Death

The death of someone we know effects us in one way or another. Whether it was a loved one or just a friend, it hurts. I’ve only been to three funerals in my life and they always say its a celebration of their life, but its so hard to focus on the good when you know never are going to see them until we die. But we really should be happy for them and all they did in the one life they got. We should be happy for the time we got to spend with that person and be grateful that God put them in our lives. They are free of pain and suffering now, they truly are in a WAY better place than here on this earth. Not only are they free of pain, but they get to spend time with the Creator of the heavens and earth. What is better than that? They get to ask God all their questions and find all the answers. So, we should never be sad that someone is gone, but rejoice that they are happier than they will ever be on this earth. Its ok to miss them but don’t let it ruin your day. There will be new friends and new people, of course they will never replace that person, but they are there to comfort you. God had a reason why He took them away and it is always the right reason. It May not be what we want, but its what God wants and that is what is important.

My 8th Grade Year

This year I wasn't sure what to expect. I had new teachers that I didn't really know , I wondered if there were new kids, and I had no idea what we were going to learn about. But after the first few days, I knew that this was going to be an amazing year. First, science was amazing, not because of science, but because of Mr. Funk, he was amazingly funny and was always making us laugh! All his dances, jokes and little saying were soo FUNNY!! Then Mr. Kridner, what can I say about him? He is an amazing teacher and a very godly man and he inspires me to be a better Christian. I have him for history, math and Bible, which are my favorite classes. Bible classes are just amazing and there are no words to describe them. God was always with us for what ever we did. The D.C. trip was amazing! We had so much fun. I love looking at the old buildings and all the history there, even if it was hotter than heck. But i got to spend time with my friends and teacher, and boy did I take a lot of pics!! Oh, and our Mexico trip was amazing too! We went down just past the boarder to help a man named a Fransico at his orphange. We had so much fun helping the kids and playing with them and hugging them. It was a trip I will never forget it and i hope to go back soon.
This year i built new friendships, fixed old ones and moved on from others. But one relationship i know has grow is my relationshio with God. With Mr. Kridner's help, i grew spiritually this year than i ever have before. Now i have the foundation to live a Christ-like life.
Now that graduation creeps ever near, i try to look back and remember the good times. Remember what we did and how we did it. I love all my classmates and teachers and will miss them very much!!
LANGLEY!!!!!!

Friendship

Friend are people we consider closer than acquaints. We also have best friends (BF or BFF). Our friends say that they will always be there for us through good and bad. But being friends with lots of people cause problems. When one friend is mad at another friend, you always get stuck in the middle, and being in the middle always hurts you more than it does the two people fighting. But every friendship has its ups and downs.
When you feel like you are growing apart from a friend, a friend that is your best friend, it feels like you have a hole in you. A big hole that makes you feel vulnerable. You think its your fault, but can you ever really know? I’m sure you were both at fault in some way or another. You see the signs of a failing friendship and it makes you sad, but you don’t know what to do. I say if the relationship was meant to be it will work out, but if it doesn’t then it wasn’t meant to be a life long friendship. But thats ok. You will have so many friend, some best friend that you’ll be friends with till you die or friends that you see once a month. Some one said friendships are like seasons, we have plentiful seasons and we have scarce seasons. But what we make out of them shows your true character. You will always have one friend, God. God is always there for you and will never leave you. Take comfort in that.
So when you go through the ending of a friendship, remember that there is always a new friend waiting around the corner for you. Even if you can only count your true friends on one hand, thank God that you have that many.

Choices

The choices we make effect everything else, wether it be bad or good. Life is made up of choices. When we make a choice it needs to be what God wants and not what we want. God knows what is best for us and would never do something that He doesn’t have a plan for. Though at times it seems like we are going no where, God knows what’s going on. It seems like a lot of work following God’s plan, but if we just pray for God to help us and do His will, it will be ok. It won’t be easy, cause life is not easy. But with God by your side, nothing is impossible. So if we make the choices that God has planned for us, life will be easier. It’s all a choice, from picking out your clothes in the morning or choosing wether you are going to live in Africa and be a missionary. Some are simple and some require praying, a lot of praying. Praying is essential to find the answers. The answers to our questions only come from God.

Thank You

We say thank you when we receive something. But are we really thankful? Some of us just say it because we want to be respectful. What does it mean to be thankful? When we are thankful, we are happy with what God has blessed us with. Everything we have comes from God, our wealth,our downfalls, and our lives. Even when things are bad and not going the way we want them to, we need to be thankful for what God is doing and trust Him. Bad and good, happy times and sad times, hard times and easy time, we need to stop and take the time to thank God, weather it’s 5 in the morning or at 12 at night. Without God’s blessings we wouldn’t have anything, not even life. We also need to be thankful because we are so fortunate. We complain about having to walk around on vacation, some people don’t never get a vacation. Or ugly clothes, some people would be happy to get a pair of socks. All these things things we take for granted which we should be thankful for. God has blessed us! We need to remember that and live thankful and humble lives. If we aren’t thankful we become proud and selfish. Being thankful keeps us humble and thats what God wants. Be thankful!

Speed

Speed is how fast you move. But do our lives need to be all about it? We are moving constantly, but it’s never fast enough. We think there aren’t enough hours in a day, but really we just need to slow down. What ever happened to stopping and smelling the roses? We are always rushed. We get stuck at a red light and we get mad. The microwaves aren’t fast enough for our busy lives. We get stressed about what kid has which sport and who’s going to what friends house. But getting stressed about all these things are our own faults. We plan our own hectic lives, so we shouldn’t be getting so wigged out about them. Parents get mad when they have to drive their kids to practices, but the parents are the ones who wanted their kids to play sports. The speed which we move at causes problems. But this could all be avoided if we just slowed down. But we refuse to, “I have to get this done now!” What difference does it make if you do it now or later. People complain about all the stress, but they bring most of it on themselves. We need to stop and smell the roses. The world would be a nicer place if we weren’t so mad because we have to drive somewhere inconvenient. Sure it’s annoying, but people don’t have to be rude about it. And if something is that big of a problem, be nice and you can work it out instead of letting it ruin your day. People get so stressed it causes them health issues. We need to take a break for ourselves, not for anyone else. It’s so much better to go with the flow than to go against it.

Guilt

May 3, 2007
What is guilt? Is it just the feeling that we get when we tell a lie or is it something more? Do we let guilt control us because of something that we did before? We shouldn’t but some of us do. We let our guilt control us because of our past mistakes, we remember the bad and forget the good. We keep everything bottled up because we are afraid of what people will think of our mistakes that we already feel guilty for and they just make us feel worse, when really we need to admit our sins. Guilt consumes and takes control of some people lives. I know this from experience, I let my guilt from past mistakes control my choices. I fear making the same mistake twice. We can’t help it though, its human nature, we know that we are going to sin until we die. But I also let guilt take advantage of me. I feel bad for things that I never did, I do this just to avoid confrontation with people. I think if I take the blame for everything it will be all better and just go away. But thats never true. It always ends up being a bigger issue for me.
But where does guilt come from? Does it come from inside us or God? I think it comes from us and God. We know that whatever we did was against God and it makes God sad. When we sin thats what that feeling is, its us knowing what we did was directly against God and we know it. When we do something we don’t know is wrong we don’t feel anything until we get caught. So guilt isn’t just doing something wrong, it’s doing it and knowing we did wrong. That’s why choices we made haunt us until we ask for forgiveness. But we still chose to hold on to them to protect ourselves. But our guilt builds up and we can’t take too much. But we need to realize that holding on to things won’t protect us from the world, it only causes us more pain reliving those bad choices. We need to understand that God will protect us from getting hurt if we give it to Him. But until then we just will have a lot of pain and bad memories built up inside of us waiting to explode. Our guilt will overwhelm us it says so in the Bible. If we gave all our guilt to God we would avoid all this. The Bible says that only God can take our guilt away. Thats the only way! We can’t just sit there and wait for it to magically disappear. Until we give everything to Him, we will feel guilty. But if we never do, we will become desensitized and not feel anything at all. We won’t feel guilt, love, happiness, peace or God’s spirit. Nothing. Without that we’ll just be another person on this earth taking up space. So we know what to do to not feel guilty, now we need to go do it.