Dear Carly,

Faith is tricky. It's hard to walk in the life of faith without any "real" guidance for where you're going. To be honest, some of the time I'm not fully sure if the bible is real. But, then there is always something that goes down in my life that assures me that God is real and my faith can be real, if I pursue it. But I'm not here today to tell you about the cool things that God has done in my life -- that would require far more, much longer posts than this. But I am here to shine a small light on why faith is so hard. It's going to be straightforward, but hopefully it will make sense and open up something that you maybe didn't think about before. And that, is how to walk of life of sticky faith. In Exodus, a miraculous story takes place. The Hebrew people are slaves in Egypt, and the Pharaoh has ordered that every newborn hebrew boy gets drown in the river (as a means of population control). There is one, Hebrew mother in particular who didn'...

At floor bible study this week, we were talking about James 2: 14-16, which talks about faith and deeds. It reads: " What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds?  Can such faith save them?   Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food.   If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?   In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.   But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds,  and I will show you my faith  by my deeds.   You believe that there is one God.  Good! Even the demons believe that —and shudder. You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?   Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?   You see that ...

Last night, I was at bible study with come girls from my dorm floor. We're reading through the book of James for both bible study and our main chapel series, and it's really a great book. Last night, we read James 1: 19-26, which says, "My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, because human anger dow not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word by does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in the mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks lie. But whoever looks intent and continues in it -- not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it -- they will be blessed in what they do. Tho...

Today, I learned a simple truth. Life takes second tries, and in most cases it takes many, many more than that. And, to be honest, I think it's such a simple truth that we often tend to forget it. We live in a culture where things need to be done quickly and one time. We're always rushing from one thing to the next, scared what we'll miss if we don't get swept up into the rushing tide. Our culture tells us that if it doesn't work, we buy a new one. Your car stopped running? Get rid of it. Buy a new one. Your shirt got a whole? Throw it out. Buy a new one. Your marriage is failing? End it. Start a new one. And sadly, this is the culture that I've been raised in. And I can't count the amount of things that I've gotten rid of just because they were broken or they needed a little elbow grease. Except for two days ago. My bed in my dorm sits on top of my desk and my dresser, so I sit underneath it. I tried to stand up, but I was too close to the edge of m...

I have felt alone for a really long time. And it's in no way, shape or form because I have no people around me. In fact, it's exactly the opposite. I have an amazing couple friends, a fantastic family, and now a new group of people around me in my new school. And, to be perfectly honest, I think this is the scariest shit (excuse my language) there is. I'm not depressed. I don't suffer from anxiety. I'm don't have ADD or ADHD. I'm average height. I have blond hair and blue-grey eyes. I dress classy (on sometimes lazy). From the outside, I look like I have everything together. But I don't. Right now, nothing feels together in my life. Like I said, I feel very alone. I've explained this before, but I'm going to do it once again. So bear with me. -- For the past year, I've been struggling. I haven't been able to eat almost anything. I felt like I was starving myself, only because I didn't ever have an appetite. People notice...

Since the death of Robin Williams three days ago, the country (maybe the world) has been on "super depression and suicide awareness" -- or at least my facebook friends have. Everyone's been posting articles about Robin and depression and suicide and whatnot. It seems that my page has been bombarded with them. Unfortunately, we live in a world where depression and suicide are all too real. But I hate how it takes the death of a celebrity to finally bring these things to the spotlight. Depression, at least for me, has been very real in my life for about a little over a year now. But not because I have depression (aside from a smidgen of seasonal I got this winter). Within the past year, five out of my closet eight friends have been diagnosed with clinical depression. It happened so fast, that I started to think it was some contagious disease that I was going to catch. Needless to say, I didn't. But that's the thing about depression. It demands to be noticed. And...

A few months ago, I blogged about my nine months of hell , and I thought I'd give you a quick update of sorts. Well, since April, things have been hard. Still hard. I struggle with my appetite and my face. Both. So for all y'all sakes. I'll keep it short. Part 1: My face is doing alright. In the past few weeks, it's gotten worse, I think, since I've been trying new organic and natural things for my face. I've gone from using mostly chemicals (like Clinque's face cleanser line) to all natural things (whole honey, canola oil, witch hazel, coconut oil, etc.) They have been working wonders. However, it's not enough. I still have problems and I still struggle. I still feel the need to wear makeup everyday to cover the terrible scars that have been left on my face. My new, painful acne has gone down on my face, but the scaring is still there. And, instead of breaking out on my face, my body has found new places like my back, legs, and chest. It's fan-f...

Alright, so I'm really bad at this blogging thing. However, I'm going to TRY my best to keep going again. Something that I'm going to change is what/how I blog. Previously, I've done really long, dawn out posts about deep things. Now, I think I'm going to just write -- my thoughts, deep or not. It's going to be more of a journal. So buckle up, here it comes. ------- Today in church, my pastor was talking about Revelation 21. Now I for one love the book of revelation. I think the imagery is amazing, and I love to hear that God and the devil are battling, but that God's already won. It's a very interesting book, and I highly suggest it. " He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death  or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." This is Revelation 21:4. I think there are some really profound things in this chapter as a whole, but this verse really struck me. Why? Because it says ...

"If you do what you always do you'll get what you always got." Anthony Robbins. If I told you that you were going to be in the same spot (financially, medically, educationally, etc.) a year from now, five years from now, or ten years from now, many of you would be really unhappy with that. And yet, we're so afraid of change. We just keep doing what we always do, and we're unhappy when we get what we always got. It's so tempting to live your life, always doing the same thing from day to day. It's comfortable. Who doesn't want to get up at the same time every morning, go to a job they love, come home, eat good food, relax, go to bed, and repeat the same cycle over and over, with breaks in the schedules for weekends and holidays? That sounds really nice to me (especially the sleep). But, if we keep going these same things, we're going to get the same thing out of life. And that's a scary thought. Like I said, we're so afraid of change --...

So, I was watching a movie today, and this line came up: "A true story about fortune cookies. They look Chinese. They sound... Chinese. But they're actually an American invention. Which is why they're hollow, full of lies, and leave a bad taste in the mouth." Yes that quote is from Iron Man 3's very own, The Mandrin. What're you gonna do, judge me? Well before you do that, I only just jumped on The Avengers band wagon at Christmas time. I've had a lot if movies to catch up on and not much time to do it. Alright? Anyway, that isn't my point. What I did want to talk about is the quote itself. Because we're Americans, supposedly we're hallow, full of lies and distasteful. Well, there's a nice thought. But it got me thinking about my own life and my own hallow shell - which, at the moment, is burned to a frickin' crisp from being in the sun (but I was on vacation, so it sucks to be you).  The first point The Mandrin mentions if hollow-ness;...

Alright, so it's been a while (eight months to be exact. I' could have almost had a baby in this amount of time -- crazy). Sorry about that wait for any (and all none of you) you read my blog with some "regularity". I put regularity in quotes because there hasn't been much blog to read with regularity recently. Sorry again about that. But, with new found inspiration, I'm starting over. Starting in June, I've been going through a major withdraw. Maybe withdraw isn't the right word, but hear me out for a minute. I've had to go with little or no food. For nine months -- the nine months of hell, I've been referring to them as. Now what has caused this terrible food-less-ness you may ask? Well, it's a bit of a long story, so buckle up. I have acne. A regular teenage thing, I'm aware. But I don't just have acne, oh no. I don't just have the kind that leaves my face with a few blemishes here and there. I have the kind that takes up...