Positive Pact, And Thoughts Back

So this week a couple of my friends and I made a pact to be more positive. Now if you know me, you would know that I can be a bit of a Negative Nelly. I've always been told to turn a negative into a positive, but I've always struggled with that. I've been thinking back a lot lately, and going through all my years of school, going through all the negatives, I have found a lot of hidden positives.

Sunday School: Sunday school was the first school that I went to. Back then it was a negative. I had to wake up early, spend time with kids that I didn't know very well, and learn about some guy named Jesus and at the time I was convinced he was a zombie. Little did I know, this Jesus zombie man was the most important man in my life, he was my God and Savior.

Preschool: Hated it, just hated it. I went to a Christian preschool, still thought Jesus was a zombie, and only had one friend. Once again I didn't know that this friend was going to be one of the people that helped bring me out of the darkest time in my life.

Elementary School: Once again didn't like it. I wasn't very popular, didn't have very many friends, struggled with grades, and just didn't like it at all. I had left the church by the 3rd grade, and just hated school. Again, these next few years are years that will change and influence me for the rest of my life.

Upper Elementary School: This was the hardest time in my life. By the 4th grade I had lost a lot of my friends, thankfully I made new ones, I was struggling with myself and who I was, I went through many years of depression and suicidal thoughts, and just struggled in general. The great thing about it was remember those friends from preschool? Well they came back into my life and brought me back to church.

Jr High School: Jr high I still struggled with my depression and suicide, but those were the years that I came out of it. Those were the years that I figured out who I was, what I wanted, and who my real friends were. That was the time that I grew closer to my friends, but more importantly my faith developed, and I became a strong believer in Christ, the man who saved my life.

High School: I still struggle, I really do, its still difficult but coming out of all those negatives, knowing that hopefully I've been through the toughest negative I'll have for a while gives me the confidence to get out of all my other negatives. I'm blessed with amazing friends, an amazing church, and an amazing relationship with Christ.

I guess what I'm trying to say is life's full of negatives, and you'll always have them, but somewhere in the negative there is always a positive, you may not realize it at the time, but later on you will.

"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Concerts, Visits, And Adventures

So uhm I pretty much had the best and most packed weekend ever. I spent all of it with my youth group (again) and had so much fun!

So Stephen, who was supposed to visit Friday, gave us a surprise visit on Wednesday! That was great. Then on Friday we went to a place called Sky Walk which is like an entire room full of trampolines. We had a great time and hung out after. We sang obnoxious songs, danced while in the car, yelled at people, and were just all together crazy.

Saturday the Newsboys came to my town and my friend and I went to see them. My friend is in love with the lead singer Michael Tait. It was an amazing concert. We had front row seats, we touched one of the guys from Anthem Lights, we held Abandons guitar, and we could smell Michael Tait as he walked by. It was an amazing performance and the bands were great.

Sunday we had our usual shenanigans. Went to lunch, traveled all around town, got yelled at for running while in Toys R Us, and really never knew where we were going half the time. We found some free stuff on the side of the road so we picked it up and put it on our friends porch rang the doorbell and left. It was very entertaining to us.

There is one very interesting thing that I learned today. One of my good friends actually doesn't like to be touched. Now if you know me, you would know that I am a very touchy person, overwhelmingly, and awkwardly. Now its not in like a creeper way its more of a loving way. This was a huge surprise to me, but she said something very encouraging to me. She said, "Chlels, I actually don't like to be touched, but I let you because I love you, and I know it makes you comfortable." Uhm how amazing is that?! Only a real friend would do that. Real friends accept all your strangeness because that is how much they love you. Being blessed with a friend that is willing to feel uncomfortable to make sure that I'm comfortable, that is rare.





Amazing weekend, amazing friends, I'm just so blessed.

Sunday Shenanigans

Oh Sundays I love you so freaking much! I know that today is actually Monday but I'm going to talk about both days! Yay double post!

Sunday: Sunday consisted of me sleeping in because I had just gotten back from Magic Mountain. Which means I missed church, but it was ok because I had just gone to Magic Mountain! Thank goodness though My friends Emily and Hunter picked me up and once again we hung out all day. After, we played another night game and to Fro Yo! We also danced in the parking lot for at least an hour, crammed 12 people into a 5 person car and sang Don't Stop Believing at the top of our lungs, yelled at a guy with the coolest bike ever, and started a Conga Line! It was seriously the most amazing thing ever.

Monday: Monday consisted of an amazing bike ride. Lots of people showed up, we got food, we went to parks, we got coffee, we ran into lots of random people we knew, and we just hung out all day. The bike ride was a success.




Overall this was an Amazing weekend. I went to Magic Mountain, hug out with my youth group all weekend, and didn't care about anything but them. Unfortunately I should have done my homework, but I don't regret it.

Paint The Town Red!

So I had another amazing Sunday! I pretty much litterally spent all of it with either all of my youth group, or a few people from my youth group. To be honest it was one of the best days I've had in a long time.

It started out with church, the once place I love more than the couch. We went through a maze to learn about leadership, and that somehow all of us have the ability to lead. Super awesome way to learn I must say. As usual we all went to lunch after, I love food, its amazing. But, even better, after lunch 3 of my favorite people and I hung out for literally all day. We went to Starbucks, talked for hours. Wondered around town looking for a Merry Go Round so that we could "Relive our childhood." Literally we went all over town stopping at the most random places and just hanging out. My friend explained it as we "Painted the town red." Then after an amazing afternoon with them, all of the youth group met up to play some night games and get some delicious frozen yogurt! It was just so perfect! All together I spent 12 hours with 3 of them, and probably over 4 with everyone else. It was seriously one of the best days I've had in such a long time.


I know I say it all the time, and you guys are probably so annoyed with all my "I love my youth group so much!" Blogs but I honestly don't care! When you love something, you show it and that's exactly what I'm doing. I love my youth group and all the time we spend together, and how they are literally my only real friends. I'm blessed to have all of them in my life! All day with the most amazing people in the world, It was perfect.

We Love And We Unite

Ok, I'm sorry for that really weird title, I couldn't really think of one because this post will be a special surprise 2 in one post. Yay! Ok so lets start with this one because its shorter.

We Unite

So, if you know my youth group, you would know that we have a ton of different fun and funky corks whether it be a persons laugh, or the way we say amen after we pray. Lately, we've been holding hands while we pray. I know some people do this, but we've never really done it before, and I must say that I really like it. I do this weird thing when I hold hands though, I tend to stroke their hand with my thumb. I know it sounds super weird but it soothes me. I also do this thing where I take their hand and put it up to my forehead, I don't know why I do it, I just do. But anyway we were holding hands and praying and I was stroking their hand, and when we said amen I put their hand to my forehead. Now you see, normal people would freak out and think that was completely weird, but instead of looking up to a horrified face, I looked up to a smiling face. You could tell this smile was a "I know most people would think this is weird, but I love it with all my heart" Type of smile. I mean how much more blessed could I get?

We Love

"We love because he first loved us" -1 John 4:19. Have you heard that verse? If you haven't let that sink in for a second. I mean I strongly believe that. If you knew me before I was a strong believer in Christ, you would know that I was completely  NOT loving AT ALL. If you look at me now you would think that my love is obnoxious. See, when I wasn't a strong believer, actually I wasn't even a believer at all. So, when I wasn't a believer, I didn't show love because I really didn't know what it was. I wasn't really shown love, I mean yes of course my family showed me love, but I didn't really think of it as love. It wasn't until I was truly shown Gods love both directly from what I've learned and what he's done for me, but also indirectly through people. My youth group was really the first people to ever show me what real love was, and how to really love a person. I walked in, and the first thing I felt was a big wave of love, and I still walk in and feel that. Now I can't hold that love back, its why I'm so annoying about it. We really don't know what love is until we see Gods love, and with out seeing his love, we can't truly love. "We love because he first loved us." Its that simple. 

How Far We've Come

Don't you just love those nights when you lay in bed and realize how far you've come in life compared to last year or for me, 3 years ago. I mean just sitting there realizing that a few years ago you were laying in bed hoping that you wouldn't wake up the next day, but now your praying that you get the blessing of waking up and showing people love. Sitting there remembering all the struggles you went through and finally pinpointing the exact breaking point in your life that changed you. I mean I remember the exact moment when I broke down and prayed for the first time in 4 years. Breaking down and bursting into tears, praying for the first time, and then having all these overwhelming emotions. That just blows my mind! I'm just so amazed at how far we can come and how much we can change. Realizing the breaking point remembering that first prayer like you had just said it yesterday, knowing you'll never go back, and being blown away by how for you've came. Amazing.

Disappointment

I hate disappointment. I hate disappointing other people, and just as bad I hate disappointing myself. Over the past few weeks thats been happening, and its been rough. The worst part is, the people I disappoint are the last people I want to do that to. Its upsetting, and things like this always happen to me so I should be used to it but I'm not. If you could get a medal for disappointing people, I would win. I'm sorry for not only disappointing myself, but more importantly I'm sorry for disappointing you.