Ruin Me!

Ruin Me

--Jeff Johnson--

Woe to me I am unclean

A sinner found in Your presence

I see you seated on Your throne

Exalted, Your Glory surrounds You

Now the plans that I have made

Fail to compare when I see your glory

Ruin my life the plans I have made

Ruin desires for my own selfish gain

Destroy the idols that have taken Your place

'Till its You alone I live for, You alone I live for.

Holy Holy is the Lord Almighty

Holy is the Lord!
Holy Holy is the Lord Almighty

Holy is the Lord!

Be Ruined for Christ!

Dead Weight

One of the requirements for my COTA/L degree is to complete a 1 credit PE class. Easy enough, right? Only one hour, once a week. After talking with my advisor I decided to take the class next semester. However, after a week of classes, I'm thinking about making an appeal to the college; you see, I feel as though I'm getting my fair share of physical education this semester......7 credits worth, actually. Let me explain.......

Take this stack of books.....

...put them in this book bag...

...and this is what you get...

27 pounds!

It only took me the first 7 hour day of school to realize that I was getting plenty of physical exercise without the class :-) What do you think?

Back Porch Viewing

When you visit my grandparents house you often have the privilege of sitting on their porch while watching some sort of wildlife in their backyard. They often have deer, and sometimes turkeys wandering through their yard. Its very peaceful sitting there just watching; you can hear the drop of a pin.....





However, travel about 20 minutes west, and this is what you will find:





Oh no, we don't often have deer in our yard, and I don't think I've ever seen a turkey out my window. However, since two of our neighbors happen to be farmers this is the animal life you find in our yard......

Not quite as calm or peaceful. You can't hear the drop of a pin over, 'chomp, chomp, snort'. And if dad finds them in the yard, you can guarantee that he'll go running through the yard screaming something-or-other trying to get them to stop eating the apple tree. :-)

Focus, Kristin......Focus!

No more sitting around!

I've declared a major and laid out a plan.

On September 3rd, I'll be back in the college scene!

Excited and nervous.....Pray for me :-)

I'm Goin' Back!

Take Me Out to the Ball Game.........

Elizabeth and I spent Sunday evening at an Altoona Curve baseball game. Our group of 7 decided last minute to make the trip, and I must say that it was definitely worth it! The park was amazing, the fire works were beautiful, and the cheese fries were delicious :-)

Both of our dads caught a fly ball.....well, kinda. The way Elizabeths dad dove for his....gosh, he should have tried out for the team :-)

Not a Failure, but a Huge Success

Its been a while, I know. I could try to blame the busy summer months, but the truth is that I've had a total lack of motivation to blog over the past few weeks. Once again, there is something that I need to post about but have had no idea where to start. Does that ever happen to anyone else? Anyway, I'll stop rambling and get to my point.....


In my last post I told everyone about this amazing guy I had met, completely fallen for, and had recently started courting. I can't really explain what happened next, because I'm still working it all out in my own head. All I can say is that we felt God saying that this was not what He wanted for us. So we decided to end the courtship.

At first, I was pretty upset. Not understanding why after only one month God would ask us to, for total lack of a different word, 'breakup'. I felt like the courtship had been a FAILURE. But then, after praying about it for a while, I had this 'conversation' with myself.
"What is the purpose of courtship?
It's to allow time to become someones friend, get to know them, and decide if you could spend the rest of your life with them.
How so?
You spend time talking to them and getting to know them, and avoid the physical side of a relationship.
Wait a minute, that's what we did! So really our courtship was a SUCCESS!"

I thank God everyday for bringing me and Adam together the way He did. I can come out of this with all the respect and dignity that I went into it with. How so? I never gave Adam anything.....and I don't mean material things, if you get my point. Adam never asked anything physical of me. He respected me as any man should respect a lady. I thank God for making Adam the man he is.

What am I saying? Through all of this I have gained a best friend! I can't tell you how many hours we spent just talking, getting to know each other. We know each other inside-out and will never look back with regrets on our 'physical side' of the relationship.

So even though we'll always have the memory of our courtship, we can look back with no regrets. We can move on in life, stay connected, and be friends with out any awkwardness.....since that is ultimately where our courtship lead us.

So Adam, if you're reading this, I want to say Thank You and let you to know that you really are and always will be my Best Friend. I type with tears in my eyes......I know you've been in Hampton less than 24 hours, but I already miss my best friend. I promise I'm not counting days, but I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving so I can cream you and Wray in Jenga :-)
And as I said at the beginning of this post, you are pretty amazing....even if you can't wink ;-P

I pray God's best for you this year; I know he has great things planned for you!

With all that said, here are some pictures of stuff that I should have been blogging about all summer :-) Enjoy.....

My summer started with attending Adam's graduation from MC.

Here I am at the graduation with one of the coolest guys ever, Adam's Pap.

This one may sound silly, but thats ok. I had to sell my first car :(

Here she is, just moments before she left my driveway for the last time.....

I also made sure Cosette had her 'summer dose' of sugar :-)

What are Aunts for, anyway?

Wray took me for a ride on his new motorcycle...of which

he is quite proud.....

......took advantage of some photo opportunities :-)

And last but not least, became the queen of Jenga :-P

November 2006 - Present :-)

Ok, ok....so I lied. Its been more than a few days. Before I started this post I checked sitemeter to make sure that people were still reading my blog......it appears as though I still have as many readers now as I did a month ago, so I'll continue with this post. ( I didn't want to post this up if no one was reading....) Get comfy....its gonna be a long one.

When I start reading someones blog I like to find out why they started blogging. Many people have shared these reasons with me: boredom, 'my new hobbie' journaling, venting :-), pleasure.....etc.

Me? Why did I join the crazy world of blogging? My reason just so happens to be 6 feet 2 inches tall :-)

But let me back up to, oh, lets say November 27th, 2006. I was invited to a friends birthday party, where I met a friend of my cousins. His name was Adam. I remember driving home that night thinking, "Wow, what a nice guy. Too bad I'll probably never see him again." ( If I had only know :-) )

So, the weeks go by, and Adam starts showing up at my church on Sunday mornings and Tuesday evenings. ( he attends a church down the road) I'm gonna be totally honest here.....by Christmas, I was hooked. Any time the church was planning an event or my friends were getting together, I'd pray that Adam would show up. :-)

Little by little, we started talking. When my Mom had open heart surgery in January of 2007, I was sitting in the waiting room and I received a text message on my phone. It was Adam, checking on Mom. Over the week that my family stayed in the townhouse near the hospital, we talked just about non-stop. If we weren't on the phone, we were texting. Yes, Jaime....I do remember conversations I had with other people that week :-P

Okay, now let me jump ahead. We spent basically the entire summer together.....until August 24th, 2007. Adam left for Master's Commission. For those of you who are not familiar with Master's, its a 9 month discipleship program. ( more info at masterscommission.com ) We were both excited about this opportunity for him....except for one little detail. As a first year at Master's, you are under a covenant.....no relationships. The 9 months is meant as a time to grow closer to God without the pressure of any outside relationships. It was bittersweet: We were both excited for the time to focus on God and search Him out, but at the same time we knew it wasn't going to be easy.

So, I said all that to say this: that is why I started my blog. It was a way to 'communicate' with Adam, without actually talking to him :-) I had no idea so many other people would find my blog!
He came home for Thanksgiving, at which time the closest I came to seeing him was seeing his car parked in his Church's parking lot. Thankfully though, we did at least get to spend some time together over Christmas....with lots of family and friends surrounding.

He graduated from his first year back in May. Which brings me to another point.....that is why I haven't been blogging near as much. I've been a little preoccupied catching up the past 9 months.

So where are we in our relationship now? As of a few days after his graduation, we have started courting. Courting?
One of the things that made me notice Adam to begin with was the way he treated girls, and the respect he showed towards them. We soon found out that we both agreed on the way a relationship should be handled. Avoid the physical side and concentrate on become strong friends.
Which would be the definition of courting.

We have been so encouraged by my sister and brother-in-law. They also courted, and now have an amazing relationship within their marriage.
I was also on another blog, (the link on my page: High Calling ) and read the story of Beverly's courtship. It is so encouraging to read about other people who have the same experiences.

My plea: I know Jaime, and occasionally Beverly, read my blog. If the two of you (or anyone else I may not know of) have suggestions or stories of any sort, they would be greatly appreciated. I love reading how it worked out for others.

Please pray for us, as we are still seeking God's direction in this. We don't know where any of it will lead, but are keeping God in the front row.

Ok, I'm done now :-)

( Sorry I don't have a current picture. The most current one I have on here is under my April 27th post, "Prayer Request." ok, ok, so he was more than a good friend :-) )