A Tribute.

I consider myself a 'deep' person. I think, I consider, I ponder.

Not long ago, Scott Alan came onto the scene. An amazing singer/songwriter. PERFECT music for who I am, as a deep-thinker, singer and theatre-person. If you have time, please listen to:

Never Never Land

Hold On (on his website, click the Scott Alan link above for it)

Always
(I prefer Sutton Foster singing it, but I couldn't find it on Youtube, so sorry!)

And my FAVORITE:

Kiss The Air.

xoxo Em

Raindrops on Roses and Whiskers on Kittens

Tim Burton + Alice in Wonderland + Johnny Depp = Perfection.

Tiramisu, or Red Velvet Cake, or anything chocolate.

Lord of the Rings, Ted Nasmith's art, and J.R.R. Tolkien in general.

Shopping, particularly here, or at VS's Pink and PacSun.


Chris Tomlin, along with Sovereign Grace and Jeremy Camp, and old hymns like this.

Castles, and England, and Warwick Castle in England which I can proudly say I've been to.

xoxo Em

A lot on my mind...

See that picture? How distorted and twisted I look? Yep, that's about how I feel right now. There's a lot on my mind:

• There's an enormous lack of disk space on my computer. I went to Winter Camp with (who else?) my youth group this weekend. It was an amazing weekend, to say the least. As always, extremely exhausting, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually, too. The disk space is making it so that I cannot upload ANY of the photos I took yet. It's frusturating, to say the least.
• I'm waiting impatiently for CTE/FVTC to announce their next show. This past fall, they did "Children of Eden", a show that distorts and changes the bible, so because of personal convictions my parents wouldn't let me do it (I would not have wanted to anyway). Now, it's been almost a year since I've been on stage and I'm DESPERATE to get back on there again. DESPERATE, I tell you!
• Money..money..money. Not to get too personal, but basically, my family was suffering BEFORE the economy did what it did. It's been very very tough for all of us.
• School. I'm still at home, and tying into the previous bullet point, Mom has been taking any subbing jobs (she has a degree in Teaching) she possibly can lately, so I'm home alone. It's alright for the most part, until we get to Math. I'm AWFUL at it, and it's getting HARD and I can no longer rely on only my videos. We're not sure what the plan is for Junior year since obviously homeschooling has had its run. We're thinking public school *shudder* or possibly classes at co-ops or colleges. Big decisions...big impact. It's tough.
  

• Little things. My room is messy, there are dust bunnies underneath the furniture and I'm too sore from camp (more on that later...) to deal with it. I'm a neat freak and this stresses me out. Then there's my own reputation. I learned that one guy in my youth group said I was annoying, and not only does it hurt, it worries me. What did I do to make him say that?

Now. I'm listening to Mighty to Save and thinking about the root of these worries. Pride - wanting to do your best (in school, among your social groups) is natural, but I need to think about where my heart REALLY is. I've made this choice to be a Christian and glorify God...pride doesn't fit in that anywhere.

So this stress is really helping me rely on Him more and more - thus, it's becoming more of a blessing than a trial. I love it - I love how it works out like that.

Prayer, too, is a big thing. That's a weak spot in my spiritual life - I forget, my mind wanders, I don't do it as often as I should. Trevor - our speaker at camp - talked about this. It's a big deal, and I'm glad he did, because it opened my eyes to that fact.

And I need to realize that God has it ALL under control. Anxiety, stress...it can lead to many different sins. I just need to trust in Him and realize that I'm not alone in any of this.

Well this post meandered this way and that way...I guess I'd better get off my duff and do somthing, right? I'm glad I got it out, though. I feel a lot better, having it written down somewhere.

Later,
Em

The Name Game

Ever since I was little, I've loved names. I'm notorious in my family for naming everything. The story my Dad likes to tell the best is of the time he, Mum and I were fishing in Canada (we have an island and cabin up there)..I caught a fish, a smallmouth bass, but my Dad said it was too small to keep and we'd forgotten the camera. This pretty much was the end of the world to me...as I waved good-bye to the fish I sobbed out "bye Gracie!". : P


That's not really changed. I still name everything (including the fish I catch in Canada, if you're asking). So (as you'll read to the right) since I'm looking forward to being a mother above all else except meeting my Father, I've thought out names for my kids. I like names that are unique, but not weird. Right now my favorites are (fem.) Stella Magdalene (I've always always loved Stella, and I love the middle name being biblical), Maisie Kate (first name courtesy of MckMama, and I'm a Dr. Suess FREAK, although I know the spelling is different [Maizie]. Anna wants to name their first daughter Kate so I thought if the Lord allows that to happen, she'll be named after her) and Ivy Delilah (predictably, another blog name, thank you Sheye. Middle name biblical as well - are you seeing a trend?). Favorites for boys are Cullen James (NO! Before the accusations start, let me issue a disclaimer. I love Twilight, although I am more of a LotR chick, but I am NOT naming my son after Edward Cullen! xP Again, thank you MckMama. And of course James is a classic, sturdy biblical name), Emmett Daniel (another Twilight disclaimer. In fact I think of this as my son being named after ME! Do you like that? And of course Daniel is another strong, sturdy and biblical name) and Dillon Asher (I just really like Dillon, and Asher is, again, biblical).

So what do you think? Of course, these are just for fun..I know my husband is going to have an opinion as well! xP What names do YOU like?

P.S. Off-topic, but:
A beautiful quote: "Lead me to peace that is past understanding, a peace beyond all doubt". - Newsboys
Isn't that great? It lets me know how much more God is powerful than I, and how tiny I am compared to Him...really, I don't need anything in this world!

xooxoo Em, Emmaline, M&M...girl of a million nicknames ; )

Jackson

This is my pastor's son, Jackson. He's about 11 months old. Isn't he SCRUMPTIOUS?!? I could just eat him!!!

He just has the cutest chin and turtle mouth : )


I know this picture is a little blurry, but his face was too cute to share : )





xoxo Emma

Obedience.

A couple years ago - the summer of '07 - my close friend Rachel and I were at her house, alone, hanging out while her mom was running errands. We got bored and wanted to swim in her rubber blow-up pool (like this one, but bigger) but we thought maybe we should call her mom first..and then we grew frustrated when she told us 'no'.

Rach and I were convicted enough to obey, so then we decided to play in her camper, next to the pool. As we were sitting, griping about our disappointment, we heard a loud POP followed by the sound of rushing water. We scrambled to the other side of the camper and saw that the entire pool had not just deflated, but was completely flattened to the side, to the point where the bottom of the pool was completely covered by heavy rubber. .. Just big enough to trap 2 girls our age underneath.

Now, granted, there is a chance we would have been able to scramble out - but it collapsed so suddenly and who has reflexes like that? Not us, I say..what if we had been trapped? What if we couldn't get out from underneath the rubber? It would have been heavy enough to suffocate us, I'm sure. We would have dead, and we would have died because we had disobeyed. The irony of the situation was shocking..were both shaking from relief and fear combined.

The point of this story is not only to praise God for convicting us enough that we didn't disobey her mom, but to keep us from doing just that. God's hand was working in that..

Definitely a story to get you thinking ( :

xoxo, and in Christ,
Emma <3

What I'm going to do during 2010

Make a joyful noise to the Lord...

For though the world moves like mad, YOU ALONE are faithful...

And because I (and Jeremy Camp!) know WHO I AM...

I will NOT be moved.

For You are the joy in my morning...

And no power of hell, nor scheme of man, could EVER pluck me from Your hand...

And during my trials I know You will not leave my side but will carry me through my them.

And You're my reason for living.
And You're basically my LIFE.

And glorifying YOU in everything I say think and do is what I'll keeping myself busy with this year.

Those are some of my favorite lines from different Christian songs or stories. They have all struck a chord with me and I only thought it approriate to end 2009 with them and some of my favorite photos from the year.

xoxo..
In Christ,
Emm <3

P.S. If you're wondering about the black-and-white distorted photo, I went to a Jeremy Camp concert and took a picture of his shadow that was cast on the wall as he sang.. : )