School starts in two weeks! AH! I am actually excited...(: It will be good to have a routine, and not to be able to go into the kitchen and eat ALL the time...(not good.)


I was saying how I was reading the book "Do Hard Things" and I actually finished it this morning. The two Christian guys who wrote it have a blog that is called The Rebelution. Anyway, I just want to share some of the things that I read in this book.

Did you know that there used to be NO teenage years? You were a kid or an adult. So really, I am capable of much more than I do, and so are other teens, we just aren't pushed as hard to do the things and some people don't have any reason to have that many responsibilities. But as I was reading this book, I realize that I want to be involved in something BIG. Not just minding my own business, but helping. I can stay in my own comfort zone, but really, what fun is that? When there are SO many opportunities out there for me? Want to know what some author said is expected of me at my age?
*do a daily chore [just one], like taking out the trash
*make sure the gas gauge stays above a quarter of a tank (HELLO!, a 3 year old can do that!) *clean your room every week (with no help from Mom and Dad) not sure who the author was.
PATHETIC! If that is what is expected of me and that's it then...I'm not really sure.

In the book they also made a really good point, that I like, it says, "Isn't something wrong when girls are constantly judged on their physical appearance and pressed to become more and more sexually provocative, yet are so rarely expected to develop qualities of character and intellect beneath the surface?" That's true. Because is some movies today, the lead role of the girl will be some stupid girl- but she's "beautiful" and that makes it all.

1Timothy 4:12 says,"Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and purity" (NIV)

When you are a teen and in your young adult life, they say it's the best years of your life. This book said, "We waste some of the best years of our lives and never reach our full God-give potential." So, if I just am looking out for me, and not others, when I look back at my life in fifteen years, what will it look like? Wouldn't I rather spend it serving others and making a difference? My answer is I would definitely rather be making a difference.

But all this isn't to say that I am still a very selfish person. That I still have problems with my attitude at home and helping without complaining. I know that before God is going to allow me to be faithful in the big things, I have to be faithful in the little things, like helping at home.

I guess that I know where I have to start on this whole thing...at home. But I still want to know what God is going to allow me to do that is BIG. I know what I want to do to serve him in the big area ahead, it's just getting there is going to take some work. But I want God to grow me, make me useful, and help me to do something BIG for his name.

I have two more books I want to write about that I have been reading. But I want to share with you why I have been reading so much! A very dear friend of mine gave me a challenge to read helpful guiding books (i.e. the Bible, Do Hard Things, etc.) as much as I read the other fictional kind. Let me tell you, their challenge is probably the only reason I finished reading Do Hard Things and now I have more books to read. So it's exciting to be getting into other things. I will Lord-willing be more well read on important life changing books rather than the fictional storied that I don't need. So thank you dear friend!

Next, I read the book of Joshua in the Bible. Here are some verses that I liked that well, read them for yourself.

Joshua 22:5 "Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and to cling to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul."
Joshua 23:11-13 "Be very careful, therefore, to love the LORD your God. For if you turn back and cling to the remnant of these nations remaining among you and make marriages with them, so that your associate with them and they with you, know for certain that the LORD your God will no longer drive out these nations before you, but they shall be a snare and a trap for you, a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good ground that the LORD your God has given you."
Joshua 23:14 ". . . and you know in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one word has failed all of the good things that the LORD your God promised concerning you . . ." What an incredibly awesome promise! He is always going to keep the promises He has made!

And finally,
One of the other books I am reading is 97 Random Thoughts about Life, Love & Relationships written by Justin Lookadoo. (He wrote Dateable.)
He said, "Hey, if you just live your life, you go to church and play it safe, you don't really risk anything, the you have no faith. It's dead. You have to get out of your comfort zone. You've gotta try things that are going to totally freak you out at first. God wants you to go big. . ."

James 2:17 says, "Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead."

Oh! I forgot... I saw this awesome quote in "Do Hard Things" it says... "If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music. . . Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well." -Martin Luther King Jr. **No matter what job God gives me, whether it be cleaning toilets in the church, or running the kid's Christmas program... I can do the job to the best of my ability, because if someone didn't do the dirty, little behind-the-scene-jobs...where would we all be?**