Growth spurt.

I can feel myself changing.  I'm sorry if this freaks friends at home out, but when I come home I'll be different.

First of all, remember how I've always been finicky with germs and food?  Like if food is touching or it doesn't taste right I don't eat it?  Well here it's completely different.  (I can just hear mom going "woohoo!")  At home if someone says, "Amanda, would you like this peace of ham?  It's only been out for an hour."  I'd be grossed out, not just because of the hour part but I don't even really like ham.  But here, here I'm like "YES!  PROTEIN!  Gimme the ham!"  It's weird.  Or if I drop a cookie on the floor.  As long as it's not in the Ohana Court where everybody is, I'll most likely pick it up and keep on eating it.  I'm always hungry here and there isn't much snacky food at all.  I'd buy some but everything is so expensive.  A box of wheat thins at walmart is five bucks.  Five bucks!  And the dollar menu at McDonalds is a $1.20 menu here.

Another thing that's changed is me being finicky about my privacy and space.  I've (mostly) stopped being paranoid about doing stuff like dressing and primping in front of other people.  I used to hate when my sister even watched me put make up on.  But here when eight girls are all in a rush and there's two mirrors, you just stop caring.  And my personal space is my bunk bed and two shelves.  I used to be "this is your space, this is mine, nobody can touch my stuff," but now I'm fine with sharing space, and hairbrushes, and clothes, and whatever.  It's almost freeing.

The major thing that's really changed though is my attitude.  I realized in the past week I've been living a life coated in apathy.  There are a gazillion amazingly wonderful and amazingly horrid things going on all around me but I've been desensitized.  Desensitized to beauty and to tragedy.  This isn't God's plan for us!  I should be FILLED with awe for the things God loves.  His glory is everywhere!  In every child's innocent smile, in every bird and leaf and every painted sunset it's His mark on the world.  He is everything that is beautiful and good.  Glory is everywhere so how could we forget to see it?
It's the same thing with pain.  There is injustice everywhere.  This world is still full of racism, hunger, sex trafficking, hatred, and hopelessness, amongst so many other bad things.  How much do we hurt?  How much do we care?
Many regular church-goers aren't any better then anybody else/  They sit in our little pews once a week and half-heartily listen to some guy while sneaking peeks at their watches.  The rest of the week who even remembers about that spiritual stuff?  Don't they know that there is this INCREDIBLE God who is madly pursuing them, who is way more devoted to their lives and happiness then they could ever be themselves?  There is this man who died so that we can truly live in freedom!
Girls, instead of waiting on some guy to fill you up, look right in front of you and realize that there is this amazing Jesus guy who thinks you are STUNNING, and wants to take you away on the most amazing adventure ever, and he can fill your heart in a way that absolutely no guy ever could!  People, realize that there is this INCREDIBLE father who yearns for His children to just come to Him and just rest in His perfect peace and comfort!  The world will abandoned you and leaving you empty and tired but there is this GOD who is just waiting on His tip-toes to fill us with his spirit.  WHY doesn't this get us more exited!?
The speakers from last week said something that I hope will stick with me forever, as well as grab your hearts as well.

There is too much beauty and too much pain to ever be bored again.

Don't you think it's weird that so many churches, and especially youth groups, are dedicating so much of their time and money focusing on how to keep people at church from being bored?  All these youth groups, (I'm not talking about my youth group by the way, I love you guys,) spending hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars, on getting that new video-game set or cooler looking room to get more teenagers to think God is cool, and that He isn't all boring and stuffy like old people make Him look.

Why do we need this?  When did God ever become boring in the first place?  People, there is the God who is perfect and bigger and so great that it's impossible to exaggerate anything about Him.  And He, He is madly in love with us no matter what crappy stuff we've spent our lives doing.  And He is waiting to dive into our hearts and transform our lives into things of pure joy.  His love gets you higher than any form of any drug, His love will leave you more satisfied then any relationship, His love will make you feel safer then any caretaker or parent, and how on earth is that boring!?

I've loved and fallowed God for many years, but right now it feels like a thin vial is being uncovered from my face, and I never even knew it was there.  I am feeling God's wonder and love and beauty and awesomeness in a whole new way, and it if filling me with ecstasy!  Half the time I feel drunk.  (Well, I think.  I've never been drunk so I don't know for sure.)  I think of the pain in this world and how long I've been a lifestyle of I-don't-give-a-crap and it makes me want to cry but then at the very same time I can feel God's love and peace almost like a heavy warm coat on my heart and it makes me want to dance.  I feel so joyful and my cheeks hurt at the end of the day from smiling.  I pray that this never, ever ends.

People, it's time to get rid of apathy!