a rainy, humid, lovely day

here are some fun pics of what i like to call "operation: move rooms." i had to move all my junk from one room in our house to our big back room that lin (see pic of my wonderful 'ole bff below) and i now share. this is what it looked like for about a week as i waded through the masses of randomness, throwing stuff away like it was nobody's business. this task was not very fun for me because i was not in the mindset of having to organize and decide what to throw out, what to keep, and so on. i am one of those people that has a little bit of an issue throwing away. but as my roommate advised (rather sarcastically, i might add) i had to "let go of the movie ticket from 9th grade." after i beat her up, i got down to business.

what did i learn from this? well the obvious but enlightening analogy is just that our lives are filled with a bunch of junk--just like my room. we have all this junk we hold onto in our lives--hurt, pain, old relationships, memories of the past, shame, and so on. and a lot of times we depise the idea of dealing with everything. it is easier to put it in boxes and store them up high in the closet where no one can see instead of sorting through it and putting it where it belongs (the junk in my room needed to go to the trash, and the junk in our lives needs to go the foot of the cross). we just carry it all with us and move it from one place to another, in the back of our minds knowing that it has no rightful place in our lives anymore. and even though the thought of having to sort through all those boxes in my room was not my idea of a great way spend my last week of an already challenging and tiring summer, i feel a lot better now having accomplished it. and it has freed me up for the gifts this year holds. hmmm, yay for simple, everyday life lessons.

here is the finished product. we are enjoying it. please come over.
(note: as you can see, there is still work to be done. it takes time to sort through it all and sometimes we aren't ready for it all at once. thankfully, when we ask God to help us, He gives us just enough strength to get through what we can at that present moment.)

current tasks: enjoying my house FULL of crazy and amazingly funny girls, and planning my life after college. these tasks have been fun/hilarious and a little overwhelming, repectively.

i miss all my big H peeps. but i do love how God puts funny things in my path to remind me of them and the wonderful/terrible moments we shared :) love ya'll.