Awakening

I have come to a realization. It has opened my eyes and has made me come to what I would like to call a personal awakening.

It all started in our chapel service on Wednesday. At ETBU, we are required to go to chapel, a 50 minute worship time on Mondays and Wednesdays. As we were singing, I was jolted by a sudden rush of emotion and passion. I was finally singing to a God that was touching me as I sang. I'm not saying that I have never sung to Him...but it has been a while since I have felt this strong sense of love, passion, and submission. As I sang, I realized that I have been far from Him. Yes, I have been leading bible studies and being active in the church...but my personal walk has sucked. My prayer life and time in the Word has suffered for the past year and a half. At this point, after feeling very down and depressed for the past weeks, I have repented to the God that I have selfishly neglected.

This brings me to tonight. If you have known me for more than three years, you would know that I have been an incredibly optimistic and bubbly person. However, the past year and a half I have been quite the opposite. I have been negative, easily depressed, and very closed off. Tonight as I was talking to one of Tim's friends, Andy, and I realized the reason for my lack of optimism and feelings of sadness have been to the lack of relationship I have mentioned previously. From my freshman year in high school to my freshman year in college it was rare that I missed a day in the Word and in prayer. Since coming to ETBU, I have been very inconsistent and my prayer life has been horrible. From realizing this, as mentioned previously, I know that I can be repaired. I have done this to myself and let Satan warp my optimism of life and Christ's joy in my heart. This is my awakening...things are about to change.

In other news, my parents are coming in town tomorrow and I am excited to see them! I am sad that I won't be making the trip to my Granny and Papa's, I miss my family very much. Granny and Papa, if you read this, I love y'all very much and I am sad that we won't be able to come in. We have a wedding tomorrow and we will be spending Easter here.

I will get my cd of wedding pictures tomorrow when my parents come in. I have not recieved my album yet after 9 months...so they are compensating by giving me the cd of pictures before I get my album...so I am excited. Perhaps I will share a few photos here!

Happy Easter!

World's Worst Blogger

I am the world's worst blogger! So much has been going on, I just haven't found the time to write. I don't even know what to write really. I guess I will just start.

One accomplishment I have achieved is that I was inducted into Alpha Chi, the top honors fraternity on campus. So, that was pretty neat and I feel like it was a good way to celebrate my hard work!

I cannot believe that I am down to two semesters of school! Well, actually I have four weeks of classes and finals...but after that...two more! I only have one more semester of classes and then the next semester is student teaching...wow! It is crazy how close it is...I know it may feel like it's been forever sometimes, but in retrospect it's really has flown by.

Today I was encouraged by the teacher I have been interning with. She told me she talked to our principal and told her that I was a fantastic intern and that they should keep me around Crockett when I graduate! While we have no current plans to stay here, it was still very exciting to me that my teacher had those nice things to say about me. I only have two weeks left in her class after this week, and I am really sad. I have really started to get to know these kids and they are an oddly wonderful and well behaved class. I am going to miss them so much!

My Dallas Stars playoff dreams for this season are slowly dying...sad day.

Tim and I are doing great. Even though life happens and its not always good, I always have Tim and he always has me. I like this marriage thing.

I have my biggest section of my paper due in two weeks and I can't get writing on it until next week. So, pray that it will go well for me! Also, I have many small assignments, projects, quizzes, and tests coming so keep me in your prayers!

I will try to write more often...

I see I'm Not the Only One

I see I'm not the only one who is busy! We all seem to stink at updating these blogs lately.

Today I enjoyed a day off from classes! I usually have my internship at Crockett Elementary, but it was TAKS reading day and we aren't allowed in the rooms...so I got to sleep in! My aerobics class is over, so I had nothing today but working out and work. It was nice. I'm at work right now and it's slowed down a lot, so I am enjoying a few minutes of down time.

I finished my literature review for my research paper! JOY! That is probably the hardest part of this big paper that I am writing and I am proud to say that I have 9 pages down...mean I'm about 1/3 of the way finished! Woohoo!

This weekend is Natalie and Charlie's wedding! I'm excited for them! Plus, that means we will get to go home and spend time with my family which is always awesome. Jeff and Sarah are staying at my parents house so we will just have a big party!

Life is busy right now, but it's good! Crossroad's Youth stuff is going great and Tim and I are having a blast working with the youth with Jeff and Sarah.

I wrote a Book called "Don't Go in Bubba's Room." When I was little, I told my sunday school teacher that one of the 10 commandments was "Don't Go in Bubba's Room." So, because we had to write a book that gets published into a real book, I wrote about that and had my Bubba, Jeff, do the illustrations! It is awesome! Jeff did a great job with the pictures and I can't wait to get it in book form!

I guess I will end here...and enjoy my sweet tarts :-)

Barfday weekend haha

Tim and I came home this weekend for my birthday. The big 21...except not so big, haha just another number. Anyways, Friday we left at noon to go get my hair high lighted by Sharon. We were a bit late because of traffic but we made it and I love my new hair! When we got to my house, my parents were just getting home-good timing. We went to eat at Italy II and it was amazing...it's my birthday choice...of course we went there. Then we just hung out the rest of the night.

Today was an interesting one! First, my mom and I were trying to get my vehicle registration sticker that expires this month. When I went to get my insurance card, we realized that I still had the temporary one they sent us that expired in OCTOBER! So, Tim and I have been driving with expired insurance for about six months. Anyways, so we called State Farm and they were going to fax it to us. So we went up to my mom's work and her key wasn't working. So, we couldn't get the fax. Luckily, the security guard had a key to get her in. Surprise, surprise the fax wasn't there. So, we called again and they refaxed it and we got it. We went up to Tom Thumb to get my registration. We get up there are the fax had only given the last six digits of my VIN number. We thought she wasn't going to let us get the sticker, but she called State Farm to verify. When she called, they only had access to the last six digits. Somehow, they put her on hold and found it therefore we FINALLY got the sticker. Then, we went to pick up my cake! It is the kind I had at my wedding- white cake with strawberry filling but it's decorated in pink and brown! We came home and ate Bueno and watched the Stars (perfect birthday). We went to Academy to get me some new shoes and I came out with some cute and affordable Nikes AND a Mike Modano shirt!! EXCITING! We then proceeded to go to Chili's to treat my parents to a meal. We had some barfday fun ;-)

I love coming home to see my parents. It is always so relaxing and we have a great time. In the morning we are leaving at 7 to drive back to Marshall to hear Jeff preach. It is going to be another fun day with the fam! My 21st birthday could not have been spent any better way!

Mawiage

So, as mentioned in the previous post, Tim and I attended a marriage conference for our Valentine's celebration. Some people may think that counseling and conferences are just for people who are struggling, but they're not. Well, I think it's safe to say that we are all struggling sometimes and we all feel screwed up, but conferences and counseling are really for just improving no matter where you may be at in your relationship.

Anyways, Tim and I had a great time. We learned so much that it would take an incredibly long post to type it all. The speaker was Ken Brumley- he's great. We learned a lot about how to prevent certain mistakes from happening, how to communicate better, how to resolve, and how to show love more fully. All of this tied into scripture. Tim and I both feel that we have learned a lot and will use a lot of the strategies and advice that we were given.

There was a particular thing Ken talked about that was called the "un's." These are things that begin with un like unresolved, unappreciated, unfaithful, etc. A struggle that we have has been leaving "un's" unfinished. Sometimes we just just leave arguments and issues unresolved and there is no closure which can come back to haunt us in the end. So, that's something we are working on. .

There was a beautiful banquet to end the conference and Tim and I were playing the Newlywed-Trulywed game. Our church took the youngest two couples and the oldest two couples and we palyed. Tim and I won! We had a tie breaker against the longest married couple and we won! It was fun to see how much we really new about each other. We had practiced the night and day before asking each other random questions so we could be prepared. We thought we were ready, but none of the questions that we practiced were in the game. However, we pulled through to win! The best part of this was that we had so much fun "exploring" each other. We got have fun asking silly questions and getting to know each other even more. Ken talked about this, and it's a good practice to have. He says that we never get tired of being "explored." We all like to talk about ourselves and we like to see that someone is interested in us. So, we are going to try to do that more often, it's very fun you should try it! Anyways, our reward was a $50 gift card to Cafe Italia here in Marshall! It was exciting!

Pray for my Granny, she had surgery on Friday. I love you Granny!

It's about time

My Granny and Papa say I don't update my blog enough...which is true.

I really don't know where to start. Classes are going pretty well. I am doing well, however, I am busy basically all the time. My days are completely full of classes and work. My internship at the school is going great, and I am feeling confident that I will be able to be a great teacher. I know the first year will be hard, but I feel very natural and comfortable when I am in the classroom.

Last weekend, Tim and I were leaders at a Disciple Now in Tatum. I had a great time leading the high school girls. We had good discussion, fun getting to know each other, and had some adventures along the way. I am getting so re-energized and ready to have our own ministry again. In the meantime, we have been helping at Crossroads with Jeff and Sarah. I am extremely excited because I am going to start leading the high school girls on Wednesday nights. It feels so good to be used again!

This weekend, we are going to a marriage conference for Valentine's Day. I am excited! Instead of spending $50 on flowers, chocolates, dinner, overpriced everything...we are going to learn how to strengthen our marriage in Christ! I'm pretty sure that outweighs $20 roses! We will be with almost 50 other couples from our church and I think it's going to be really good.

We are going to Arlingfun next weekend for my birthday. I am getting my hair highlighted by Sharon! I feel like I need a change, and I thought this would be a fun way to do it! I haven't died my hair in a long time!

Tim is outside shaving his head, and he is about to need my help, so I am signing off because I am rambling.

Her name is Jenni!

I started my internship at the elementary school this week. It has been good. Tuesday I was in a second grade class, and I wanted to be in a third or fourth so a girl and I switched so now I am in third grade! I loved Thursday's class so much! The kids were so sweet and their teacher has wonderful classroom management. She did say this was a uniquely obedient class, but still this teacher is good at her management. I was talking to a student in the morning and she said, "My name is Gabrielle but I go by Gabby because I don't like the name Gabrielle." I found common ground and said, "I know how you feel, my name is Jennifer, but I like people to call me Jenni." So, the whole class the was whispering to her friends, "Her name is Jenni!" She felt special because she knew my first name instead of Mrs. Darst. I was able to read to them and observe reading and math. I enjoyed it a lot!

I was excited when I got my internship badge because it said Mrs. Darst! I haven't been able to use that name yet and now I do! It's exciting!

I guess I haven't updated in a while...so for those of you who do not know, Tim and I have been married now for six months! It's so wonderful!! I love him and he is my breath of fresh air after a long day of school, internships, and work! I love him so much!

On a much sadder note, a girl from the education department was killed in a car accident yesterday morning. She was in a few of my classes throughout my time here at ETBU. She was on her way to a school to do her student teaching and a truck had a blowout and hit her car and she died at the scene. It was so heartbreaking because not only is that tragic, but she is someone who I have interacted with and been around. She was the sweetest girl, a bit shy, but had an incredibly huge heart. I have a hard time understanding why. Anytime things like this happen, I struggle with what God wants to use this for. I mean, she was a senior, almost graduated, she was going to be a choir teacher, she had so much going for her, but God didn't intend on what we thought her future would be. What is even worse is that there was no speeding, alcohol, or anything wrong involved with the accident...it was all due to a blown tire and loss of control of the truck that hit her headon. It's a stupid accident. I can't imagine being in her parents place...getting a phone call that their daughter was taken from them. I know God always gets the glory and that He is always in control but sometimes it's just hard to see. Pray for their family.