On School's out for the SUMMER

HECK YES!!!!!!!

enough said.

On Darin you better read this because I titled it just for you: This Beautiful Mess

I miss winter. Don't get me wrong I do love Spring, my tree is BEAutiful and the weather is oh so nice, but by the circle of life, Spring is also a time of change. Change, there has been quite a lot of that going on and with my OCD tendencies, I'm not especially good with change. This week has been pretty emotionally draining for me, I've pretty much been perpetually in tears. But I've now decided that I've been making things a lot more complicated than they need to be. it's really quite simple see I have zero control over any of it, so therefore I have to learn vulnerability... to trust, to lean, to allow God to continuing teaching me even through the hard times. Some of the change makes me sad, even though it is the right thing, so basically I don't know how I'm supposed to be feeling right now. However, despite the fact that I'm a COMPLETE MESS, I've decided to just praise God through it. I think He really loves that. So, in the next few days I'll probably be found either 1) crying my eyes out for no apparent reason or 2) running and dancing and singing and praising in the backyard under the sun with the dandelions. Yes you don't have to tell me, I know it doesn't make sense. God is using these hard times when I've slowed down, stopped, and looked around to really really romance my heart and hold my hand through all of it. He wants me to let Him be there for me. I think that 's really great. I could go on and on about the ways God has made the difficult moments so beautiful, (one example being an entire backyard full of white dandelions). So, I'm going to focus on joy, because without joy what do you have?? And as Lydia reminded me this morning: "Star people do not shed tears, but light."

Here I sigh with relief that God loves us beautiful messes (I actually know quite a few right now).

Sungirl

On lately

Hello dear ones, I'm sure you missed me. Well, maybe not since no one commented on my last post, that's perfectly okay though. I decided not to let my blog fizzle out, so I'm updating today. Let's see what's been going on in my life...

Hmmm... the Wednesday before Spring Break I gave my testimony for our church worship night with the youth. Being able to do that was an incredible blessing. The night focused in on how we are, always have been, and always will be God's beloved (the joy I get from knowing that, OH MY GOODNESS!!). Anyway, the whole thing was really cool, I think the best part was when I shared my Princess story that I posted a long time ago, people got it and that made me really excited.

Spring is here, (mostly) and I am overjoyed!!! The Lindsey Memorial Garden is in bloom, with little pink flowers on my weeping cherry tree and buds on the tulip plants. It is soooooo beautiful and it's making me so excited!!! I love love love spring, everything is green and new and there's a lot of other cliche statements that I could make about it, but just so you know, I love it.

A really major change is going to be happening in my life soon, that is Hannah and Jonathan (my pretend parents) are leaving in two weeks for their year long mission experience. I am going to miss the two of them SO MUCH. So, yes I've been pretty much an idiot to get so close to them, ha ha, but now I just adore them and will be so so so so so sad when they leave. Life will go on however ,I am building up a reservoir of good memories to have once they're gone.

I'm also very excited about the Florida trip this summer. No not really excited, more ecstatic!! I can't wait. It's going to be so nice to just get away from everything to focus on what God wants for my youth group, and to focus on loving others and growing with them. I am also curious to see how God will work in my life while we're there and in the lives of everyone else. I'm still growing growing growing everyday and it is awesome!! This week I am studying in Philippians and am curious to see where I'm led with that. No one's really missed much, my days are still filled with joy and peace and best of all love because "all you need is love" (The Beatles).

So, I wish you all amazing days, weeks, and months. And remember, "you're never fully dressed without a smile." Hmmm, I guess that means some of you are naked... AWKWARD!!!
Bye.

On "Oh my goodness I haven't posted since forever!!!"

It has certainly been awhile. I really am not sure what to write about. Well, how about I tell about me weekend last weekend. Here we go. I have wanted to go on a Chrysalis weekend since I was very young and saw all the teenagers in my mom and dad's group at Epworth go and come back so amazed and excited. I went in expecting the weekend to be a time of growth in Christ and fellowship with other strong believers. This was not really the case. It was a fun weekend; it was good to get out of the house for a while, however it was not at all what I was expecting. I think the weekend was especially hard for me just because I'm kind of shy around people I don't know, it's hard for me to open up. Once I know you, forget the shy part, I'll talk you're ear off, but I just have a really hard time with the whole "getting to know" people business. I only knew a couple of people there and (I'm going to say this without sounding hateful or prideful) I felt that I was one of the few young people there that were truly strong in their faith. We had talks about how Jesus loves us, how He wants a relationship with us, and how He can transform our lives. This transformation process has been my life for about two years now. They were good talks and it was cool to see how many people were allowing God to move them for the first time. However, most of the time, I kept thinking (selfishly) that I wished there could be a retreat for me. It wasn't until I got home that I realized hello, duh--I don't need a retreat, because what? God is growing me everyday at home. The realization of this made me feel a lot better.
One part of the weekend that was pretty awesome was the agape letters. If there had been any doubt that my love language was 'words of affirmation,' there's not anymore. Reading all those encouraging words was so neat! That hour that I sat on a hill reading all those notes, (bawling like a baby of course, because that's just what I do), was one of the times that I've felt God's love through other people the strongest.
Another way God has been really moving in my life lately, has been during our quiet time. Since Sunday when I told Darin that I wanted to give my testimony at church sometime, God has been filling my mind with the exact right words. I mean, it's my story so it's not like I need to memorize anything, but I feel that God wants me to focus (in my talk) less on my past like I had planned on doing, and more on our story and the love and joy that I have found in Him. At first, I said to Darin that I wasn't sure how soon I wanted to do this, but since I've prayed more about it, I can't wait!! I'm completely excited!
Okay, I'm pretty much done know, but PRAISE GOD for the snow!!!!!! I just love it. And I thought you all would like to know that last night (Thursday) I prayed hard that we wouldn't have school today, and we didn't, so your welcome to some of you. Well, have an absolutely positively fantastic day!!

On being busy, busy, busy

Hello Friends!!
I haven't written in a long while, so I thought I'd update a little. Let's see... Isn't it weird how nothing and everything can be happening at the same time? While you're in the moment, it seems like everything is happening, that there's so much going on, but then when you look back and think about what went on during those times, you think, huh nothing much has happened. Oh well, everything is good over here. I really want a snow day where there is actual snow!! That would be soooooo grand. School was absolutely crazy this week, I felt so busy. I missed two days last week because of my lethal cold, so this week I had a ton of stuff to make up. I was a little worried that I wasn't going to get it all done and was really really grumpy, but in the end I came out on top. God's good that way. For example, today I got the dreaded Chemistry test back. You see, being absent I had missed most of the notes for the section we were working on in Chemistry, so I had to teach myself most of the material. Then, when I had to make up the test on Wednesday, it was completely awful. I thought that I had done very badly. But today I got my grade back and B+!!!!!!! I'm so excited! I know that's a pretty dumb thing to be excited about, seeing as how in ten years its not going to matter what grade I got in Chemistry. However, I try to do well in school, so grades have their importance in my life. I'm just glad this week is over and that I'm all caught up. I've also been making progress with a special project (not for school) on my own. It's all very secret, so I can't disclose too much, but it's hard to keep my trap shut about it because I'm so thrilled.
Oh, by the way I've decided I'm going to start a New Year's resolution. I know that it's February and people don't really have New Year's resolutions in February, but I think this is important. It has come to my attention that I yammer on way too much. Just read my blog and you'll see what I'm talking about... ha ha wait... you are reading my blog ha ha. Anyway, I fing myself in many situations when I have to put my foot in my mouth. Now I thought, I either need to become more flexible or I need to quit letting my mouth get ahead of me. So, since I hate exercise, I'm going for the talking less and being careful option. I think that if I really work at it good will come of it. Ha ha "good will come of it," nobody talks like that anymore! I love saying stuff like that. Okay, so I guess I'm about done here. Have a fabulous week, day, evening, or whatever. Later.

On...ahhhh, I got nothing.

Hey kids, sorry its been awhile. There really hasn't been a whole lot to report. Well, there might be one thing, but I'm going to wait until after Monday to write about it because the whole situation is still awaitng a verdict. Anyway, everythings fine here. I'm listening to Mood Rings by Relient K, my dad is like in love with that song. He thinks it describes the females in my family or something...not really sure where he gets that from, ha ha. So, today I got to go with Hannah to a women's misson thing at Grace Baptist Church, because she was speaknig there. I somewhat successfully ran her power point. It was a pretty interesting morning... imust love her a lot to hove gotten up at 8:00 this Saturday morning!! Ha ha, now the song is Sadie Hawkins Dance. I guess I'm done. School is dumb, but it's the mission field God has me in now, so I'm gonna live with it. Oh and we are in the process of switching over to wow-way, so I'm going to have an email address now. Yeah, big exciting news right? Anyhow, it's gonna be this: asastarintheuniverse@wowway.com. Broken down for the simple man, that's "as a star in the universe" from Phillipians 2:15. Oh yeah, new picture, it's from Chirstmas at my grandma and grandpa's. "Baby do you like my sweater?"--sorry if you don't get that. Anyway, it's me and my uncle Matt's girlfriend Debbie there with me. How do you think I look as a blonde? Scary right? Later.

On a new year

Hello and welcome to the new year, 2008. Here's the host for today's show... Lindsey. I could probably write a million different cliche things about the beginning of a new year. It's a fresh start, you can turn over a new leaf, look ahead to what this year has in store. All of these things are true, but I get tired of hearing them, so I'll just fill everyone in on how my trip was.

I went up to Michigan again, but this time we stayed mostly with my mom's family. No uglydolls this time. By the way, I took that picture down after my friend Jaymen commented that he couldn't tell which one was me and which one was the ugly doll, ha ha. So instead I inserted a picture from the New Orleans trip. No tourists threw money at my feet, apparently I'm not a very good dancer. Anyway, my Christmas was grand. I was sick for a couple days which was kind of nightmarish, but I'm mostly better now. I won't be missing school (rats!) or anything. I got to spend a lot of time with my family just chilling in Holland, Michigan where there was, can you even believe it, SNOW!!!!!! I love snow. I got to go sledding!!! I wish it would snow here. I'd been praying and praying for snow before Christmas Break! Oh well, I guess I got my fix up there. Also, one of the days when we visited my dad's family, we went snow skiing. I'll wait a moment as you fall over with laughter trying to picture me skiing.

Are you finished? Good. All of the disasters you pictured probably happened, except no broken bones. Me skiing was basically like this: you know what babies are like when they first come out of the womb? There's a lot of flailing and they're covered with gunk. That was basically me except I had pointy objects coming out of my feet and the 'gunk' was actually just snow. Oh my it was quite an experience. I ended up having fun, but I 'm not sure I would exactly jump at the chance to do it again.

Okay, so it's 4:30 here and the sun is going down outside my window. Isn't that weird? During the winter, everything is crazy. I do love the cold weather, but I wish it wasn't so cold and windy right now, you can' even go walk around outside.

Alright, well I'm basically done for now. in case you're interested, I was pleased with the grades I got on my finals. I even survived the dreaded French exam. Thanks to everyone who helped out with my Journalism final story. I don;t now how well I did on that yet. Hopefully not too bad, my teacher seemed to like my writing. Anyway, have a great week or weekend rather since that's what's coming up soon. Be blessed. I can't wait to be with all my Newburgh friends, I've missed you all!