hi friends!

i just got back from seeing i can only imagine with my mom and i'm pretty sure you need to go see it too because holy moly was it amazing! but really there were a couple things that stuck with me, 1. priscilla shirer was in the movie, which for some reason reminded me of christine caine's talk at passion, probably because i needed to hear the truth from her talk again. 2. bart's manager said to him, "what are you running from?" and then told bart to "embrace it" 3. no matter how much your (my) life is falling apart, Jesus is never ever ever ever (a million times ever) going to abandon you (me).

so yeah, let me expand on these all a little bit more!

one. christine caine's main point during her passion talk was "who told you?" and lately i've been really down on myself and feeling super unworthy and just unlovable. you guys probably think i have my life altogether, especially since i wrote a blog post on the topic of being unlovable, but honestly, i don't have it all together. i write these posts for me so that when i am feeling this way, i can look back and read the truth. anyways back to christine's talk. so during this movie, i saw priscilla and i instantly thought of christine and instantly thought, "who told me i was unworthy and unlovable?" Jesus sure didn't say that. i mean Jesus thought i was worthy and lovable, enough so that He died for me. so why do i let my depression and anxiety spew lies in my life? why do i let past events tell me who i am? because man, i am forgiven, i am worthy, i am loved, i am lovable, and i am pretty freaking awesome. so that being said, i need to remember that it only matters what God says about me, not what anyone else, myself included, says about me.

two. "what are you running from?" a lot. "embrace it" how? how should i do that God?
i am going to journal about this tonight, see what God says to me and for once listen to Him. i encourage you to do the very same thing. tell Him what you're running from and ask Him how you can embrace it.

three. last week was a rough week. i was extremely panicky and anxious, i just wanted to curl up in a ball and never leave my bed. i'm not even going to lie, i think i cried every single day of the week because of how overwhelmed i was. but hey, even when i was crying, i was talking to God. i was thanking God every single day that i was alive, that i was feeling emotions, that because of Him i still felt joyful. so you know, even when my life feels like it's falling apart, and i swear it has fallen apart a lot before, Jesus is so freaking cool and will never leave me. and even when He's silent, He's still there.

so yeah man, go see i can only imagine! maybe God will use it to reach out to you in unthinkable ways! and happy easter! Jesus is alive. and He is alive every single day!

xoxo, aubs

spring thoughts

hello beautiful humans!

it's officially spring! which means that the time changed about a week ago, the sun is out longer, it's getting above 32 degrees most days, seasonal depression is diminishing, and finals are right around the corner.

since it's a new season, i thought i'd give you some thoughts of mine!

01. kombucha is almost as good as water. i've been drinking kombucha almost every day and i absolutely love it! as of late, i am drinking the kevita pineapple peach, like it's going out of style. friends! go to the store and get yourself a kombucha so we can reap the benefits together!

02. leave the past in the past. i keep looking back at my old poetry from my book (from when i was 17) and i get so discouraged because i wrote some of the best work when i was 17 and now i'm 20 and struggling. but ladies and gentlemen, we need to stop looking at our past work, past relationships, past lives; we live in the present and good things will come from this time too.

03. sometimes God put people in your life for one reason; that they need someone to be praying for them. i feel like this happened to me very recently, it's hard to distinguish a person's purpose in your life or even your purpose in theirs. But if God tells you to pray for them, you do it out of obedience, even if it's the last thing you want to do.

04. having gratitude can really change your way of living. recently, i started writing at least five things i am thankful for each day; this has reminded me that there are always things to be thankful for, even when my life feels like it's falling apart. so take a second today, take out that journal, and write five things you're thankful for.

05. eyebrows are annoying and i'm about to grow mine into a unibrow so i can look like frida kahlo. my mom says i could be frida's twin if i grew out my unibrow and mustache, so i say let's do this! i am so very sick of paying to get my eyebrows waxed every two weeks, so why not? this was my one random and out there thought for you, but really all my thoughts are random.

so friends! there are some random spring thoughts for you! i need to take some outdoorsy photo since it's nice out and bring you some aesthetically pleasing posts! 

butterfly effect

would you really change the past if you had the option? your future might change along with the present. is it worth it? would you do it? 

do you ever wish you could go back in time and change something you did or said? i know i've thought about that before, like "hey God if you could just give me one more chance not to do that thing or say those words, things would be so much better." but really, if you could change things, should you? most definitely not. have you ever heard of the butterfly effect? not the song, but like the theory? well, i'll tell you about it. so the butterfly effect is the theory that if you went back in time and changed one little thing, then really everything would spiral out of control and everything at this very moment would be different.

i'll give you a real life example here. okay so let's go back into time when aubrey (me) was looking at colleges. i toured grand valley, cornerstone, hope, and calvin. i was 99.99% sure i was going to go to cornerstone and become a youth pastor. that was my goal, but obviously God had bigger, better plans for me and i ended up at grand valley. but let's pretend for a second that i went to cornerstone. i wouldn't have met so many people that i call my best friends, i wouldn't have found an amazing church that i now call home, i wouldn't have met the love of my life (kidding, still haven't met him yet. maybe i would have if i didn't go to gvsu(woah, butterfly effect)), and i honest to God probably wouldn't be writing a blog post about the butterfly effect.

isn't this such a wild thing to think about?

so i guess all that being said, never regret any decisions you make in life. chances are, if you were to change a small decision you made in the past, the present and the future would look inevitably different, maybe even worse.

so ladies and gentlemen, go live your life with this new piece of knowledge and stop living with regrets, you can't change the past and if you could, you wouldn't want to.

xoxo, aubs