finding joy in the simple things

during my final week of camp, one of my six-year-old campers had a loose tooth.

(her very first loose tooth, i might add!)

it was extra wiggly one day, and she kept playing with it, so i took her inside to pull it out.

she grabbed it and tugged. when she saw it sitting in her hand she just started giggling!

she then proceeded to skip around the church singing "i lost my too-ooth! i lost my too-ooth!"

i was filled with joy watching this little girl laugh and sing and be so happy about something so simple as losing her first tooth.

words

i had an english professor tell me once:
"you are an english major, so there should never be a time in your life when you say, 'there are no words to describe this.'"

i have realized this summer that this statement is ridiculous.
i have seen beauty in the ordinary and the extraordinary and i have felt feelings of sadness and joy so strong that i just cry and/or smile because i have no other way of expressing how i feel.

although words are wonderful and can usually express how i feel in the most perfect way, it is such a beautiful thing to know that God gave us other ways of expressing ourselves and that He placed people in our lives that we can share these feelings with and they just know how we feel without actually having to say anything.

creation

Then God said, "Let us make human beings in our image and likeness. And let them rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the tame animals, over all the earth, and over all the small crawling animals on the earth."
-Genesis 1:26

Then the Lord God took dust from the ground and formed a man from it. He breathed the breath of life into the man's nose, and the man became a living person.
-Genesis 2:7


Look around. There is SO MUCH BEAUTY in this earth. All of that is from God.
I've been thinking a lot lately about God's creation.
We, us humans, are God's favorite creation because He created us in His own image. He spoke everything into existence. Everything except for us. He took the time to form us from the dust with his own hands and breathed His own breathe into us. Of all the wonderful and beautiful things God created, He thinks we are the most beautiful.
And I think that's something that we need to remember.

COLDPLAY.
these balls hanging above them were so neat! they were spinning and had different shapes and colors moving over them. at this particular point they had videos of each member on the balls. SO COOL!

"every good day is good in its very own way"

shirley road shirley by a weather

i really want to ride in a hot air balloon. from it, you'd be able to see so many beautiful things. beautiful skies and beautiful landscapes.

morning elegance