High Altitude Can No Longer Be An Excuse.

Well. Currently I'm sitting in a hotel in The Woodlands, TX. This morning when I looked outside I discovered why it's named that. HELLO TREES EVERYWHERE. This makes me miss Colorado. Even though I just left, I already miss the fact that CO doesn't believe in real trees. Just pine thingys that I may have complained about the first month I was there. Anyway.

I have officially graduated from Focus Leadership Institute. I cannot put into words what this semester meant to me. I'm gonna have to do a TON of journaling just to begin to process the whole experience. Right now I'm emotionally drained from the past month of events, saying goodbye yesterday (I seriously was the first one to leave. Not my style. I hated it.) and now being reunited with the family in a small hotel room. We'll be okay. Tomorrow my beautiful cousin is getting MARRIED. So excited for that.

My dear friend Sarah made us cds from the semester. I just heard Long Live by Taylor Swift for the first time, and let me tell you. It completely encompasses this semester.

I still remember this moment
In the back of my mind
The time we stood with our shaking hands
The crowds in stands went wild
We were the kings and the queens
And they read off our names
The night you danced like you knew our lives
Would never be the same
You held your head like a hero
On a history book page
It was the end of a decade
But the start of an age

Long live the walls we crashed through
All the kingdom lights shined just for me and you
I was screaming, "long live all the magic we made"
And bring on all the pretenders
One day we will be remembered

I said remember this feeling
I passed the pictures around
Of all the years that we stood there on the sidelines
Wishing for right now
We are the kings and the queens
You traded your baseball cap for a crown
When they gave us our trophies
And we held them up for our town
And the cynics were outraged
Screaming, "this is absurd"
'Cause for a moment a band of thieves in ripped up jeans got to rule the world

Long live the walls we crashed through
All the kingdom lights shined just for me and you
I was screaming, "long live all the magic we made"
And bring on all the pretenders
I'm not afraid

Long live all the mountains we moved

I had the time of my life
Fighting dragons with you
I was screaming, "long live the look on your face"
And bring on all the pretenders
One day we will be remembered

Hold on to spinning around
Confetti falls to the ground
May these memories break ???

And you take a moment
Promise me this:
That you'll stand by me forever
But if God forbid fate should step in
And force us into a goodbye
If you have children someday
When they point to the pictures
Please tell them my name
Tell them how the crowds went wild
Tell them how I hope they shine

Long live the walls we crashed through
I had the time of my life with you

Long, long live the walls we crashed through
All the candlelight shined just for me and you
And I was screaming, "long live all the magic we made"
And bring on all the pretenders
I'm not afraid

Singing long live all the mountains we moved
I had the time of my life
Fighting dragons with you

And long, long live the look on your face
And bring on all the pretenders
One day we will be remembered

(Dr. Del Tackett praying over us before we left.)

I'll have more to say later. But for now. It has been the most amazing semester of my life and I wouldn't change a single moment of it. :)

Click here to listen to "Long Live"

Eight More Days of Mountains

We have only eight days left at Focus Leadership Institute.

This means there are only eight days left of Bri living in the mountains.

Then? A week in Texas.

Then? Back to the mid-west for another 2.5 years.

Yet, I'm excited.

I love the people here and I love what I have been learning.

Now? It's time to apply it.

So back to NIU I go with a head and heart full of knowledge.

So my verse for life continues to be:

John 3:30

"He must become greater; I must become less."

Love

"All the commandments in Scripture reduce to Christ's Great Commandment, and the Great Commandment reduces to one concept: love.

God is in love with His creation. The creature has something of the Creator in him, and God has loved us from the beginning. Even when the creature turned his back on Heaven, yet God loved him: 'I made you, and I will carry you. I don't hold anything against you. Let me rescue you.'

The history of the world reduces to this: you're being pursued by love. He courted you; He followed you; He loved you. If you go to work or school or church, He is there. If you go to the edge of the universe or to the borders of hell, He is there. If you go deep inside yourself, He is there. In the dark of the night, in your depression, He is there. On your deathbed, when you don't want anybody to leave you, He is there. If you look behind you or before you, He is there, waiting to be allowed entrance into your life.

In the economics of eternity, God paid a great price. If we only better understood the cost, we would also better understand our worth."

Margin by: Richard A. Swenson

Artist to Athlete...not really.

Have you ever been told you will be broken, yet it happened in a way you did not expect? This semester we were told we would be broken. I have been broken in ways I did not think were possible.

I can clearly remember pulling my practicum handbook out of my mailbox. I read my assignment for the semester and became extremely confused. First of all, I am an art major. Second of all, I was expecting to be placed in an office at Focus because I did not bring a car to FLI. (We were told we would be placed on site if we did not bring a car.) Third...well....I’m not an athlete. Wondering what my practicum assignment is? Fellowship of Christian Athletes. My initial reactions to my assignment were totally unfair. Out of my practicum has come some huge blessings as well as some let downs that have been great learning experiences.

One of the most interesting aspects of FCA is our Tuesday night leadership meetings. My practicum buddy, Cody, and I are surrounded by six really tall men who are extremely athletic. (First of all, Cody is awesome. And he has a car. Which is great because we’re forced to be friends because he has to drive us everywhere. We’d be friends even if there wasn’t forced time together though. Seriously he has fantastic character and is striving to live his life completely for Christ-which is a huge encouragement. Did I mention neither of us are athletes? So funny!) The other guys lead various huddles around the Colorado Springs area. At these meetings, I usually end up spending at least ten minutes in confusion as they talk about various aspects of football that I had no idea existed. Anyway-one night we were talking about faith and how when we really believe something, it has the potential of happening. Going around the circle, we all shared what we were believing that God was going to do. I shared that I still believed that God would somehow still provide the remaining $800 for my tuition at FLI. Then we went around and prayed for the person on our right about what they had shared. The man on my left started the prayer, but before he did, he turned to me and said, "Don't worry about the rest of the money. I want to cover it." I stared at him in shock. He started praying and I started bawling. Seriously you guys, to see God answer a prayer like that SO fast was amazing. It was such a huge blessing.

There have been other blessings, but the main thing has been just a huge learning and growing experience. Cody and I were placed at two different middle school huddles that meet in the mornings. On Tuesdays we go to Discovery Canyon at 7am, and on Fridays we head to Monument Academy at 6:45am. This has forced me to grow because middle school students have always scared me and I am NOT a morning person. None the less, it has been a good thing to be placed there.



This weekend I hit a huge spot of brokenness though. Cody and I planned a retreat for both groups and were super excited about it. We covered the night in prayer and got to a point where we knew we were going to have to go with the flow and just let God show up. Needless to say, we only had four students show up at the retreat. I was so thankful because eight of our classmates showed up to help or hangout, and the high school youth group of the church we were at, was having a game night. There were ten college students, about twenty high school students, and four middle school students. We were running around the church like crazy people playing Ghost in the Grave Yard, Sardines, and Dodgeball. That part was awesome. So many people having fun together. My broken moment came when I started feeling rejected by the middle school students. I was so frustrated because only four showed up. We had done so much planning and praying! This whole week I have feet extremely broken hearted and rejected, based on factors that had nothing to do with FCA. (God is breaking me in ways I did not expect this semester.) I literally broke down when I somehow tripped going up the stairs. Every feeling of rejection and confusion and brokenness overflowed into tears. My roommate let me cry with her and prayed with me. I suddenly became aware of God’s love for me, and no matter how I was feeling, He was holding me and had purpose for this week and whole night of not what I expected. My roommate, Janae, was talking to me about something God had showed her. When we are broken, God puts us back together in new ways that will be more glorifying Him. (Janae is planning on blogging about this later!) Throughout the night, Cody and my classmates were so encouraging. In that moment of weakness, I realized great things were going to come from my experience. I know that God is going to do something with the four students that came.

Even though I do not know what else is in store with FCA this semester, I am still excited for it. I know God gives us different experiences that will grow us closer to Him. In the middle of the lesson, it is so hard to just accept that. I love where God is taking me this semester. It has been completely unexpected and somewhat painful, but completely amazing and worth it.

Just Blink

I feel SO SO SO bad about neglecting my blogs. Yes. Blogs. I just updated my tumblr...with like, two pictures so it wasn't even really worth it. And then there's the becoming a woman of God blog...it needs some attention too. (Sorry Jess). Anywho. I guess I feel better about neglecting this instead of neglecting school work. Really. So what is new?? So much.

Classes have been going really well. I love our professors...most of them are too smart for their own good but that's fine. I seriously have to use a dictionary when I'm doing my homework. GROWING. (Growing is a common theme in our apartment.) I've been learning SO much. I need to start journaling every night so I can actually look back on it and pick up on some lessons I might not quite be grasping yet. I really do enjoy all the reading we do. I can't even begin to tell you how many PAGES and PAGES of reading we do. I personally don't mind it. It's kinda nice to just read a book every night. Although I seriously miss taking art classes.

JFA=scary. We did an event with Justice For All this week. It involved a day of training and a day at Colorado State University talking to students about abortion. We were trained to create dialogue between opposing sides. There was also a huge display with very graphic pictures depicting what aborted babies look like. Well, it wasn't just depicting it, they were actual pictures. It took everything I had not to throw up every time I looked at it. Needless to say, this experience will not be a highlight of my semester. What I did learn is this: the power of prayer is important...sometimes you just have to pray for those around you when you don't feel like you can really do anything else, and that's okay. I also learned that it IS possible to have discussions with people about things you disagree on. You can find "common ground" and go from there. Yep.

FCA. My practicum has been very interesting. I have no idea how I'm going to have enough hours for this thing. This, is the only thing that is stressing me out this semester. But, a huge blessing came out of it. The other night we were talking about faith and how when we really believe something, it has the potential of happening. Going around the circle, we (all the FCA leaders) shared what we were believing that God was going to do. I shared that I still believed that God would somehow still provide the remaining $872 for my tuition at FLI, and such. :) Then we went around and prayed for the person on our right about what they had shared. The man on my left, Jeff, started, but before he did, he turned to me and said, "Don't worry about the rest of the money. I want to cover it." I stared at him in shock. He started praying and I started bawling. Seriously you guys, to see God answer a prayer like that SO fast was amazing. So that was awesome. Now I'm just really praying that God uses me and Cody (my partner) in the students lives. We're thinking about planning a lockin/retreat type deal...so if you could pray about that...

Well...I don't know what else to say, other than I love the Springs and FLI and the people I'm with. Seriously. I feel beyond blessed. ;)

Week 1

I have to say that this past week has been one of the craziest weeks I've experienced, even more crazy than my first week at Taylor. We had our welcome dinner last Tuesday night. On Wednesday and Thursday we had "orientation" of sorts...although I can honestly say I'm not really sure what I got oriented on...except for general stuff....which is orientation I guess. Friday-Sunday we were up at Horn Creek for a retreat. At FLI we are split into "Life Groups" and are with these groups throughout the semester. I really like my group. Honestly. We're all so different yet work so well together! In our life groups we did team building exercises such as: putting everyone through a spider web, musical chairs, and this weird lava block game. Fantastic bonding. :)

Yesterday and today we had leadership intensive discussions and activities. I think the hardest one for me was the one of affirmation. We had a partner and picked words that we could use to affirm them...and seriously I don't handle compliments well so it was really hard for me to sit and listen to what Joy had to say. The past couple days have been really stretching-giving us puzzle pieces for the semester.

My roommates are legit. That's all I have to say. That girl. :)

Off to read!

COLORADO!

I cannot believe that I am finally here. I'm living in CO for the semester and I am beyond excited. God keeps letting funds show up, which is amazing. Today I moved into my new apartment. :) The girls are awesome and we're all really similar which is great! All night owls, sarcastic, and all that jazz. Super enjoyable.

It's been an interesting couple of weeks leading up to this point, but I'm very thankful for them. I've felt super encouraged lately.

More to blog later...I need to finish unpacking!