hi everyone!

it is six in the morning and I am getting ready to go on a road trip with my family to go to a family reunion! ahhhhh! please pray that it will be a good weekend where i can share my heart with them openly about how I feel about Jesus. that's it. that's all i want to do, have fun, be a good family member (ya know, help clean up, don't hit my sister, blah, blah, ya know) and explain to them the differnce they see in my immediate family because of Christ.

Anyway, I hope all of you are well and I am glad to know you=)

love nicole

Currently Listening The Imposter By Kevin Max see related

Hi all!

so how is everyone? are you at home? or sitting in your appartment in Joplin saying to yourself "huh.. I should probably do something today like hang out with someone .." well, then you should call someone and hang out! it will make you feel you better, I promise.

Anyway, I have no money for Christmas gifts because of a lot of reasons. some of them are because i don't budget well and the other has somthing to do with the fact that I am school and working an ok amount of time on the grand scale of things. Can i hear an "AMEN!" ?! 

On a different note, I am really excited about Christmas and also nerveous about this whole time being over because that means that plans for moving to Taiwan with my team are going to be in full swing and that in a nut shell (is nut and shell one word in this case?) is alot to think about! but VERY exciting. A crazy thought i keep having is the fact that I am going to leave for a year and when i come back some things will be very different and some things will absolutly not be at all. It will almost be kinda "Mayberrish", ya know, like Andy Griffith.

ok, love ya all you are great.

Currently Listening Who We Are Instead By Jars of Clay see related

So...have you seen RENT yet? I would really like to know what goes through people's minds when they see it. For me personally, I just wanted to stand up and scream "I AM SO GLAD I AM A CHRISTIAN !" I mean really people!!!. Movies like that where everybody in their community of friends has some major problem and life is crapy, to say the least, but in the end they all call on their inner strength and the power of friendship to help them live a better life without judgement...ya, these kind of movies just make me truely sad for people. I find myself checking my motives to see if I think I am better than them and I really think I'm not because if we are honest with ourselves and God we know that we are all on the same page, because we all equally fallen, it's just that some of us have found the truth.  I know that when I read things like this or statements like this from others, I kinda laugh in my head sometimes because after a while it starts to sound corny or maybe i just get cold hearted to the fact that God is in fact love and we are all sinners saved by grace. Even though I know I do this sometimes, I am most definetly not laughing now. The Holy Spirit most convicts me in the most awkard of situations...like durring this movie. He is funny like that..clever though-) He likes to remind us that we are not here on this earth to blend in and be tolerant of everything, but to glorify him and  help pull people out of the pits they (and we ourselves) jump into head first. love ya guys!

Currently Listening Nothing Is Sound By Switchfoot see related

Things I think are cool

*people like lea Goins from OCC, whom I have sat by for an entire semester and just now realized just how cool she really is when i read her xanga site and saw everything she has been through, which is alot, and how it has made her totally rely on God for everything!

*I really like laughing with Good friends who are goofy and just really fun...thanks all of you who that covers...

*I really like my family alot and the fact that I have gotten to hang out with my dad and have some good talks and things like that, that I really never thought would be this good!

*i really like my huge cat at my parents house. He is a huge, mean, plus sized model cat and really a softy at heart somewhere underneath all the fur. His name is Newman and  you would fall instantly in love with him if you ever held him!

*I really like that God included the book of Job because it is exactly what I have needed and has been part of a huge growing and learning and healing time in my life over the past few years.

*I like Dalenna's laugh that always catches me off guard and  makes me want to throw a pillow at her every time she does it because it freaks me out..it just wouldn't be the same without it!  I am also thankful for mindy whom I am sitting by in the computer lab with as we speak.

*I am thankful for pretty things and things that match.

*I like that someday I will be swept off my feet by some amazing guy who is really, really perfect for me and it will just work quite nicely and everyone will say "well ya,.. they really do look cute together, now don't they?! good for them!" and I will just smile and nod in agreement! (and I will be wearing a cute, tea length skirt with an adorable top and I will have a perfect hair day!

Currently Listening I See Things Upside Down By Derek Webb see related

hey everybody!

it kinda sucked having everybody leave for the break because i get used to everyone being here... then they're gone=(

anyway..being with family seems to be a different experience for everyone, and every person gives you a different answer to how there experience was! Mine was interesting, as always. There seems to be these random stories that continually leak out from my grandma's mouth about  my great-great grandmother and grandfather and other old family that are already gone. This time when she came to visit, she brought a picture of my great grandpa on a camel in Egypt with the actual pyramids in the back ground .The picture was from the 40's. He was in  a general's outfit, but he wasn't a general, he was going for a "top secrete" project for the government, but they supposedly gave him the clothes because the gov. there would respect him if they thought he was part of the troops. We all joked about how crazy that is and how no one really knows what else was going on ! It is the craziest picture...it looks so fake, but it's not, and after storie after storie like this you really start to wonder about your history, ya know?!  

anyway, I'm glad all of you that went home are back and I love ya all!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nicole

Currently Listening Sink or Swim By Waterdeep see related