Time Marches On

It is 9:14am on Wednesday morning. I have been up since 6:30am and in those three hours I have; road the bus, bought a coffee, went through all three of my email accounts, checked Facebook, pulled out my homework and worshipped our Gracious Savior at the Tower.

My life is going on still. My alarm continues to blast in my ears earlier than I would like it to. The bus still runs like clock work and Starbucks is still brewing Pike's Place coffee. Time does not stop for me but for one of our fellow students at Texas his time has ended here on earth. It blows my mind how thousands of us were nervously watching the news, looking out the windows and being hustled into buildings as the Swat teams arrived to protect our campus at this exact time yesterday morning and now 24 hours later we all move on with our lives.

As I prayed with a group of girls this morning God placed on my heart the fact that yes, time does move on but that doesn't mean we forget that one student was so lost he felt it necessary to take his own life. God doesn't want us to move on with time and forget that He protected us yesterday, He graciously held the UT campus in the palm of His hands as He watched one of His children take his life. Why would God save so many but let that one single boy pass away? Maybe to use him as a testimony of our faith, maybe to let the light of God shine through the tragic event or maybe so we can be reminded of how precious life is and how as Christians and followers of Christ we need to be reaching out to the lost.

We must not forget yesterday, September 28, 2010. We must remember that God saved hundreds from danger and through the loss of one God will hopefully save hundreds more because we chose to not just move on with time but we chose to move on with a purpose and a reason to stand up and praise God. He is good all the time, we cannot forget that. So today I encourage you to enjoy the things you take for granted and to thank God for allowing you to wake up this morning and ask God to reveal to you how you can use Colton Tooley to glorify Him and bring His light into the shadow's of someone else's life.

I love you all. Be good, be safe and stay sweet.

Helping Hands

There is a man who sits on the drag with the same sign everyday. His sign says the typical things as most homeless signs do, "Hungry, homeless, anything will help". But this man has something else that has always stood out to me but yet I have managed to walk by him everyday. Yesterday morning was different though, as I approached him once again and read the exact same sign the words, "we all need a helping hand", hit my hard. I stopped, turned around, pulled my head phones out of my ears and pulled out the only cash I had at the time, smiled and handed him what little I could offer. The smile on his face brought tears to my eyes. As we both said God bless at the same time I wondered if he realized that he impacted me in a way that he will never know.

We all need a helping hand. At some point in life don't we all seek out help? The night before I read this man's sign I was blessed with several helping hands, helping hands who came and gave of themselves and their time selflessly. I needed a helping hand and God blessed me with more than one. I pray that the man who sits on the drag is also blessed with helping hands so he too can receive the help that he needs. I pray that we all open our eyes to find those who need a helping hand and we act upon those cries for help because this is what God has called us to do, be the hands of God while we are here on this earth. Be the hands and feet of God.

A Little Encouragement

Dear sweet friends!

Oh how I can hardly believe that we are already half way through September. I have been putting off blogging for quite some time because

1.) Sometimes life gets in the way of life.

2.) I have been busy busy busy.

3.) I have been lost for words.

Well, God has truly placed it on my heart to get on here and say a few things. I do not want to go off on a huge tangent because I know that free time is hard to come by for most and most likely it will be spent sleeping or laying flat on your back trying to catch your breath.

Over the past two weeks, weekend and last night it has been apparent that September has not only come with the hint of fall in the air but also a gust of stress. Stress is looming around the classrooms, our house, Phi Lamb meetings and in most conversations. Girls hearts are breaking, eyes are filling with tears, anxiety levels are rising and sleep is decreasing for most. Although I am not capable of completely taking away the pain that anyone is feeling, I can give a few words of encouragement from a Mighty God. So friends please know that I am diligently praying for you. You are in my thoughts through your tests, through your social organization meetings, while you struggle with conflicts at home or work and please know that you are not alone and you don't have to go through these long days without a friend. Someone is praying for you, if not multiple people. You are loved.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Surely God is my salvation;
I will trust and not be afraid.
The LORD, the LORD, is my strength and my song;
he has become my salvation."

Isaiah 12:2

Hear my cry, O God;
listen to my prayer. From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

Psalm 61:1-2

Under Construction

We are under construction right now. Please be patient while I work night and day to get this back up and running properly. I love you all :)

Teeter Tottering Out of Control

I love mornings. Everything about mornings are fabulous. The sun rising, the birds chirping, the semi-cool weather, coffee, Jesus time and the fact that it is a new day. Who doesn't like new days, new beginnings and a new start to have a great day? As I am writing this I am sitting on the front porch and surprisingly not sweating buckets. I just listened to some Beth Moore and studied up on the book of Daniel, which has been unbelievably amazing. I never thought the book of Daniel could get me so fascinated in end times, prophecies and being faithful to God.

Basically Daniel was a rock star.

God has been convicting me hard core these past 24 hours. When I say convicting I mean giving me a burning fire in my heart to share what I have been feeling and thinking about these past few days. I mentioned that stress has been lingering around but that I was working on having faith and balance in my life. Honestly, I have been telling myself and so many others that all I need is balance in my life and then I will be happy, then everything will fall into place and then once that balance is in place I can get more done and enjoy this whole college thing.

Don't get me wrong, I am happy and I love college. But stress enjoys college and doesn't like happy.

How long can I tell myself I need balance but obviously I have not been doing a great job of mastering this plan. I have been in the "I'll start tomorrow" club for the past few years. THE PAST FEW YEARS! I mean come on Caitlan lets clue in on a few things please! My balance between school, Phi Lamb, church, social, exercise, food and me time has been all over the place, literally. Yes, I may have some balance but my life is a wobbly teeter totter that is desperately trying to plant its feet firmly on the ground.

I am currently reading a book right now that has been great. I encourage any and everyone who has ever struggled with body image and/or an eating disorder to take a look into this book.

Life Without ED by Jenni Schaefer

This book has started me thinking about balance in my life. Although she has not directly talked about balance I believe that when there is something in your life that has direct control of your mind that teeter totter is bouncing back and forth in full force. I have been thinking about what in my life is throwing me off balance, what is causing unnecessary stress and what can I do to keep my feet on the ground.

I think we need to all ask ourselves these questions. Throw out the things in our life that start the teeter totter moving which then results in us slipping off our foundation. How many times do we talk about balance in our life but it ends up being a chore rather a way of life? Have you ever put an action to that statement? Have you acted upon balancing out your life for the better? What are you going to do to slow down the teeter totter so you can start placing your tip toes on the ground again?

For me I will be taking out running of my life for a while. Although this is something I never thought I would say God has shown me that this is a stressor. I am replacing my hard core cardio workouts with yoga and walking. Feel free to join me. I am also going to work on sharing my story with others. God spoke to me this morning saying why wouldn't I share with others what I am learning through the different people and resources I have been blessed with in my life. It is a little selfish God said if I don't look other girls in the eyes and say, "I have been there, I am there now and please understand there is away out. Let me tell you what God is teaching me." I don't want to be selfish. I want to spread the word of God and His love as well as how He sometimes works through us telling us, "Child, flex that muscle I have given you, put a little sweat on your brow and watch as I work through your strength and determination". (Beth talked about that this morning in her study).

I felt God's presence this morning as I walked up and down the streets and neighborhoods. He wants us to live a life of freedom, to stop all this teeter totter crap and know what it feels like to live on solid foundation, the foundation that He has blessed us with.

Good luck on your journey to a balanced life. I am excited for this new turn in my life and how God is going to challenge me as well as you all who decide to make some changes in your day to day life.

Hello September

Well friends we made it to September! I'm pretty sure August didn't even happen because it went by so fast. But I am SO ready for the fall season, the leaves to change colors and "warm" scents from Yankee Candle. I am WAY more of a fall/winter person than I am summer so I have no problem with putting away the heat and tank tops...bring on the scarves and gloves :)

So this is my first entry on my new MacBook! I must say that this was not an expected purchase nor was it the most ideal way to get a new computer. I somehow managed to completely kill my Dell (involuntary manslaughter as I like to call it). Long story short, I bought shelves to go on my wall, super cute. I managed to hammer 25 holes in the wall and probably lose half of my deposit money so my handy-dandy roommate Kaitlyn came to the rescue and assisted me in hanging the shelves. Well, I was convinced that if ANYTHING was going to fall from the wall it would be the shelves...nope. The extremely heavy picture frame that was sitting on the shelf nose dived first. Thus resulting in a nice chunk taken out of the top of my laptop and the screen to be a beautiful array of colors. My bad. Soooo here I am a week later with this handy thing that I have no idea how to work. Now, I did need to get a Mac for student teaching in the spring so if it wasn't too early to joke about it yet with my parents (which it probably is) I would say well shoot this was good timing for me to break something!

My good friend stress showed up at the doorstep this week. He wasn't invited but he tends to show up unannounced sometimes. I have politely asked him to leave several times but he likes the new house and he LOVES the start of new semesters. So that is what I have been dealing with this week, a house guest. I don't know if any of ya'll are having the same issue as me BUT along with stress two other words have appeared which I am working on using them to push out the stress.

1.) Faith. Our lovely president of Phi Lamb gave a devo Monday on our vision for the year, faith and vulnerability. We all know I'm working on vulnerability and slowly but surely that is paying off. BUT about faith I have always assumed I have had good faith in the Lord, that He will provide for me and that He will equip me with what I need at the right time. Well, I was just a tad bit convicted on Monday night as Kayla gave the example of studying vs God. I say I have faith in God but yet there are mornings when I know by having my quite time first thing will be what gets me through the day, yet I still choose to finish my reading or study just a few more flashcards. Shouldn't I have faith that God is going to provide when I take the 30 minutes to spend it with Him in His word? Ummmm YES! Now, this is where the second word comes into play. In order to be able to have the time everyday to spend with the Lord and also have the faith that He will provide I need to have...

2.) Balance! God wants us to have balance in our lives because without balance we tend to focus so much on other things besides God. School, work and social events start to creep into the majority of our thoughts and when we don't take the time to balance out our spiritual life, physical life and mental life than we lose sight of what's important. We don't even have the mindset in the mornings to debate between school and quite time because it HAS to be school because the night before you didn't get anything done because you were out. If we learn to have a stable balance of God, school and social as well as taking care of our bodies physically than we have no reason to not have faith that He will provide us with all the blessings we need. Yes, when we are whacked out and off balance He will still provide for us but the faith we need to have will be a little harder to find. We all get off the paved road every once in a while, it happens and that is okay. This is why we have support teams, scripture and a God who loves us no matter how far off the balance ball we are.

So dear friends next week stress will probably still be here BUT balance and faith should be arriving soon as well ;) I pray that you all find a perfect balance in your life as well. Can't find it? Well then stop what you are doing, sit back, close your eyes and breath. In and out until you have a quite mind and a peaceful heart and that is where you will slowly start making your way back towards balance and a loving God who will put His hand out to guide you back to the paved road.