Valentines Day!

I had to write a post today. I just had to. Because today is Valentines Day! The day of love, flowers, chocolates, little stuffed bears, maybe a few engagement rings :) The day when even the coldest and most calculated of hearts spend a little bit of cash to show someone just how much they care. Its special - overcommercialiesd maybe, but special.

Probably because this year I've decide to live valentines day up. I'm not celebrating the day of love for 24 hours - no, I'm going to celebrate it for a whole year.

Really, Valentine's day comes and goes pretty quickly for most people. You buy someone a rose maybe, recieve a corny card, and then wake up to next morning back to the same old ruitine. But what if people spent the whole year showing each other how much they love them? What if they didn't just put effort into one day a year, but every day a year?

So thats my mission this year. To make everyday Valentines day. True, some may be a little dodgy (loving people who just won't co-operate can be hard) but it'll be worth it. Because Valentines day doesn't just make the reciever happy - the giver feels pretty good too.

Finally though, the best part of Valentines day is celebrating love. Rejoycing in love. Being once again reminded how much you are loved. And this year my Valentine loves me more than words can say. He loves me so much that it had to be shown through his actions. There's a sentece from the fathers love letter that I think pretty much somes it up:
"I gave up everything I loved, so that I might gain your love."
He dropped everything, gave up the most important and precious thing he had to show just how much he loved me.
Me.
He wasn't like, "Well, hey, I can kill a couple of million birds with this one stone." He died for me, and if I had been the only human being on the planet, he still would have died for me. Not because I was a sorry excuse for a human and needed fixing, but because he wanted to show me exactly how much he loved me. And that love, a love that doesn't stop at anything, is something that should be celebrated.

Happy Valentine's Day! And know that nobody could ever love you as much as God does.

Love Gracie

Confessions of a teenage.......procrastinator?

I think I'm ready to confess.

My name is Grace Harrison and I am a procrastinator.
Yes, I to struggle with a brain that never wants to do what its supposed to do when its supposed to do it. Sound familiar? Surely I'm not the only one out there :) Sometimes its just hard to focus on things that are "boring" (with a capital B. ie. income tax and algebra) when I just want to be doing something else. So do I get what I have to get done quickly and then move onto something more enjoyable?
Um, no. I procrastinate. I you tube things, and blog things, and basically do anything but add numbers and letters together. (Can I just say, numbers and letters? What were they thinking)

Just so you know, I'm not procrastinating right now. Unless you count holding off sleep procrastination.

But hey, I'm human. And although I could probably save my mum a lot of stress, I do eventually get everything done. Everything works together for the good of those who love him right? :)

So have a wonderful week, and get off my blog because there is probably something you should be doing instead. :) Happy procrastinating!

Rain, rain, go away........

Lately I've been thinking a lot about rain. (Hence the title of this post.) Probably because its been raining practically every day for the last two weeks here, and rain seems to be on the brain of everyone. :)
Sometimes I look out of my window, at all of the trees and flowers and the muddy grass and think,
"Boy, its gotta be cold out there." You can almost see the trees drooping their heads under the weight of the water trapped in their leaves, and all the little daisies shivering. I would be cold, wet, grumpy, and very uncomfortable if I had to spend two weeks out in the rain. But the thing is, rain brings nature life. Rain restores life into plants that are thirsty, dry, tired and even the ones that are so close to being gone. As miserable as it is, nature needs rain.

Now this got me thinking about tears. And God. Eventually I put the two together and realised God was trying to show me something. :) Just like rain brings restoration to nature, tears bring restoration to us. You know people who are hurting so much that they say they can't cry? Well, it makes sense. When you allow tears, you allow healing. So just like rain brings healing to thirsty plants, tears bring healing to thirsty spirits.
I've always wondered why God says in the bible that he collects all of our tears and holds them close. Like he somehow thinks that they're special. Its always seemed  bit insensitive to me - like, "Hey God, I'm crying here! As in I'm hurting! As in this is not good and you need to fix it instead of collecting my tears like they're helping!" But, alas, God was right. Again. Funny that. :)
You see, even though crying is miserable, and it hurts, and when your doing it all you want to do is stop, it brings life and healing to what is broken. Tears bring restoration - thats why God treasures everyone we cry. Tears help heal us from the inside out.
Just like nature needs rain, we need to cry. God knows that in the midst of the wet and cold, the healing begins.
Anyway. They were just a few thoughts of mine.
You know, I havn't put up on this blog something I probably should have put up a long time ago. My song!
I still can hardly believe it actually happened, but here I am with an actual recording under my belt. So here it is - Falling. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9K8_Mmimk4&feature=g-upl&context=G2323546AUAAAAAAAAAA

Love Gracie

God's favourite word

I don't know about you, but sometimes I feel as if God's favourite word is "wait." I see or imagine something, get excited about it and say, "Aright God, I'm ready. Lets do this!" only to hear God tell me to wait. Or I have a plan in my head of something that should happen by a certain point, and when I get to that point, instead of making it happen God says wait. Wait, wait, wait - I gues its a nice way of saying "have patience Grace!" But here is something I am slowly learning - Godly patience is very different than the patience we practive here on earth.
Godly patience means waiting for an uncertain amount of time, for an uncertain thing, travelling down an uncertain road. That's a lot of uncertainty. Something that I myself struggle with.
"Just give me a hint God. Just something to keep me going." I'm always asking him, but still I feel like I'm sitting in the dark waiting for something I don't even know is coming. Its frustrating to say the least. So I bring out the "why" card.
"Why can't I have it God? Why can't you move? Why are you saying wait? Are you saying no?" Waiting can be really hard. Waiting with all sorts of why's running through your head can be even harder. But God is a loving God and he doesn't leave you sitting in the dark without something to hold onto. A promise. Actually, plenty of promises.
"I will never leave you or forsake you."
"I will uphold you with my right hand." and a personal favourite:
"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than we could ever hope, dream, or imagine according to his power that is at work within us.... Ephesians 3:20"
When you have a head full of dreams and plans, when the life that you have carefully designed in your head just isn't living out the way you wanted it to, this verse is the perfect promise. Because what ever you dream, hope, immagine or plan - God can and will do immeasurably more. He is going to take your plans and blow them out of proportion in his plans - which are way more exciting and fullfilling than yours could ever be!
Don't get frustrated when God says "No" or "Wait." Get excited - what he's really saying is , "I have something so much better!"

Just another fellow waiter,

Gracie 

Take it!

Well, its a new year! And I guess I should be posting about resolutions, starting afresh, new hope, blah, blah, blah, but I think I'm a little late for it. So I'm going to write about what I want to write about. Which, to be honest, is what I always do anyway. :)

Don't you hate it when you offer someone something and they don't take it?
"Please take it."
"No, I couldn't."
"No really, I want you to have it."
"No, thanks anyway."
"Just TAKE IT!"
This is how my conversations generally go when I'm trying to give something to somebody and its simply a random gift. You give it to them, they hand it back. And so it continues until someone loses the battle. Its not that they don't want what I'm trying to give them - its just that for some reason, the unspoken rules of peopledom tell them not to take the offer. 
Well, this can sometimes relate to us and God. When Jesus died on the cross for us, he bought as back at a price. So we are now his. Right. But he also gave us something - he gave us life. And for some reason, us christians have this mentality that we should give it back. I'm sure you've heard the speech,
"Give God your life. Lay it down at his feet. Put your life in his hands."
I used to have this little 'game' that god and I played where I'd say,
"Ok God, I'm giving you my life. Take control." And then a week later I'd find out that I was in control again and once again hand it over.
"Sorry about that God, I grabbed the wheel for a bit. But this time I mean it - take it, its yours." And I did mean it. But, so happens that I would once again find myself feeling in control and have to hand my life back over to God all over again. And again.
But heres the thing. God gave us life. And then we try to give it back. You see, God is part of your life. He's in your heart, and your in his. Its like when Jesus died on the cross he didn't just buy you back, but he grabbed you and smashed you into God so that you are now one. Do we really think that God doesn't have control over our lives? That he's not stearing this ship? He gave us life, and guess what? He came with it as a package deal. Its like getting a new car with a GPS already installed.
Don't try to give back what you've been given. Take it, love him for it, and live it. Thats why he gave you life in the first place.
You can't give God anything that he doesn't already have, because news flash - he has everything! You've been given your life, and God's not looking for it back. So hold on tight to it and watch as God takes you for a ride.

Love Gracie

Perfect!

So I obviously still have a bit to learn about this whole blogging thing. Like its a good idea to blog a little more regulary than once a month. Duh :)

Anyway, I wanted to share one of the many things that God has been teaching me. Trust me, if I were to write down everything that he has been speaking to my heart, we would be here a long time. So here is just one of the many lessons that I have been learning lately.

Perfection. You know that saying, "You are perfect in God's eyes?" Well its true. Even better though, you are not just perfect in God's eyes - you are perfect full stop. I know, we stuff up. How can that equal perfection? But here's the thing - God created you perfect and nothing you do can change that. Some people like to say that we are a work in progress. Like God hasn't finished creating us yet. I'm not to sure about this. God didn't half finish us - leave us with peices missing and only half shined up - and then say "Ok, lets see what they make of themselves." He isn't still creating us, trying to get us right and then groaning everytime we do something that gets in the way. He made you, looked at you and was pleased. Because right before his eyes stood a perfect creation - exactly the way he wanted you and exactly the way he planned. He finished creating you even before you were born! Now here's the thing that God taught me the other day. Sin does not have the power to mar or mark you. What?

Imagine you are a clay pot. And the potter (God) has finished you, perfected you, and your sitting tall and proud on his "Shelf of fame." Now, imagine you do something that is a big no-no in clay land. You sin. When we stuff up, it leaves us with the impression that the sin we committed changed us somehow. Like it has somehow altered or marked God's perfect creation, and suddenly your not as perfect as you were before. We think that this sin has come along and left fingerprints all over God's clay pot, but this isn't true. Sin does not have the power to mark or mar you - it only has the power to make you believe that you are marred or marked. This trap is soooo dangerous. So realise, that no matter what you do or what you have done, it can never change who God made you to be or take away your title of "his perfection."

Live it, relish it, love it - not everybody knows that they are perfect!

Love Gracie

Introducing Me :)

The last post was kind of like an introduction to me being an official blogger! Yay! Now that you know I'm a princess, I guess its time to share some of the other minor details about "Yours truly". Here goes!

• My full name is Grace Anne Harrison. Really exotic. NOT! (I like to be called Gracie)
• I am 16 years old and have still to get my licence. My 10 year old brother thinks he is going to get his before I do - I still have 3 months of the year left people!
• My family consists of a mum, dad, sister and brother. My brother is the one who got the gorgeous blue eyes,long eyelashes, blond hair and tan skin, and he doesn't even appreciate them. I am SO jealous.
• Physical Attributes: Green eyes, long straight brown hair (with fringe), tall - 5 f 8.5 in., "English rose skin" (pale and pink), small nose, big lips, medium eyelashes. Create a mental picture and then erase it, because it probably doesn't look anything like me. :) If I could change anything about the physical me I would be 5f 5in tall and have curly hair. The people who tell you being tall is an advantage - they lie.
• I am not a very outgoing person, but working on it. I used to be really shy, and am working on that too :) It can take me a while to really open up to people, so I am more of the girl who has a couple of really really close friends rather than a whole group of "buddies."
• I love music, and hate maths. But that's ok, because I figure I'm never going to use the Tan ratio anyway.
• I tell God absolutely everything. 
• I love love love Erynn Mangum's books. I think she is the funniest writer ever.
• I have trouble drinking - it always seems to end on my shirt and mum is always telling me to straighten my shoulders, even though I don't slouch.
• I can sometimes be daft, but I think this is because I'm a bit of a dreamer and don't always concentrate on what people are saying. : |
• I love my dad and think he's a really funny guy :) I want to marry a guy one day who makes me laugh :)
• I love smiling and laughing and generally being happy.

These are just a few very random facts about me. If you have a question about me, write it in the comments and I'll answer it in one of my posts. Or leave some random facts about yourself  :)

God Bless

Gracie