why are you cast down, o my soul?

hey long lost bloggers.  leigh here.  no, i did not fall of the face of the earth, but rather what i would like to call, a mini sabbatical, at least from myself.


many things have sparked this post tonight.  the events leading up to this epic night have no been anything out of the ordinary, but rather just life.  life has, well i guess just been life, but i feel like my friends and i are just really getting a big dose of it this year.


so long to the days where we stayed up until 3am roller blading in the quad and watching friends on the dorm room bunk beds.  good riddance to the nights where waffle house at 2am tasted way better than the normal eating hours around 7, and peace out to the social nights spent at the library.  if we are going to make the effort to go, in goes the headphones!


life hit hard this year for a lot of people, and it has been hard to watch and listen to.  but it has been so encouraging to see how these godly women, who i like to call my best friends, have done nothing but bring God the glory in their trials.  their trials are things that only haunt my worst nightmares, yet they have handles it with as much poise and respect than should be expected from any 20 year old.  props to you my friends.


a lot has changed this semester.  my time has been doled out a little differently, for the best i might add.  i started a bible study on tuesdays nights and it has been one of the best things i have done.  we are going through a book called "A Perfect Mess" by Lisa Harper and it is a study of the Psalms.  check it out!  what we studied this week i found particularly applicable.

psalms 42 isnt usually regarded as one of the more happy psalms, but i would argue that it is the most raw and real.  the psalmist is crying out in anger towards god, wondering where he is.  in other words, he is ticked off at god and he doesnt even care.  what is so beautiful about this psalm, is that in the end, even though they feel bitter turmoil in their soul, they are able to look up, and say with confidence, "hope in God; for i shall again praise him, my salvation and my God!"  wow!


even in the middle of his trials, he is able to see the eternal value of his life.  So may time i think we start to think our lives are about good days and bad days.  when we lay our heads down to sleep at night, we go through our good day/ bad day check list.  if it doesnt measure up, the day was a waste!  how selfish is that attitude!


everyday is a beautifully wrapped gift from our heavenly father.  the issue is do we chose to unwrap that gift or not.  are we going to chose to step out of bed that morning with an eternal perspective for the day.  that way, when we lay our heads down at night to sleep, we can ask ourselves, did we do the best with what the lord gave us today.  did we give him all the glory back.  it isnt about good days and bad, its about our savior and praising him for our salvation.


i dont know about you, but any day is a good day when i have that truth to sleep on!


so, to all three of you who follow me, hopefully i will do a better job in the future of updating and keepin gyou posted about little things in my life i find sweet.  and on that note...today was a sweet day!  

war eagle.

i had the awesome opportunity presented to me so unexpectedly this weekend...and you better believe i jumped on it!  my boss at work asked me if i wanted a pass to be on the field for the football game saturday...DUH!  saturday came and i was nervous/excited.  i walked onto the field for the first time and i felt so small, not to mention my camera was a fourth the size of everyone else's.  todd game me the pass and the wrist band, also complete with a bright yellow arm band and i was off...off to who knows where!  i was so over-welmed and i felt as if i was in a dream.  i looked up into the stands and i hear all my friends screaming my name and waving.  i was so serial and so SWEET!  i was major cam creepin the whole time, and im pretty sure he saw me too, dont care.  :)  it was truly an unforgettable experience and  i am so blessed to have great opportunities.  i even got to meet jay jacobs and tim hudson.  mrs. chizek wasnt bad herself, and i kept to myself how obsessed i am with her husband.  so, bucket list item #1 comes falling down as i took pictures of auburn.  was an incredible day.  those pictures will make my day every time i look at them!

check, check, and check.

i feel as if someone just shared the gospel with me.  i have discovered stumbleupon.com. and it is rocking my world...slash demolishing my school career.  today, i have learned how to make roses out of maple leaves and how to make chicken soup for under 5 dollars.  it is changing my life as we speak.  and you as a fellow blogger should be excited too, ill post my new findings because they are SWEET!  since being introduced to this new and exciting world in the internet, it has inspired me to be adventurous!  i have a few goals, bear with me here.  i have a few goals i WANT accomplish before the end of the semester, but lets be for real here, it wont happen.  im going to make a list of my top 10 things i want/ need to accomplish and ill blog about each one as it is checked off.  some of these things will be highly aspired, others just need to happen and will be lame.  but lets be real, even the most lame and easy things i can make difficult.  its kinda like my mini bucket list...for the semester.  this should make for some interesting adventures as well as some interesting posts.  drum roll please...


1. make a full course meal and serve it to people who have been in constant prayer  
   about actually eating this dinner.
2. read 2 books not for school (laugh all you want but this is a big deal for me)
3. drive to atlanta and study a whole day by myself and make a new friend.  to 
   prove this happened, but a hot dog at the varsity and post the picture you took 
   with it by yourself in the blog.  (look forward to this) 
4. i really wan to bake our mailman some cookies.  i dont know why, but its been 
   on my bucket list since i was 10.
5. one week go to all my classes. (highly unlikely, but it could happen)
6. hang out with at least one of my younglife girls each day for a week, no 
   excuses from either side.  (this shouldnt be on a list, but if its not, it just 
   wont happen.)
7. take pictures all around campus...documenting the changing seasons and spirit 
   thats alive on the plains.
8. stop at Tuttie Frutti and get something on the way home from class one day.
9. hang the windows in the den
10.write a letter and mail to all my kampers


So, here i go.  i have written this list down and im going to do every single thing on it if it kills me.  i know these are all really lame things to some people, but they are important to me.  i feel like putting this list on my blog gives me some sort of accountability.  and before the and of the year i will do every one.  none of these things are necessities, but all of them are important and im trying this new thing to stop and take advantage of the sweeter moments in life and appreciate everything i have been given, big and small.  this is gunna be a sweet ride!

Jen-Jen

    There are so many great things that are going on in my life...i feel right now like God is just vomiting blessings on me.  (hows that for a mental picture).  Blessings come in such small packages, and i have learned recently if you dont take the time to actually sit down and open it, and look for the goodie, you wont find it.  This is just a pic of me and my roomie at the auburn/lsu game which pushed up to #1 on the polls!  WAR EAGLE!!!  im so proud to be an auburn tiger!  lets just say...that game was sweet!!!
     Ok, story time.  Last week, i think it was Tuesday, i was debating wether i should walk home from class or drive.  I landed on walking, it was a beautiful day and im just a sucker for those.  So i walk through Samford lawn and an standing at the corner of College and Magnolia right under the Toomers tree.  I see this girl standing beside me, and she just kept staring at me...and thats when i got awkward and started playing with some dried up toilet paper with my foot left over form the game that weekend.  Well, it didnt work because home-girl decided to actually walk over to me and start a conversation.  As she started talking to me, one, i noticed she was Asian, and two she looked like she was 12.  She had really broken english and she was asking me a question about what something was, but between her not even knowing what she was talking about herslef, and me not being able to understand Asianish, we were both very confused.  She started pointing to this sign on the lamp post and it has a picture of some animal that she didnt know what it was.  As we were waiting on the light to change so we could cross the cross-walk, i tried to explain to her that the animal was called a farrett.  (side note- im not really sure why someone would even post a 'Lost Farrett' sign up any way...its just weird to me).  so long story short, we established what the animal was, and i decided the toilet paper on the ground needed more attention.  The light changed, and me and my 8 foot long legs decided they needed to move really fast, because to be frank i did not feel like explaining to this girl everything we passed any more.  As im walking at the pace of a soccer mom in the grocery store, (you all know what im talking about), i hear running behind me.  (Also, from now on, imagine everything this girl says with a very heavy asian accent).  she caught up to me and says, "you walk very fast!  it hard to keep up with you!"  i looked at her, smiled politely and said, "blame my mother."  she gave me a confused smile, but kept talking to me.  at this point in the story, i decided to embrace the fact that i had made a new friend.  we talked the rest of the way home which was probably 5  minutes.  But in that 5 minutes, i learned she had just come over from china.  and i only learned taht after she made me guess 10 times where she was from.  i also learned she was 28, after she made me guess another 10 times.  i made a comment that she looked a lot younger than 28.  she seemed offended, but i told her that here in america, that is a good thing.  she got excited.  and i was relieved.  she is bio-medical sciences and she literally came here straight from china in march.  she did not know a lick of english when she came.  her name is Jen-Jen and she told me we were friends.  i have prayed every day since that i would pass her on the way home again.
     its the little things like that in my life that i am so thankful for.  its the little things like getting an email form my youngest sister from her auburn email address that she is accepted to auburn.  its the little things like singing the fight song and rolling toomers when we are announced #1 on the BCS poll and chanting "Its great to be an Auburn Tiger" until your throat is dry.  Its just knowing that your best friend is always ready to hear you babble about absolutely nothing important, but she listens because its important to you.  Its having friends that just come hang out at your house because you are there.  Its the text you get in your class telling you they are so thankful for your friendship.  and its knowing that you have friends in almost all 50 states that love you and are praying for you.  God is so good, and he is constantly reminding us of it, but are we taking the time to slow down, talk, and get to know him?  Jen-Jen was such a good reminder of that for me.  My prayer is that we can all be humbled enough to just sit at his feet and listen.  Listen to what his will is for our lives, our future, our present, and the forgiveness of our past.  When we do stop and listen, we will be so blessed.  So my piece of advice is to you, dont be so narrow-minded that you dont stop and look for the Jen-Jens in your life that are crossing the street with you, who are sitting next to you in class, who check you out at the grocery store, and who serve you each day in the student center.  Look for your Jen-Jen each day in your life and you would be surprised what God will show you.  I promise it will be sweet.

so apparently im really bad at this whole blog thing.  i have a lot of good thoughts where i say in my head, "this would be a good post", but it never happens, obviously.  i have not forgotten about blogging you see...im just lazy i guess.  but this past weekend was to good to pass up a blog opportunity, and to be frank, im quite bored in class right now.  (and ironically enough we are discussing ADD...oops.)

this weekend i took four of my girls to sharptop for younglife weekend camp.  i was really anxious about i, but once again, i saw God like he does so many time in my life humble me to a point where he can really use me.  the girls had a blast and they even came to club last night and brought tins of friends.  God is so good and always faithful even when i am faithless.  I have moms texting me telling what an impact we are making on the kids, and i know beyond a doubt that this is where God has me.  Life is so short.  Life is so fleeting.  Life is good, but like the words in the sand, will be washed away before we know it.  The way i see it, if i do nothing to make a difference with the time God has given me, my life is not only short but pointless.  God is so much bigger than i give him credit for, and it takes weekends like this to remind me of that.  It is my prayer that i will be reminded of this everyday.  It wasnt that some big event happened or that those four girls had some big revelation about Jesus this weekend, but they got to see Jesus through the leaders there and through that let me in to their lives, which is a big deal for these girls.  it's the sweet moments like these that take me back to the cross on my knees.  God is good.

1 Peter 3:10-11

"For whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it."

Blogging. Blog on.

So, here i am.  There really is no point to this blog other than for my own satisfaction and enjoyment.  I never understood blogging.  I just thought it was for people who thought people really cared what they were doing or thought when in actuality, people don't.  But then my little sister started blogging and her posts make my day.  if nothing else, this will just be for me to dump all of my messed up thoughts and insane rational somewhere so i will quit thinking about it, or for my roommates sake, talking about it.  so here i go.  I guess this is my attempt to be the artsy, coffee shop type who blog about there emo days.  But hopefully i will be far from emo.  Hah.  I hope to just put little bit of 'sweet' in your day.  You will find if you follow me, you will become a little less insecure about yourself because some really weird/ painfully awkward thing happen to me.  Sweet is one of my favorite words.  Life is sweet.  Life is good.   so here's to nothing.  Blogging.  Blog on.