in the hands of the archer...

"Patience is more than endurance. A saint's life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, and he stretches and strains, and every now and again the saint says - "I cannot stand anymore." God does not heed, He goes on stretching till His purpose is in sight, then He lets fly. Trust yourself in God's hands."

~ Oswald Chambers

I found that quote about two summers ago when life was harder than I ever could have imagined it would be. It blessed me so much knowing that I was an arrow in the Lord's hands and the reason I was hurting so much was only because I have an amazing Father who loves me more than I could ever imagine, and He was just making me like Him. Since the worse day ever last week, life has been so much better! SO much better! It's still hard, but I am trying to make the best of life! My life changing decision (more to come on this later) has really changed my life and I have been super scatter brained, but that's okay since it makes life interesting! The biggest thing I'm having a struggle with right now is my health... I have stomach ulcers, and we believe they might be bleeding and they hurt SO bad! I didn't know that a stomach could hurt so bad!

What has been so fascinating to me the past couple of months is to look back and see how absolutely amazing God's plan for my life is! Even through the times that hurt more than I thought I could stand... I grew so much and as I look back, I KNOW that I needed to go through that! One of the things that has blessed me more than anything else is to look for the silver lining to every cloud! Even in having ulcers I managed to find something! You can always find the silver lining... no matter how dark the storm!!

whew... what a day!

This was one of those days that makes me grateful to know that all trials are to refine and make me over in God's image. I have been learning through several really hard lessons that it is not physically possible for me to do everything! I bit off way more than I could ever hope to chew this semester... and I have been feeling overwhelmed, and so discouraged! I am usually a happy, pleasant person, but I have been bawling my eyes out for the past week and feeling so depressed!

Today was just about the worst day ever! I woke up late, had to do a huge assignment, couldn't figure out how to do half the problems, was 15 minutes late for class, couldn't figure out the melodies to write in aural skills, had my first piano lesson this semester with my really strange teacher who made me feel like I couldn't play the piano at all, just about froze to death outside, had to carry my huge guitar around all day, and felt like bursting into tears all day long! I came home and had about 1/2 hour before I had to teach piano and I just burst into tears telling my mom everything that was going wrong in my life (thanks for listening mom :). I felt so much better after and we decided how I could lighten my load a little so I didn't feel so totally overloaded.

Through this I learned several important lessons...
1) you have to PUT GOD FIRST! When the first thing I do in the morning is pray and read my scriptures, my day goes a whole lot better!

2) I don't have to be the best at everything, or anything for that matter! I just need to be MY BEST... something totally different than being THE best.

3) carefully ANALYZE your schedule and and make sure it is feasible (16 credits, 16 piano students and 3 different instruments along with practicing isn't the most well thought out plan! ;)

4) when you are totally overwhelmed... pray to God for help and peace, and then GO AND DO something for someone else! Spending an afternoon teaching kids how to make music really helped me forget about my petty trials and think about someone else for a moment! Service is really the best medicine ever!

new year's resolutions

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Sorry I'm posting these late... I started school last week and I have one humdinger of a schedule!! I also made a huge life changing decision that has made me have a really hard week! Anyway, here are my new year's resolutions for 2009! I usually set resolutions, but I haven't always been so good at keeping them! I'm doing a lot of praying and working on these, and I hope that I can see improvement over the year! I'll be posting a little about each resolution, why I decided on a particular resolution, and a little bit about what I'm learning, or seeing happening in myself.

2009 New Year's Resolutions

* be cheerful and pleasant all the time. Smile when I don't feel like it.
* stop procrastinating, made realistic to-do lists. Use time wisely.
* be grateful. write daily in my Gratitude Journal and see the Lord's hand in everything!
* no criticizing others or their actions.
* learn to LOVE unconditionally.
* go to bed at 9-10 and wake up at 5.
* do morning routine (exercise, scripture study, room check, etc.)
* don't take long in the bathroom! (15 min. in morning, 5-10 min. at night)
* don't pick at my lips or sores (gross I know, but it's a nervous habit!)
* don't complain! Learn to be happy NO MATTER WHAT!
* get rid of angry heart.
* read entire standard works (bible, triple combination)
* be sure to pray at least twice a day.
* read scriptures and write in journal everyday!

TODAY

today I did about 10,000 batches of laundry! I didn't know it was possible to do that many in one day! All my clothes (and everyone else's) are clean, except the ones we wore today! WOO-HOO!

today I milked both morning and night, and about froze both times! I thought that I was going to die from being frozen to death (not really, but almost)!

today I did most of my mending! I mended 3 skirts, 1 jumper, 1 sweater and 1 shirt (you can tell what I wear most of the time!). Oh boy, it feels so good to have that done!

today I actually made my bed! WHOOP-DE-DO!

today my little brother made me laugh when he said (in response to me saying "stir those eggs with slow motions) "but mom says that I can stir with FAST EMOTIONS!!" HA HA, don't you love kids!?

today I listened to the music from "A BRAND NEW YEAR" pretty much all day! Boy do I love that music!! (you can listen to it too if you go to abrandnewyear.lds.org :)

today was a good day to be alive!!

cleaning out my closet

Now this is super embarrassing, but since this is something I've been doing during the Holiday break I decided to post it (plus the difference is amazing!). Now I'm not a slob, I'm usually extremely neat and tidy, but I really didn't have time to do much of anything during this last semester, including keeping my room very clean! All I did in my room was sleep because I was so busy with school, church, teaching piano, etc.

I hate living in a mess, so the first thing that I did when school was out was get to cleaning my room! I finally finished last night, and one of my new year's resolutions is to ALWAYS PUT THINGS WHERE THEY BELONG!!

Here's the BEFORE picture, it's disgusting, just to warn you! I got rid of so much, why keep it if I never use it!?


Here is the after picture, I can't believe that I lived with my closet such a mess for so long! BUT from now on, it's going to stay exceptionally clean!