Can you feel it?!

You may be asking your self, "What is this crazy girl talking about?" or "Feel what?!" or maybe even "Are you referring to the love tonight?". Well no, I'm not. I am talking about FOOTBALL SEASON!!!! :) Ok, to be honest, I'm not exactly the "sports girl" but I happen to love football. And I have always had a dream of being out on the field as a trainer, just like my sister. This dream has begun to come to! I got the news I would be a football trainer at my high school at the end of last year. I was siked! Today marks my first official day as a trainer. It is soo hot, sweaty and smelly out there! Especially when all of the players get together in one group to talk. Talk about nasty STANK! Ew, I can smell it just thinking about it! Gross. But despite all the downs of it, I LOVE IT!

Watching them drill and run and then get water really made me think about things today, they come and play this game knowing they are going to sweat, get sick and maybe even get hurt! The only question I have is WHY?!! Well I thought about it some more and I figured, they are good at it, and get to spend alot of time with friends during practice and stuff. But, some of them may use it as an escape from home problems, or need to hold up expectations of family, or even need to be great at it to go to college.

As I watched them drill and practice, I thought about Philippians 4:14, and how great it is that we can count on God to be there and He gives them the strength they need to be able to throw, kick and catch that football. God gave them the ability of sports, and they use it to the fullest. Many of the boys on the team play other sports, as well as football. I am so glad to see the kids in my school using the abilities God gave them. Because if we don't use them, He can take them away. I would hate to see anybody stripped from their abilities because they were too scared or lazy to use them.

But anyway, I can't wait for the rest of the season!! Its going to be great!

Love always and forever,

Hannah Joy

Summer trips anyone?

So, I have been very slack on posting. You may know people who start off strong and eventually just fizzle away from doing something, but that's so NOT me! I start something and I do it when I feel like I have time or just need to get away and do something on my own. Now, I have some time to spend reflecting on how awesome everything has been since I started this blog.

My summer started off slow and kind of icky because the 1st week I had a bad sinus infection. After that, it picked up. :) I went on a mission trip to Puerto Rico. It was AMAZING! God worked in so many different ways. We went with the World Changers organization. The main goal of the week was to build a house and our relationship with God. I believe, without a doubt, both happened! There was a total of about 210 people (including the 40ish people we brought with us). We were split up into multiple work crews and assigned a work site. This was my crew.

They were such a blessing. I had two guys from my church on my crew, I could not have pick a better two guys to be on it! As we built the house, we bonded with the other members of our crew and most of us are connected on Facebook! Our youth group I know has been on fire for God ever since this trip. We all had an amazing experience going to a mission trip where we were very far away from our little town in North Carolina!

Not only did we go to Puerto Rico, our youth also went to Caswell.

This is a Baptist camp in North Carolina. It was an old army fort, Fort Caswell. They have a lot of the structure still standing, we actually were staying in the barracks with the same bunk beds! Multiple churches come from all over the state and worship our awesome God! It is a very chill camp where we hang out, have bible studies (in small groups where we are scattered into different groups, similarly to the Puerto Rico trip, and in large groups where the main speaker of the week would talk to us), and we would just worship and fellowship with other Christians. It was so great! My friend and I spent alot of our

free time in our favorite tree! I'm the lower one in this picture. We had such an amazing time and have been on the typical "spiritual high" as most people are after such a great camp experience, but our youth group has a group goal of keeping it going and staying close.

These are our main trips of the summer, but we have so many awesome activities so that we can hang out with each other and just stay close. I love my youth group and could not ask for a better one. They are all so amazing.

Love always and forever,

Hannah Joy

The 1st post

Alright, so this is the 1st official post of my new blog. It feels odd since I have created a blog in my english class about music and I was doing well writing for it but near the end of school, I posted less and less. It really bothered me to have a specific topic to stick to. That just isnt me! I am an all around shuffle-minded person. My brain kind of works like an iPod on shuffle, it can land on any song next. But anyway, back to the point of this whole blog thing. I am going to try to post a good bit but if I don't all the time, Im not worrying about it. I will post about things like what has been happening in my life, relating to God, family, and just life in general. I have a feeling this will help me alot with how I think because now, I have a place to collect my thoughts and get them out, whether they are good or bad, its never good to keep them pent up. I tend to do that, even though I talk alot but usually its not about feeling. There has always been this thing with me where I help other people with their problems and I just push mine aside and tend not to think about it until it just bubbles up and blows up on whoever makes me mad or sad next. I feel this will help me be able to express my feeling so that I don't blow up on people. Oh and Happy July 4th!! Lets end on a happy note and go have fun with family :)

Love always and forever,

Hannah Joy