Trusting Grace

Freshman move in is perhaps one of the biggest life events you will have gone through thus far. It signifies you are no longer a child and can be (mostly) trusted to live (mostly) on your own. It's a big deal. Which means it's also a lot of stress. Now, I am a planner in any and every sense of the word so I read countless articles on move in days and watched waaay too many move in day videos on YouTube. I was ready. Except I wasn't. So here are 6 things I wish I would have known about my Freshman Move In Day 1. There are A Lot of People  I mean, I guess I should have figured that, but I wasn't prepared for just how many people would be moving in all at once in my building. I go to a pretty small private school so I wasn't prepared for how many people would be walking in and out at once to bring their stuff in. Please realize that the entirety of your freshman class is moving in pretty much all at once. Be prepared for crowded lobbies, lines for the stairs,...

Hey lovelies! Today we're going to be doing something a little different. I've written a letter to boy crazy, over the top romantic, little naïve 16 year old me, and what better place to put it then the internet? In all seriousness though, I hope these words inspire, challenge, or encourage you as you walk and grow with yourself, others, and Christ. It's only been three years since I was sixteen, but I am a completely different person now and I am so thankful. Dear Libby, Sweet Girl, I say this with so much love but girl you need to calm the heck down. You are sixteen , my dear. I know you say you're in love, that he is the guy of your dreams, that it's only a matter of time. Sweetheart, he is not the one, I promise. I know you think he is, but he isn't. You aren't ready for love yet, Liv. We have so much growing to do before we are ready for someone other than our Heavenly Father to hold us. I know you think that boy loving you is the most importan...

Hi Lovelies, I'm sure most of you have heard by now about the death of Cameron Boyce, a Disney channel star and the boy 12 year old me was convinced would fall in love with me some day. It threw me for a loop guys, after all, this guy was barely six months older than me. I watched him grow up on TV and social media. I never in a million years dreamed I was going to be told he passed away Sunday morning. And yet, here we are. We don't know how much time we have on this earth. The world lost a good humored young, apparently healthy man on July 6th. And no one (at least publicly) had any idea that anything was wrong. We are not exempt from that. I've been thinking about death for the past couple days and how I put it on the backburner. It isn't in the forefront of my mind that the breath that I breathe could stop at any moment. Nor should it be. However, I believe it is important to live like we're dying. To love Jesus and people unapologetically. To n...

I'll admit it, I'm a "do it all" kind of girl. By this, I mean that I love doing it all. I am happiest when my google calendar is seven different colors and none of it is white. As an example for you, my June calendar on Google had two days that didn't have any colors on it. I was thriving y'all.  However, I began to realize as the month winded down that I wasn't thriving.  I was exhausted.  Now don't get me wrong, I still love my busy calendar and the lifestyle I live for the most part. But, y'all. I had to learn to chill out.  I was running on coffee by the fifteenth because I had no downtime, what that schedule doesn't reflect is I was also taking summer classes during that time and would have to push those to the backburner in order to get everything done.  Not my best choice.  I  guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm learning that I can't have it all.  I can't do well in my classes work as much ...