Fairytales and Life

A popular Taylor Swift songs writes...
"I'm not a princess, this ain't a fairy tale,
I'm not the one you'll sweep off her feet,Lead her up the stairwell
This ain't Hollywood, this is a small town,
I was a dreamer before you went and let me down,
Now it's too late for you and your white horse to come around"

So many are given wrong views about fairytales and their character's lives. Many look to Disney movies and say that is a fairytale and of course life is not like that and thats why you don't get the boy or your best friend grows apart from you. But I believe that life under God is a fairytale. Every fairytale has its bad guy or witch.. obviously that would be Satan. God is like the knight in shining armour who sweeps in to save us.. what nobler or selfless prince could have done something like willingly been beaten and sacrificed upon a cross to save our lives from the bad guy? 

Too often we are distracted from our true prince but He is has always waited so patiently for us and we still think we don't have a fairytale life?  A prince that perfect and loving that wants to win us over and only has our best interest in mind? To fall in love with Christ is the perfect fairytale ending because we already know we are Christ's bride. Redeeming Love is a wonderful book to illustrate this.


This may be a overused, oversimplified, child-like explanation but it is the way I view my life and the blessing that I have in Christ. :)

Letters of Hope

This afternoon I sat down to write a letter to a friend of mine and I turned on my Christmas station on Pandora and had my coffee and pen ready. As I began to write I realized how much I wanted to send encouraging thoughts and love but I was looking for ways to make myself look intelligent or kind. I was not letting God speak through me and encourage my friend. So I looked to my favorite scriptures and realized I knew exactly what to say because it was spelled out to me through all the Psalms and Proverbs.  

One of my favorite Psalms is "When you said, Seek my face my heart said to you your face, Lord, I will seek," -Psalms 42:1-2. So in seeking my Lord's face I have come across various ways I can bring hope or encouragement into someones life. One is by writing letters to children in foreign countries who are learning to read English. Another way is Bryan Outreach which is a outreach program that my campus ministry holds where we go and play with the children and teach them about the bible.. ( A whole post will be dedicated to this later with pictures!) :)

At Christmas time many opportunities are brought to light on how you can buy gifts and support less fortunate children and their families. As a broke college student I cannot financially help in that way but so many organizations need prayer and some even need help from volunteers to manage different parts of the programs. I would encourage everyone to find a way in this Thanksgiving week just one way that they could make an impact in someones life this holiday season. A child's big smile is worth more than any other gift I could receive which for a college student is a big deal :) 

God uses us all in different ways because He has blessed us differently some with more money than others, some with more time than others and still some with more counseling abilities than others. I have learned a lot about using your own God-given gifts from my roommate who uses her musical abilities to impact lives around her. She doesn't set out pridefully to change lives because of her beautiful music but humbly and before God plays her praises and God uses her hands and voice to mold hearts to His own heart. She is a beautiful example of using her gifts for God's glory. We all have people who have impacted our lives and I would challenge everyone I meet to find just one way God has blessed you and find a way to use that to impact someone else's life.

God Bless and have a wonderful Thanksgiving week!

We Will Remember

November 18, 1999, 2:42 a.m. "But we would not forget the 12 that we lost. So we carved their names right there in the rock!" Bonfire Memorial, 12 years later.


A verse in a popular aggie song was dedicated to the 12 fallen aggies and how we would not forget them. Last night in the chilling breeze a flood of aggies came to support each other and the families that came to remember what happened 12 years ago. It brought tears to my eyes when I heard a mother lead the memorial by calling out the names with our reply as We Remember and answering Here for the fallen as we do in Muster. She lead us in singing Amazing Grace and as we sang and put our arms around each other I looked up and while I was in the fifth row back in the circle the entire circle was full and the surrounding hills around the memorial was packed with aggies who came as the 12th man to remember the 12 aggies who fell 12 years ago..


I saw two shooting stars as I looked up into the clear sky as we silently walked back through the portals and I had the chance to briefly meet the Kerlee family who's son was Tim Kerlee. He was trapped under the logs but refused assistance until others could be saved. "Help my buddies first." . . said Tim as he lay on the fallen stack. He then directed rescue workers to five others whom he could see before allowing them to free him. So many tears were shed and prayers were whispered last night and it was one of the best experiences on campus where I have truly seen the aggie family support one another. I was also thankful to be close enough to hear everything that went on and I was able to hear everything and hug the family. I will never be able to look at bonfire the same.

What is Directing Me?

As American Christian women, we hear lots of messages today about the importance of our heart – messages that put great emphasis upon our feelings, our needs, our uniqueness, and our desires. As we are often led to believe that it’s okay for us to build everything around our emotions and our wants.  “Your heart is good,” is the message of one popular Christian book. “By living out your desires and dreams, you bring glory to your Creator.”

But is our heart really good?  Should our own feelings and dreams and desires and emotions be nurtured the way American Christianity prescribes?  I believe that our emotions and desires without a doubt and certainly can be instruments of God to help direct our lives, but ONLY when they are fully yielded to Him.  

Most of us never truly die to self – we never really walk through the painful process of laying every hope, dream and wish of our heart upon the altar before our King, or of letting our identity become swallowed up in Him. Because we never do that we also never see the beautiful plan He has for us in its fullest without the contamination of us attempting to interfere.  As a result, our emotions, personality, and desires quickly take over and control us, clamoring for us to build our life around them. We forsake a life of total abandonment and service to Christ for a comfortable life of pleasure because our feelings and desires are telling us it’s the only way to be happy.

Emotions must become subservient to the Spirit of God – to His will, His agenda, His purpose, and His direction.  The vast majority of us have become enslaved to our own feelings rather than bondservants of Jesus Christ.  We should never make decisions based upon what we feel like doing – but on what our Lord is asking of us.  Loving Him is first an act of the will, a choice to put Him first – no matter what our feelings tell us. Once we learn to love Him with our will, our emotions and feelings naturally follow suit, and it becomes our greatest delight to give our lives wholly to Him. The most beautiful and precious times of my life recently have come at His mercy and when I have slowly learned to relinquish the desire to hold the pen of my life story and gave that pen wholeheartedly to Him to create a more intricate and amazing story than I could ever dream of. As the Psalmist said, “I delight to do Thy will, O my God!” (Psalm 40:8)

A Set-Apart Life

Leslie Ludy is an author of "Authentic Beauty" and "Set-Apart Femininity" among many other great works. These books have changed my life and way of thinking over the years as varying culture and views were thrown at me. From these books I have become very moved to talk to other girls and encourage them against the world's standard.. even the standard of some Christian teens to become set-apart in our life and walk with God for a purpose. HIS purpose. I hope I can serve as a light to other girls to see this glorious offer that God has given to us.

I by no means am an expert or even successful at these things but every day I ask God to bring me closer and closer still to Him and draw me away from the worldly desires that do not serve Him. Christ alone can satisfy my soul and so every day I pray " God grant me the SERENITY to accept the things I cannot change, the COURAGE to change the things I can, and the WISDOM to know the difference."

God’s intent for us goes far beyond just saving sex until marriage, wearing one-piece swimsuits instead of skimpy string bikinis, or idolizing Christian bands and authors instead of secular ones. It is not just making sure we tack on some Christian morality to our self-indulgent lives.

His sacred intent for you and for me is nothing short of absolute abandonment to Jesus Christ, separation from the pollution of the world, and ardent worship of our King with every breath we take.

Yes, a huge vision – one that is contrary to everything our culture presents. In our modern world, we as young women seem to be presented with only two options for our femininity – we can either embrace the sensual, sexy version of womanhood glorified by pop-culture and skimpy clothing, or we can go the opposite direction and trade in perfume and make-up for grit, grunge and guy-like behavior.

But I believe both of these options cause us to completely miss out on the glorious pattern God designed for our femininity. We were created to shine with heavenly beauty, to radiate with Christ-like feminine grace and serenity, and to sparkle with the lily-white purity of our Prince. We were created to be set-apart for Him.

As you pursue this path, you will likely hear plenty of voices in the background, screaming that it is impossible to achieve this set-apart standard. But the good news is –we don’t have to achieve it on our own. As Oswald Chambers says,

"When we deliberately choose to obey God, He will tax the remotest star and the last grain of sand to assist us with all His almighty power." ( My Utmost for His Highest)

Whatever your version of femininity has been up to this moment – God desires to offer you hope and a glorious future. Jesus Christ can take a life that has been bruised, rejected or squandered and make it completely new. He can empower a weak and helpless life to rise up and conquer. No matter where you’ve been or what you’ve done or how far from Him you feel right now – He can transform you into a radiant, victorious, world-changing set-apart young woman. All you must do is come to him with a heart fully surrendered.