Well, I’m up at 1am just typing a way… I read through my my-diary from 2003-2004 and have been trying to figure out some time lines. 3.5 years ago, I was in drivers ed, I had a boyfriend. I dressed tight and twinkled eyes with the guys, and really, I thought I was trying to serve the Lord. It had been about 6 months since I had begun to truely feel God’s presence in my life and began walking with Him and seeking Him with my whole heart. I went through difficulties, but my desire to serve the Lord prevailed, and I changed little by little. I made a lot of mistakes, it was slow - like mollassas going up hill in the winter, but each little dragon that I fought, the Lord was with me and teaching my heart His wisdom. It was Dec. 2003 that I had had that new change of heart. My sponser child, Joseph died in Africa of AIDS, and I felt that the Lord was calling me to the ministry, but I still didn’t have direction for what I should be doing. I got a side tracked, and it cought up in a dramatic emotional existance, until one day that Lord took away all of my things that I thought mattered so much. It was odd how it all happened, and some of it hurt a lot, but God was faithful and brought be through with a new desire to serve Him with my life.

Here is part of an entry shortly after my 17th birthday in 2005

“OK, Crash course on how to stop flirting…

#1 You can stop calling boys on the phone, don’t even call
them back, let them do the calling, they will give up after
a while!
#2 Try to be serious about things when you are around guys.
Since flirting is when you play with giddy emotions, being
straight faced will help. No giggling at their jokes!
#3 If the last to 2 are a bit to hard to start with, try
being busy more often, have lots to do, try to talk the guys
into helping you work constantly, pretty soon they will be
to busy to come over any more (cuz they don’t want to work)
#4 Walk straight, don’t do the laughing eye thing (you know,
the “twinkle”) do not throw your head back if you laugh, do
not laugh very much (around the guys).
#5 Have fun being a girl! Have fun hanging out with girls!
Learn to cook and babysit and do all that good stuff that Mr
Right will adore!”

I gave my heart to my Father. I opened up to him and began sharing my heart with him about the guys in my life, my dissappointments and desires. It really helped, and it almost seemed like overnight. My heavenly Father has blessed me, and given me an Earthly Father who loves his heavenly Father. If I had known this from a small child what the blessings of his headship were, I would have been readily sharing with him daily all along. I thank my God for saving me when He did, and for His continuance to prepare me as a chaste/faithful bride.

I had a good 4th of July. We went Canoeing at Snidely Hot Springs on the 3rd, which was really cool. Matthew and I got into some poison Oak, but he had some soap along, so we we were able to wash it off really good right away. I didn’t have any signs of it, and he started to get some that night, but washed it off again. I don’t know if he got it really or not. There were about 40 people and 9 canoes.

Mike set up (made) a 4 faucet water baloon filler. I got to where I was filling 12 per minute after the first 3 hours. I arrived around 11 and we started out with just 4 of us, and not everyone constantly filling because there were other things to do, like set up the rope to put a cover over the specially made 20×8x2ft deep pool so that the UV-rays would not pop the biodegradable latex baloons.

Well, I got a really bad sunburn from being out in the sun for 5+ hours, and my neck is peeling badly. I had blisters that felt like bubble wrap as I drove home at 1:30… Isaac’s car broke down and I didn’t actually get home until 3:30am.

I want to post more about it all, but I’m gonna go ahead and put this up before it gets old.