30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 30

Day 30: A Picture

This picture was taken last week at a ceremony honoring my dad's father, who was killed in Vietnam on March 19, 1969. The next year, MCLB Albany dedicated the mess hall to him, and this plaque was put on the building. A couple years ago, the base decided to tear down the mess hall and the surrounding buildings to erect new barracks. They once again asked my family if they could dedicate this new building to Floyd Milton Keefe. 

Now this same plaque will be on the new barracks, and it will always stand in memory of this grandfather that I never got the chance to meet. It means a lot to our family that they think highly enough of his service and sacrifice to put our family's name on a building for everyone on base to see!

My God is a God Who HEARS

I'm a dreamer. Literally. When I close my eyes at night, my brain takes me into another world. I have the most wonderfully vivid dreams. The kind where you wake up either laughing, scared to death, or wondering which is real- the dream or you waking up from it. Most of the time, I love these dreams. I always remember them, so they make for some awesome stories- like me and Sara being best friends with the Jonas brothers, or Wesley and Nathan serenading me. 


The downside to these dreams are the ones that make me wake up and wish I hadn't. For the past year, I have been dealing with dreams that center on my love for Caleb and how lonely I am without him. Because the dreams are so vivid, I can't shake them when I wake up. I remember how I feel in my dreams- how I feel when he tells me he loves me, how he never should have left, and how he'll spend his life making it up to me. I dream the most amazing and romantic moments, then wake up to find myself alone in my bed, crying over what isn't real. It is hard. It is depressing and hard to bounce back from, so I spend the rest of the day in a fog, not really seeing or hearing anything around me. 


A year of this has been one of the most difficult things to deal with, and about a week and a half ago, I completely broke down while getting ready for bed. I had just had another dream the night before, and it was a really bad one. The whole day, I had just been bogged down by it and couldn't seem to rise above it. Instead of just feeling sorry for myself and succumbing to sleep and, more than likely, another dream, I decided to reach out to someone. 


My Ivy. My prayer warrior. Whenever I need something, she is there. No judgement, not many questions, just an unconditional and immediate "yes" when I ask her to pray for me. On this night, I poured my broken little heart out to her, knowing she would say something I needed to hear. And she didn't let me down:


"The only thing I know is to tell you to stay in the Word. Eat it. Especially before you sleep....it's hard. So hard for me. I think that's when he tells us to take every thought captive...replace those thoughts with His truth. Satan will hate that."


I hope she doesn't mind me sharing her words! When she said "take every thought captive," I knew I needed to hear that. I grabbed my Bible and looked up the passage: 


"We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ (2 Cor. 10:5)."


Ivy and I had this conversation early in the morning on March 11. I went to sleep a little while later, all the while repeating "take every thought captive," praying that my slumber would be different. 


It was. And now it is March 21- TEN DAYS later- and I have not had one of those dreams since. It has been glorious. Repeating those words, "take every thought captive," has been the best decision I have made in a long time. I am so incredibly thankful to my Jesus for taking away the dreams, even if it is just for a short time. Even if the dreams come back tonight, after I post this, I know He hears me. I know He loves me. And I know He sent me people like my precious Ivy to help me. 

30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 29

You Ain't Never Had a Friend Like Me!

Day 29: Three Wishes 


Some of these topics really make you think, huh? If I had three wishes, what would they be? I know I should probably be awesome and use all of the to better the world, but humans are selfish. More than likely, I wouldn't use them (or at least all of them) for things like that. So here we go: the three things I would wish for right at this moment. 

1) Love. Of course, this is if these three wishes don't abide by Genie's "I can't make anyone fall in love with anyone else." Although that isn't really what I am going for here. This wish would be for love to come in my life SOON. If I could actually wish something, it'd be more specific, but we'll just be general for this post.

2) To be a famous and rich singer. This is my dream, so if I have 3 wishes, I am totally using one to make my dreams come true! Then I could use the money to buy things for my favorite people and charities and such.

3) To be able to eat anything and everything I want without gaining ANY weight! I love food. It isn't a secret. It would be awesome to be able to eat Chickfila, girl scout cookies, sweet tea, pizza, etc. without feeling guilty about eating unhealthy food. 

Now, I'm going to go search for magic lamps in hopes of finding my very own genie :) 

30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 28

Day 28: Something That Stresses You Out


When I read the topic for today, I said "How much time do you have?!" I stress out about everything. It's really bad. So, I guess I'm just going to talk about something that stresses me out on a daily basis: school. 


I get stresses out by little things, but the mostly about school and where I am going in life. I stress about my homework, my TA work, getting a TA job next semester, my papers, etc. Basically everything that deals with school. 


I know that answer is really cliche, but as a grad student, there isn't too much else in my life! And I'm not going to discuss it further, because thinking about it will stress me out :) 

30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 27

Day 27: Your Pets!

I am a HUGE animal lover. I miss my pets so much when I am at college. You may think it is crazy, but I know they miss me, too! So here are my three favorite animals.

This is my puppy, Buck. He was my 15th birthday present :) I love this dog more than anything else in the world! When I am home, he sleeps in my room. When I'm gone, he sleeps outside my door and pouts.

This is the adorable Little Bob. He is my puppy's best friend. He is half bobcat and has a tiny little broken tail. He wouldn't come near us until 2 1/2 years ago, when he got really sick. After my parents took him to the vet, he decided to make it his life mission to be an inside kitty.

My other pet is Butterball, who I sadly do not have a picture of on my new computer. She is around 14 years old and is a long, skinny, black thing! She belongs to my mother, and gets very jealous....she also doesn't like Little Bob very much!

And there you have it: my wonderful pets. I can't wait to see them!

30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 26

Day 26: A Picture of Your Family

My family: my daddy (Mike), my sister (Marie), and my mom (Brenda)

This is my family on Christmas Day at my dad's parents' house. Our yearly tradition, after opening gifts, is to take pictures in front of their beautifully decorated tree in as many combinations as we can make- our family, my aunt and cousin, my dad/his sister/parents, me/marie/charlie/grandparents, just the cousins, etc. Sometimes it is a little annoying to have to smile so much after waking up waaaay too early to breakfast, but we always come away with at least one picture to represent our year.