and i saw deep inside a love that was true.

i took this when we went to the top of the mountain
(yes, the same mountain that ian and ashley got engaged on).

so much is going on in my head right now, but i think im going to share something that god is really putting on my heart at this point in time.

so in colombia, we were always going - we rarely ever stopped for a break. no rest for the weary i guess, but it was awesome. anyway, that meant that sometimes i wanted to be cranky and negative and i wanted to scream. but i didnt. why? because god really showed me my attitude. yep, my attitude. the very same thing that i have wanted to change forever, but never have. i very rarely took an honest look at myself and realized how negative of a person i was.

god really showed me that my attitude is mine to change. its my decision if im going look at the glass as half full, or half empty. and for about 99% of the trip, i looked at it as half full. now, sometimes i had to force myself to do so, but it made such a huge difference. there were times where i just wanted to be by myself, to sleep, to scream, to give someone a knuckle sandwich(im just being truthful), where i just wanted to not serve. but i thought to myself consistently, "would i rather have another team member have an attitude with me or would i want them to be encouraging?" the obvious answer was to have them be encouraging. so thats what i had to be. i needed to be uplifting and just keep going with a smile on my face. and even when i felt like i didnt want to do something, i did it anyway. and when i did that, i found myself having so much fun. i had so much joy. i was just serving the lord and it was beautiful.

i had so much peace and joy in my heart when on this trip, and i still do. i can honestly say that i have never had so much love just pouring into and out of me. i feel like i could just keep smiling. and thats what i plan on doing, smiling, a lot. smiling is such a gift, and a gift we should share. we do it all of the time, but i dont think we ever realize how much it can impact a person. it impacts not only the person receiving the smile, but also the one giving it. i realized this, too, in colombia. when i was upset, i would smile. i would smile because i wanted the people of colombia to be encouraged and to know that there is a love so much bigger than we could ever know. i wanted them to know that there was hope in this crazy, messed up world that we live in. and by me smiling at them to encourage them, i became encouraged because i reminded myself that there is a reason to smile. and that reason came to this earth and was spit on and made fun of and hated and died on a cross.

always, always, always smile more.
you never know who you could impact.
just sayin.

first picture: view of bogota. second picture: "20 minute" walk to the slums which turned out to be about an hour and a half walk. third picture: everyone doing the cuban shuffle when doing a presentation outside of exito. fourth picture: very last night at darrens church with people from the church and my team. fifth picture: the "stage" that was actually a rooftop that was across the street from a school that we later performed in!


if anyone has the books dateable and/or captivating, i would like to borrow them.