Charm is Deceptive, and Beauty is fleeting

Hello there again! Only twelve more days till Christmas!! I can hardly believe it, can you?

So you may be wondering why I have a melodramatic picture of myself up there, and how it could possibly have anything to do with a lesson I learned. (I'll get to the 'hard thing' I told you about later:) 

Well, two days ago, Chloe sent me this pin, one I had pinned from my computer several months ago (that picture) on pinterest, and she said it had gotten repinned on some people's character or story inspiration boards! I am ashamed to say it, but I was very excited. A little too excited. Looking back at my thought process, you would probably visibly see my head expand. I was proud of my "achievement". What? I don't know how my mind works sometimes... so anyway I was getting pretty prideful. Believe me, not a great place to be. I started expecting myself to always look perfect, be perfect. Thankfully though, God reminded me what I was doing. Jolted me from my daydream of pride.  

I was pretty sad that I had fallen into that trap again. I kinda just moped for a little bit, but God picked me up and gave me this verse. 

                                                                 Proverbs 31:30

   "Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised."

Beauty is fleeting. It only lasts a minute. I spend time on making my outward appearance beautiful, but what am I doing to make what will last, my heart, beautiful? I read John Eldridge's book, Captivating, and it really reminded me that God thinks I'm beautiful, just the way he made me. He wants to be able to grow my faith, my fear of Him. He pursues me because he loves me. I had never thought of Jesus like that!

Okay, spent a lot of time on that... so remember last week I told you I was praying for something big, a hard thing? It came! A girl in our Life Group is looking for a new apartment next semester, and she mentioned that she would rather stay with a family. We've all been praying about this, and it looks like we will potentially be having an adopted big sister next semester! I'm excited, but the hard thing will be that Olivia will move into my bedroom. This will be hard for me, because I'm used to my own space, and having everything the way I like it! I should probably stop talking now, the rest of school calls:)
                                                                     Have a wonderful day!
                                                                              ~Avery

Thanksgiving Vacation

Hello! We are now officially back, and I have so much to tell you!
                                                               First off, some pictures:

Margo(my cousin) and her rubber band/ weapon:)

Sledding on our ice toboggan, sorry it's a little blurry, it was snowing really hard!

Shopping, before we went to see Frozen, outside the Byron Center mall!

The 'kid' table for Thanksgiving, I'm sitting next to Jackson(my other cousin), if you're wondering what he looks like:)

Bryn and I:) Most of these were blurry, sorry! We got her a Varsity Donuts shirt, and Mom got me a matching one!

                                             It was so fun, and enjoyable! But let's get to the real reason of this post:)
    So, I ask myself while I type this, what has God been teaching me lately? I have to be honest with you guys, I don't know. I'm sure I could come up with something, but it wouldn't be completely meaningful, it wouldn't be fair to you, if I'm just spouting facts about God, or worse, if I'm just saying it, but not truly learning. I don't post to try and teach you guys, when I write it down, I'm learning from my own thoughts! Most of the time I have no idea where the words come from!
 
    I did my quiet time once during vacation. ONCE. I had ten whole days, and only one, five minute moment of reading God's word and praying. It would be a big fat lie to say I didn't learn anything though, because I did! It's not worth it to sleep in for ten more minutes. Sure I had fun on vacation, but spiritual warfare and just plain fear plagued me the whole time I stayed at my Aunt and Uncles. I can't live according to God's word if I'm not in His word! This summer I did a Beth Moore bible study, and it was on Daniel. She talked about the 'Babylon mindset', when you basically just worship an idol, which in my case is myself. She said that if you're not fighting the 'Babylon Mindset', it's already overtaken you. You can't stay away from it unless you're fighting it. I wasn't fighting it, and I was worshipping myself. I can never get those days back, but I can change what I do in the future. I know what it was like, and I don't want to go back. I don't want to live a mediocre life! Last week I started re-reading Do Hard Things, by Alex and Brett Harris, and I've been asking God to show me what hard thing he would like me to work on. I have noooo clue yet! I need to keep praying, and have faith that God will answer. Next week I will post more on that:)

                                                      Thanks for bearing with all that!
                                                                     ~Avery