:)

YOU HAVE A CHOICE TO MAKE.

When opportunity roars in, you can run away or grab life by the tail.

Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that's destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulated experiences.

Enjoy the journey.

Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day AND the last day of your life. Don't let what's wrong with you keep you from worshipping what's right with God. Burn sinful bridges. blaze a new trail.

Criticize by creating.

Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don't try to be who you're not. Be yourself. Laugh at yourself. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away. And remember: if God is for us, who can be against us?

-Robert Batterson, Relevant Magazine, Issue 24 pg. 71

Right before I interned at Relevant, I copied this out of one of the magazines and have carried it with me to Florida. I've kept it with me since. I now have this tiny piece of note paper with me all the time and I looove these words. They're so inspirational. Today, I watched Oprah (only a few shows left, what!) and the episode featured Mattie Stepanek. He passed away years ago at the age of 13 but he was quite a wonderful human being on this planet for his short 13 years. Those clips of him made me cry. And I loved the show today because Oprah is all about empowering people to take ownership over their lives and it was a perfect moment for me. ANYWAY. Mattie was an author and poet and his second-to-last sentence on his deathbed was, "Choose to inhale; do not breathe simply to exist." What 13 year-old utters these words? So profound. 

Beautiful. I am made for something. I've felt so detached and far away and distanced. But God, I love. And these moments of epiphany are terribly important in life.