Ephesians 4:2

Time has flown.  This year has went by so fast.  I can't believe next year I'm going to be a junior in college, is that really possible?  It literally seems like just yesterday I was graduating from high school.  This year has been so great, but so challenging.  There has definitely been a lot of challenges, but their has been so much rejoicing as well.  I have made so many great new friends, and I've also made my other friendships so much stronger.  I am so thankful for all my friends and family, and this year I really realized that.  

This summer I had a lot of different options as to were I wanted to work.  Just the other day I decided that I will be going to Mackinac Island for the summer again.  It was a hard decision, but I really think its what I'm suppose to do.  I will not be doing carriage tours again this year.  I will actually be working at two stores, and two restaurants, the same guy owns them all.  I leave a week from today.  I'm getting pretty excited.

Today I got to go to my home church, and it was such a blessing.  I forgot how much I love Colwood and how much it has helped shape the person I am today.  I love the people, the atmosphere, the music just really everything.

Tonight I was watching a movie on Lifetime.  Its called the Pregnancy Project, and I thought it was so good.  It spoke a really good message.  A senior girl in high school decided you would do a social experiment on what people would do/say if she got pregnant.  She faked it all, but it was a real experiment and I thought that it spoke volumes.  This girl was an A student, popular just about anything you could have wanted in a person.  And as soon as people found out that she was pregnant they started being so mean, talking about her behind her back, not talking to her at all, ect....In her presentation she talked about stereotyping.  About how teen moms get stereotyped and how people say "Their life is over", or "Your never going to get to finish school.", and so much more.  This is real life people.  People get stereotyped and are ridiculed every.single.day.  So many people, including myself, just sit around and watch it.  We let this happen.  Everyone needs to be loved, cared about, and feel like they belong somewhere no matter who they are!  I've realized over this past year that you truly need to get to know a person.  This world is filled with sin and horrible things, and so many people are so broken.  No one really looks at the inside and all those wounds though.  People just like to look at the outside and judge them by that, myself included.  Its a lot easier said then done, but what if we just loved everyone? What  if we started to listen and help others?  This world could make a transformation.  I watched a video in church today and here are some of the statistics it gave us. 27 million slaves exist in the world today.  144 million orphans!  1.5 million cases of abuse are reported each year.  5 children die each day from abuse.  Then we have drug addicts, teen pregnancy, eating disorders, alcoholism, depression, anxiety, ect.... I could go on forever.  Everyone struggles.  We need to know that everyone struggles, and that not everyone is perfect.  We need to know that we need to help and love each other because no one, and I mean no one can do it alone.  We need to realize how much a simple hug or "hello" can do for someone.  You don't have to go all the way to Africa to see hurting people, you can literally go right in your back yard, where ever you may be.  We also need to remember that Love speaks.  Love moves. Love heals. Love sees.  Love frees.  

I feel like I just went on a rant, and maybe none of it made sense, but I know all that stuff is something I need to work on.  I need to work on fully loving others.  I need to work on not stereotyping other people.  Something else I have come to realize is that we can't fix everyone.  We cant fix everyones problems either, and we shouldn't be trying to do that either.  So often I want to fix everything and make everything alright, but we have to understand that, we, as humans can't do that.  We first need to give it fully to the Lord, and then we need to listen and just talk to that person.  I can't express how much just listening to a person can mean.  I had multiple campers last year that told me they never felt listened to.  I've had adults tell me that as well.  If we can make time to watch T.V or take a nap, we can make time to listen to a broken person, and all of us our broken so we should always have a person to listen to.

I'm not really sure where I am going with this post, but all of this was on my heart, so I thought I would put it out there.  I know I'm going to try to be more loving everyday, and even more caring.  Maybe we need an accountability partner to make sure we are doing this.  Whatever it may be I challenge all of you to try harder.  Because there are broken people everywhere who just want to be loved and listened to.