These three words send shivers down many spines with excitement, adrenaline, and anxiety.
Myself included.
Yes, I have been converted to the dark side: AKA, I have begun the quick process of reading The Hunger Games series.
I’m on book two. I finished the first one in a day and a half [if I had been able to sit down for hours at a time, the time would've been much quicker].

For those of you who have not read the books, I won’t spoil too much of the plot. There is a girl named Katniss who has to [literally] fight for her life against twenty three other teenagers in an arena, solely for the purpose of making sure everyone knows that they are in surrender to the Capitol. How is this done? The Hunger Games are meant as a way of entertaining people while reestablishing fear in their lives.

I know this is a sad summary of an amazing trilogy, but I don’t want to give away too much of what goes on. You must read it for yourselves.

As I was reading it, I began to admire Katniss’, the main character’s, attitude. She’s strong, brave, wise, and will do anything for the people she loves. She’s alert, courageous, and adventurous. The way she battles for her survival in The Hunger Games, while making sure that whatever she does is the right and moral thing to do, is not only admirable, but honorable, as well. She’s stubborn, but strong. She thinks things through, rather than just think in the moment. Every move she makes must have a strategy behind it, must have been thought out so there are no surprises that ruin her changes to live.

While reading the first book in the trilogy, I couldn’t help but think of 1 Corinthians 16:13-14. Leave it to me to find a Biblical view on such a powerful and popular book, huh? 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 says, “Keep your eyes open, hold tight to your convictions, give it all you’ve got, be resolute, and love without stopping.”

With the tiny description I’ve given you on Katniss’ character, I hope you can see the connection between her actions and the words of 1 Corinthians 16. I don’t think it’s simply ironic that the two intertwine in a subtle way. It just goes to show you that in whatever you do or read or witness, you can find God’s fingerprints all throughout it, if you simply stop to try and find it. I’m not saying that Katniss is modeled after 1 Corinthians 16 and I don’t know if the author of The Hunger Games is a Christian, or whether or not she’s even heard the aforementioned Bible verses. But, nonetheless, the character she has created illustrates God’s word, at least in a subtle, but obvious, way.

And with this random thought officially written and published to the blog, I must now return to reading the second of the series. And with each passing hour, the countdown ticks. On March 23rd, The Hunger Games movie will officially hit theaters and I, for one, am ecstatic.
(You can click here to watch the trailer for yourself!)

Join the trend. I’m not one for following every one else’s actions, but this is definitely an exception to a rule that I so strictly follow.

Life is getting pretty busy again! Sorry I haven’t had time to blog for a few days!
Unfortunately for you, the fad of my lists/bulleted points is not over.
So, instead of blogging about all my thoughts in long descriptive paragraphs, here are a few highlights.

1. I miss the beach.
2. I miss summer in general.
3. Oh, I also miss being tan.
4. I need a hair cut…badly.
5. I can’t WAIT for March 17th for one reason and one reason only! McDonalds’ Saint Patrick’s Day milkshakes! :]
6. School starts in 2 and a half weeks… say what?!
7. It’s January 17th, 2012, and it hasn’t snowed since OCTOBER. that’s not right.
8. Tonight’s Glee episode was AMAZING. go watch it NOW!
9. Last night’s Pretty Little Liars episode was ALSO amazing. Go watch that now, too!
10. …I can’t think of something to put here.

Hope you are having a great week! What’s been going on?

(here’s a random picture of the sky I took!)

What if we let every fear stand in our way?
What if we let the opinions of others control our lives?
What if we really did believe that we weren’t good enough?
What if, when every obstacle came in our way, we gave up?
What if, when everybody told us we weren’t good enough, we quit?
What if we really did believe that we can’t make a difference?
What if we backed down from every challenge?
What if we refused to have adventure?

Dare.
Trust.
Have faith.
God’s got this.

Remember my motto?

Prettttty sure Sponge Bob hit the nail on the head with this one.
I woke up today to dreary and rainy weather.
Usually, I’m not a fan of this kind of weather. It makes me want to go back to sleep or watch movies all day.
However, I had too much to do today to be lazy and so I trudged out of bed and went to my closet, where I knew I wouldn’t be able to find anything.

Girls, you know how this is. The daily routine consists of waking up, walking to the closet, seeing the mounds of clothing, and then deciding you have nothing to wear. Especially on rainy days, this daily routine never ceases to happen in my life.
But today, when I had no motivation to attempt an outfit because of the rain and grey skies, I saw my striped sweater.
Immediately I smiled (I’m so cliche like that) and decided that even though it was grey and rainy outside, my life would be bright and cheerful inside…thanks to my blue and grey striped sweater.

So, thank you, Sponge Bob, for your true words.
Because, the best time to wear a striped sweater is all the time…especially on dreary Thursday mornings in January.

Oh, and before you stress out and think, Oh my goodness!! Sponge Bob sang about striped sweaters?! Where on earth can I find this?! [*cough* yeah, I know that was EXACTLY what you were thinking... *cough*]…never fear, Keri is here.

Check out this link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcllpUq-ILU&feature=related

Crisis. Averted.

“Be so happy that when others look at you, they become happy too.”

So…with that little head’s up, here are my thoughts for today in bullet pointed numerals.

1. Boyce Avenue– amazing. I have a whole new obsession with them. (Listen to their versions of Drops of Jupiter and Grenade!)

2. It is awfully warm for January. A lot of people are complaining about it, but I really like it. I was never one for winter. Fall, yes, but winter, no.

3. Adele is really talented.

4. Kaila is a genius woman. We had a spontaneous photo shoot yesterday (beautiful day for it!) and she used bubble wrap, me, and sunlight and made this piece of art. Allllll Kaila and her wicked photography skills!

[Check out her amazing photography blog: kailaregina.com]

Hmm… only four thoughts today! I will have more later, I’m sure. :]

1) I can see how Pinterest can be really addicting… became a member today!

2) Winter break lacks one thing right now– snow.

3) I’ve come to the conclusion [again] that stressing about things I have no control over doesn’t get me anywhere. this habit’s hard to break, let me tell you!

4) I love when babies smile back at me. It lets me know that I am not acting like a complete idiot for nothing.

5) My room will never be perfectly organized, because frankly, every time it is, I find something that “needs” to be redone.

6) Typing with acrylic nails is obnoxious… this whole time, I’ve had music on to block out the sound of “click click clickclickclickclickclick.”

The End.

You know when you write a paper for school, like a research paper or an essay, how you have to plan out your thoughts?
We’ve all gone through the writing process, in one way or the other.
You first need an outline but in order to make an outline, you need to know the ending. But in order to know the ending, you must know the beginning and the middle. Academic writing is all about planning and it’s all about knowing the end as you write the beginning. It’s all about figuring out how to get to the end while you’re still in the middle. How to make it all make sense in a logical and factual manner.

For my blog posts, however, I just type. I never know where I’m going until I get there. I just let my thoughts glide from my mind, to the keyboard, to the screen. I talk inside my head as I type and I just let my thoughts run wild. There is no organization and there is no outline. I don’t sit down and plan an outline for each blog post, because frankly, I don’t have time to do that for every post. I post sporadically, but when I do, I just create a new post and type.

Now, let me ask you a question.
When it comes to your life, which Creator would you want? Would you want the Author of your Life to be sporadic and not know what he’s doing as He does it OR would you want him to know every detail of your life so that He could help you get to the ending and for it to have all worked out perfectly?
I’m not sure about you, but I would want the second one. And if you chose the second one, too, (the planner), then congratulations.
God is the Planner and the Author of our lives.

Okay, Okay… you may be thinking. I know this already. Why is Keri telling me this again?
Because this simple concept and reality is the foundation of our lives.
Every decision we make and every thought we think is effected by what I just said.

Sounds a little out there, you may be thinking. But here’s my thinking.
If you believe that God knows your beginning, middle, and end, then why do you live your lives as if He doesn’t exist?
Why do you live your life forgetting that He’s right there; ignoring His very existence; disregarding the way He’s writing your story?
Instead, you [we] go about your lives as if you’re the story writers. We think we know best. We think we can handle it. We’re Super Man. We’re invincible. We have this whole life thing figured out…down to a science.

Then “life” happens.
Things get in the way. Obstacles come. Trials appear. Mountains are suddenly before us in this path of life we were walking. We didn’t plan these things. We didn’t plan the failures, the heart aches, the tears, the fears, the struggles, the confusion. But it still happened.
And now, our science that we thought we knew so perfectly comes crashing down around us. We freak out and question things and question ourselves.
What am I here for? What is my purpose? Why is life going like this? Why can’t I be happy?
The questions keep on coming, but we don’t have the answers.
The notion we had constructed for ourselves that we are the authors of our lives suddenly looks like a melted popsicle on a hot day… a gooey, slimy mess. It has no structure, no shape, no purpose. It’s just there and there’s no way to fix it.
We feel like failures.

But then, there’s a bright side to all this. We instantly realize, once again, that we aren’t in control. Jesus knew all this would happen. He planned it. He put those things in our lives. He wanted to see how we’d react. He challenged us to see what we’d do…if we’d let a little fear and a little failure stand in the way of Him. And then, we realize… we did. We put Him on the back burner as we continued to insist that we were capable of writing our own stories without Him.

Suddenly, it comes back to us. The fact that we are just little human beings placed on the earth. We don’t know what lies ahead of us, God does. We think we know it all, because we get wrapped up in the idea of knowing it all. We think we have it all, because the world teaches us that we can have it all…if we just try hard enough.
So then we wake up and live our lives for Jesus for a while until that fades away and the idea that we can conquer life again [by ourselves] comes back into our minds.
And the whole process starts over again.

I’m not sure about you, friends, but I’m sick of this process. The process where I keep putting myself first. The process that puts God behind me. The process where I think I know what’s best. This process is just like my earlier writing example. It’s spontaneous. It’s unpredictable. It’s random. And in this process, it doesn’t put Jesus first.

So, I ask you again. Which would you rather have? A Creator that is spontaneous and random, or a Creator that knows every detail of your life and knows how it’s going to all work out?
Because, if you chose the second one, prove it.
Stop putting yourselves first.
Stop focusing on what YOU want.
Stop making the world all about you.
Stop being in control.
Stop saying that God is in control of your life, but then not following through with it.

Instead, start…
Letting go.
Being free.
Praying.
Letting God take over
Watching how He writes your life
Seeing how it all works out

You may be afraid to do this.
It’s challenging, no doubt.
It’s scary.
It’s adventurous.
It’s different.
It’s unique.

It’s worth it.

I found a quote once on Pinterest. It was so profound, I wrote it on an index card in black sharpie and taped it to my wall in several different places throughout my room.

Let your faith be bigger than your fear.

If you believe God’s the Author of your life, challenge yourself to prove it.
Because when was the last time you saw the book’s characters tell the author how the story must be written?

Fill In The Blank Friday.

1. New Years is scary, yet exciting. It gets my heart pumpin’ and I can’t ever seem to sit still. I have nervous energy the entire night into the early morning hours of January 1st.

2. One of my New Year’s resolutions will be to stay organized, yet still maintain a flexible schedule. [harder said then done, apparently!]

3. A New Year’s resolution I’ve made in the past was to lose weight [the obvious], but also to be a more dedicated blog writer…I guess I did alright, huh?

4. The most time consuming resolution I ever made was to finish at least at least 7 books a month. So stressful, especially during senior year!

5. This year I will be spending New Year’s Eve with my family and lots of friends at a friend’s house. Traditions :]

6. If I could wish one thing for my new year it would be to stop obsessing over other people’s opinions of myself and focus solely on who God wants me to be.

7. 2012 is going to be awesome. I am determined to have more adventures, more lessons, more fun, more memories, and more patience!

Happy New Year, peeps! :]
xoxo

P.S. it’s also Follow Friday…so follow my blog and my twitter! @lilmisskeri93