Coffee Blessings

At this moment I am sitting in an artsy little coffee shop, attempting to finish my homework as I sit across from a dear friend of mine. We laugh together, share embarrassing secrets and have meaningful heart-to-heart conversations. This girl means so much to me and I am so blessed to have this friendship. A year ago I moved to a college 3 hours away from my hometown and the amount of people I knew I could count on one hand. At that time I would have never imagined that today I would be sitting here with such a close friendship with the girl across from me. Honestly, I just realized how much God has blessed me in this past year and I am so thankful for everything that he has done in my life. I'm thankful that even though he is the God of the entire universe, he cares that I have solid, loving, Christian friends at college too.

It's a happy heart kind of day.

Life is Good.

Well, its been a really long time since the last time I wrote (not that I was very consistent to begin with) and a lot of things have happened in the time being.

The first is that I started another year of college. Whoo hoo! I think? I'm back to my crazy friends, time consuming school work and Friday night crochet and movie-thons. What could be better, right? For some strange reason I decided to overload myself and take 18 credits this semester. Part of the reason is because I agreed to help one of my professors as a research assistant in their lab. I get to run participants and crunch data, but the whole experience has actually been much more fun that I originally expected it to be. Other than the tight schedule, the transition back into the school life has been not so bad.

The second (and much more exciting) thing that has happened was my recent engagement to my boyfriend of three years. Yay! It was a beautiful day and K and I were visiting my family that live in the area. We decided to go out shopping (just the two of us) and then had a late lunch at Olive Garden. After we ate K insisted that we visit a three-tier waterfall that interrupted a large river that ran through downtown. I agreed to we spent the next hour walking around the gorgeous site. After we had seen most everything in the area, K took me to a quiet spot farther down the river and we sat on the river bank and talked. Throughout the summer he had asked me what my favorite part was although I was never able to give him an answer. He asked me again but this time he had me close my eyes and then open them when I had an answer. I thought about it for a little while and once I mustered up a good enough answer I opened my eyes and to my surprise he was kneeling in the sand with the ring in his hand. I can honestly say that my favorite part of the summer changed instantly to that moment. It was absolutely perfect and I am beyond excited for what it now means for us!

We plan to get married this coming June and I absolutely can not wait! We have finished planning the major wedding decisions and now are just slowly working on the more minor details. It really has been going so smoothly and with very little stress. Hopefully it stays that way until the wedding! :)
(Though I do understand that isn't very likely.)

Thats all for now!

Finding Rest

Even though it is only just the middle of August, my summer is sadly coming to an end. I have had an amazing time working as a counselor for the past 10 weeks and my heart breaks knowing that I have finished my time serving at this beautiful place. Its no surprise that I am coming out of these few months changed; I have new experiences under my belt and many new life lessons learned.

One of the biggest and most life-changing things I have learned this summer has been how to find rest in God despite the circumstances that I am in or the expectations that I have for my life. I can't count the number of times that I found myself in situations where I had absolutely no idea what to do or how I was ever going to have the strength to keep going. Counseling is hard. Each week I had eight new girls to lead, guide, entertain, teach, and care for. I heard story after heart-breaking story from their lives at home and had to accept the fact that I couldn't change anything about it. I created my own expectations for how I thought the week should go, only to find out that I couldn't be farther from reality. I set limitations for what I thought God could do in the camp and in my own heart. At times I became discouraged, frustrated, empty, and hopeless. There were many days when I even wondered how I was ever going to make it to the end of the week.

The Best Life Lived.

Well, it has been a hard few weeks. 

Since the beginning of the summer I have been working as a counselor at a Christian camp that is nested on a small peninsula in the middle of a beautiful Minnesotan lake. As I began the summer I knew that counseling would be hard, but I didn't realize just how much of myself I would give to the large amount of campers that would be running through the grounds of our camp. Leading, loving and sharing the wonderful news of the gospel to the young girls in my cabin has been the most rewarding thing that I have done in my life so far. Each week I have the blessing to welcome a new group of eight girls into my cabin and tell them about the free gift God has given to them through Jesus Christ. I get to see firsthand the effects of such an incredible message as God works in each one of their precious lives. As I watch this happen I can't help but think of how unworthy I am to be able to have a front row seat as God works in them. I think of this because I realize that I alone cannot do this work. I shouldn't be able to spend week after week running, playing, and singing with the kids. I shouldn't be able to show love to my campers when they continuously fail to listen or put down others. I shouldn't be able to be excited and upbeat when my campers want to go swimming on the coldest and windiest day of the week. I shouldn't be able to have the compassion to listen to all of the tough, troublesome and grievous lives that many of these kids have to live.  I really shouldn't be able to faithfully do my required job and the "more" that we do to make each week the best week of every camper's entire year. The only reason that I am able to do these things and more is because Christ's overflowing love in me. He promises that when we are weary he will give us strength, when we ask for wisdom he will give it to us, and when we are empty he will fill us with his love. The only way that I am able to do these things is because it is God who empowers me.

So, You're a Psychology Student...

After my first year as a psychology student, I found that there were many misconceptions about the field. Chances are, you have heard about Sigmund Freud and his bold theories or Pavlov and his famous conditioning experiments. Many of my fellow students imagined me either sitting around discussing strange and abstract theories or experimenting with rats. Some of my favorite psychology errors that I have been asked so far have been:

"Can you read my mind?"

"Are you able to psychoanalyze me?"

"Oh now that you're in psychology you'll be able to figure out what's wrong with me, right?"

To start off: 

-Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental  processes-

Over the course of my schooling I expect to examine a few of the big myths that surround the field of psychology. Today I am going to address the common misconception that all psychologists are bespectacled, sit next to their client that is comfortably sprawled across a leather sofa, and talk about feelings.

This is actually very wrong! Clinical and counseling psychologists in the United States right now actually only occupy less than 11% of all jobs held by psychologists (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014). Here is a small overview of all of the other kinds of psychologists that you may not know about! I do strongly suggest researching on your own about these different occupations, especially if one catches your interest!

Newborn Rose Crochet Hat

Hello friend!

Just recently I found out that my cousin and his wife are having a baby girl! I was so excited and began searching for a cute baby pattern to make as a gift. They are both on the more rustic and nature-loving side, so I wanted to find a project that wouldn’t be too overly girly but still cute. It is usually difficult for me to find patterns that are free (my college budget won’t allow me to buy all of the patterns I want) cute, and useful for what I want to make. I ended up using two different patterns (both were free!) and the result was this adorable little hat!

And it begins!

I have always been fascinated by the idea of writing down my own thoughts and ideas. This really shouldn't be surprising to me, seeing as my Grandma has kept meticulous daily diaries for the past, well, quite a few decades. Needless to say, my own attempts at journaling usually seemed to fail within the first couple weeks of starting. It wasn't until this past summer that I actually started to regularly write down events in my life. It was my first year on staff of a summer camp and my experience was so incredible that I felt this tremendous urge to write everything down, lest I forget all that happened. It didn't take me long to realize that a personal journal could only do so much. There were so many other things that I wanted to share with everybody! Unfortunately for me, my broadcast options were limited to a post on facebook or a 140 character tweet. That, my friend, is how I ended up here: writing to you. I’m not really sure what kind of form this blog will take.
I can, however, tell you some things that I do know about myself.

• I am a psychology student at a decently-sized Midwestern college.
• I probably drink a little too much coffee. (If thats even possible)
• I love photography even though I only have time to just dabble on the side right now.
• I am an avid crocheter. I learned in under 5 minutes and finished my first project, a full size afghan, by the end of that same summer.
• I have an incredible boyfriend that I honestly don’t know what I would do without.
• I have a passion for music, whether its playing or listening to it.
• I love Jesus Christ with all that I am. He has the one and only spot in my heart.

I am very excited to see what this blog transforms into and where it takes me!