Little Sisters.

Growing up there were few things I wanted more than a sister. All of my friends who had sisters always had someone to share clothes with, to do their nails and their hair, to talk about boys with, basically it was like having a live in best friend and I longed for that kind of a relationship. To me it just seemed like sisters got you on such a different and more exact level than anyone else in the world, and here I was stuck with a brother who wanted to play Pokemon 24/7. (Don't get me wrong, I love having a brother and have grown super thankful for him over the years!). The universe never gave me what I wished for so I was stuck with having girlfriends that turned into surrogate sisters.

I'm now in my 4th year of leading WyldLife, and for all those years I've always thought of the middle schoolers I lead as girls or friends. It didn't occur to me until today that these girls really become my little sisters in a sense. I get to share life with them, to walk hand in hand with them as they go through middle school (arguably the toughest 3 years of life). When boys are dumb and hurt them, I get to be there. When they just need someone to talk to, I get to be there. When there's a school dance and they need someone to do their hair and help them pick out a dress, I get to be there. When friends talk behind backs and hurt their feelings, I get to be there. And the sweetest of all - when they decide to start walking through life with Jesus Christ, I get the privilege of being there with them.

In Floyd I get to be the proud older "sister" to so many sweet girls. It kind of makes me a little mad that I didn't realize what a privilege I have earlier in my leading career, but I'm oh so thankful that I have. It gives me a whole new perspective to leading, which is pretty darn sweet. Not only are these girls my "girls" that I get to tell about Christ, but they become my family that I get to love unconditionally and go through life with. That's pretty darn exciting if you ask me.

Here's to finally getting the sister I always wished for, and many more than I could've ever known I even wanted!

xoxo,
Abby

Be the Armor-bearer.

Recently at leadership Sloop (Virginia Tech's YL area director) spoke about a passage from 1 Samuel where Jonathan and his armor-bearer defeat the Philistines and bring revival to the Jewish nation (1 Samuel 14:1-23). It's over all a pretty ridiculous but pretty awesome story highlighting the power of God and how much he can accomplish when we stop trying to control everything, give him room to work and trust that he will. But in the midst of all the crazy battle plans and defeating of enemies there's one section of one verse that really stuck out to me. It's the last part of verse 7 and Jonathan's armor-bearer says to him, "Behold, I am with you heart and soul." Wow.

So for a little background - Jonathan has decided that he's just gonna go over to the Philistines and see what God is going to do in the situation. He's the only one in the whole Jewish army right now who actually has his weapons (for some reason the rest of the army is getting their's cleaned), so he just goes for it. It's funny to me because as you read this it makes it sound like he literally just decides on a whim hey let's go check out the enemies camp and see what happens. That's not normal or smart logic when you're kind of fighting a small war with these people at the moment, but he goes for it. Jonathan starts to give this armor-bearer of his a little bit of his plan for what they're going to do, but with out hearing much detail at all the armor-bearer says that line that's been nagging at me "Behold, I am with you heart and soul." When was the last time you said that to God? To be honest, I don't know if I ever have. I don't even know if I know exactly what it means to be with someone heart and soul.

It's hard to explain, but that line just gets me. Jonathan's armor-bearer has SO MUCH trust in him. He literally has no idea what's going to happen, there's even a good chance that they're going to die, but he still tells Jonathan that he is completely and utterly with him. He's got his back and he will support any decision he makes or actin he decides to take. The craziest part? Jonathan is a human. He is a broken and sinful human just like me and you. Yet this young man who carries his armor is able to see his trust in the Lord and is able to then trust Jonathan not just with his whole heart, but with all his soul. If the armor-bearer can have so much trust in a man he carries armor for why can't I be so trusting and so with the God of the universe? It also brings forth the question of what crazy plan is the Lord calling me into? What plan is he inviting me to be a part of?

My challenge for myself this week is to live more like the armor bearer. To be whole heartedly and souly with God even though I don't know what plan of battle he's having me follow him into. I challenge you to live like the armor bearer as well this week!

xoxo,
Abby

Word doodles are my newest favorite pass time, so here's the one that inspired this post!

The Magnolia House.

"How good and pleasant it is when sisters live together in unity." -Psalm 133:1

This time last year all the other freshmen girls had figured out who they were living with, where they were living, and some had even signed leases already, but Rene, Grace and I were out in the dust with no where to live. We tried to get excited about living on campus, looked at cheap apartments, searched for houses and more girls, but couldn't really get excited about any of our options. So we did what any good group of christian girls would do - handed it over to the Lord. We knew that he wasn't going to let us go homeless our sophomore year and that he had some sort of a plan in the cards for us.

Just before Christmas break a cryptic text changed all of our plans for the next year. Five girls a year older than us were moving into a HUGE house and needed three more girls to share it with. Three girls exactly. That always gets me when I look back on it, just how perfectly it all worked out - numbers wise at least. It's funny to me that at a random table in an empty dining hall the three of us committed right then and there to living with 5 girls we barely knew at all (and by that I mean all we knew was the basics there shared in our 30 minute meeting).

Less than a year later the seven of us (we lost one along the way) we had our house pictures taken, and that was just such a sweet reminder of house the Lord has knit us together in his love and in this house. Granted, we are broken humans. We have our faults. We fail at loving each other and showing each other Christ a lot. But honestly I wouldn't wish to be living any where else in the world right now. It really is pleasant and good living as sisters in the unity of Christ.

Shouts to Lauren Bradshaw for capturing our sweet and unique relationships on film, and shouts to my man Jesus for giving me these relationships!

Magnolia.

The "Bridesmaids" pic aka our actual BA selves.

Hay bales are hipster right? Well I'm obsessed with them anyway...

The Basement Babes.

The Magnolia Barber Shop.

Spontaneity is one of my favorite parts of life, and it runs rampant here at college, at least in my house it does. Our most recent endeavor is the opening of the Magnolia Barber Shop. A not-for-profit charity hair cutting studio we run out of the kitchen in the basement. We provide hair cuts to broke college students who need to shed their dead ends but don't have a budget that allows a fancy salon trip.

I really hope that made you laugh because it sure made me. The real story is my roommate Emily is relatively skilled at cutting hair so she sits crazy girls who spontaneously want to cut their hair off at the kitchen table and armed with a pair of school scissors off goes the hair. Just like that you're a new, dead end free person and haven't spent a dime. That's just kind of how we do things here at Magnolia. We're all about adventure and craziness 'round here.

Tonight's client in the barber shop? Me. 3ish inches off my hair. Love this house and love the crazy spontaneity of college.

 

Also my hair is kind of gone. Yay college!

Adventures in Leading: Bracelets.

Leading YoungLife in college is hard. Leading WyldLife in Floyd County is even harder. This week we were tasked as a leadership by our area director to come prepared with a "personal victory" we'd had one on one with a kid this week, and honestly I had no idea what that meant. I'm still fairly new in the whole leading and knowing girls thing and being 45 minutes away sure doesn't help with the getting to know girls on a regular basis thing.

Something really funny about the 6th grade girls I've been sitting with at lunch is that they are fascinated by my bracelets. Every time they see me they proudly recite "That one's from Winter Sun, that one's from Germany, the antler's from Norway and your watch is from the Target in Christiansburg!" I don't really know why they're so intrigued by a bunch of intricate yarn, but they are and it always gives me a nice chuckle.

I've really been struggling with feeling like I haven't been connecting with the girls that much. That I'm just some semi cool older person that comes to lunch a few days a week and that all that means is that they're allowed to talk during the silent part of lunch. That our relationship was just whatever in their eyes. But this week at lunch, bracelets changed that idea.

My teammate Sarah and I sat down with our regular table of girls and one of them very excitedly very excited searched through her lunch box proclaiming "I made something for you guys!!!" She pulled out two of those little rubber band bracelets that are super in right now with the tween girls. If you hadn't guessed already - I love bracelets. Also I love gifts, totally one of my love languages. It's crazy to me how something as small as having a little 6th grade girl hand you a silly little bracelet can have to much impact and be such a confirmation that even when I feel like I'm failing at being a leader the Lord is still on my side and working in little ways that I don't even know.

Rejoice in the small things my friends!

Adventures in Leading: Rec Basketball

One of my absolute favorite things about leading WyldLife is rec sports. It seems like basically every girl I meet plays some sort of a rec sport or another constantly throughout the year (probably cause there's not much to do in Floyd County, but hey - gotta do what ya gotta do). This semester I've befriended some really awesome 6th grade girls that make up an entire rec basketball team and I absolutely love going to their games. It's really sweet because they love having me there too.

This past week I got to sit on the bench with the teams two injured players. Don't ask me how this happened but somehow both of them broke their legs. Crazy coincidence, but that just means I get to hang out with them during games.

It's amazing to me how much you can learn about girls just by watching them play basketball. It's kind of weird, but oh so sweet. Some girls have oodles of natural talent and seem to have it all together on that court. Yet others seem to have no idea what their doing, but try so hard to get it right and be seen as valuable by their teammates.

The whole game was such an accurate picture of life. Some of us seem to have our whole lives together. We're calm, cool, and collected hiding behind our natural talents and not revealing who we really are to the world around us. And some of us feel constantly invisible, not really great at anything but striving so so hard to be noticed and needed by the world around us. Being at rec games makes my heart break for these girls so many more ways than sitting with them in a lunch room does, and am I so thankful for that ability to catch a better glimpse of who they are and how much they need to know my sweet sweet Jesus.

Moral of the story? Head out to a rec game. You'll learn so much about the sweet kids you're running after just by watching them play and supporting them in this special way (:

Stand Strong.

This week I've been working as a crew leader for the local Vacation Bible School (technically part of intern life, but also a part of my summer since kindergarten). I'm pretty much convinced that I got stuck with the craziest of all crews in Stuttgart, but even so we've probably had the most fun of all the crews in Stuttgart.

There have been a couple times this summer that I have forgotten that I'm working with military kids, and this week was one of those times. Today, when the craziness in my group got just a little too out of control, my boss talked to one of the kids for me (some extra authority always helps). He afterward informed me that this particular kid's dad has been deployed for 3 months and isn't coming home any time soon. This was the cause for him acting out...he just literally didn't know how to respond to the situation. Realizing this truth about this kid's life opened my eyes and helped me remember just how difficult the military life is for kids. After 19 years of being a military kid having my dad deployed is just a normal part of life, I'd forgotten how hard it could be when we are so young.

Today at VBS we had Sir Valiant the lion teaching us that trusting God helps us stand strong! (Standing strong for God is the over arching theme this week). And the bible verse that accompanied Sir Valiant was Jeremiah 26:4 "Trust the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock." I couldn't help but think today how powerful this verse is in the lives of military kids, especially young ones. In our families our earthly fathers aren't always around to serve as the "rock" in our life, but as Sir Valiant taught us today, we can always trust in and count on God because he IS "an ETERNAL rock."

I so desperately hope that today's message hit home for my kids as much as it did for me, but I also hope that it hits home for you as well. We all have something in our lives that should serve as a rock, but is so earthly and broken that it will never last. There is so much hope embedded in Isaiah 26:4...an ETERNAL foundation in God, it literally doesn't get much cooler than that!

Remember - Trusting in God helps us STAND STRONG!

xoxo,
Abby

Getting To Know A Great Thing.

"You never know a good thing til it's gone" such a common proverb that has found it's way into nearly every Hollywood production, dozens of songs, and rings all to well in my nomadic lifestyle. I've grown up living in a place that I absolutely hate for 18 long months and then as soon as I get on a plane to finally leave would sacrifice every fiber of my being to go back. Honestly it's a phenomena that's I've never fully understood and wish didn't exist. How much simpler and more enjoyable would life be if I could just be content and be able to enjoy my situation? Much. 

I've been reading the book Beautiful Outlaw by John Eldredge for the last month or so on the recommendation of my lovely roommate. She didn't really tell be much about it but just insisted that I would find it super intriguing and really enjoy it. And seeing as she sometimes knows me better than I know myself I picked it up. Oh boy was she right! The subtitle on the cover reads "Experiencing the playful, disruptive, extravagant personality of Jesus." If you're as obscenely stubborn as I am you've probably never even thought about Jesus having a personality, he's Jesus for goodness sakes! I'm not sure why it never occurred to me, but it just hasn't. Not that I thought that Jesus was a dull guy or anything, the gospels obviously spell out for us that he was a pretty amazing guy, but reading between the lines with Jesus was never something I did. 

With the help of Eldridge's insight my eyes have been opened to the fact that Jesus has so much more dimension than red words on sheet of paper. He is funny, he's humble, he has a sneakiness about him, he is extravagant in so many ways, and he's true. As I slowly but surely work my way through this book and all the different facets of Jesus's personality I can see my view of Jesus changing daily. I like to think that with Jesus I'm getting to know a good thing to be great while I've got it. Not getting to know a good thing when it's gone. And it's neat to think that while he's probably looking down laughing at my childish ignorance for thinking he was just as flat as the pages I've read about him, that he's also laughing with me as I discover and uncover his sense of humor. 

Xoxo, 

Abby 

If you want to read Beautiful Outlaw (which I HIGHLY recommend) I'm more than willing to lend out my copy so just let me know if you need it! (: 

Adventures in Leading: Middle School Softball

Fun fact about me: I am terrified of doing things alone most of the time.

Just minutes after making plans to go to some of our middle schoolers' softball game my teammate told me she couldn't make it. BOTH my teammates told me they couldn't make it. That meant I was going it alone. To a softball of girls that I don't even know super well and in a part of Floyd County that was completely foreign to me. As I went to bed last night I secretly hoped that my alarm would forget to go off so I wouldn't have to go to this game alone. Needless to say, my alarm went off, I got some Starbucks, turned on some Jesus tunes and headed to good ole Check, VA.

When I got into the parking lot this morning there was NO ONE there. Check Elementary fields were a ghost town. What a sigh of relief that was! No softball for me today! But leaving right away just felt wrong (mostly because I had just driven 45 minutes to get there, but God was also yanking on my heart not to just desert these girls). So I sat in the parking lot and read my Bible while I waited for some sign of a softball game in the area. I can across Deuteronomy 31:8, "The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will not leave or forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged."

I was definitely afraid, and definitely discouraged by 1. being there alone and 2. it seeming like I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But as soon as I got down reading that verse I watched three mini vans full of the girls I knew pulled into the parking lot. Talk about a God moment! I moved my car to the fields, sat in my car, prayed some, manned up, and went for it. The first girl I saw FREAKED out when she saw me, and in all honesty that one moment was all I needed to verify that was most definitely NOT in the wrong place at the wrong time.

During the freezing cold game I got to sit with some really awesome moms who so loving shared their blanket with and got to chat about life while we watched their daughters dominate the game. I got some funny looks when they found out I was a college student but I like to think they thought I was pretty cool (: When I left the moms THANKED be for coming. Like, for real?! That was definitely the coolest for me, that as I walked out the moms on the bleachers were thanking me multiple times.

Leave it to God to take a situation that I was super afraid of going into and turn it into something totally awesome!

Hello Beautiful.

"What if you had a genuine and captivating beauty that was marred only by your own striving."

- Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge

I read these words about a week ago in John and Stasi Eldredge's book Captivating, which focuses on the brokenness and healing of the feminine heart (it's a super powerful book that I definitely recommend to all of you). This quote sparked a discussion during my bible study on the topic of striving...What are we striving for? How are we striving? Does that glorify God? How is our beauty marred by this? How do we change that? And it really got me to thinking; each and EVERY one of us is innately BEAUTIFUL. We were created in the image of the God of the universe who is more beautiful than literally anything we can fathom, and if we are created in his image how can we NOT be beautiful?! 

Society has taught us that to be beautiful one needs to be skinny and have long, pin straight hair, with bright white, straight teeth and tan skin, but in reality that's not true beauty. What I've discovered over the past week after exploring this tough concept is that true beauty comes when we are content in the Lord, his love for us, and who we are. Simple is theory, but definitely tough in practice. I know that my life especially is so full of the junk and lies of this world that my eyes are blinded to how God sees. As a 19 year old girl it makes sense, in a worldly way, that I pay a lot of unhealthy attention to what the world thinks of me. But when you really think about it, God is SO much bigger than any opinion of even you're dearest friend or randomest stranger, and in the end HIS opinion is the ONLY one that matters. And his opinion is that he LOVES you more than you can fathom and that YOU are the most BEAUTIFUL human being in the entire universe.

Let your heart soak that in. And ask God to reveal to your genuine, captivating beauty to you.

xoxo,
Abby

The Land of the Buffalo.

It's official! I'm a WyldLife leader is the grand ole county of Floyd in beautiful Virginia. To say that I'm stoked would have to be an understatement (I've been placed for about a month now and the excitement hasn't gone down a bit).

Things I love about Floyd:

1. As of June I will have a room in two different houses in Floyd (being on a team with married people rocks)!
2. Floyd is full of hippies, and that makes things a lot more fun.
3. There are a TON of cows, so basically I was destined to spend the rest of my life in Floyd.
4. Our entire leadership is made up of a group of 16 of the most loving and God fearing people I've every met it my whole life. Also we are a group of 16 oddballs that make life so much more interesting.
5. I haven't been to many places in America, but I could probably argue that Floyd is the prettiest of all the places in America.
6. Every Friday night the country store downtown puts on a Friday Nite Jamboree and bands play live music and everybody flatfoots (cool Floyd dancing) - If you are a Tech student go to the Jamboree at least once, you won't regret it. 
7. People actually live in yurts.

I am so blessed and honored that God placed me in Floyd for at least the next three years of my journey to love on and teach the kids of Floyd county about the love of him and his son. I cannot wait to see how the Lord uses me in this county! 

This week are gearing up for first club of the semester and it is a very very exciting time for the WyldLife team! We would your prayers for the Lord's plan to surpass ours this week as we prepare for sharing the gospel with kids and that their ears and hearts will be opened and receptive to the message of Christ!

xoxo,

Abby

"You're My Favorite."

How much differently would you treat a person if God was standing right beside them screaming that they were his favorite person? I know that personally I'd be a whole heck of a lot nicer. It's pretty simple really, if God's there watching you interact with his favorites then you want to make sure that you are treating that person better than you've ever treated anyone else because they are GOD's favorite and that's a pretty big deal. 

Now let's think about some things for a second:

1. God created the whole world, he loves us all. Doesn't that make all of us his favorite? 
2. It's a pretty well known fact that God's omnipresent, so even when we don't think he's watching he really is.

Keeping those things in mind examine the way you treat people on a daily basis. What lens do you use to view the people you interact with on a daily basis? Do you let the societal norms and standards influence how you look at someone and allow you to superficially judge them? Or are you looking at those around you through the eyes of God? Do you acknowledge and treat them like the favorite of God that they are?

The truth is as humans we down right suck at not judging people. I especially find it so easy to look at someone and just write them off and not want to have a conversation with them because their hair is unkept or their clothes aren't the hippest. We so quickly allow the world dictate how we treat and interact with other people, especially strangers, that we loose sight of how we ought to be conducting our selves toward others. 1 John 4:9-11 says "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not the we loved God but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." Something that was brought up by Steve Gardner (the NC regional YL director) at Committee Leader Weekend when he talked about this subject was that ought can be translated to "owe it to." AKA we OWE it to God to view every person we meet as someone whom Christ died for and love them accordingly, as God would love them.

Let that be our challenge this week: to not forget that Christ died for EVERYONE'S sins and just those who have accepted him. Not forget that every single person is a favorite of God, immensely loved by our Heavenly Father and we owe it to God to treat them like he is behind them pointing and screaming "THEY'RE MY FAVORITE!"