. You were meant to live life in relationship with other people, to know and be known. You need to know that your story is important and that you're part of a bigger story. You need to know that your life matters."

Check out their website. www.twloha.com

I seriously love this movement. I hope you will support it with me.

Hope is real. Help is real. Rescue is possible.

Autumn.

      Fall weather, color of the leaves, bonfires, halloween, pumpkins, scarves, sweaters, jeans, haunted houses, thanksgiving. I love absolutely everything about fall. It's my favorite time of the year. I love cuddling in a blanket and having a nice cup of coffee and reading a good book. I love raking the leaves with my little sister and jumping in them. I love going to the pumpkin patch. There is nothing about fall to not love.

How to make: Melted Crayon Art

Things you need:
Crayons
Canvas (size depending on how many crayons you use)
Hot Glue Gun
Hot Glue
Hairdryer

Instructions:
1) Organize the crayons in the order you want them to be.
2) Hot glue each crayon and put them in a row at the top of the canvas
3) Let the glue dry
4) Take hairdryer and aim it at the crayons to make them start melting down the canvas.
5) If you want the color to go farther down the canvas hold the hairdryer longer on that section.
6) Your done!

I'm not a huge arts and crafts fan, but I love to do it when I'm extremely bored. This is something I did at the end of the summer and I love it.

Stress. Stress. Stress.

Stress is currently taking over my life. Its only September and I'm already stressed with school. During the week is all about school and work. No free time. Except when I go to youth group on Wednesday nights, which I'm extremely thankful for. I do school from 8:30-4:30 and then go to work from 5-8 and then come home and do more school until I go to bed. You may ask why I take so much time doing school. Well, ever since elementary school I have been a very good student. Freshman year of high school I began to have a lot of struggles in my life and my grades started dropping. Freshman and Sophomore year sometimes I would have that I don't care, this is dumb, kind of attitude. Other times I would constantly beat myself up until I got my grades up. It Junior year and it started out difficult because I'm new to this whole online school thing.  But now my grades are my top priority. It is extremely important to me that I get good grades. I want to get into college. And I want to be successful in my life. I keep telling myself I'm going to work, work, work until I get great grades. And I have found that when I have good grades and I know I am working hard, it makes me feel a whole lot better. Its just the stress that's attacking me. Hopefully after I get all caught up and on track then I will feel good and not have any stress weighing on my shoulders.

School.

Alright. So I've been getting a lot of questions about where I go to school? haha well I'm not suprised. I've switched 5 schools since freshman year. I pretty much say, "At my house." haha yeah its true. I'm doing online school so I'm just home most of the time. I will sometimes go to the library or go to my grandparents so I can get out of the house and change the scenery a little bit. Its definitely different considering that I've been going to public school most of my life. But I have to say, its pretty awesome. I love it. The thing I don't like about it, is that I don't get to see my friends everyday. But online school is awesome!
Wish me luck finishing the rest of the school year!

National Sister Day

Happy National Sisters Day!

All these girls are my best friends that I call my sisters!:)
In the middle picture the little girl on the right is my real sister. Yeah the one that lives under the same roof as me. The one that I argue with a lot. But also the one that I can have movie nights with and laugh with all the time. I love that girl.
But I wanted to say thanks to all my other sisters for being my best friends and always being there for me! Love you guys!

10 Things I Hate

1. Disrespectful people
2. K State
3. Vegetables
4. Milk, Ice Cream, Yogurt, etc.
5. the color pink
6. wEn PpL TYpE LiK dIS
7. Tennis Shoes
8. Shopping
9. Tight spaces
10. cellphones. people are stupid.

25 Things I Love

1. sleeping
2. KU
3. music
4. pizza rolls
5. God
6. the color blue
7. family
8. reading
9. friends
10. piano
11. sweatshirts
12. taking naps
13. my youth group
14. fall
15. writing
16. horror movies
17. arizona tea
18. To Write Love On Her Arms
19. ramen noodles
20. coffee
21. bonfires
22. science
23. my bible
24. MNU
25. more sleeping

Best Friends

These girls are my best friends. We've been buddies since we were divas in diapers. I'm in the middle. Breanna is the short one on the left:) haha. and Rachel is the tall one on the right:) We've gone through everything together. They are always there for me and they have never given up on me. I am so blessed to have these girls as my best friends. They keep me in line and on track. Over the past couple years we have grown incredibaly close. All three of us have had many struggles and we are keeping each other going. I love that we can be best friends and have fun, laugh, and be crazy, but also we can cry together, pray with each other, and have deep talks. I love these girls to death and I'm so blessed to have them a part of my life. Love you girls!

Family.

This is my family.
There are 6 of us in my immediate family.
Well you're probably thinking, but there's 8 of you there.
This picture was taken this last February for my Mama Bear's 100th Birthday. Mama Bear is my great grandma. Next to her is my mom. Behind my mom is my little sister, Audrey. Then in the back row, (right to left) we've got my little brother, Hayden, my dad, me, Faith(Drake's girlfriend), and my older brother, Drake. Drake and Faith have been dating for 3 years. She is pretty much family. She's like an older sister. Drake is in his freshman year in college. It is definatly different without him. He is always there for me and has helped me get through the toughest times. Hayden has taught me a lot. He has taught me to love my family unconditionally. He loves me as I am, even when I've made mistakes. I love when Hayden and I can be total dorks and can be totally serious if we need to be. Audrey has brought so much joy to my life. She is so hilarious and she knows how to entertain me. She has also taught me that there's going to be trials in our lives but we just have to stay strong. She was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes just before she turned 2 years old. It is a battle 24/7. It hurts me to see her so irritated about having to live with this disease. But she has showed me that sometimes you just have to accept things and be strong. As for my parents, I don't know what I would do without them. I know sometimes I don't treat them with respect and I take advantage of them. But they are always there for me and they always know what's best for me even when I don't like it. My family is the best and I don't know what I would do without them.

Me.

-->

Alexis Kathryn. I go by Lexie. I’m 16 years old. Brunette. Blue eyes. 5 foot 8 inches.

Music. Music. Music. If you ask me what my favorite thing is, with no hesitation, I would say music. I’ve been taking piano lessons for 11 years. I used to play the violin for 4 years, and the guitar for 3 years. If you look at my ipod and look to see what I listen to, you would see under my favorites would be The Beatles, The Fray, Mumford and Sons, Nevershoutnever, A Day to Remember, Between the Trees, etc. Since preschool, I’ve been to 9 different schools. Currently I am enrolled in online school. Its definatly different, but its working. I love my youth group. They have been there for me through absolutely everything and they haven’t given up on me.

God is my number one.

Family and friends comes next.

Then everything else.