Moved in and so far so good

Well, here I am! All moved in in Edmonton at my parents place and all unpacked even. It was a very stressful day! I woke up at 8 this morning to get a head start and I was finished loading the car by nine. we ended up leaving around one because there were a bunch of other errands that needed to be run this morning. It was a tough day emotionally as I had to say goodbye to my best friends. I was doing fine all morning and I didn't think I was going to cry, but then I walked through the doors of the Bottle Depot and saw my best friend and started bawling. I almost made him cry but we had a good chat before I had to leave. My brother and I headed out at about one. The trip went relatively smoothly until about Whitecourt. My tire (as I have been having so many problems with them) was slowly going flat! We had to pull over and fill it up. It lasted us about another hour before we had to fill it up again. So far the tire is still full, So I'm thinking we just didn't fill it up enough before. We'll see the verdict in the morning! Anyways, so we arrived here in Edmonton, had pizza and I started to cry again when I walked through the door because it actually hit me that I was moved here now. So I unpacked and now my Mom, Dad, Brother and I are watching a movie awaiting the arrival of my sister and brother in law! So we'll see how things go. It'll be interesting to watch what God has in store.

P.S It was amazing how much stuff I piled into my little hatchback Aveo. I couldn't see out the back window and had no shoulder check. I tried to back up as little as possible!

Long enough time?

So turns out I'm very unfaithful when it comes to blogging. I hope to be more regular with it in this coming year to keep everyone up to date on what's going on with me as I move away in the next couple of days to go to college! So much has happened over the year. It probably should have since i haven't written anything since January, and it now being august. Where to begin? Well las ttime i wrote something I was saying something about finishing my diploma exams, well, I am now finally finished high school for good! I graduated in May and it was great. It was a lot better than I expected. I expected it to be a totally over-rated event, but it was actually a great time with family and a good last big event with my friends from school. So praise God for that. After that I went to work for Alberta Highway Services here and that turned out to be...eventful to say the least. Let's just say I won't be working for them again. Don't get me wrong, if you're looking for a job with crazy hours, being outside all day, working around equipment, wearing work clothes and dealing with unorganization, this is the job for you! We crack sealed, and slurry sealed. Oh and I also sometimes held a sign for 12 hours a day! Hurray... great fun :)
During this summer I also had the priveledge of participating in a Country Gospel Music night. It was a great night! We have a group that meets together once a week and we play music for a couple hours. We did the country Gospel night, and now, we are probably performing at a rodeo next year! It was quite a surprise. We did the Gospel night for fun, and wound up lining up another gig. The group consists of some really good friends of mine and my cousin. Most of the band members are family. Only two of us aren't family. It consists of David Kennedy (Guitar and Vocals) Logan Kennedy (Guitar and Piano) Davis Kennedy (Bass) Kaden Kennedy (Drums) Chantelle Kennedy (Vocals) Aerylin Sterr (Vocals) and myself (Vocal). That night we also had another Kennedy who came up for Chantelle's wedding. It was Darla Bolger (nee Kennedy) and she did an amazing job at vocals! It was a great time and everyone enjoyed it.
Other than that this summer has been filled with great times with my best buddies, and a roller coaster of emotions. There were mostly good times, but a few tough and stressful times. And as I move forth into this new year of new experiences, I'm looking forward to growing more spiritually and emotionally and overall just as a person. We'll see how I turn out at the end of these two years. I'm sure if God keeps a hold of me, I'll be a much better person. God is faithful, so I have no worries. Anyways, I need to get ready for some pictures with my friends before I leave. Until next time.

Oh This Crazy Life!

Sometimes it's really easy to forget how absolutely crazy life can be!! with so much going on it's really hard to try to find time to just relax and be calm and not have a headache from stress! School being almost done, tomorrow my last diploma exam. as well as being a maid of honor at my cousins wedding, so a lot of planning with that. Then youth group at my church and trying to figure out with college next year and interviewing and job shadowing and work. Sheesh! the list goes on!! With all my day to day stresses it's easy to forget to "Be Still and know that i am God." Be still, relaxed, at ease, unstressed and know and believe that he is who he says he is. He is in all control and he will be faithful. I heard a really neat saying once. The common phrase people say today is "Don't just stand there, Do something!" what we all really need to know is that sometimes we need to say " Don't just Do something, Stand there!" we tend to fill our time with useless stuff to just get our mind off the busy activites of our day to day lives. Sometimes, we just need to Be Still and wait for God's direction. We actually had a really neat sermon in church this morning about whether we just Cope, or whether we conquer (Based on Saul's reaction to strife in 1 Samuel 28 and then David's reaction to strife in 1 Samuel 30). In 1 Samuel 28 we saw how Saul Sought after God. There was no relationship involved. Saul just sought. When Saul believed that God hadn't told him the answer of what was needed to be done, he sought help outside of God, thus coping with the problem on his own Strength. What saul didn't recognize was how God already told him what needed to be done about 5 chapters earlier. Because of Saul relying on his own strength, he was defeated in battle and greatly distressed. That is an example of just Coping when things in life get distressful. Our speaker today then went to give the example of how David didn't cope, he conquered. David returned home from battle (1 sam. 30) to find that the Amalekites had raided their home and taken their wives and children and everything and also burned their houses to the ground. I can't imagine the feeling of desperation he felt then and how tempted i would be to rely on my own strength (foolishly). Instead David "found strength in the Lord"(vs. 6) and inquired of him asking whether or not God wanted him to pursue the Amalekites and overtake them. God told David to overtake the Amalekites and so David did and by God's strength the Amalekites were defeated and David and his tribe recieved back their women and their children and all the members of the tribe, even the livestock. Nothing was lacking from what was taken from them. God is faithful and he wants to be our strength. When we find strength in the Lord, what can conquer us? God is on our side! even when life gets so crazy and overwhelming that you just want to cry, God is our strength, and he always will be if we just find our strength in him! hurrah!

The Love of God

Tonight was a very interesting night at bible study. One of the things we were talking about was loving your neighbor as yourself, one of the two greatest commandments. One of the main things my youth pastor was talking about was getting past that initial first image of someone and really seeing them as a child of God and realizing that hey, God loves them just as much as he loves me, or Billy Graham, or even John the baptist. Why can't i do the same? Too often are we stuck on the initial appearance of someone whether you see their cocky attitude, their body size, their handicap whatever it is. It's so sad that appearance is what hinders us from truly loving and reaching out to the hurting around us. Not only their appearance, but too often we worry about our appearance. We take our sacrifices into consideration rather than the sacrifice the other person will have to make for not hearing the wonderful news of Jesus! We need to just break down those barriers and forget about what others will think about us if we show the love of God. Which brings me to another point. We are always so worried about what others will think if we help that handicapped person or really take time to listen to someone who's hurting. But really, if we do help that person, most likely the observer will be more likely to admire or be totally impacted by those actions than they would be to make fun or think any less of you. Just by showing the love of God to that one person you help, anyone who sees that action also gets a glimpse of how vast and incredible the love of God really is! We need to be forced out of our comfort zones and really reach out to those in need. Without being forced out of our comfort zones, we begin to wallow in the area of self. And personally, i do not want to be in my own little selfish world. I want life to be about God and spreading his amazing love! How deep, how wide, how vast and incredible is the love of God that he died for us all! Every single person out there. Unfathomable, unbelievable, but very true!! How Great is our God!

Blog eh?

So this is the first entry of the first blog. I never know what to write in these things. Maybe, perhaps, an interesting story that i could tell? i do have a good one! it's a good way to break the ice that's for sure!
In the beginning of July this year, i was able to go on a missions trip to Seattle Washington with a youth group i attend. The second day into the trip, we were in Vancouver BC. As a group outing we thought it would be great to go to the ocean and wade around. So we had a great time wading way out into the ocean as it was low tide, chasing crabs, finding shells and whatnot. It was a great day! but much to my discontent, three days later, i started to develop big itchy red bumps on my legs from the knee down! Also known as swimmers itch. Now, one thing about swimmers itch is it's only supposed to last for a week at the longest. So i was a little relieved thinking it would go away in a week. After all, they were about the size of quarters and unbelievably itchy! anyways, Here i am, on November first with these ridiculous swimmers itch bites on my legs still! Why didn't i go to the doctor's you ask? oh but i did! about a month ago! that's the funny part of my story. So i was sitting in the doctor's office that day waiting to get these bites or whatever checked out. When the doctor gave me my prescription, i went to the pharmacy next door and handed the pharmacist my paper. He looked at it, looked at me, gave me a really strange looked and asked "Is this for you?" and i looked at him a bit puzzled and told him that it was. And he said "Okay, i was just wondering because...it's also known as diaper rash creme." Talk about embarrassing! I found myself trying to explain to someone my swimmers itch, whom I'm pretty sure only thought that i made up the story to try to cover up my embarrassment. I hope it'll be a long while before i have to go in there again that's for sure!
So that's my opening story for this blog! as for something to close with? not a whole lot to really say! Toodles!