Pretty stinking amazing weekend =)

I haven't posted since friday...the reason being because I've been INSANELY busy all weekend!! I hung out with a friend for coffee thursday night, Amelia came over friday night for the weekend, hung out with Spencer (a friend from RockSolid) in Seattle on Saturday, and then Alyssa and Holly joined Amelia and I on Saturday night for a girls night. So all in all, amazing weekend! I posted a bunch of pictures under the "pictures" tab. Check them out!!! Oh, and thank you guys for such an INCREDIBLE weekend!!! Loves!

Heavy rain = amazing puddles :)

Rain. It actually annoys me most of the year...but for some reason today I loved it. I'm not really sure why. But its sunny in Seattle right now and there are a lot of puddles outside on the ground. Now call me a 3-year-old but I love jumping in puddles! It's even waayyy better when I'm wearing rainboots. But alas, I am not today. I am just wearing converse. However, there are still puddles on the ground, I'm still Taylor, therefore I will still utilize the puddles. I guess there isn't really any point to this post other than that I encourage you all to at least jump in one puddle today =) 

Pecado

"What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet." But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought dath. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, decieved me and through the commandment put me to death. So then, the law is holy and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good. Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is not longer I myself who di it, but it is sin living in me.I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin."
Romans 7:7-25

I have read this passage many many times. However, every time that I have read it I always become so confused because Paul words this section semi-trickily (and yes...I know thats not a word=p ). But this morning was different. I was reading it on the train on the way to work today and all of a sudden it made so much sense. Its like a lightbulb went on in my brain. First of all, I admire Paul. I really do. I find him to be so humble in this passage. I mean he just states how he acts as a result of his sinful nature, hence the whole 'I do what I do not want to do' thing. He doesn't argue, he doesn't deny that that is how his sinful nature works. He just accepts it and states it as fact, and then declares that God is supreme and able to forgive him of the sins he commits as a result of having a sinful nature. This is also the same guy that said "therefore I will boast all the more in my weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest upon me". He really does. In his weaknesses, Christ's glory and power may abound and be shown. That was one thing that blew me away by this passage. The second is that I relate to this so much. I have the desire to do good, however I have such a difficult time carrying that desire out. I thought that that was just me. Apparently not. I mean Paul, one of the greatest evangelists of all time, dealt with this too. We all sin huh? Heck yes. And he ends this passage by saying that he is a wretched man...and then goes on to say that Christ isn't and thanks be to God for saving him from his life of sin. It goes to show that Christ can redeem all. He really can. He can take our worst mistakes and use them to honor and glorify God. There is nothing that we can do that can seperate us from the love of God. And we aren't expected to be perfect. We will make mistakes. We will. It's how we learn. And God knows this. He knows that we have a sin nature. He allowed it. Not because that was a part of His perfect will, but because as a result of the birth of sin, we were in need of a savior. And without that sin, there would have been no need for Jesus to die on the cross. See? God didn't plan for sin. That was not a part of His perfect plan. He allowed it to happen. And He used it to glorify Himself all the more. Praise be to God! Now can we just go on sinning with the intention of glorifying God with our sin? haha no! We are called to follow Christ's example, which isn't sin. To honor Him with our lives. To live the best that we can for Him. So I just really wanted to share this passage with you. I hope maybe it speaks to you like it spoke to me this morning. And that the truth is this- que todo de la gente tienen problemas con pecado, pero nuestros Dios enviaba su hijo para salvanos de pecado; y todo la alabanza y honor y gloria a El para esa, por siempre amen.

Happy birthday Daddy!!

Hey guys! Alright...another update. My daddy's birthday was today...he turned 21 ;) Nothing much exciting happened...he had work and then we went to Red Robin tonight. The waitresses sang to him and announced that he was celebrating his 21st birthday...haha our table laughed.

God has blessed me with such an amazing daddy. He is always loving and kind and caring...and he takes my humor well. He got me a job for the summer, and is continuing to help me get ready for college. He is a man who follows God with all of his heart and clearly demonstrates that to his family and anyone he is in relationship with in many ways. Thank you God for my daddy...oh and happy birthday dad!! I love you!

Imma Imma Imma Doug

"Hello! My name is Doug! My master made me this collar so that I can talk with humans...SQUIRREL"

One of the things that made me laugh so much about Doug, as well as all of the other dogs in Up was the fact that they could be so on track with something and then suddenly get distracted by a squirrel. And I mean be on track with something important. Take the final "battle" persay of the movie. All of the bad dogs are flying fighter jets and trying to harm the main characters. They are on a mission. And then all Russell (a good guy) had to yell was "SQUIRREL" and the dogs immediately tried to focus on the squirrel (which didn't even exist). For peteys sake they were on a mission to find and distroy (which I would call important from their side) and yet they got distracted...by imaginary squirrels.

I think that my name actually might be Doug sometimes. I get so distracted by the things around me. I was listening to another Tenth Avenue North song yesterday and the chorus goes like this:

Look at all the pretty things that steal my heart away; I can feel I'm fading. 'Cause Lord I love so many things that keep me from your face; come and save me!

It's so crazy. I could be totally and completely focused on God...like hard core! And then all of a sudden something comes along and I go "squirrel!", though in my case it might be "stress!", "looks!", "popularity!", "boys!"; I could go on and on. But you get the point. I'm like Doug. I can be completely focused and then something pretty comes along and I go "oooooo sparkles!" I lose sight of where I was. I walk off the path. But that's silly because the path I was on was God's path wasn't it? And silly insignificant things like sparkles, or squirrels, can distract me from God's path? Taylor did you lose your brain somewhere? His path is so important yet I get distracted by unimportant things. Why?! Man humans are so confusing sometimes. Actually a lot of the time, if we're going to be honest. God's really brought this into my mind this morning because I've been thinking a lot what it means to be sold out for Christ...what does that look like? And then also what keeps me from being sold out for Christ? And then I realized that a lot of my distractions from God are the small things that sparkle and are insignificant. It's like I'm taking the cheap dollar store diamond ring instead of the real legit diamond ring from the jewelry store. What are we thinking?!? So I challenge anyone who reads this to think and try to figure out what your "squirrels" are? And how can you submit those "squirrels" to God? Don't be a Doug =p

loves!

tay

האור עומד בחושך

"So you thought you had to keep this up. All the work that you do so we think that you're good. And you can't believe it's not enough. All the walls you built up are just glass on the outside. So let 'em fall down. There's freedom waiting in the sound when you let your walls fall to the ground. We're here now.

This is where the healing begins, this is where the healing starts. When you come to where you're broken within; the light meets the dark. The light meets the dark.

Afraid to let your secrets out. Everything that you hide can come crashing through the door now. But too scared to face all your fear. So you hide but you find that the shame won't disappear. So let it fall down. There's freedom waiting in the sound when you let your walls fall to the ground. We're here now.

Sparks will fly as grace collides with the dark inside of us. So please don't fight this coming light - let this blood come over us; His blood can cover us!

This is where the healing begins, this is where the healing starts. When you come to where you're broken within; the light meets the dark. The light meets the dark."

"Healing Begins" - Tenth Avenue North

One, I think that Tenth Avenue North is one of the most incredible bands ever. I mean it. If you haven't listened to their new CD, "The Light Meets the Dark", I would definately recommend it!! I had a hard time only posting thoughts about only one song. But this one really spoke to me. I think that as humans we tend to build up walls around us. We put in self protections so that we don't get hurt. Each time we get hurt, we contend with that by adding another brick to our wall. And it gets higher and higher until we can no longer see the truth that lies on the outside of the wall. I'm speaking from personal experience here. I have built some pretty high walls this past year. Every time I was hurt, one of the ways I would deal is by building my wall higher to the point where I didn't let people in. I didn't let them get to my heart. And instead of crying when I was hurt, I would become mad. Mad in an effort to protect myself. And when people told me that I had to tear my walls down, it scared me so bad! If I let go of everything that I controlled (or thought I did); if I let my walls come crashing down, I would be a sitting duck. I would just get hurt more. But in reality, healing can't begin until those walls are gone. As soon as I gave up; as soon as I quit fighting; as soon as I started to cooperate with what my Heavenly Father wanted to do in my life, He began to heal the wounds that had remained open for the past year. He started to fix them. But that couldnt happen until my walls came crashing down. Until those dark, brick, constricting walls of lies came crashing in and the light met the dark.

8/23 a 9/23 = 31 diás/una mes!

Today marks the fact that I have one month until I will be moving into a dorm at SPU!! SOO excited for that day. However, as a result of the fact that I will be moving out of the room that I have lived in since the beginning of High School, I had a TON to clean out! I mean alot. Anyone who knows me knows I am constantly cleaning. Like all the time =) Mainly because I have a small room, I'm a packrat, and I always just dump and go until I can no longer see my floor. So basically my mom and I spent Saturday night cleaning out my entire room preparing to leave because I don't have any free weekends until I leave. It was good that I got through and forced myself to go through piles of junk. However, I have learned so much in that room and to see it empty is rather sad. To remove all of the things I have collected over the past year on my ribbon board and place them in a box labled senior year just brought tears to my eyes. I had soo much fun this past year, in and amongst learning alot of hard lessons, but it finally hit me that I am leaving. I have graduated High School, I have my AA degree, and I will be attending a university. I guess sometimes God brings us new stages in life before we think we are ready for them because it is a part of His plan, and as I prepare to move on, I know God will equip me to cherish my high school years, but also to embrace my college ones.

My room before it was cleaned. The entire room really looked like that...piles everywhere and I had stuff all over the walls.

My room now =/ All of my walls, doors, and windows are clean. Bookshelf is empty as well as my desk. And that pile of stuff at the end of my bed is suitcase #3 for college =p

Family Fun Center

Okay so this is an update post =p there isn't any deep theological thoughts here...not that there were in any of my other posts but oh well. So I spent the night with Alyssa and Holly at the family fun center!! Oh my goodness...SO MUCH FUN!!! We had a blast just being silly. We went gocarting, lazertagging, epic scream swinging, raced some cars, minnie golfing, and a ton more!! God has blessed me sooo much with Holly and Alyssa!! They are amazing friends =) Love you guys =) Thank you for an amazing night!!!

God is amazing. Solid fact.

Okay! So I really have to tell you about yesterday! It was amazing =)

So my body decided to wake me up yesterday at 4 am with intense stomach pains. Great. So I took some medicine and grabbed a heat pad and climbed back in bed since I had no need to be up until 5:30 for work. However, my mind was awake enough and my stomach hurt bad enough that I couldn't fall back asleep. So I got up, and actually messed arround a little bit with the design of this blog. 5:30 rolls around and I got ready for work and got on the train, still wide awake and cheerful. I don't really know why. Being a girl, we have a week each month that is usually a bit more emotional than the rest, and yesterday was the beginning of that week. I should have, knowing me, been super cranky yesterday as a combination of that and the fact my stomach hurt all day long and I had gotten less sleep than I normally do. But I wasn't. I was actually really cheerful and happy all day long. That was the first indication that God was working yesterday. Then I got home and watched a movie with my family after work. During the movie, a friend texted me and asked if I wanted to do something with her family today. For a couple different reasons, I had to say no. I really didn't want to say no. At all. One of the reasons that I've been worried about going to college was because I didn't really want to leave my friends here. I was afraid. I was afraid that I would lose them when I left and we wouldn't be close friends anymore. But last week God told me something. He said "Hey tay, you aren't trusting me with your friends. Let me have them. Let me work in this area of your life". So I did. One way of doing that was that I deleted my facebook...opening a door for God to work. But last night, I just didn't feel like trusting God. One of my friends had finally asked me to do something last night, and I couldn't. I sat crying in my room (this is where that whole emotional girl thing plays in =p) because I wanted to trust God, and I was trying to so hard. But it didn't seem like He was doing anything. So as I was crying and praying in my room, my phone vibrated. I looked down at it and I had gotten a txt from this friend of mine suggesting something else to do tomorrow that I would be able to do. Wow. God works in amazing ways huh? And the amazing part for me is that I don't deserve it. I stated this earlier, but I really don't deserve God's love, miracles, or grace. I have made some pretty stupid and unforgivable decisions this past year. I spent most of the year rebelling against authority. And yet, even after I spent a year running away, God still is right there for me to run back to and He still loves me and He still wants to work in my life!! Why?? Because by Him giving me what I don't deserve and not giving me what I do deserve, He gains glory and honor and praise. That is why I exist right? Is this to say that I can just walk around doing whatever I want? haha heck no! But it does mean that when I do screw up, and I honestly humbly repent of it, God will forgive me. PTL for that!!! So after this, I grabbed my mandolin and just started singing. My dad came in and I explained to him what had happened and he started singing with me. After that, I watched a couple different Veggie Tale videos with Cole and my daddy, and the crazy thing is the theme of both videos were trust God. Realize that even though His plans may sound crazy, or we may be scared to follow them, we should trust Him anyways. Ironic? Well, I just had to tell you about my amazing day yesterday and that God is just amazing. Solid fact.

loves =)
tay

We be confus-ed

Humans can be confused people. At least I think so. I was thinking today how about a month ago, I thought that if one thing in my life changed, then my life would be great; fantastic! But then as soon as that one thing changed, it just made my life more confusing and now I sorta wish it never had. Has that ever happened to you? It just makes me realize how little we know and how much God knows. Theres been so many times throughout my junior high and high school years where I thought "if I acted this way, if I did that, if I (insert comment here), life would be better!" But it never was.In reality, I was usually worse off in the end. In fact, this reminds me of a certain disney song... "The seaweed is always greener in somebody elses lake; you dream about goin up there but that is a big mistake; just look at the world around you, right here on the ocean floor. Such wonderful things surround you, what more is you lookin for?!?" Its when I took my eyes off of God, and off of the amazing things He has given me and I try to put my eyes on my steering wheel and try to control my life and look at that one thing God hasn't given me that I start to lose. Lose everything. God has blessed me with so many INCREDIBLE things. I'm not kidding. I have fabulous parents, amazing sibilings, wonderful honarary brothers, great friends, I've been blessed incredibly with my education and economic status, and much more! But above that, I have a God who loves me...who says He has a plan for me...who wants to hold me when I cry myself to sleep...and wants to dance with me when I am overfilled with joy...who forgives me no matter how many times I throw mud in His face...and STILL wants me to run to Him. That is the most amazing incredible fabulous blessing that I could ever be blessed with! And yet I still demand more of Him? I still like to take my life back and say "hey God, now if only I could change this one part, you know, edit it a bit...maybe make it a little better for me, then life would be great! Are you cool with that slight modification?" Man...us humans think crazy things sometimes. I encourage you, as I know I will be trying, to remember all the beautiful and amazing blessings God has given you! And thank Him for that! loves =)

--tay--

Dorm Room?!?

So I got to see my dorm room for the first time yesterday!! It was very exciting! As the summer is slowly rolling by, I am becoming more and more excited for school. Which is good because at the beginning of the summer, I was still nervous about the whole moving to school thing. God has been working on my heart this summer, slowly but surely preparing me to leave my friends and family in Ptown and move to Seattle. There are so many changes that needed to be made that I had no idea about at the beginning. But God has worked miracles in my life this summer and all the praise and honor and glory to Him for that. But I am getting excited. Its a month away! As I have almost completed my dorm shopping, and recieved both my music book and my linguistics book today (and like a total nerd, I HAD to look at them the moment I got them - I am VERY excited for both these classes), I'm anxious. But alas...I still have a month left =/ I'm ready. At least I think I am...God may have different ideas. However I do not feel nearly old enough to be a junior in college...but I guess thats how life rolls huh? Enjoy the pictures of my empty and bare dorm room (for now) and when my roomie and I move in, I'll post some more =)

Worthy =)

So I was talking with a friend the other day who just recently entered a relationship and she was saying how she felt unworthy for him...but he found her incredible. She didn't feel worthy of him. I've done alot of thinking about this lately, especially as I am reaching that age where I might meet "the one". I wonder if I will ever be worthy of him or ever feel worthy of him. In reality I won't because I ain't. I'm not worthy of someone who will love me for me....and stay with me by my side until the day I die. I'm not. But heres the thing. I'm not worthy of God either. I'm not worthy of the grace and mercy and love that He shows me day in and day out. After all of the wrong things I've done, I deserve to die. Literally. I deserve death. Yet God STILL loves me; He STILL wants to use me; and He STILL forgives me. He says that if I come running back to Him, He will take me in with open arms. What an incredible amazing indescribable God we serve huh? He CHOOSES to bless us with things that we don't deserve, like a spouse. My friend said it in an amazing way: "I don't NEED him, but I want him". God chooses to bless us with a husband or wife to live by us and be an example of the sort of love that He is for us. We don't NEED that person, but oh boy we sure want them. They aren't made to be first in our lives. God is supposed to be first in our lives. But they are there to seek God together with us. Again I say, what an incredible God we serve!!!

Don't know if this made sense or if it sounded random, but it was on my mind so i wrote it =)

Lead Me

I look around and see my wonderful life
Almost perfect from the outside
In picture frames I see my wonderful wife
Always smiling
But on the inside, I can hear her saying

Lead me with strong hands
Stand up when I can't
Don't leave me hungry for love
Chasing dreams, but what about us
Show me your willing to fight
That I'm still the love of your life
I know we call this our home
But I still feel alone

I see their faces, look in their innocent eyes
They're just children from the outside
I'm working hard, I tell myself they'll be fine
They're independendent
But on the inside, I can hear them saying

Lead me with strong hands
Stand up when I can't
Don't leave me hungry for love
Chasing dreams, but what about us
Show me your willing to fight
That I'm still the love of your life
I know we call this our home
But I still feel alone

So Father, give me the strength
To be everything I'm called to be
Oh, Father, show me the way
To lead them
Won't you lead me?

To lead them with strong hands
To stand up when they can't
Don't wanna leave them hungry for love
Chasing things that I could give up
I'll show them I'm willing to fight
And give them the best of my life
So we can call this our home
Lead me, 'cause I can't do this alone

Father, lead me, 'cause I can't do this alone

"Lead Me" by Sanctus Real

New ideas?

My mom told me the other day that I should start a blog. So I did. We'll see how this goes. I have a lot of ideas that run around in my head during a given week...maybe if I can start getting some of them out my head won't be so crowded =p Anyways...this is all for now. Jthought my page looked a bit lonely without a post. Hope you all are having a wonderful sunday!!