10 Things I LOVE...

1. Amanda's black and white nature photos. 

2. So smitten with this gorgeous pink movie poster for "Blue Valentine." 

3. Dreamy combination of the polka dot rug and pink chair. 

4. This dress is so so cute! 

5. Beautiful video made for Kate Spade. You can watch it here. 

6. Love what Kait did with her dyed easter eggs. 

7. Peep smore's for Easter. 

8. Elsie's pretty Holga's.  

9. The Baly Sequin dress from Free People. 

10. Love these colorful telephone attachments for cell phones. I got one for Easter :) 

I also wanted to wish everyone a very happy Easter! I am so grateful for what the Lord has given me and it's so important for us to remember what He did for us everyday and not just on Easter. Here is a video made up from clips of the Passion that really moved me and I thought I would share it. Just a warning this video is pretty graphic. 

Sharing...

This Sunday at Church my pastor taught something that really hit me. At this time in my life I am particularly focused on love. I am 19 and single and feel the need to find myself a man. But I realized that I am in love with the idea of love. What I should be in love with is my relationship with Jesus Christ.

Because while I am so preoccupied with finding myself a husband I need to let God write that story and focus on my relationship with Him. While us girls are looking for love here on Earth, there is an epic love story already written for us and a hero waiting to win our hearts...and his name is Jesus Christ.

I wanted to share this passage from "The Sacred Romance." I think it is so convicting and powerful.

"God could have given up on the love affair with mankind. He could have resorted to power and demanded our loyalty, or given us a kind of spiritual lobotomy that would take away our choice to love Him. Even now, He could easily obliterate our enemy and demand the allegiance of our hearts, but the love affair that began in the laughter of the trinity would be over, at least for us. And Satan's accusation that the kingdom of God is established only through raw power would be vindicated.

Once we understand God's desire to possess our heart through love rather than power, we can fathom even more deeply the depths of God's anguish as He pleads with His people to give up their spiritual adultery and return to His love.

Have you ever dated someone that you just knew, from the first time you met her, that she was the one that you wanted to spend your life with? As you laughed and talked and marveled together, you felt your love deepen to a heart bond that you knew you never wanted to free yourself from. And have you ever been shocked to find one day that the one you loved so deeply and who you thought loved you just as passionately, had been dating other guys and, moreover, was spending more and more of her time with your worst enemy? Have you ever had to literally turn a lover over to a mortal enemy and allow her to find out for herself what his intentions toward her really were? Have you ever had to lie in bed knowing she was believing his lies and was having sex with him every night? Have you ever sat helplessly by in a parking lot, while your enemy and his friends took turns raping your lover even as you sat nearby unable to win her heart enough so she would trust you to rescue her? Have you ever called this one you had loved for so long, even the day after her rape, and asked her if she was ready to come back to you only to have her say her heart was still captured by your enemy? Have you ever watched your lover's beauty slowly diminish and fade in a haze of alcohol, drugs, occult practices, and infant sacrifice until she is no longer recognizable in body or soul? Have you ever loved one so much that you even sent your only Son to talk with her about your love for her, knowing that he will be killed by her?

All this and more God has endured because of His refusal to stop loving us. Indeed, the very depth and faithfulness of His love for us along with His desire for our freely given love in return, are what give Satan the ammunition to wound God so deeply as he carries out his unceasing campaign to make us into God's enemy.

Satan is at work reinterpreting our own individual stories in order to make God our enemy, he is also at work dismantling the Sacred Romance so that there is nothing visible to take our breath away. Counting on our vanity and blindness, he seduces us to try to control life by living in the smaller stories we all construct to one degree or another. He accuses God to us and us to God. He accuses us through the words of parents, friends, and God Himself. He calls good evil and evil good and always helps us question whether God has anything good in mind in His plans for us.

Our experience of life deteriorates from the passion of a grand love affair, in the midst of a life and death battle, to an endless series of chores and errands, busyness that separates us from God, each other, and even from our own thirstiness."

A lot of food for thought, but something that has been weighing on my heart.

Peace and Love,

Em

Talking to God...

I just recently started my own Bible journal. It's basically a Bible study and a discussion with God all in one. It's a great place to write down my thoughts and to study the scriptures. I totally recommend keeping one. It really helps you strengthen your relationship with God.

Peace and Love,

Em

I Can't Understand...

My friends never cease to amaze me. Sometimes that's a bad thing, but tonight it's a good thing. A bunch of my friends keep these little journals that they carry around with them all the time. It has become the latest trend. I think it's cool that they journal, but I am pretty content with my blog baby that I haven't really joined this movement. lol

Anyway, tonight at our Grand Tour dinner I looked through Alyssa's. The whole thing was full of color and the best little doodles and drawings. To me it was like a big book of happiness. But it wasn't all just sweet nothings and songs lyrics, Alyssa writes to and about God a LOT. Flipping through those pages really inspired me. Alyssa hasn't had the easiest couple of years. She's had a lot to go through with her family and herself and she has come out of it an incredibly strong young woman. I am so proud of her. She had to witness and go through something really hard today. She always is able to keep a strong face but today she told me that she broke down.

Through all of her trials this past couple of years she has inspired me more and more. I myself am not a very strong person, but Alyssa has been so mature and strong that she constantly gives me the motivation to be brave.

I am so proud of you Lyss. I know that I will never be able to understand everything that you have been through. God has done amazing work in you and I am so glad that I have been able to witness your growth in your relationship with God. Thank you for being my friend and thank you for being an inspiration to me. Hang in there. Remember that God is always holding your hand.

Peace and Love,

Em

Say A Little Prayer...

Last week Alyssa and I got together and decided to do something crafty. We wrote out verses and prayers and then decorated them to our heart's desire. I wrote out a compilation of verses having to do with nature and God's relation to it. It was such a beautiful day and all that I had on my mind was the ocean and sunshine. It was a cute little idea. You should try it.

Love,
Em

Good Friday...

Tonight during our Good Friday service I broke down. The very first song that the choir sang was just so moving to me that I couldn't hold back the tears and I cried through half of the service. I have always been very emotional when it comes to Christ's death on the cross but lately my emotions have been stronger. You see, in lit. class we are reading Dante's Inferno which basically takes you on a trip through all of the layers and circles of hell. I have always felt guilt for Christ dying on the cross for all of the sins which I commit daily but tonight it really hit me. I should be in one of the circles of hell. I deserve death and punishment just like all of the occupants of hell in the Inferno. To think that people like me laughed at Christ, they mocked Him and beat Him. People willingly chose to have a murderer in their presence than to have to deal with Christ as their king. He went through ridicule and torture and all of that for a sinner like me. And what do I do for him? I fall asleep during my prayers at night. I slack on reading my Bible every day. Sometimes I would rather stay home than go to church.

But I realized that I don't have to feel guilty for these things. Christ's death was all part of His plan and it was for His glory that it happened. Once you have accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior He has placed grace upon you and you no longer must feel guilty about your sins because He took them upon Himself on that cross.

So yes, I will still get emotional about Christ's death but I know that I don't have to feel guilty about it. Everything is part of God's plan and in the end it is all for His glory. There are not words that can express how thankful I am for my Lord and Savior. I hate it when people deny Him or make fun of Christians because He suffered the most painful death there is for them as well and yet they are not grateful and they refuse His gift.

I hope that everyone has a great Good Friday and I pray that you might carry the wonder of the cross with you everyday and not merely on this holiday weekend. I love Christ with all my heart and although I can never do anything near what he did for me I can at least defend Him and read my Bible everyday.

Love,
Em

HE IS RISEN.