So as the year comes to a close I think it's time for my year summary. I was reading back through my summary of last year which you can see in this post: and it's so weird to think of everything that has happened since I've been at MC especially in the past two years. wow. I've had an amazing college experience. It's weird to think that I only have one more semester. That still scares me but I'm coming to terms with it. I think more than anything I'm just sad to be leaving my best friends. There's just no better bonding time than college. I can't imagine not having these people around me all the time but I know that God has good plans in store for me and I'm excited to see what those plans are, but yes, nervous at the same time because I really don't know what those plans are. I've decided that I have to live this semester to the fullest. I want to do any and every crazy plan my friends have because I don't want to miss out on fun opportunities with them my last semester. I mean nothing too stupid or anything. ha I've been truly blessed to have some of the best friends a person could ask for while I've been at MC...gah I'm starting to cry as I write this. ha I can't help it. I'm really going to miss all the late nights in the church activities building, all the random road trips, the functions, everything basically. ha Thank you to all of my friends for being such great friends. 2008 has been another great year and I'm going to make the most of this last semester. Anyway, after all that rambling, here's my year summary. (Btw if it weren't for pictures I would have a lot of trouble remembering back to what happened all the back in January. ha)

January
• Hung out with Erin, Nance, and the guys for New Years

How is it that I can go from one emotion to the opposite emotion in the span of oh 5 min? Ugh. I'm so, so happy for all of my friends right now. Most of my best friends are dating great people now and I'm really happy for them. I think they've all made great choices in who they're with. Then it hits me that I'm pretty much the last one in my group of best friends who is still single. I'm ok with that, but does it have to be pointed out that I had a chance. Don't you think I know. I know I'm picky. I don't want to settle. I refuse to settle. Don't you think I've thought about and prayed about it, well I have. Words hurt you know. I don't need my flaws pointed out. I do it enough to myself. You know I could hurt the person who just hurt my feelings with words really bad if I wanted to but I'm not going to do that. It won't do any good and I don't like to fight. I just wish that people wouldn't prick at the sensitive areas in my life like that. Anyway, to my best friends, I love you all and I'm really extremely happy for you. Good choices all around. Now if you know of any guys for me...jk. It will happen. I have faith. :) -Pidge-

Coming home makes me sad sometimes. Don't get me wrong, I love my family. What makes me sad is that I just sit at home not hanging out with anyone because my friends from home don't have time for me anymore if they even come home anymore, and most of my friends from school live too far away. We're all just too busy for each other and it stinks. I'm all about quality time. A lot of my friends don't seem to get the fact that I don't care if we're doing anything all that fun and exciting I just like hanging out. Just spend some time with me. That's all I ask. I'm fairly easy to please I think. Why do my closest friends have to live in places like Monroe, Carrollton (yes you're from Carrollton face it), Florida (geez move to MS please!), West Point, etc. Oh and I can't forget my camp friends, they live in TX and OK! gah. Ok enough whining. I just want my friends. That's all. But without the school work that generally accompanies being with them. If only. oh well.

This weekend was refreshing. I love being outdoors. I think seeing the night sky full of stars is a good way to bring back perspective on life for me. I realized I need to take time to relax and get my focus right more often. I let myself get distracted by business often and don't give God the time He deserves. This has got to be fixed. I was in my element this weekend sitting around a fire outside praising God and relaxing with friends. It made me miss camp. I really think camp brought out the best in me because I was in my element being outside and around kids all the time. I knew I had to be a leader for those kids and so I stepped up to that postion and it was exactly what I needed. I'm sure a lot of people get tired of hearing me talk about camp, but I can't help it. Unless you've experienced it firsthand it's hard to describe how great it was for me and hard to get people to understand. I actually enjoyed being cut of from the world for a little bit this weekend by turning off my phone and spending time focusing on God and the friends I was with. Sometimes being disconnected is refreshing. I think it was just what I needed. The only downside of the weekend is that I think it might have brought on sickness. boo. I've been running a slight fever which is no fun. Hopefully I'll be feeling well again soon.

So I'm not leaving until saturday morning now, but that's ok because now I get to go shopping with my mom tomorrow and eat my dad's cooking at home! yay! We're leaving saturday morning driving to Dallas and hanging out with Amanda and Morgan and staying with Amanda. Sunday we'll stay at Nancy's apartment and probably see some other camp people. Then Monday we're driving down to Waco to see Paige and Tessa and staying there monday night then tuesday morning it's back to MC. I'm super excited! It's going to be a very fun break. I've missed my camp friends a ton and the break from school will be nice. Thankfully my business has slowed down a little. I don't mind being busy but it had gotten a little overwhelming a couple weeks ago. While I abosultely love being around people and going constantly, I'm an introvert by nature so I need my me time to just sit down, relax, and read a good book. Reading is my escape. I love it.

Crappy night to end a crappy week. Why isn't my senior year going the way I pictured it? I feel like none of my friends really want to be my friend this week and that hurts. I need my best friends and I need honesty. I thought things had changed but this weekend felt just like last year and that's not cool. Please people just be my friend and don't leave me out and be honest with me. This senior year funk I feel like I've been in lately is not fun.

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. Basically a lot of self-reflection. I struggle with self-confidence. That's not something I like to admit, but it's the truth. I went to one of the best high schools in the state which had it's benefits and disadvantages. I got a great education there, but I'm a competitive person, and I never felt I was best at anything. By no means do I think I'm stupid. Funny thing is, sometimes I think my sisters see me as the perfect child and that's just crap. Trying to be the perfect child is hard, impossible actually. You will always fail if you're trying to be perfect. Perfection doesn't exist other than in God. I know that, but I still struggle because I'm afraid of failure and disappointment. I had a deep discussion with one of my best friends recently that helped me realize a lot about myself. One of my biggest issues is that I live in fear. Fear of not being able to be myself, that I cannot be myself, that I am me, and fear of disappointing people with who I am. I'm sick of living in fear. I was never the girl who had a million friends. I've always been cautious with my friends, afraid to correct them and call them out on things, because I'm afraid of losing them. I'm realizing now that that's no way to go through life. My true friends will still be my friends no matter what. I'm learning that it's ok to tell people if I feel like they're mistreating me and using me as a backup best friend like has happened so many times throughout my life. To quote my friend, "If they get mad, tell them it's true and it's not acceptable, and if necessary yell, and if they leave you, then they aren't a real friend." This is hard for me. I've never been a confrontational person, but I'm tired of being that awkward, unsure, walked over girl. I'm tired of being shy, and unsure, and misunderstood. I don't want to be seen as awkward. I want people to be able to see the real me. I started gaining some confidence last spring when I went on Mission Arlington. It finally clicked in me one day that everyone around me struggles too, and they're just people like me, so I don't need to worry so much about what others think. The take charge, be a leader, thing has been new for me, and I've been doing fairly well with it, but it's when the really difficult times come that I tend to revert back to shy, quiet, unsure, awkward, Allison. Well, it's time for that to change. My friends deserve to see the real me. I'm tired of believing people when they tell me I can't do something. Being told I can't do something is hard for me because I do tend to believe it because like I said earlier, I've never felt like I was best at anything. But who's to tell me I can't do something. Who cares if it's not in my personality to do something. I'm letting Satan get a hold on me if I believe that. That's putting God in a box to say oh you have such and such personality so you can't do something like that. You're not good enough. It's not going to be easy for me to get past people's criticism, but I'm working on it. I thrive on encouragement, so cutting remarks sit deep with me. I was recently asked if the pain of losing is worth the fight? This was on a completely different subject matter than what I'm discussing, but I think it can relate. My answer was that you're certainly not going to win if you don't fight, so I'd say yes, otherwise you're still losing if you don't fight. Well, if I don't fight for who I am then I'm losing one way or another. I need to take my own advice. So be prepared...I'm going to work on my self-confidence and enter the "fight" because if I don't then I have no chance of winning and showing people who I am.
Another friend of mine recently sent me a text that simply said "Ephesians 3:14-21," so out of curiosity, I looked up the passage. Here's what it said:
"For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen."
The part that really jumped out at me was where it said, "I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being..." Being strengthened with power through his Spirit in my inner being is exactly what I'm seeking right now. This verse couldn't have come at a better time. Another verse that has stood out lately for me is 2 Timothy 1:7, "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline." Pray that I will be able to live out this verse. I don't want to live in a spirit of fear and timidity any longer. Pray that I will have confidence to show people who I really am. I am so incredibly thankful for my friends. I have some of the best friends whom I love and I want them to be able to truly see who I am. I want to be the woman God made me to be.

A lot has happened since my last post. The biggest thing being that I went to Greece over Spring Break. I knew beforehand that God was going to work in me on this trip, and that it would be another life changing trip for me like Mission Arlington and I was correct. God began to show me some things He has in store for my future and I'm so excited. We had a media team follow us around and keep a website updated with posts, pictures, and video of us during the trip. (iwcstories.com) The media team not only followed us around taking pictures and video, but they were able to get involved with what we were doing. They didn't just take a backseat position to us and let opportunities pass them by. If they had a chance to speak with the Greeks like we were doing then they jumped right in and spoke. The media team made me realize that there are positions out there in my field that really can make a difference. Prior to this trip I had told my mom on more than one occasion that I wanted to do something that made a difference in my field, but up until this trip I had no idea what I could do. Well, one thing God showed me on this trip is that I can take my talents anywhere in the World and use them for Him, which is just amazing. I'm learning not to limit God. He knows my passions. He knows I love art and kids, and that I want to make a difference and I truly believe he will use me. I now know at least one thing for sure about my future and that is that I want to do something with my passions out on the mission field. I was also directed to a website that has mission trips just for art majors on this trip, and the media team also gave me one of their cards to keep in contact. It's amazing how many opportunites I learned there are out there for someone like me that I had no clue, prior to this trip, existed. Wow. I can't wait to see what God has in store for me.
On another note, we signed up for classes for next semester and I'm pretty sure I'm crazy. I'm going to be taking 18 hours and 2 of those classes are languages because I couldn't make up my mind and I'm kind of wanting a challenge. Yeah, I'm wierd, I know, but I don't care. haha I'll be taking New Testament Greek, French I, Art for Children, Illustration, Portfolio I, and Web Design. I'm actually really looking forward to most of my classes next semester. I'm really excited about Art for Children. That just sounds like such a fun class. Anyway, it's late, and I'm tired. Goodnight. :)

I should know by now that good news is usually followed by bad news. It just always seems to happen that way. Alex told me today that he's going to be studying abroad in France next Spring, which will be my last semester at MC. That in and of itself I can deal with, it makes me sad, but I could deal with it fine if it was just him. However, Erin is most likely not going to be here at all next year, and she's definitely not going to be Spring semester, so I have to find a new roommate; Betsey is going to be studying abroad in Africa; Rachelle is going to be living off campus; Nancy graduates this year. Most of my best friends won't be here my last semester and that just makes me really sad. I also have no idea what I want to do when I graduate. It just scares me to think about my last semester and what my future holds becuase I have no idea. I have a feeling that next year is going to be a year where I'm really going to have to trust and depend on God.
On a more positive note, I'm really excited about this Summer. Yay Balcones Springs!

I've been slacking on writing on this lately. I've wanted to, I've just been so busy. I started a job this past week. It's not the most interesting job in the world. It's just office work. Lots of filing. Sometimes I try to make it more interesting for myself by thinking of background stories to the people I'm filing information on.
As I mentioned in the last post, I'm learning contentment right now. I just feel like God is trying to teach me what it means to be truly content with who I am and what I have. It's not always easy, but when I am feeling content it's just such a great feeling of peace. I want to feel at peace and content, I really do, but it's hard when there are so many things I want for myself.
I'm getting pretty excited about Greece over spring break. I feel like God's going to use me and teach me things on this trip. I don't know how or what yet, but I'm excited to find out. Please keep all of us in your prayers.
Speaking of things I'm excited about, I'm supposed to meet with some of the people from Camp Balcones Springs this week. They were going to try to meet me tonight for supper, but they were going to be getting into MS later than they thought so we're hoping to meet for lunch or something on thursday. I really want this job. I think it would be exciting to be out of MS for a Summer and to get to work with kids all Summer. I've never been that far away from home for that long of a period of time, so that makes me a little nervous, but yet excited at the same time. If I get it, it will definitely be a growing experience for me.
Well, it's late and I'm sure I have more to say, but my brain isn't fully functioning at the moment, so I believe it's time for me to get some sleep. Good night! Or should I say καληνύχτα! (That would be Greek for good night in case you were wondering.)

Sometimes I just don't understand. Life just really isn't fair sometimes. I feel I go through the same thing over and over and over and it really stinks. I'm trying to figure out what God is trying to teach me through this but it's hard because I just honestly don't understand why I have to go through this again. I know everything will work out and that God has a plan for me, but it's just really hard to see sometimes. I know I'm being vague, but I just needed to write (well type I guess) some thoughts out. Please keep me in your prayers.

It's a new year...2008. Crazy. So much has happened in the past year and there is so much ahead of me this year. This is possibly my last semester with my roommate who is not just my roommate, but my best friend. Erin is applying early to dental school and if she gets in now she won't be at MC next year. I really will be happy for her if she gets in, but I've had the same roommate for 3 years and I can't imagine what it will be like without her. Her leaving will be a double whammy for me since she's not just my roommate, but also my best friend. I really can't imagine rooming with anyone else.
Anyway, here are some of the highlights/key things that happened to me in the past year.
Bolded events were especially important to me.

January

Just went to my old xanga site (www.xanga.com/allisonalr) and read through all of my posts from this past school year. It's so weird to see how things change and work out. That's one reason I like to keep a blog, so that I can read back through it later. It's amazing how God works things out sometimes, and how reading back through those posts I can see that everything really does happen for a reason. I know that if I hadn't gone through some of the bad things I read about then I never would have experienced some of the great things God had in store for me. I've been reading the Redemption series by Karen Kingsbury, and there's a well known verse that she quotes often that I've definitely had to cling to during my college years. It's Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." What a reassuring verse.

So, today was my last day of work in the offices at church. Sunday will be my last day with the kids. I'll probablly cry...I've never been good with goodbyes. I'm going to miss those kids. I had the greatest boss this Summer. Mrs. Kim was great. She sent me flowers at work today since it was my last day. :)

I get to go to Monroe next week and stay with Erin a couple of days! Yay! I haven't gotten to stay at her house since way back at the beginning of the Summer, so I'm looking forward to it.

2 WEEKS UNTIL I MOVE BACK IN TO MY DORM!!!!!!! :) I can't wait to see my friends!!