Christmas Training!

Hey all! So I am now sitting in a house that is right next to a beach with a bunch of girls relaxing....:) this is the life. The few days that it took to get here though have sure been tiring. We have our Christmas training this year in Oxnard California, where we drive for about 45 minutes or so to the pool at California Lutheran. They have a great pool that is shaped in an "L" shape so that they can fit more lanes in. In a few days, the Cal Lutheran team will be joining us in our practices. We started off our practices pretty hard, and they probably won't get any easier, but I was still suprised that I was able to survive them despite how little I was able to actually get into a pool over break...which was basically never. :) hehe. SO, when I arrived at the airport to get picked up by the coaches, I found out that they needed me and a couple other seniors to drive the team around. We were supposed to get mini-vans, but when we went to the rental place, they said that they were all out of vans! So, after an hour or two of going back and forth between car rental lots, we finally got a deal where we could choose any car that was on the lot to drive the people on our team! I chose the Tour 300. It looked kinda like a Bentley, so I was pretty stoked. :) haha. So far through this trip its been really sunny, which is totally exciting considering last year here at this time it was cloudy, windy, rainy, and cold, so this is a wonderful suprise that I am totally taking advantage of. I finally finished the book "Twilight" which I was glad to know didn't disappoint me, eventhough I had already seen the movie twice. :) It definitely helped to get the whole story and some more background info on the Characters....I'm gonna try to dig into "New Moon" soon. :) Tonight I made my house a dinner of tacos and corn, which everyone said were good, so I was excited. :) I need a lot of affirmation on my cooking skills...I'm still working on them. :) So also tonight, everybody is meeting at my house to play games, so that should be a lot of fun. I gotta run, but pray for me that my shoulders won't fall off with the usual soreness that always increases to a painful level at this time in the season. Thanks and I love you all!

This snow is really killing me right now. Totally killing the Christmas spirit and me being able to see everybody.....LAME!! I am stuck at home and my sister already left for her house and my parents are gone, so it's basically really boring at my house and all of my friends are stuck at their houses too so I can't go see them either. Stupid. That is all I have to say about that....So for now, I shall resign myself to reading a book. sigh.

Thoughts from a song...

Hey guys, if you find a moment in your day today to pray, I would really appreciate it if you could pray for my Grandpa Harold Gresset who has been having problems with his heart. It's beating too fast apparently and so he has to get the defibrilator to shock him back to having a normal heart beat. My grandpa doesn't have a whole lot of health problems in his history except when he had a stroke two or so years ago. That was pretty scary, but just prayer that the doctors hands will be steady in all that they do and that the Lord's hands will protect and hold him the whole way through....that would be nice. :) He will be going under probably within an hour or so and it's 9:15 am right now.


My parents are coming home today from Palm Springs, they said sometime in the afternoon around five, so that's on my schedule today for things I gotta do. Also, I'm planning on going shopping for Christmas gifts for my family so maybe that will help me relax a bit.


I was listening this morning to a song called, "You'r Beautiful" by Paul Wright, and it just really made me think...so I thought I'd write my thoughts about it down. There's a couple of songs that just really have this effect on me, and this song is one of them. Here are the lyrics...pretty profound....I like them.


"the world is watching us from a distance,
wanting more from their own existence
tell me how do we make a difference for
eternity, does anybody want to know why we're alive
oh oh oh oh, what's the purpose of this life?oh oh oh oh
before i die and i leave the world behind,
i want to know why i'm alive.
you're created for the creator
to live inside, there's a hole in your soul, and i know that you try,
to fill it with every little thing but the very one who can heal it,
and bring hope to a world that wants to know why they're alive!
spirit cry for this generation (generation),
we're chasing the wind trying to embrace it,
open our eyes to all the lies that we try to justify when deep down inside
all we want to find is someone that loves us all of the time and it's you
yea it's you oh oh
only you
yes it's you
oh oh oh
you're beautiful, came down from heaven just to save my save my soul,
beautiful oh oh oh oh oh
you're so beautiful,
the people of this world are praising you and they arebeautiful oh oh oh oh
you're so beautiful came down from heaven just save my save my soul,
beautiful oh oh oh oh oh
now i'm beautiful."


Wow, there's so much to say about this song...it's so true about us as humans and our need for God. Many ignore this pull from God, or try to pass the inner tug on their heart as if it's something else that they can fill with other unimportant things. I know that I have a hole in my heart that can never be filled but by God only. So often I will try to fill it with other things...things that I can control...things that are only partially satisfying and give me only temporary pleasure. It's such a terrible/beautiful need. I've learned that God did not create me for my own benefit, but for himself. I was made for Him to enjoy, not the other way around. There is no point to my life that is going to give ME any glory...it's GOT to be ALL about Him, or else he won't have it. I can't be selfish and a Christian at the same time. There are people out there that need to feel the love of God and this song really convicts me of my selfishness. It's so unChrist-like. :( How can I tell people that I am a Christian and be such a selfish person?? This past year I have been trying to make this idea of selfishness slowly dissolve, and the more I try, the more I realize that it's a hopeless cause...I'm naturally selfish by birth in sin. I have this HUGE, pathetic/desperate need for Goodness in my life, Humility, Grace, Faith, Gentleness, Love, Peace, and Patience....none of which I can seem to acquire on my own! It's frusterating! I can gain absolutely none of this by anything that I do! aggh! (sometimes it makes me just want to pull out my hair haha!) But I just need to be reminded that it's all about God. It's ALL about God. I get nothing, he gets everything. Now that I think of it though... for saving my soul and loving me ALL the time (even when he is disciplining me), and despite of my sin and who I am for the rest of eternity...I think I get the upper hand of the deal. I get to have a Savior. I get to have someone who is always looking out for me to protect me in every way. He is truly GOOD. No other human can ever be that for me. He's so refreshing from this world. Haha, this thought just occured in my head and I hope I'm not crazy for thinking this, but if you think about the movie "Twilight", there's a line where the vampire dude is saying to the girl that she is like his own personal "drug" because he loves her so much...haha, I kinda thought this was a cool tie to how my relationship with God is when it's at it's most authentic, genuine point. He is like my own personal drug that gives me a dose of Goodness, Love, Faithfulness, etc. The qualities that Jesus posesses makes ME want to pursue Him. And since I'm a girl, it sometimes feels weird or out of place to be the one pursuing, but he's the one man in my life that I know I will be completely safe in pursuing. His qualities are so incredible I just can't help but to desire Him.


This is a weird thought of mine, but I'm going to be bold and say it anyway....if you are at all reading this blog for the first time, (these blogs can basically be shown out to the whole world these days so I wouldn't be suprised) and you don't know Christ as your savior...you should comment on this and I'd love to talk with you, listen to your story and maybe even get a chance to pray for you. God has wonderful plans for all of you...plans of which may be different depending on the eye of the beholder, but my desire for you is that you have God to live your life with for forever, who truly can fulfill yours needs and heal your brokenness. He is a Faithful God.


And to the rest of you who have been following this blog, thanks for hearing me out, sorry I kinda went crazy on this thing, but I just felt for today that if I'm gonna have a blog, I may as well try to praise God with it. Have a blessed day everyone, I love you. :)

The Holidays....:)

My goodness! I haven't been on here for awhile! Well, lots has happened. Thanksgiving was so wonderful with getting to be with my favorite people, my family and friends. They are such a blessing to me and I'm so thankful for them. I loved getting a big warm hug from my mom and dad, and getting to see my little nephew and give him a kiss....he's so cute, I just can't help it. :) God must have planned this out perfectly because I was able to get to see my new niece Hannah over that weekend during my Husky meet to see her only four hours after she was born. She is so precious! Babies are such wonderous creations, God really does miracles in a woman's body. She has a full head of brown hair!! Which was so exciting for me to see! I think it comes from her auntie...;) Although, I'm not sure that the brown is gonna stay very long seeing as how both of her parents are blonde. :) Oh well, I'm gonna enjoy this while I can. :) She is such a sweet baby, very quiet. I love being an aunt...it's wonderful.

The Huskies meet went very well! I went a couple of seasonal best times in the 50 free, and life-time best times in the 100 back, 100 free, and in the 400 free relay! God has been so good to me this season in swimming. I am very thankful not to have any injuries or to have fallen out of love with the sport like so many people I know that still have to survive the season. I think it's because I feel that the actual swimming part of the sport is only partially what I am focused on. God really called me to the sport when I went to Whitworth, and I've been trying to praise him through in it in whatever ways I can think of. But what it really comes down to is the people on the team. You are always being watched. -not in a creepy way or anything. :) but it's more of a feeling of duty, responsibility, and servanthood. People may be looking to me to set a standard, of work ethic, love, and service, in how I treat others, and how I love the sport. This is a hard balance though with school because both demand quite a lot from me. I had a bit of a struggle between school and swimming in the previous years and which should come before which, and when. This year however has been such a gracious year for me. God finally showed me what my passion is and how I can do it in the work force when I graduate...that took a lot of pressure off of my school and helped me to enjoy my classes more for what information that it gave me, rather than just thinking about how I HAD to take them in order to fulfill my requirements. So God has been faithful. :)

Finals went well and I think I did better than I had probably deserved for the amount I studied on the last one, but I'm not going to complain. :) I left for Home Friday at one. I had just walked out of my house at Whitworth when I tried to start my car and the battery had died! So I called a friend to come and help me jumpstart it cuz all my housemates were gone or taking tests, and thankfully he was able to stop by real quickly. I was a little scared at this point because the weather report had said that there was a blizzard approaching Spokane by that evening, so I had to get out of there fast! God was so wonderful, I made it through the pass, just before they closed it due to the snow-fall! I've gotta say, I seem to be noticing God's provision for me so much lately, he's EVERYWHERE!! haha! Kinda weird, but VERY cool. :)

I came home to an empty house. My parents are in Palm Springs spending some wonderful time together. I'm so thankful that my parents love each other so much and want to be around eachother and still go on dates...I think that is really cool. However, I was kind of saddened that because of this, I was not able to see them. :( I got two calls from my sisters Krissy and Lindsey, both offering for me to spend the night with them if I was lonely! How sweet is that!?! I have the best sisters ever....sorry I'm bragging, but as I've gotten older, its been so good to be able to talk to them as friends and more of on an equal level, and we've all gotten a lot closer...so they are pretty much amazing. :) I didn't however end up spending the night, I was pretty tired so I watched law and order and made a dinner for myself. It was good, but the best part was actually after that. I had a great hour or two with my Father which made that night SO worth it. :) God is so cool.

Anyway, I gotta get to bed, tomorrow is church and the kids are presenting their little Christmas show which is always so cute...man, I remember those days of singing in the choir, choir practice, and me, Sarah and Allison goofing off in the back row haha! I never did a significant part in any of the plays, but one year I remember doing a duet with a girl, I think her name was Riley. I was so nervous so I just kinda mumbled into the microphone....my poor parents had to witness the disgrace of their daughter in front of our whole church hahaha! They are troopers. :) but anyway, it snowed tonight! It's so beautiful right now! God's the best artist ever, can't do any better than him, that's for sure. I'm gonna go admire it now. Goodnight!