Don't you take over for God cuz you know nothing.

You HAVE to let God work. 

Okay if you know me at all you will know that I like to do things for myself, and I'm always coming up with (crazy) ideas and most of all, like most other human beings on the planet, I like to plan out the way I think things should go. I like to think situations through in my head before they happen and imagine what it is going to be like. For instance: I like to plan out what I'm going to say to certain people, and think of all of their possible responses to what I say, and what I will say in response to that. (Confusing, right?) I like to imagine nice things I could do for people and how they will react, and I like to think about  what friends I will make in any given situation. 

What is the point of me telling you that? Well besides to showcase one of my many weird characteristics, I'm giving this picture to show how much we think we know as humans. Okay we think we know a whole lot. Let me tell you something: Unless you're one of those contestants on Jeopardy, or one of those kids on Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader, (who I'm pretty sure know WAAAAAAAAYYY more than any fifth grader in the entire United States of America so it's not really fair...) YOU DON'T KNOW A WHOLE LOT! I mean yeah, we all know how to get to Stop & Shop, and how to make pasta, and how to use a vacuum, and how to read, but we know nothing about the future. About life. 

that's to me not to you so don't be offended

 Now don't get all literal on me and be like "we know lots of stuff about the future because we have calendars and telescopes and we can track stars and the movement of the sun and lkjsflhkasjdfh..." that's not  what I mean. I mean we're just dumb creatures. God literally knows everything and we can't even begin to think that we know what will happen at any given time. Just when we think we have it all planned out...yeah that's right. You get smacked in the face with something that you didn't expect and didn't plan for. 

Humans suck at planning. Excuse me for saying it but we kind-of do. How many times have you shown up for an activity and it totally gets rained out? The weather guy said it was supposed to be 90 and sunny. grrrrr. What about the last time you had an entire conversation planned out in your mind because it was a really important thing, and the person you were going to talk to wasn't there? That has happened to me a ton of times. Or when you're driving to a class and you get a flat tire so you miss class? yeah that's happened to me too. 

So. Annoying. I can't even.

 Basically what i'm trying to get across is the fact that God has the future planned. We don't need to go taking His job and trying to do it ourselves, like we could do a better job. Than God. Jeez people you're supposed to have confidence in yourself but not so much that you think you know more than God! God does insanely-amazing things through us but we have to let Him. If we're walking around thinking we own the place--that we know what's going to happen--we're obviously not in the right mindset to let God work through us. So try to have a prayerful heart and an open mind to God. 

just do it

 Okay that's all the boring talky-stuff I have in this mind for tonight so listen to this song would ya? It's my current favorite Christian song and I think you'll like it as much as I do.

 XO Charlotte

 

I just have a lot of feelings...what a sappy title

I am in the middle of a small crisis. It seems like a crisis to me at least, probably not to anyone else, but I tend to get overly upset/annoyed with things. It's a bad habit, I know. 

So let me outline my problem for you: (Not that you necessarily want to hear about my problem...haha but lucky you, you get to!) 

So there's a group of people that I'm going to be doing a project with, and we can say that I am...less than happy with it. The group I mean. The people in the group aren't bad or mean or anything. In fact, they happen to be great people! The only problem is, I have tried on many occasions to get to know a few of them and I've been treated with...not as much friendliness as I would hope for. Like I go up and say hi in a very friendly way and they kind of just say hi and then avoid all additional eye contact with me-like I had "loser" tattooed on my forehead. I mean, that might be a slight exaggeration, but the basic message is that they absolutely made no effort to make me feel comfortable. I really did try to connect with these individuals many times because I didn't want to go away thinking I didn't try hard enough to be friendly or "win their friendship". (Not that winning friendships is necessarily the right thing to do or whatever, that's just the expression I chose to use for lack of a better one.) In essence, I felt very uncomfortable talking to them whenever I did.

What is my point in telling you all this? Haha I'm not really sure yet but it'll come eventually. 

 and we wait

 and we wait

Okay now I think I have something. I actually had this before in my brain somewhere but I lost it in the abyss. I like to call my brain the abyss because...well I just do.

So this is what I'm thinking: What do you do when people don't like you? I've struggled with this for as long as I can remember and I'm just coming to a few realizations about it. I came up with a few verses and points that i'm going to outline and comment on to kindof explain it.

2 Corinthians 12:19 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 

God's grace should be sufficient for us. We don't need affirmation from  friends. 

1 Peter 5:7 Cast all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

God gets it. He has had more rejection than probably any of us. He totally cares for us and He can be the best friend that we wish someone else would be, and we don't have to be anxious about who likes us and who doesn't, because He will always like us. 

Philippians 4:19 And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

All of our needs are met in Christ and we can feel comfortable about ourselves because we have our identity in Jesus, not other people. 

1. When you're having a bad day and you're tempted to feel that God is not good-God is good
2. When you feel ugly or fat-I am fearfully and wonderfully made
3. When you feel rejected-i am accepted in Christ
4. When you feel anxious-God can be trusted
5. When you feel like you can't handle a problem that you're facing-God's grace is enough for me
6. When you feel like you'll never be able to overcome a sinful habit-The cross of Christ is sufficient to conquer my sinful flesh
7. When you feel like your potential is limited by your past-my past does not have to control my future
8. When you feel like you don't know where to turn for help and advice-God's work is sufficient to lead me, teach me, and heal me
9. When you want to blame others for your responses-I am responsible before God for my behavior, responses, and choices.
10. When you don't understand a difficult situation-It is impossible to be godly without suffering
11. When you want things to go your way-It's not all about me, it's all about Him!

These are points from the book Beautiful in God's Eyes by Elizabeth George that I posted about a few days ago. Not all of them apply to this exact topic but some of them do, and I wrote them all out because regardless of whether they fit this topic or not, they're very important things to remember. Write them out so you can remember them!

Read number 3 again. Now read number 10. Now read number 11. Do you see what I'm getting at here? It is totally a good feeling to be accepted and liked by everyone and I feel the urge to make friends with every single person I come in contact with. It doesn't always work though, does it. I think that God wants us to shine His light to everyone and that could just translate as being friendly to people and being genuine Christians who live out their faith. I don't think that God expects us to get along perfectly with everyone and yes, there will be some people who totally reject your attempts at friendship, but that doesn't mean you have to stop trying. 

Unless you feel like this:

Which I feel like quite a bit actually. Okay that's enough from me for now...........

XO Charlotte

*a little behind-the-scenes...I almost always type ZO by accident. haha I guess my fingers like the Z better than the X*

Epicness in one Eyebrow (because that sounds so cool for a title!)

It has been forever. Not really, but I haven't posted in kind-of a long time so I really need to today. I HAVE ALMOST 1000 PAGE VIEWS and I am so excited to reach that monumental goal! I would be so grateful if you would share this blog with anyone you know who might want to read it. Another thing you could do is leave comments for topics that you would like me to cover! I am always open to ideas because my mind is usually quite blank. Right now I'm just buying time because I haven't thought of an exact topic yet...so here's where my mind is as of this minute:

 Oh, hello Zac Efron...thank you for stopping by <3

This one had to be bigger so you could experience the incredible cuteness in larger scale

Robert please stop. I can't even. Oh yeah...here...

Olivia thank you for that fantastic video which is my new favorite currently.

Alrightie now that I've wasted about 15 minutes I should get down to the meat of this. I don't know if that expression works but I heard it and I looked it up and I thought it sounded cool...so yeah. 

Books. Christian Books. I haven't read nearly as many books as probably most of you have, and not all of them were good. But there are a choice few that I would absolutely recommend to anyone. Actually not really anyone, more like teen girls. Wow, that really narrowed it down. 

The first book I want to talk about is called, What Is He Thinking?? What Guys Want Us to Know About Dating, Love, and Marriage by singer/songwriter Rebecca St. James.

The basis of the book is Rebecca asking guys of all types (from single 20-somethings-to older mentors and even her father) to share their thoughts about a wide variety of topics, like how women can respect themselves and the men in their lives, modesty, purity, taking it slow, friendship, letting guys lead, and more. The guys on the panel answer the questions candidly and they pretty much take the opportunity to tell us girls everything they think we should know about guys and relationships. Some of the questions taken from the book are:

• What is the most attractive quality to you in a woman? 
• Is modesty truly attractive?
•  Is neediness a turn-off? 
• What do you find beautiful? 
• How can we be dependent on God for our identity, not on you? 
• How can we help you with boundaries physically?

I loved this book because it really helped me in understanding how we (females) should act around guys and it gave me a window into how they think so I can be mindful of the effects of what I say and do. 

The next book I want to talk about is Emotional Purity by Heather Arnel Paulsen.

I won this book at a one-day convention and I didn't read it until several months later. At first I was like "I totally have all this stuff down. I don't need to read a boring book about it!" Guess what? I didn't have it all down and I DID need to read a (non-boring) book about it. Here's a brief synopsis of the book:

"Have you ever given your heart to someone who didn't love you in return? Have you had your heart broken over and over? Everyone's heard teaching on physical purity, but probably little about emotional purity. Often times Christians become emotionally intimate with male-female "friendships" but with no commitment to pursuing marriage. Many people have more than one of these relationships and consider themselves pure, but do they realize that they have given a piece of their hearts to each person that should been reserved for their spouse? Emotional Purity will show you how to set boundaries in your relationships so you can learn how to guard your heart and keep it emotionally pure." 

This is something that I had never really given thought too. Like everyone knows that you aren't supposed to be physically intimate before marriage, but emotionally intimate? As I followed the characters in the story I slowly realized that I had been giving my heart away little pieces at a time and not even realizing it! 
The last book I want to recommend is Beautiful in God's Eyes for Young Women: Looking good from the inside out.

 This book by Elizabeth George is a study of Proverbs 31-the Proverbs 31 woman. It is very in-depth and there are so many ideas and thoughts that are presented that i've never heard before even though I've studied this before. Throughout the study you find purpose and confidence and you start to feel really beautiful in God's eyes. The most recent thing I've realized as i've been going through is that I need to work on taking compliments. Often times we feel like we aren't very talented and the things we know how to do are insignificant because other people can surely do them better than we can, but it totally isn't like that! God gives us the abilities that we have so when someone compliments us on something we should thank God instead of saying "oh I'm not really that good at such-and-such."

That's all the typing I can really do cuz my fingers hurt...for whatever reason...so I would love it if you would check some of those books out!

XO Charlotte

Imma crawl under a rock

Please don't hurt me! I know it's been sooooo long since I posted last and believe me, I feel really bad about it. I think it's been the post-vacation slump. And yes, I have been back from vacation for like 2 weeks. I pretty much just trashed my own excuse...

 So there actually is one thing I want to talk about today. Facebook. I think all of my friends know where I stand about Facebook, but I should recap. I have never liked the idea of Facebook because I see it as a time-wasting machine that sucks people in and they never again see the light of day. Just the light of their computer screen. So I never wanted to have Facebook because I knew I would waste all my time on it. I kind of just didn't keep in touch with some people that I met because I didn't have a way of doing it.  Buuuuuut...

 

Yeah i'm on Facebook now. Imagine that. Charlotte has finally joined the 21st century! 

That last gif didn't really make sense but I loved it.

So back to what I was saying...I have has Facebook for literally 3 days and I've already been spending way too much time on it. This is what I was afraid of in the first place. I guess I just have to make sure I limit my time and actually do some useful stuff in my life. 

 Every single one of you knows you were just thinking that.

But seriously. "keeping in touch" is not the same as spending every second on the computer. Do something with your life. 

                              XO Charlotte

Oh and the first thing you can do with your life is download this album for free...It's really good.

http://comeandlive.com/albums/self-titled-3

I'm in Wildwood Baby!

I’m coming to you live from Wildwood, New Jersey! Not actually live, but you know what I mean. We got to ‘our’ condo yesterday at about 3:00 p.m. and from there we went to the beach, which is about a 1 minute walk from our front porch. It is so beautiful here! I have to admit, I kind-of hate the place we’re staying even though it’s actually really nice. The best way I can describe my sentiment towards this condo is that it makes me feel weird when I’m inside it. My family doesn’t understand either and they keep telling me to suck it up. Oliver is giving me all this psychological stuff from college about exposure therapy and things.

       Anyway, we can see the boardwalk to the beach and the pier from in front of the condo and the pier is my favorite place so far. There are dozens of little beach shops and tourist attractions, including an amusement park, monster truck rides, antique photo booths and fried Oreo stands. I got some cute sunglasses there yesterday! The beach is really big and beautiful, and so far it’s almost empty because most people are still in school or at work.

     We don’t have Wi-Fi at our condo (which is actually our neighbor’s condo that they have offered us a bazillion times. Only now are we taking advantage of their offer.)  So I’m quickly writing this up at ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­McDonalds. I really wanted to post at least once while we are here (which is until Sunday) and hopefully I’ll get a chance to write at least once more before we leave. I think we’re going to Five Guys today and I’m really excited about it because I’ve never been there. It’s not really a nice beach day unfortunately, so I’m not sure what else we’re going to do later! Tomorrow we’re probably going to the beach and grocery shopping, and Thursday we’re (I think) going to see Mom’s Night Out at the theatre!!!!! I am psyched to see it because the previews look hysterical. Have any of you seen it? Is it good?

     OH MY GOODNESS! I HAVE TO TELL YOU ABOUT YESTERDAY! Yesterday was one of the most spectacular days I’ve had in a really long time for two reasons: One, my family went to Carlo’s Bakery yesterday! Most of you reading this probably know that already…but it was insane! Like Buddy from Cake Boss and The Next Great Baker films his shows there! It was so much fun even though we didn’t see anyone from the actual show while we were there. We got cannolis and chocolate mousse cheese cakes and my mom got this fantastic looking gluten-free cake. Carlo’s Bakery is in the middle of Hoboken, New Jersey and that city is really cool! We got to walk around a little bit and it really made me want to live in the city. It was funny because we were *ahem* mocking the people on the show Cake Boss because of their New Jersey accents and they talk with very…distinct voices I guess. And Buddy Valastro has several phrases that he always uses on the show so we had a good time copying those too!

So that’s the 411 on what’s going on here In NJ! If anything else exciting happens I’m crossing my fingers that I’ll be able to get to a place with Wi-Fi to tell you about it J  To quote Buddy the Cake Boss, “That’s how we do it Hoboken style baby!”

XO Charlotte

This is what you asked for. Except you didn't actually ask...

I said I would maybe do something fun so here is an entire post of music that you may or may not love, and videos to make you pee out of laughter. Not saying I did or anything, nope nope nope. *Shaniqua you know I did*

And now for the music portion of our evening

 

 

 

 

 That last one is better than it looks, believe me.

 

That's it so you're welcome ;)

XO again, Charlotte 

All the Single Ladies: DON"T SETTLE

Some of the things I write about aren't really important. Like not nearly as important as finding the perfect cute outfit to wear to a party, or deciding which kind of cake to eat, or whether to go to a movie or save your money to buy high-heeled sneakers. Because those things are really important.

This, however, I believe is very important.Today's post topic? Drum Roll Please...

DON'T SETTLE!

And when I say "don't settle" I am talking about guys. *I just typed fuys by accident. Yes. I am talking about fuys. hahaha* 

This is something that I have given a lot of thought to, and I apologize ahead of time for writing things that I may have touched on in previous posts...but if it's this important it couldn't hurt to read it over again, right? Right. 

1. God has hand-picked your spouse 

God has the exact person He wants you to marry just waiting for you. He (God) is waiting for the exact right time to put that person into your life. Maybe He already has! You never know! Okay, so you don't want to go trying to pick out your own guy. Let's be real...we suck at choosing things and making the right decisions. This shirt is the cutest thing I've ever seen! It is my favorite shirt in the world so i'll buy it for $32. *And then you get home and you have nothing to match it and you really don't like it anymore* 

     Do you really think you have the ability to pick the actual right person without God? Yeah, sure, there are non-Christian people who are married, some even happily married, but because they aren't Christians their marriage really has no point. I'm darn sure that God does a good job matching people together, and what could possibly be better than spending your entire life with someone that you love and who encourages you in your walk with God? Let God choose for you. Don't try to take over His job.

2. Patience Is a virtue

Waiting stinks. I HATE waiting. I do my nails and I can't sit still long enough for them to dry even though it takes like 5 minutes. And even though I know they'll get ruined if I use them before they're dry...I use them before they're dry and I ruin them. Because I hate waiting. This seems like a bad cycle does it not? 

     To go off of what I said in #1, we really have to use self-control and not market ourselves as 'single and ready to mingle' even if we might technically be. So basically don't flirt and don't try your hardest to attract attention to yourself because that is NOT God's idea for a way to find a husband. 

      Don't you love hearing people's stories of how they met? He bumped into me after biology class in college and he helped me pick up all my books and then we went to coffee. OR I met him at a young adult's Bible study and was the nicest guy I'd ever met. It would totally be awkward if someone asked you and your husband how you met and you were like "umm I flirted with him at school every time I saw him and eventually he asked me out". Awkward. Really, if you're patient God will write your perfect love story and believe me, He doesn't need a co-author. Or a backseat driver.

3. Standards are vital

Standards are one of the MOST IMPORTANT THINGS OF ALL!!! Take notes. You think i'm kidding!? Standards are what determines how far you should go with a guy. I'll get into mine later in another post because as I said, I absolutely can not stress it's importance enough. The danger of settling for a guy who likes you but you don't really think God put in your life to marry, is that you will be very tempted to go farther than you would like to go, or do things you really shouldn't do. If you were with the guy with whom God wanted you to spend your entire life, hopefully he will have the same standards for purity as you do and he won't pester you and push you to do things that are inappropriate.

4. Keep God as your number 1

Until you find "the guy" stay super connected to God. He should be your best guy. If you stray away from Him then there's going to be no way you could know who He wants you to spend your life with. It's not like He's going to text you:

Hey! :) Fyi I saw this guy at your youth group...he's super cute and you should marry him. Ttyl Ily, God <3

 So I'm not kidding, you really have to be "on top" of your relationship with God and talk and listen to Him on a regular basis. Like always. Constantly. Then you'll be able to recognize promptings from God.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some of that stuff was a little random, but no less important. I have used the word important WAAAY too many times but I can't think of a synonym right now. You can't settle for a guy who isn't the one God chose for you. I don't mean to dis all guys and say they're all terrible or anything, but i'm speaking hypothetically. He might push you to do things that aren't appropriate, he might lead you away from God and he might just not be that cool. God's pick is SO,  better girlfriend. He's your prince charming.

That's all I got for tonight. I apologize for the total seriousness of this post and the gross lack of gifs, pictures and all things interesting. So, because I love you, I may throw something short and fun together in a few minutes to lighten the mood ;) Maybe. Maybe doesn't mean yes.

XO Charlotte