it's time for a new post

But I'm not quite sure what to write about :)

 At the end of March Rollin and I went out to look at all the wildflowers and took a bunch of pictures.  They were so beautiful this year because of all the rain we got!

We celebrated Rollin's birthday at the end of March.  I went out on a limb and bought a "maxi" dress.  Haha!  I wore it to our annual homegroup luau.

This year has been so rough.  It feels at this point it should be summer already, but it's not.  This is the never-ending school year for me.  But I keep having to put my trust and hope in Jesus.  This year has forced me to literally call on the name of Jesus every day when I wake up.

Listen to this song:

                        

This is a good song.  My heart has been yearning for Jesus and to remain fixed upon Him.  Before Easter I watched "The Passion of the Christ" again.  I was so moved.  The next day, Easter Sunday, I couldn't help but weep thinking of Jesus.  How beautiful it is to be moved to tears by Jesus.  He really is everything.

Last week I got this cool image/vision in my mind.  It was actually two images: a foreground and a background.  The foreground image was my life and the worries and anxieties of my life.  The background image was the face of Jesus.  What sticks out to me is Jesus' eyes.  They are so piercing and so full of love.  Everyday I go back and forth focusing on the foreground image and then the background image.  But I really want my heart to just focus on the background image and trust Jesus to take care of my life.

St. Patrick's Day

I've never gone all out celebrating St. Patrick's Day, not sure why, probably because I'm not Irish.  But today I celebrated St. Patrick's Day more than ever before.  I made Thin Mint Cookie Truffles to celebrate!

All you need is thin mint cookies (either the Girl Scout kind or the Keebler Grasshopper cookies), 1/2 package (4 oz.) cream cheese, mint chips (I got the Andes mint chips), and vanilla candy coating.

First, take all of the cookies and crush them into tiny crumbs.  I  put them in a food processor (it took 2 batches of doing this) and chopped them up, it worked very nicely.  You could also put the cookies in a Ziploc bag and pound the bag.  Next mix the cream cheese in with the cookie crumbs (I used a hand mixer).

Next, roll into 1-inch balls and place on wax paper covered cookie sheet.  Put in the fridge for about 30 minutes so they firm up and won't fall apart.

Take a 10 oz. bag of Andes mint chips and melt in the microwave in 30 second increments, mixing with a spoon between each microwave zap.

Place balls in the melted chocolate.  I used two forks to roll the ball around to get it completed covered in the chocolate and then placed it back on the wax paper.

Lastly, I took vanilla candy coating (melted it just like the mint chips) and spooned the candy coating in a Ziploc bag.  I cut a TINY corner off and used to decorate the truffles.

I also celebrated St. Patrick's Day having dinner with friends.  One of my Irish friends made corned beef and cabbage.  It was quite tasty!  The end of spring break is upon me.  Back to school in a little over a day.

Homestretch...I can make it...

Holy Spirit, let me feel what You feel

This morning we went to church.  Like always.  The worship was soooooo good!  Every time I'm about to go into church or homegroup I pray, "Holy Spirit, let me feel what You feel and let me see what You see."  I pray this to be more connected to the Spirit so that I can hear him speak more clearly and receive anything prophetic He has for me or for people.

During worship the last song we sang was "With Everything."  Every time I hear this song or sing this song I get a vision of a multitude of people in white robes singing to Jesus....

"After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands [...] Then one of the elders addressed me, saying 'Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?'  I said to him, 'Sir, you know.'  And he said to me, 'These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation.  They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." (Revelation 7:9-17)

This song is the song I imagine hearing and singing when Jesus returns and we, who endure the tribulation and end times, are caught up with Jesus.  It moves me to tears just thinking of it.

The chorus in the song goes like this: "With everything / With everything / We will shout for Your glory / With everything / With everything / We will shout for Your praise."  When we sang this song in church today and got to this part people actually starting shouting the name "Jesus" and shouting out prayers to him.  The climax of the song is an interlude when the people just sing "Woaahh" and people were shouting out to Jesus.

This has never happened to me before, but I was so moved by hearing so many people in my church shouting out for Jesus with a passionate heart that I started crying with joy.  Really, I was bawling.  I knew at that moment, I was feeling what the Holy Spirit was feeling, He was moved to tears by the passion for Jesus that was in the room.  I was seeing what the Holy Spirit was seeing: a beautiful Bride longing for Jesus.  I could feel how pleased Jesus was and how much he adored our worship to Him.

In that moment, everything fades but Jesus.  Everything that seems important doesn't matter.  It's just Jesus.

This is what I imagine worship will be like when Jesus returns to reign the earth in person and we are with him.  I cannot wait :)

By the way, here's the song I was talking about.  I have a bunch of favorite songs.  But this is THE MOST FAVORITE of my songs.  This song inspires me to endure.  This song inspires me to look to Jesus and to be excited for His return and to eagerly await it and to eagerly PRAY for Him to come back and make everything new.