It's Been Too Long

I am sitting here this beautiful, sunny, fall morning. The glow from the orange, yellow and red leaves streaming into my living room. Listening to Christmas worship music, because i've finally embraced the fact that I LIKE listening to Christmas music longer than just the month of December. I am amazed that it has been a full year since the last time I posted anything on here or anywhere really. Life can sure get busy and just fly by if you let it. 

I am in a really neat season of life right now. I feel like God is just completely focused on the state of my heart. He wants me to be healthy and whole, it take ALL pressure off figuring out how i'm going to single handedly save the world. I have found that I am REALLY good at just trudging ahead no matter what is going on around me or how empty I feel. My thought has been this season must end eventually so mine as well keep busy while its here so that time goes quicker. Ha! Sounds SO ridiculous when I actually say it out loud but thats how I've been operating.  

The BEST part of this season of Him helping me focus on uncovering my heart is that when I do my future becomes so much more inviting and exciting! When you have a happy healthy heart then the options are limitless! I am still unsure of so many things but am learning to enjoy each day for what it is. 

Last year was the first time in my life I spent Christmas away from all my family and I decided that I needed to come up with a way to make Christmas feel like Christmas no matter where I am in the world or who I am with. So I started making a Christmas checklist with thinks like: Make sugar cookies, or build a snowman, or sing Christmas carols, and I have found myself so much more excited as I approach the holidays this year even though I am not going to be with my family for Thanksgiving OR Christmas this year! 

My point in sharing this is that this idea has taught me a very helpful lesson about how I have so much more control over my life than I think I do. Its all about my outlook and choice of positioning my heart. I can always choose to focus on what I don't have but then my outlook on life is going to be that I am lacking but if I focus on all that I DO have then there is SO much to celebrate!!

Let's talk about the joys of marriage…

Being a single person I only have the privilege of learning about marriage from others and I have to say that on a regular basis I hear more negative than positive. I believe so much in marriage and the Bible speaks so highly of it that I don’t think that it is the ACTUAL case but I just want to point out that MOST couples forget to talk about the good thinks in marriage. About why they love being married and how amazing their relationship with their spouse is.

When you talk to your average person that doesn’t know the Lord and even some that do, especially men it seems, they look at marriage as some form of death to their FUN life. I believe that this is directly related to the fact that most people forget to talk about the joys of marriage. I personally have six siblings that are married and I know that they overall have great marriages and wouldn’t ever take back getting married if they had a choice but honestly I could probably count the amount of times they've shared positive things about being married.

I think that we as believers of marriage need to shift this view. Lets stop focusing on only the negative and remember to paint an accurate picture of marriage for the sake of us singles that are taking you at your word and are now REALLY scared of making the mistake of choosing the wrong person to marry. Or decide it’s just too scary to get married at all.

So all you married folk out there please share the good stuff too! We singles WANT to hear it! J

Is Life Ever Predictable?? - A Journey of Awakening

Is Life Ever Predictable?? - A Journey of Awakening

We must always be in a state of learning...

... This has become a very real reality to me lately. I will NEVER be in a place in life where I know it all, and actually I just recently realized that I actually don't want to know it all, Then the fun of discovering things would no longer exist.

Not too long ago I discovered the world of Personality Tests, unlike other people who hate them because they feel boxed in by them, I LOVE them!! I have been able to come to grips with the fact that I am who I am, not in a hopeless kind of way but in a freeing... "wow I don't have to try and be like everyone else" kind of way. Whether it has been conscious or not I have spent a good amount of my days trying to be what I think people want me to be (which is usually wrong, by the way) or trying to just actually BE other people which really is rather boring for everyone.

I have run into a new challenge with this new found discovery though. Who am I? I have used so much of my time trying to BE whatever it is I thought I was supposed to be I didn't use that time to learn what its like to be me. So here I am 24 years old (which is still very young I know) embarking on the exciting yet scary journey of ME! Not to be too dramatic or anything but the reality is I want to know me. I want to BE me so I am going to do it! I think the journey starts with... What do I like? What peaks my interest? Why not go down the road that looks intriguing?

I have realized that in order for me to make headway on this path I have to be connected to my heart and let myself be present in day to day life. To let things move me. I thought this was okay with me until I went to a movie with my nephew and found myself being moved by the movie and fighting tears back. Let me explain, this is NOT like me! I DO NOT cry during movies. Even as bad as it sounds I didn't even cry when I watch The Passion. So to be crying over a movie where a girl gets her arm bit off by a shark was just SO unlike me. As I was sitting in the theater though I felt like God asked me "Do you really want access to your heart, because THIS is what that means". It really got me thinking, am I ready for that? Am I willing to be "the crier". You see I am an EXTREMELY sensitive person, which I think is why I shut down so much of my emotions in the first place, I didn't know what to do with them. I FEEL WAY too much in my day to day life so its just easier to keep to myself with them. I don't want to do that anymore though, not at the expense of experiencing life to the fullest. I told Jesus Yes! Yes I really do want it!

Feelings... Welcome to my world!

A Little Catch Up

I cannot believe that the last time I posted a blog was in August!! Time sure does fly, my goodness!! There is WAY WAY WAY too much that has happened since then so I will just do the best I can in a very small nutshell version

Faith’s Wedding



On October 3rd, 2009 My beautiful older sister Faithy Lu got married to the love of her life Todd Stromback. It was a wonderful wedding but the best part, of course, was to just watch them be SO in love with each other! It is quite strange to have my sister that is closest in age to me get married though because it made me realize that I could very seriously get married soon too! Wow! I still feel so much like a child its hard to believe that is actually true!
After the wedding I got to stay two more weeks with the family and had a GREAT time just catching up with everyone. It is still amazing to me that I live SO far away from all of them. It makes me very much enjoy each visit though.

Thanksgiving


Because of going home for Faith’s wedding I decided to skip going home for Thanksgiving. It was my very first Thanksgiving away from my family and although it was NOTHING like the Thanksgiving I am used to but it was very fun and sweet. We ended up spending it with three different groups of people. It started out at our house with just the four of us, the fourth being Melissa’s brother, Luke. Then we stopped by the Economides and helped them make a few dishes for their table of about 30 guests. We also dropped off a pumpkin cheesecake we made for them. Then we headed to the Rheem’s where we had dessert and hot cocoa and eggnog. We then watched 2 movies back to back and headed to bed around 2am. When we all got up in the morning we made breakfast together and then decorated their house with Christmas decorations while everyone else went shopping for black Friday. Once done at their house we all loaded in cars and everyone headed to our house for Thanksgiving left overs and a movie. But first we stopped and got ourselves a Christmas tree! We then hosted the sleep over for the second night. It was lotsa fun! Very homey and family feeling.




New York


The first week of December we headed off to New York City!! I had never been to New York before so Melissa gave Michelle and I a trip to New York and tickets to a Broadway show for our birthdays! It was such a fun trip! We did all of the usual New Yorky thinks.. Time Square, Central Park, Rockefeller Tree, etc. Michelle made sure we went to Serendipities, where she had frozen hot chocolate. Then we went to my first Broadway show… Memphis! It was AMAZING!! I was completely entranced the whole show! The dancing was spectacular and the singing was just unbelievable! I LOVED it!!!! I am hooked for sure now! Oh man it made me want to fly!! That’s the only way I know how to explain it, you know the feeling when everything inside of you starts to viberate at the same time as you feel kinda cold, but then you are SO excited you just want to dance and sing and yell all at the same time!.. THAT is how I felt watching that show. It makes me come ALIVE!


Anyways… I will have to finish of the year in my next blog.. Happy Day!!

A Moment in the Mind of Me

You know for being someone who has spent most of their life trying to be what I thought people wanted… it makes it really difficult to just stop and try and be who I am. Once deciding to stop living for “other” people and finding that I am not quite sure who this “Leah” girl is the only plausible conclusion is to find what the options are… so let’s find people that I like or admire… there are SO many great people in this world let’s just chose which one I want to be and then do it!! There are artists, singers, performers, leaders, travelers, builders, entrepreneurs, mothers, cooks, farmers, teachers, etc… this great idea worked really well!... for awhile… then comes the problem of, once you find a great person to be then you end up trying to live someone else’s life without the tools they have for their own.. not a good plan! You start not knowing the answers to simple questions like… What is your favorite music? Favorite foods? Let alone: What do you want to do in life? I tried this path for a few years and found that I am actually quite good at being a chameleon of sorts, and in many ways did learn things about myself along the way… but I feel as though I have come to a pondering point in my life… not necessarily a huge decision time or anything of the sort, but looking back over the paths, trails, streams I’ve tried I stand still wondering, who is Leah?

I have a theory that really who we are does get formed by the people around us in many ways but I can’t say that I know that for sure because I never experienced life from a different side. Maybe there are those people that are just born with an understanding of who they are and in what ways they are going to reveal the kingdom of God on earth in their own unique flavor. My theory is I really do think that God made us moldable so that we do influence each other. I look back over the years and see places where the people around me left their fingerprints on me and my personality and I can’t say that I truly believe it was all bad. I do think that ONLY copying those around you can be a bad idea… but aren’t we made to influence each other?
I think that the reason why I have had such a hard time finding the “Leah” is because I keep dismissing anything that I may have “picked up” along the way… not realizing that maybe God put certain people in my life to actually pull out something that was ALWAYS a part of me?! I have recently found the joy of “thinking my own thoughts”… I know that sounds pretty ridiculous… but honestly, I have just been on this quest to let me be me EVEN IF someone else may think it does look just like a copy. Everyone has to start somewhere, but as long as the journey is bringing life and joy then it’s a journey worth taking!

The Scary Things In Life

I have decided that it is about time that I share with you some of the scary parts of living in DC… They are called Thousand Leggers.. dun dun dunn. I heard rumors of them before I came but once here didn’t have to wait too long for an encounter of my own. Let me share a typical scenario..
It starts with a scream…. “Or a Leah..LEAH!!!” I come into a room where Michelle usually is perched uncomfortably on some piece of furniture as high off the ground as she can be… I automatically look at the point that is farthest possible from Michelle and most often that is where the bug is located. Melissa is a little braver, so she will actually get close enough to point out the bug itself.. but usually she points with some sort of an object.. just in case it decides to move quickly towards here… because they are very VERY fast little guys.. after all they do have a thousand legs. Then comes my part…

I get a clear container of some sort so I can keep my eyes on it the whole time.. my biggest fear is to have one of them squeeze out and crawl up my arm!! So usually I my tool of choice is a nice large Tupperware. Then I get a hard thin object that I can slide underneath. Now for the catching part.. always gets my heart rushing… even after ALL the times I’ve done it cuz in the back of my head I can imagine the horrible feeling of this thing crawling on me and it gives me the heeby jeebies just enough to get my heart rate up every time I go to catch one of these little guys.
Melissa will usually take one side of the room or object and stand guard in case it tries to escape.. and her job is to help scare it towards me so I can catch it. A quick explanation as to why we are “catching” this horrible critter instead of just “squishing” it on the spot is because if you miss:
1. It will run away and you chance losing track of it.. which can never happen because then Michelle with never come off of the furniture and everyone will be slightly on edge for the rest of the day.. Imagining that every little thing that happens to touch them is a Thousand Legger!
Or
2. There are much higher chances that you will end up with one of them crawling up your arm when you are trying to quickly thrust you arm at it before it escapes… You end up with it climbing up your arm as a means of escape from the crushing hand!! (That’s the scariest!! )
So… I catch it. Once it has been caught I go to the kitchen sink to do the dirty deed… at this point Michelle is insistently telling me “make sure you KILL IT!!”.. “Leah, make sure it is totally dead!”.. I assure her I ALWAYS kill them. I release it into the kitchen sink because then it is trapped and I can easily execute quick execution. I use a wet paper towel.. that way I don’t feel the crunch… cuz THAT I cant handle. Once done, the Tupperware goes into the dishwasher the remains and paper towel go into the trash, although im sure Michelle wishes we would burn them :). And we go on with our day.
My tally of how many of these horrific creatures I have killed is up to 27!! That’s way too many if you ask me! We did finally get the exterminator to come and spray and I think it might be helping.
...And Now you know ;)


The other day I killed one and its guts were PURPLE!!