Bring on the homework, studying, and papers...I am ready!

If you had told me 2 years ago that I would be contemplating going back to school or not, I would have looked at you as if you were nuts.  I am not a fan of school, nor have I EVER been a fan of school.  I have always been jealous of the people who love it and naturally excel in school.  Some people could be students for the rest of their lives.  2 years ago, in the middle of my 4th semester of college, I made the decision of dropping out of school.  During that time, I had so many things going on and school was not a priority.  At that point in my life, I have already chose to follow my calling into ministry but I did not feel at that point, school was a necessity.  

Now, 2 years later, I am researching, praying and focusing on trying to further my education.  I always thought that I would go back to school, but never this soon.  I am looking at completing a degree through online courses.  There are no school in my area that have ministry degrees and I do not feel as if God is calling me to pick up and leave Hartsville or my job.  Working as a Program Ministry Director is giving me so much experience and opportunity.  I know that is where God wants me to be so online classes is the only possible way for me to further my schooling.  I feel that furthering my education is almost a necessity for me to fully answer my calling into ministry.  I believe that proper training and education will give me the tools and knowledge I need in order to fulfill.  I am doing a lot of research and prayerfully considering where God wants me to continue my education.  

Once again, God has completely paved a new road for me that I would never have thought my life would go. As I previously said, if you had told me 2 years ago that I would be considering going back to school, I would have looked at you as if you had lost it.  God is always surprising me and keeping me on my toes  :)

Bring on the homework, studying, and papers...I am ready!

Happy Anniversary to My Parents!

August 27, 1983 was the day my parents exchanged vows and said their "I-do's." 

I think their wedding pictures tell their love story way better than I can put in words.  Enjoy!

I am so thankful and blessed to have such wonderful parents who have modeled what a relationship/marriage should be.

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!!

I Want My Child-Like Mind Back

When I was around 4 or 5 years old, sitting in my Mame's lap, I asked the question, "Mame, did you make God?"

Yes, that really happend and yes, I was being dead serious.  It was only logical for me to think that.  My Mame is such a Godly women and it shows through and through.  From the time I was able to talk and probably before, she was constantly talking to me about this so called God.  I was fascinated and in aww of how much she knew about this loving gracious person that she called Jesus, God, Christ.  I wanted to know more and more and I just could not get enough.  I was the child who asked so many questions.  I was "that" child that got on everyone else's nerves because of all the questions I asked.  I remember having long conversations with my Dad about God and who He was as a child.  I craved it.  I wanted it.  As I got older, that craving and feeling was not as strong.  That curiosity almost went away.  It is so amazing how a childs mind works.  In my 5 year old mind, it only seemed logical that my Mame made God.  She knew so much about Him and always talked about Him.  Later, I came to understand that my Mame has that child-like mind where she wants to know more and craves The Word.  I am learning to go back to my child hood days to where I could not get enough of God.  Everyday, I want to know more and more.  Before I read my bible, I pray for the understanding and the excitement  that I want to get when I open it up and read.  I want to be more like my Mame who has so much wisdom and understanding of who God is.  I want to be a walking, living example to everyone that I come across.  I want people to see me as someone different.  I want people to want and question why I am so different from this world.  I want the Christ-like mind that only a child has.  I want the curiosity to never go away of who God is.  I want to have so much wisdom and know so much, that a young curios child may come up to me and question, "Hannah, did you make God?"  God wants that intimate relationship with us where we know everything about Him.  He is calling us to have a child-like mind where we can not get enough of Him.  That is what I strive for every day.

And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3

Me and my Mame :)

I Am Going Through A Pre-Quarter Life Crisis

Me: Our birthday's are coming up!  (mine is September 1 and my sister's is the 4th)

Janet: Yeah, I am going to be 24!  That is almost a quarter century years old! I am going to have a quarter life crisis!

Me: I think I am already going through my quarter life crisis and I am only turning 22....

Janet: Yes, I'm pretty sure you are.

This is exactly how mine and my sister's conversation went yesterday while we were talking on the phone.  It is pretty sad that Janet lives 6 hours away from me and can still tell that I am going through some sort of crisis.  This whole year, I have been struggling with turning 22.  I LOVE birthdays!  I love them so much that I even celebrate half birthdays.  This year, my excitement is not what it normally is.  When someone mentions my birthday, I always go into defense mode.  Out of no where, I will blurt out, "I'm not that old!"  Then the person will typically look at me as if I were crazy and say, I would give ANYTHING to be that age again.  I am not sure why it is stuck in my head that 22 is old.  Hopefully once I get past this birthday, the rest of my birthdays will be a breeze.  I am praying that I just hit my quarter life crisis 3 years early.  

I never know what each year will bring but being that I am going into this year as my pre-quarter life crisis, I just may do some crazy things this year  :)  

Does anyone else have this problem of getting older??  I just wish I could stay young FOREVER!   

Christ-Centered Relationships

"A woman's heart should be so lost in God that a man needs to seek Him in order to find her"

This is one of my favorite quotes ever.  I truly believe this with all my heart.  I believe that in order for a relationship to work to the full potential that God intended for it to, it HAS to be a Christ-centered relationship.  I am not saying that two non-christians would not last in a relationship, but I do not believe that they are expirencing the true relationship that God intended for them.

It is not unusual for a complete stranger to come to me and start telling me all their problems.  I always say that I have something written across my forhead that says, "come talk to me and tell me your problems."  It does not matter where I am, I always find a way to be a counselor for someone.  Just this past week, I ran into two very lovely ladies who admitted to being in an abusive relationship.  One of the ladies was a little younger than me.  I went to highschool with her, but we were never friends.  I now wish that I could have reached out to her in highschool and told her about God's love and maybe she would not be in this terrible relationship.  The other lady was an older lady who was married.  She has been made for over 20 years and truly believes that this is how a relationship is supposed to be.

To hear both of these ladies tell me about their relationships was so difficult for me to hear.  I was almost at the point where I wanted to shake them and say, "WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU THINKING!?  Don't you know you are worth so much more than that?  The quote above stands so true in order for you to have a healthy, God-centered, loving relationship that God intends for us to have.  Ephesians 5:25 says, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her."  That is a HUGE responsibility for the man, but that is what God calls men to do in the relationship.  I know that I will not settle for anything less than that.  I just pray that I can reach out to all the ladies out there who do not know how much they deserve only the best.  God has showed us an example of what a relationship should look like by comparing His love to the church that a man should have towards his wife.  We just need to be patient and wait on His timing to show us the perfect person God intends for us to be with.

Ladies, PLEASE seek God first before seeking any man.  God knows what he is doing.  He has the PERFECT man out there if you just seek Him first.

My Wish List

3 things that I would LOVE to have:

5 Toe Shoes-->I want these shoes so terribly bad.  I have been wanting them for over a year, I just have not brought myself to spend the money on them.  I tried them on several months ago and they are amazingly comfortable.  

Colored Nook-->  During my younger years you could not get me to sit down and read.  There might have been a book here or there that would capture my attention but that was very rare.  I rarely read the assigned books we had to read for school.  Now, you can not get me to stop reading sometimes.  I have grown very fond of reading.  I love getting lost in a good book.  Since I have become such an avid reader, I feel like it would be awesome to have a Colored Nook.  I have played with some of my friends and I LOVE them; not to mention, I would be saving trees if I had one of these.  :)

Tom Wedges--> Yes, that would be another pair of shoes.  What can I say?  I am a girl!  I am in love with Tom shoes.  I know that they have become a huge fad but in all honesty, I just really love these shoes.  They are so comfortable and they can pretty much go with everything.  It could be the hippie side coming out of me who likes the Tom's so much.  I got my first pair last Christmas from my sister and they are almost falling apart because I where them so much!  Not to mention, if you buy a pair, a pair  of shoes goes to a child less fortunate.  I believe it is such an awesome cause.  Tom shoes have provided so many children with shoes.  It makes me so happy to see someone wearing a pair because I know that some little kid is running around with a pair on their feet that they might not have had.  I am so thrilled that they have become so popular!

Shun Edo 8" Chef’s Knife --> This is probably the inner chef coming out of me.  I am dying for this whole collection of knives.  They are terribly expensive, so I know it will take years to collect the entire set.  I am hoping that this will be my first one that I get for my set.  A chef's best friend is their knife  ;)

My birthday is coming up very soon...maybe my family will see this post.  **hint, hint  ;)

Coffee+Hannah=Crazy!

My mind has been going 100mph today.  I am almost positive my co-workers want to lock me in my office so I won’t come out and keep bugging them.  I used to be a coffee fanatic.  I had to have a cup every morning if not several cups.  This past January I went on a raw-foods diet and coffee was not allowed.  Even though I am not doing the raw-foods diet anymore, I have still decided to stay away from coffee for the most part.  There are times where I will have a cup here or there.  This past Thursday’s was one of those days where I just wanted a good cup of coffee so I had one.  Then this morning, the same thing came over me and I wanted that cup of coffee. 

Woahhh.  After not drinking coffee for so long, I can most certainly notice the affects it has on me.  I cannot sit still and my mouth just can’t stop talking.  Boy am I thankful to work with such wonderful people where they will put up with my craziness.  Even if I wake up in a bad mood, I know when I come to work that will quickly change.  I am so thankful for this staff and their willingness to put up with me.  I am pretty positive they will start hiding the coffee from me though!  

I am a hippie at heart :)

Who knows me personally knows how much I love the hippie lifestyle/way of thinking (minus the drug part).  My last post was written out of passion, confusion, and questions.  I never said what I exactly believed, I was just questioning what I grew up believing and hearing my whole life.  I certainly was not questioning my faith, I just had a hard time trying to understand in my little human mind who God is and WHY He allows some things.  God has a to strong of a hold on me for me to ever question my faith.  I just have a hard time excepting the fact that I do not know everything and some questions about God will be left unknown until the day I get to meet Him.  But I still strive to know Him more and more and by doing that, I will often question things. 

As far as the hippie lifestyle/way of thinking, I love the way they look at things.  I love that they are so free spirited and that ultimately all they want is world peace and for everyone to love one another.  I wish our world could have that way of thinking, but reality is, that will never happen.  Evil exist and bad things will happen.  My heart cries out for these things that happen in our world.  In my last post, I simply asked the questions; why me? why them? why you? why not him or her or them?  Why do these people grow up in such unfortunate situations where it becomes almost impossible for them to come to know God?  I had to come to an understanding that everything that happens, happens to ultimately glorify God.  There is a reason why some people were born into a christian family where knowing God was so easy for them.  There is a reason why some kids are born into an abusive household where God seemed so far away.  Our job as Christians is to reach out and be the hands and feet to everyone we meet.  God puts us in different situations in life to better glorify Him and His kingdom.

I found this video on the very talented singer/songwriter  Shawn McDonald.  After watching his story, you will see that he did not grow up in the ideal family.  He is a testimony to being in the most unfortunate situations and coming out of it and becoming a man of God.  I hope his story touches your heart as it does mine.

Rob Bell Controversy

Yesterday, I started reading a book called, Love Wins by Rob Bell.  Most everyone has heard of the book because of the controversy that it has caused.  I have stayed away from the book for quite a while for the simple fact that things I have heard about it, I do not agree with. 

One of my friends and I have had several discussions about this book and the Rob Bell belief, but neither of us had actually read the book.  Over the past several weeks I have had this burning desire to finally read the book and see what it is all about.  As I started reading the first chapter, I already had the mind-set of not agreeing with it.  As I continued reading...my mind-set started changing a little.

Questions that he brought up made me think.  I have had a hard time understanding to begin with the questions of, why me, why them, why you, why not him or her or them?  Why was I born into such a loving family where I have 2 christian parents who brought me up in a christian home.  Why was this girl born into a family where she is raped, and abused every single day by her father?  Why was this boy brought up in a home where he has to listen to his parents constantly argue and neglect to take care of their own son because they were to wrapped up in their own problems.  He brought up the belief by some people that up until a certain age children are not held accountable for their beliefs so if they die before that age, they automatically go to heaven.  After that age, they become accountable for what may happen after they die.  He then poses the question, why take the chance that we will grow up to become non-believers and spend eternity in a firey pit.  You might as well end the lives before that age where you become accountable so you do not take the chance of spending eternity in hell.

The whole concept of christianity is so very distorted in many people's eye's and quite frankly, I can't blame them.  In this book he shares a testimony of a women who says, " I grew up in an abusive household.  Much of my abuse was spirituel--and when I say spiritual, I don't mean new age,esoteric, random mumblings from half-wiccan, hippie parents...I mean that my father raped me while reciting the Lord' Prayer.  I mean that my father molested me while singing Christian hymns."  What kind of God would allow this?  Then You have the "christians" who go to church on Sunday with their christian attitudes but during the week they live their lives as partiers.  They judge the people who do not go to church, yet them theirselves only go to church so they feel like what they are doing during the week is okay, as long as they are in church on Sunday morning.  Is that how God wants us to act?  What about the people who go out publically condemning other people as if they had a right to.  The one's who go out on the streets holding up signs saying, "YOU ARE GOING TO HELL!!"  They paint this picture of a hateful God and never show the loving and forgiving God.  Is that the God we want people to know?  So, do I blame people for being turned off by christianity?  Absolutley not.  I blame the "so-called christians" who painted this distorted view of who God is.

While reading the first chapter, these questions were bogged down on my mind.  I couldn't help but feel like pain for people who expirience false christianity and are turned off by God.  My heart cries out for these people.  How can God eternally punish these people, when they fell into unfortunate circumstances that distorts their view of God?  Can a loving God do that?

My very first lesson that I did with my youth came from the old testimate.  They asked if we could study more of the old testimant because they have not done much study on it.  Even though I was happy that they were interested in learning it, I was also scared.  The old testimant and new testimant are like night and day.  It's almost as if you are reading about 2 different God's.  Most everyone knows about the loving and forgiving God but you ralrely hear about the wrathful and jsut God.  We studied the story of the Golden Calf found in Exodus.  The kids were shocked to hear how God sent a plague to these people who dilibertly went against God.  These people heard the Good News and yet they still made an idol to worship instead of worshipping God.  God does not hide his anger and discust in this passage.  He made it very clear that he wanted these people to be punished. God holds us accountable for our actions as He should.  If we sin, we will be punished.

My reasoning for bringing this up is that these people already knew who Christ was/is.  Yet, they still denyed Him.  As christians, we need to be held accountable because we aleady know right from wrong in Christ eye's.  For someone who has never been exposed to Christ because of circumstances that they can not help, how can they be held accountable?  How can they be eternally doomed to Hell?  I have a hard time believing a loving God would do this.  I am not saying that he is not a just God, because he most certainly is.  But being that he is a just God (according the the dictionary just meaning honorable and fair) I don't know if I necesarily believe he will condemn the non-believers who never had a chance to know God. 

As I have continued reading, I have came across some things that I absolutly do not agree with, but I can't say that I fully disagree so far with some things he is saying.  By the end of the book, I pray that I have a clear understanding of exactly what I believe on this subject.  I do not want to be left confused.  As I am reading this book, I most definatly am referring back to the bible.  For anyone who reads this book, I would strongly recomend doing so.  Do not depend soley on the book for your opinion on this subject.  Ultimatly, the bible has all the answers.  Books written by ministers or even the best theologians still have flaws in them because they are written by imperfect humans.  One thing we know is that the bible has no flaws and is 100% truth.

I would appreciate any imput and insight by anyone who has studies up on Rob Bell  :)