Starting at The End

Senior year!

Sophmore year, full circle, reunited

Yes, I really am writing a blog about my last year of high school. About the last year before I enter the world. The last year of being surrounded by people I have know most of my life. The year that is built up to be oh so amazing. Yes, I really am writing about it.

Because it really is the end of a chapter. It’s where the stories of the 7 people below will part ways, and its where we realize the value of the relationships, yet how fleeting they can be.



Senior Year, here we come!

So may we remember

all the stressed out AP study parties
the annoying Spanish teacher that reunited us
the stupid jokes
the maddness of powderpuff week
the tears we shed to each other
the sporting events we supported each other at
and the countdown to this  very day

 And may that just be the start of it. Here’s to friends that pulled my though and awful Junior year. Who cried when I left for the summer. Who held me through sickness, and tried to understand me. Who laughed, and cried with me. Here’s to the ones who have been there since freshmen year, since 5^th grade, since middle school, or from as far back as I can remember. 

This is it! Our last year together, so here’s to the BEST ONE YET!

And a VERY VERY necessaary walk throught the past few years....

Waking me up at 6am to make pudding. Really?

When we went to Jr. Prom. Another night of growing as frinends

Me, Mckenna, 80s day. Normal?

Flash a Smile And Capture the Moment

     A photograph allows one to step back in time and actually see a moment of their past, good or bad, a picture proves that moment happened. One of my favorite picture shows me and one of the girls I traveled to Swaziland with looking semi grungy posing with the head of a dead animal. These two girls are ending an amazing journey, together; they overcame language barriers, became the people they were intended to be, over came many obstacles, and were victorious through it all. However by simply looking you wouldn’t know this; "…you could never really know what you were seeing with just a glance, in motion, passing by. Good or bad, right or wrong. There was always so much more." (Sarah Dessen in Just Listen)

     The days and weeks before this picture was taken changed my life so dramatically that I don’t recognize who I was before. I thought I was learning to stand on my own, learning to let go of everything and be a new creation, but I was oh so wrong. I learned that there is no such thing as standing on your own, you simply “rest in God’s strength and take it on as your own.”(Lizzie Parrish), I learned everyone is same yet very different; but most importantly I learned that your past matters, it shapes you into who you are; I learned that the little moments, can have lasting impact, and that laughter truly is the key joy.

      Remembering everything about this day would be next to impossible; however this captured moment spurs memories of  moments and conversation that enlightened my life. I always felt the need to be strong, the need to be everything everyone wanted or expected me to be.  This friend didn’t meet me until a month before this picture was taken, and wanted nothing from me except to know me and become close to me. Knowing I didn’t need to be a certain way allowed me to be exactly who I am: strong, broken, wise, incorrect and so much more.

    The ability to see something rather than just look at it allows all new meanings to come to life. I am now able to see things for what they are, rather than look at them how I want them to be. I look at this picture and see that though it’s posed it shows who we were as friends, and who we are as individuals. It clearly reflects the time we spent together, learning who we are and how we fit in the world. There’s so much more to everything than meets the eye.

   If you were to see this picture its silliness may put a smile on your face, or you may wonder where it was taken, but, without knowing the stories of the girls, the pictures magic is lost.  By looking at it you wouldn’t know that one of the girls is facing fears and overcoming lies that have held her back, or one is just trying to discover who she is and where she belongs. You can never see the story taking places before and after the flash of a camera, "…the picture is always changing, makes a statement about how time is always passing. It doesn't really stop, even in a single image. It just feels that way."(Sarah Dessen The Truth About Forever) This picture simply displays a single moment when two stories intersected and paused for the flash of a camera.

Here's to Cahos

A few days ago I was sent a link to a magazine article all about why one should travel at a young age, and it kinda rocked my world!

 (Read the article here! http://convergemagazine.com/featured/travel-young/)

 The article REALLY hit home to me, like why stay here, why live in a way I can for the rest of my time on earth when I have this time, this calling, this opportunity?

I don’t want to look back on life someday and regret not going, not seeing the world.

I want to recklessly abandon the world, and live radically! 

      There’s more of a reason more of a purpose behind my life! So why not tap into that, or moreover, embrace it, live it, declare it, walk boldly into it!

Because I was created for this!
Every experience I have is training for whatever God is calling me into next, and EVERY past experience allows me to handle what the next one throws at me!

      So I’m going to travel young, I’m going to see the world. I’m going to love the least of these, I’m going to walk in and embrace my authority. I’m going to learn to be a leader. I'm going to be changed. I’m going to embrace the crazy calling that has been placed on my life! I’m going to continue to say “YES!” to whatever crazy thing that God asks me to do next.

     So here’s to going, to being the change, to living what you believe! Here’s to striving for not just being content and NEVER getting comfortable. Here’s to breaking away and going someplace just to love and be loved. Here’s to the chaos that follows. Here’s to answering the ‘scary questions’ and loving whatever comes with it. Here’s to saying yes, whatever the cost!

*Photo Credit to my Kenya Team