Words of Wednesday

Hello Folks! I hope this Wednesday is going awesome for you. I wanted to share a little bit of what the Lord is doing in my life. We heard from Sasha Ivanovic, who runs Teen Challenge Serbia, and while he did talk a little bit about his ministry he mostly gave a message that really struck me. God has been teaching me a very hard lesson this year as a teacher, but it has grown my faith so much.

Isaiah 43: 18-29 “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

This was the verse our speaker spoke on. This verse just hit my heart so hard. Every year I have taught (only three, I have a lot to learn) has had such huge and very different challenges. Forget the former things, defeats of course, but sometimes the Lord calls us to forget about our victories! God is doing a new thing... It's one thing to learn from your past, but live in it and feed off of it, that can be very unhealthy. Even if the past was award winningly awesome. The Lord fills us to empty us again. This has been a year of emptying. 

I love being a teacher. It gives me purpose, motivation, and a creative outlet. Just like every year it has been filled with new and difficult challenges. The last two years, the challenges were more tangible. They were objective. Most of the time it was time and intentional organization that would fix them. This year the Lord has brought spiritual challenges. Not so objective. Not at all black-and-white.

God has been saying to me for a while,  "Forget last year. To do lists can wait. It's time to pray. It's time to read. It's time to prepare. Open your door and let students sit in the 'real talk' chair." I obeyed, and they started to come. The "real talk" chair gets a lot of use. There's no walking kids through the sinner's prayer or anything, but there is a lot of listening. 

It's like a light bulb went on. "Now it springs up, do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland" We just obey, and he brings streams of live to the lands that are dry, and to people who are thirsty. It's amazing what prayer, listening, and obedience brings.

Friday Night

Hello Everyone! I may have shared with you before that Nate and I serve as the heads of our college/young adult ministry at our church in Napa. Nate and I have been at our church for about 9 months. When we first got to Hillside, there was a college ministry, but no Pastor. There was fellowship, but no leader. We were burdened for this group that wanted to grow and come together, and also serve the young adult community, but really didn't have anyone to steer the ship. Nate had a meeting with our lead pastor, and in October of 2014, We began to the lead the group/

Since then we've seen serious growth! Not only number wise, but in worship, in enthusiasm, in responsibility and vision, its been so very excitign! We're seeing people excited about their walk in Christ, and excited to see other people come to know Him, and start growing themselves!  

It's been a wonderful and challenging season for us. Running a ministry is such a fun and hard thing to do. God has been taking care of us this whole way! He has blessed us with new friends, who also have a passion and desire to see the young adults come to Christ! He has blessed us with His Word. He has blessed us with confirmation after confirmation that we were really hearing from the Lord and moved out of comfort and safety into unknown territory.

These are a few pictures of the Friday afternoon routine: 

Coffee (recipe coming soon), Worship practice, Prayer, Message. 

 I actually ended up being exact twins last week with my friend Marissa. I only have a polaroid of it to document it, but we were really feeling the denim on denim.

If you do find yourself as a young adult, having nothing to do, and you live near or in the Napa Valley, you should come out! We would love to meet you and be your friend!  See you soon!

I'm a 'bound book' kind of girl

Hi Everyone! I got a new toy that I'm absolutely smitten with! The Polaroid 300 camera. It's virtually the same as the fujifilm instax camera except different colors. They also use the same film. I take it with me everywhere!

Nate and I went on a little walking date to Small World Cafe in Downtown Napa, Look at Nate's face! He's such a doll!

Aren't these so fun! I love the ones of my students. My chapel leadership kids were playing Mafia as a bonding game. Let's just make perfectly clear, I'm awful at being the mafia!They love each other so much, it does my heart so much good to be such sweet people to one another. Being a teacher is the best!

I count these last few weeks (only ten left) as fleeting blessing. This senior class means so much to me, I always say that is this is the class that taught me how to teach. I'm not emotionally prepared to see them move on. Oh no! I'm getting all proud and mushy, I have to stop. Have a fantastic weekend! I'm going wedding dress shopping with my brother's new fiance! I love adding girls to our family! Yay!

Before you go though... I am all about this song right now! This is Mount Zion by Cageless Birds. The end... Jesus is so awesome! See you soon!

Real Talk with Mrs. Parrish

Hey Everyone! Have you ever wondered where fashion/lifestyle bloggers find the time to look cute every day? I really do.Especially the one's that have jobs. I actually do make an effort every single morning to do my hair, and put on something cute, but when it comes to really doing my make-up, it just doesn't happen. I hate feeling like I have to rush, so I go to work bare-faced. I will say, my skin loves me for it. Maybe if I didn't have to work until 9am, I would have the time/energy to do my make-up, but since I commute, and school starts at 7:40, good skincare is all I've got.

So today I say, "If it's wrong to to post pictures of your outfits while not wearing make up in your classroom, then I don't want to be right!"

Here I am, not wearing make-up! This is how I normally look at school. I wear these glasses to appear like I kind of made some sort of beauty effort. To be truthful, I am in no way trying to make a statement by not wearing make-up, It's just that, in the battle between having coffee and wearing make-up...coffee always wins!

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Walking Dates in Napa

Hi Everyone! I hope you had a great week. Mine was so very busy! I couldn't even take one second to even to jot down a single thought. Life gets crazy for me in this part of the school year. I have two huge field trips that takes a ton of energy organize and prepare for, and three other classes to maintain. It's a lot. Not to mention Spring break is five weeks away. I'm not counting or anything!

This past Saturday we walked downtown to Model Bakery in the Oxbow District for breakfast. This place makes the best breakfast Sandwiches! I get the chipotle breakfast sandwich, and a mocha every time. Sometimes you have to wait in a long line that goes out the door, but it is so worth it. Also, it's just really nice to be able to walk from our house to Model and chat with Nathan about life, and Jesus, and music. He tends to be the best for that :)

We talked about how, Right now the Lord is really showing me the true desires of my heart, which I have been praying that He would do for a while. It's started with the fast, and it is slowly but surely being more and more confirmed as I proceed through the school year. My real desire and passion is ministry and music, and I am praying about the most effective way to do that VCS, and how to make sure the students are being ministered to in the way that they need. I know what the Lord is saying for me to do, but it's about me trusting him and taking that next step. I know he will take care of it. If there is one thing I've learned over these past few years, is that, if it's what God wants, He makes it happen. So I'm trusting Him. Then our conversation moved on to really deep stuff... like which Marvel action figures Nate needs to finish his collection.

See you soon!





Weekend update

Hello folks! Happy Sunday afternoon to all of you! Other than having a great morning at church, It's been a great weekend just doing a lot of nothing. Finally got to whip out some of my sandals! Also, I finally got a new camera! I had lost our old one, and had been using the sorry camera from the IPad... Also, I don't have a smart phone (thats another post all together), so taking pictures is a really intention thing for me. Anyways it's very nice to have a new one. It's nothing fancy, but that's okay, because I'm not a photographer, and I'm not sure my pictures would look any better with a fancy camera. Here are a few pictures form the weekend.

This is the weird side room of our apartment. It has such beautiful natural light. It really is one of my favorites spaces. 

 Just a little Saturday afternoon inspiration happening here. I'm not really much of an artiste, but it really is very sweet to sit with my worship music on, and reflect, and paint. Also I'm a chronic cursive writer, I hate printing, so I invested in ($3.99) in a caligraphy pen. It has instantly made everything I write look way more fancy!

A friend of mine, Gennean, from college wrote in her blog about an app she had been using called She Reads Truth  its a Bible study app. It really is one of the most beautiful apps, and I've been obsessed with it since I got it. There is a "Bible in a Year" track that isn't as intimidating as some of the ones I've seen. I read Psalms 5 today along with another Old Testament portion of scripture, and This just stuck out to me so much as this is how I've been trying to start every single day with God. 

What inspires you on the weekends? Do you need a little push? Do you need to hear from the Lord? Scripture is the best place to look. Pray about it! Take a walk! Listen to your favorite music! Right now I've been listen to Stephanie Frizell Gretzinger's The Undoing, and Bethel Music's We Will Not Be Shaken if you need a little suggestion :)

Like A Fire In My Bones

Hello everyone!
For those of you who are unaware, I am a teacher at Christian high school. I teach four different subjects at VCS; The Life of Christ According to the Gospel of John, Chapel Leadership (Worship band for chapel), Choir, and Drama. This is right in line with what I studied in school, and since I spend so many years in youth ministry before going back to college, it really is the perfect job for me. Every single day is a true adventure.

Yesterday I took a survey in my bible classes to find out where they were at with Chapel and how they thought it could be better. It broke my heart. While they did come up with some really good objective things that we could change, and we came to a resolution to make chapel better, my students said they felt condemned, not redeemed. I have have never felt that way about Chapel, but it was clear that they were hearing something different than what I was hearing. One student actually said "The God you talk about in class and the God in they talk about in Chapel are not the same. The God in Chapel just sounds so angry." 

Oh my precious students. This is not how God feels about you.

I couldn't and cannot shake the words from my heart. And while it made me sad to hear the frustration of my students, it also gave me an overwhelming sense of purpose and protectiveness (if that's even a word). It reminded me what my job truly is. Not as a teacher, but as a Christian.  

The God in chapel and the God in Bible 10, and the God at my church are all the same God. The entire Bible being about Jesus from cover to cover means that God is about forgiveness, The Word is to point us to Hope! The Word points out that Jesus has come so that we don't have to live up to the pressure of perfection. The Word points to grace! The Word is love. The Word IS Jesus.