God is Good

Oh my goodness. The fast is almost over! Wow I feel like this month has gone by faster than my other two years. But I must say this year has probably been the hardest for me with movies. There are so many good movies out and it is so hard when people are watching a movie you have really wanted to see but can't watch. I have really struggled with what to do with my extra time. I never realized how much I rely on TV to take away boredom. Some amazing things that have happened over this month that wouldn't have happened without media fast:
1. I am lending my Sex God to a semi-Jewish, but completely lost
2. I am making C.D.s of a bunch of my Christian music, mainly Barlowgirl but a few others, for my friends who are "Christian", or as I like to call them, Fairweather Christians.
3. Because I cannot rely on TV to fill my time, I am spending a lot more time with my friends and in doing so, hopefully making an impact.
4. I am more often in the mood to hang out with my friends and talk than to watch a movie or TV.
5. It seems as though I am impacting my Morman O'ma through my example and my desires.
6. I have a pen pal in Spain and I get to share Christ with her through this media fast. It is so cool.
This has been probably one of the best media fasts for me. I am growing and even though sometimes it really hurts, it is so worth it. I have changed a few of my behaviors, not really by focusing on them, but by focusing on God and the other amazing things in my life. Like the rain today. Oh my goodness, we still need more rain, but oh wow how amazing. God is so good. It was so pretty!
I've been reading up on other religions and am currently reading about Islam. It is making me so grateful that we have a god who loves us and wants a relationship with us. I remember being at a point in my life where I thought of God as this high and mighty Judgemental person and I was so afraid. How lame would it be to feel like that every day? To worry every moment of every day if you were "good enough" to get to live with God. I am so thankful for His grace. I feel like I need it more than anyone and am so full of gratitude that God is able to forgive me and make me new every day. How amazing!!!!

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So this year's media fast music wise hasn't been all that difficult for me. Part of it is a huge thanks to friends and part is just getting really lucky at Berean. If you guys like Hip-hop/RnB, listen to the group The Washington Projects, they are really good. Another good one is the newest Mary Mary CD The Sound and The Grits newer CD Reiterate. I have a pretty awesome mix of music this year which is awesome. The two things I am struggling with the most are TV and playing games like solitare online. I have quite a bit of time on my hands after school because I get out at noon and have really nothing to do until swim practice at 6:30. That's another bummer for me. I have to stop going to the two amazing bible studies I was going to Monday and Tuesday nights because of swim. It makes it a little harder to not have the fellowship of fellow media fasters or past media fasters. I really want to watch TV and I am struggling so much with not watching it. I have been trying to redirect my time to things much better for me such as reading my Bible, hecka Christian books, actually doing my homework (Oh silly senioritis), and trying to keep my house clean. I think this is really hard too because I have so much extra time to think about things like leaving for college and while it is so exciting, there are so many logistical things that need to be taken care of. Not to mention how much I will miss my friends being so far away. It has been good though because I have realized that I am not supposed to be a doctor, so that will save me a lot of science and math classes (Woot woot!). I am really enjoying the reconnecting with some of my best friends and healing broken relationships. I love challenges, woooo! (

Home

So I'm finally home from Costa Rica!! I am not quite sure how hard media fast will be for me at home but it was super hard on the plane and on the bus. I loved Costa Rica and sometime soon all of my pictures will be up on facebook. That is where all of our pictures must be put so our trip leader can put them all onto a DVD. So for those of you who are still doing facebook or are just checking up on us, you should look sometime this week!!! Oh God is great and so is the beautiful landscape in Costa Rica. He made some of the most beautiful stuff, it is better than any picture could ever show. Well bed time for me. Talk to y'all later! Pura Vida!!!!!!

Costa Rica

So I haven't yet written yet because I left for Costa Rica yesterday and in fact I am sitting in the computer lab thing at our hotel, yay for free internet haha. This keyboard is very strange because it was made for Español but whatever. So the fast, well the first day wasn't all that bad because I was just so busy preparing for my trip and my birthday and such, but my birthday was really hard. I woke up to one of my best friends, much earlier than I needed to I might add, baring balloons and such. I has a lot of extra time alone and I was like you know no one would know if I just listened to what I wanted to listen to. But I listened to the voice of reason in my head and made some CDs, awesome Christian ones that I am willing to make copies of :), and listened to them all day. It was awesome!!! The plane ride here was a little bit hard as well. They were playing a movie our second leg of the flight and I was much to awake to fall back asleep. Luckily I had some great books to read which helped so much. All of the music I have heard here has been in Spanish so I can't understand half of what they are saying, I figure I'm good lol. So I'm off to prepare for dinner and hopefully get some sleep tonight. We are doing a nature walk and hiking up a volcano, its 8100 meters above sea level!!!! Peace, talk to ya'll later!