Chamberfest Week 1

Well my first week of working Chamberfest has been absolutely incredible! So many incredible things. Some I could talk about, others I can't talk about, but all of them absolutely wonderful! When I was first given this job, I had so many people wishing me good luck and telling me that I was brave for taking this job, needless to say I became slightly concerned that I was in over my head. While I've had some very frustrating moments, none lasted very long and for the most part this has been the most incredible experience yet! I'm getting the opportunity to make some very wonderful friends and meet some absolutely amazing musicians! It's been quite the experience!

It took me a few days to get my staff pass (so that people didn't look at me funny when I tried walking into a concert without a ticket), and I only found my office today (I've just been setting up shop in the church kitchen to do my work before now). And I've finally gotten the hang of how to get from one festival venue to the next even with all the construction downtown and the one way streets (things that a country girl should never be forced to worry about!) I've also figured out all the restaurants and coffee shops in the area. It only took a week but I think I've got it now.

There are concerts and talks and events going on at all hours of the day and night, it's amazing! Over 100 concerts in 2 weeks! Seriously, calculate that, it's a lot!

So while this festival has been one massive joy ride, that's not the only thing that's turning my life upside down. I'm also not living at home for the duration of this festival. I'm also not in a house where there are parents at all. I'm staying at a friends house while his parents are away in Sweden. I'm also not the only one staying there, another friend of ours is also living in the house for a few days. Suddenly we're living in a 2 story, 5 bedroom house with a huge backyard and an in-ground pool and we are the adults. It's like a bunch of university students getting a luxury apartment together! It's been pretty neat. Some night's we'll have friends over to swim or play video games and cards, and it's really nice.

Also, there are times where we've started running the house like we're a family. Today one of the boys who lives at the house (16 years old) had an appointment that he needed to go to, and his brother was gone to work. The other friend of ours living in the house and myself started comparing schedules and figuring out who would bring him to his appointment, we started figuring out when everyone will be home for dinner tonight, and just altogether started sounding like a married couple with a 16 year old kid. It was sad but absolutely hilarious!

I even forgot my pass for work today and this friend drove downtown to bring it to me. My boss thought it was pretty funny too.

Needless to say, just everything about this week is becoming quite the experience. It's interesting to see what it would be like to live away from home and have a daily job with long hours. I'm not sure I'm ready for this to be my everyday life just yet, but I like being able to see in this short span of time that I can make it on my own and start getting a feeling for what it would be like.

Chamberfest week 2 - Bring it!!

Tay

The Man of my Life

As my last post said, DS and I celebrated one month together this past weekend. I know that doesn't seem like a big deal to some people but to get this far in a relationship and still care for this man is a huge step forward for me! 3 days from now this will be the longest relationship I will have ever been in. 

For our anniversary we knew that we didn't want to buy each other gifts, we wanted to spend time with each other instead. So DS suggested that we go back to the same restaurant that we had our first date at! Brilliant idea! I think we spent just as long there this time around as we did the first time, maybe longer, but we were there for over 4 hours together! 

I was house sitting/baby sitting in the city at the time so for a complete change, instead of me driving into the city to pick him up, he came by and picked me up for our date! It made me feel so awesome and girlie! (Yes, sometimes it is that easy to make me happy!) I got to be the girl who waits on the front steps for her man!

Being able to spend 3 days in a row with my amazing gift from God was the best way to spend the weekend. I feel like I got to know him a little more, and I got to talk to him about some of the things I want him to know about myself. 

To make him even more incredible, I think he's one of those super understanding guys when it comes to being busy with work. I know I'm stressing out about work the next two weeks, lets hope he can handle me when I'm like that. God give him strength, he might just need it. 

Ringing in Our First Anniversary The Right Way

That's right our one month anniversary is upon us and I can already tell this will be the longest relationship I will have had. We have our priorities directed in the right way and I have faith that this is meant to be something special. 

Tonight my boyfriend DS and I went to adoration together. My uncle was out of town for the weekend and asked if I could do his hour at the adoration chapel, which I had no problem doing. I decided to invite DS along. 

It was nice to pray, and read on our own, but then it was nice to pick up the book of intentions and begin praying together out loud for the intentions people wrote down in the book. When we were finished we held hands and we prayed for our relationship together, that God help us to keep Him at the center of all we do and to draw us closer to Him with everything we do together as a couple. 

I've always been told "A family that prays together, stays together" and while DS and I aren't family, if this is ever meant to be something permanent, well I can't think of a better way to ring in our first anniversary together than spending it praying together. 

While we are both still at the super shy stages together, I hope that there will be many more opportunities in our future for us to just sit down together and pray for each other, for our relationships to God and each other, and to pray for others in our lives, but doing so together. 

I like the foot that this relationship is starting out on. 

- Tay

I Am Captivated

I know it has been a while since I have updated my blog, I guess it goes without saying (especially to anyone that knows me) that I am keeping myself beyond busy this summer. Balancing many jobs, friends, family, and even a new relationship! 

God has truly blessed me this past year with all that he has sent my way. The most incredible job opportunities that have the possibility of setting my future in the music industry onto the right path. He gave me the strength to discover who I am, who I want to be, and to identify where I am on that journey and what steps I need to take to get where I am called to go. 

But the most incredible blessing I have is the wonderful man that God has allowed to enter my life.

All of the years of finding faults in guys, and honing my skills in identifying what I want and need in a partner and future spouse seem to pay off. When this lovely lad came into my life there wasn't a moment in my mind that I didn't think he was something special. Little did I know that to him, I was apparently just as special! 

If anyone knows anything about me, they know that I don't have a history of having super long lasting relationships. Usually about a month give or take a few days. Well I am in that one month time window now, and as our first anniversary approaches, all I can think of is to keep thanking God for the wonderful blessing he has given me. 

I'm telling you guys, God knows what he's doing, that's for sure! 

-Tay 

Understanding Who I'm Supposed To Be

The past few days have been something truly spectacular to me, I've learned another way that I want to grow in my life. I know I'm always talking on here about growing, and learning where I'm supposed to be, and each time they've been right on the button! This time I'm growing in my femininity, the way that God desires. 

For the past month or so, I've been taking part in Christopher West's DVD series on Theology of the Body, called Freedom To Love. It's been quite eye opening and has made me look at things I had never thought about in my life. In fact, many of the things that I believed growing up were targeted in this series as being the wrong way to look at things. I've slowly begun to change the way that I view my faith, it's been absolutely spectacular! Here's a very small clip from one of the lectures that I would like to share with you:

This past week, we looked at part 4 of 5 in this series, and something hit me. The talk was about morality, and something that he said broke me, he said that almost every woman, by nature, has an overwhelming fear of being abandoned in life. Wow! I felt the wind knocked out of me! That was me! That's been me in every single aspect in my life for as long as I can remember. I broke down and I cried. I was shaking and I was crying and something began working within me. 

After the 50 minute video lecture was finished, our young adults group discussed what the talk had been about together, like we always did. This particular week it was myself, a gentleman that I have known for years from church, and our young seminarian. Our discussions went on to point out different things that stood out to us, and allowed us to expand on the topics that spoke to each of us. 

Our seminarian pointed out to me a few books that are along the lines of what I wanted. What spoke to me was about the importance of true gender roles in life, how men can be men, and women can be women. Under this topic two books were recommended to me, both written by a husband and wife team, John and Stasi Eldredge. One of them is about the true nature of a man's heart and desires called "Wild at Heart" and the other is about a woman's heart, desires and nature called "Captivating". Another important topic to me was how we need both parental roles in our lives to fully develop the way we were meant to, and so we also discussed books that are for our healing from hurts in life, and how to learn to be a well rounded person with only having one parent. Needless to say my reading list for the summer now consists of 13 new books.

Last night I bought "Wild at Heart" and "Captivating". It's apparently good to read both to not only understand how your own mind works, but also to try and help you understand how the other gender things as well. I've started to read "Captivating" already, and I'm having to force myself to read it slow so that I can reflect on it as I'm going and to try and get as much out of it as I can. I'm only in Chapter 1 right now, but there was something written in the introduction that I want to share with you: 

"The mystery of a feminine heart was meant to be a good thing. By the way. A source of joy. Yet it has become a source of shame - women almost universally feel that they are 'too much' and 'not enough.' At the same time. (Which is crazy making.) And men tend to pull away from the deeper waters of a woman's soul, unsure of what they will find there or how to handle it. And so we have missed the treasure that is the heart of a woman, missed the richness femininity was meant to bring to our lives, missed the way it speaks to us of the heart of God." - Stasi

I don't know why, all my life I have desired to be delicate, to be a lady, I wanted to rebel against feminism. Yet society is telling me to be otherwise, they're telling me to be macho and tough like a man. This isn't what I want for myself! God created men to be the stern ones, and women to be the kind and compassionate ones and this is what I want for my life. Not a helpless women who can't do anything for herself, but soft in spirit. I want Mary, the mother of Jesus, to be my example! I want to be like her. 

This book is going to be quite the journey for me and I know that I won't come out the other side as the same person I am now. The way I'm thinking is going to change pretty drastically, and I welcome that with open arms! 

- Tay

A Walk to Remember

This week has been pretty crazy, both good and bad. Classes are winding down and coming to an end an assignments are racking up and all being due at the same time. To add to that stress I have a lot of co-op hours to complete before the end of the month.

That being said, I've been spending a lot of hours working my co-op job, and loving every minute of it! Needless to say there's some pretty drastic construction going on right out front of the building that has stopped all traffic from passing on that road and the detour goes blocks around the area.

Well I have to get from co-op to campus somehow so I figure I would walk down the road to the next bus stop. I just missed the bus. So out of frustration, and not wanting to wait half an hour for the next one, I decided to walk. 3.5km from co-op to campus! It's the biggest walk I've ever taken actually in one stretch.

That was my Monday, then I did it again yesterday (Wednesday) and then today I made the walk both ways, from co-op to campus, and then back from campus to co-op!

My legs feel absolutely on fire right now but it also feels so absolutely incredible to know I can accomplish that and each day I've done it, it hurts less and I get there faster! I feel like a champ!

I guess this will be a new thing that I plan to keep up now! What's not to love about it!

Another Year Comes to a Close

So this is it, wrapping up the last few weeks of another year in University. As crazy as this year has been, it's also been such an incredible learning experience! I've never been so sure of my desire to compose music in my life! My co-op placement showed me that this is exactly what I want to do as a living, and my composition classes show me how easy and wonderful it can be to put your ideas down for others to explore and experience!

This year has also been a great opportunity for me to grow in my faith, from attending faith studies, to joining a CCO group, and even connecting closer with people from my church and people that I share my faith with. I have met some absolutely wonderful people, some of which are driving me towards my faith. When I feel like I'm slowing down on my journey, they give me a push in the right direction and send me down the right road all over again!

I've grown as a person, learning that its okay to say no, it's okay to fail at things, it's okay to stumble and that it won't be the end of the world. If something happens and I don't do something
perfectly the world will not collapse and its likely that no one will even remember. I've learned that I don't have to let people walk all over me, even if they're adults. I can stand up for myself and demand to be treated properly. I've learned that not everyone who walks into your life is setting out to hurt me and if I just open up a little bit, I can develop stronger friendships than I've ever had.

I've learned that I am beautiful. I may not be perfect, or super fit, my hair is huge and crazy, and I still get acne, but I am beautiful. I love the way I look and even though I want to be healthier, I want to do it for me, and not for others. If nothing about me changes, I will be happy too, because this is who I am and God loves me this way! I love my crazy hair, and my oily skin will make me less likely to have wrinkles when I'm older. I'm not super fit but that just shows that I have a life outside a gym. I am me. I am wonderful!

I've learned that life is short, people can be taken away from you in the blink of an eye and some of them are taken away much sooner than they expected. So live life. Don't be stupid and be an idiot about it, but take the time, enjoy the small things, leave early when driving to give yourself time to stop the car if something catches your eye. If you see a sunset, take the time and enjoy it. Be daring and fight your fears and try something new, you'll be amazed what you can conquer when you set your mind on a goal.

Plan for multiple futures. Plan something simple, something realistic, something daring, and some big dream that's never going to happen, but plan them like that will be your reality starting tomorrow. For me I planned what I will do if I finish with a Bmus degree, I planned for graduate studies, I planned on if I moved elsewhere in Canada, planned for a move to another country, planned on if I stay in my town the rest of my life. I planned on my next degree if I choose to do one. I've planned what car I should get next and how much it would cost approx and started saving for it. I've planned most of my life depending on what happens along the way! The thing is its just a loose plan, it's going to change or not happen at all, but at least I'm striving towards something!

Life is so wonderful and we all need to rely on God and on ourselves for our happiness, stop looking to objects, and other people or anything that can be taken away from you. Stay true to the things that will always be with you no matter what!

Fitness Motivation

Good morning bloggers,

So I don't know about most people, but I find great physical motivation from watching people work out, or seeing people with well built bodies. As a girl, I know a lot of other women who look at female fitness trainers and body builders, and they look to these ladies as motivation to workout. Call me weird, but I don't work that way.

I actually find it more motivating to look at male weight-lifters and watching them workout.

Well I stumbled across gold two nights ago when I stumbled across Team Grenade. Former military men who use military type training and exercise to get ripped.

If anyone knows me, they'll understand why I just had to watch this video, and as anyone who has ever worked out with me can vouch for, it was certainly the motivation for me.

Here's the video that I stumbled across: Team Grenade: Operation Desert Dawn

There's one man from the team that I thought looked like someone I know, which made the whole thing just a little bit funnier! So I decided to look this guy up and found out he's a personal trainer and has his own youtube channel with many workout videos and meals and such. I'll probably be keeping up with this guy for a while and using it as my motivation for a bit.

If you want to check out his channel, his name is Jamie Alderton, Click Here to go check his channel out!

I wasn't the only one to think his videos were motivational, I showed a few people in the Lounge on campus, the place all my other musician classmates hang out, and for an hour straight 4 of us watched these videos in amazement.

I've felt pretty unstoppable the past few days and my workouts have been intense and so well worth it. Even when I've come home late, I've done workouts that have gone past midnight, and to be honest, I feel incredible. I just have to keep it going and not stop!

Watch out world! 

- Tay

The Life of Composition

Isn't life beautiful?

Yes while many of you will read that and thing "oh great another person who is on cloud 9 and thinks everything is peachy" well it's not entirely true. I know there's a lot of crap that goes on in a person's life, but I also know that while things are pretty tough for me right now, I'm also in the best place I've ever been my whole life.

While I can look at my life and think, there's a million things that I want to change about myself, and I'm no where near the person I want to be, and there's a million things that I'm running around and trying to keep up with, I also know that where I am right now is perfectly amazing.

To sum up things quickly, I'm in the winter term of my 3rd year of University in music. I chose this semester to fill my life with nothing but classes that I need to compose for, while I was worried that this would be a stupid mistake because I would have to be coming up with new material constantly every day and would be working non-stop I've come to realize that this is the best thing I've ever done.

School work feels like it's never ending, but at the same time I feel like for once I want and am capable of staying on top of my school work. I haven't fallen behind, I haven't felt the panic of trying to figure out what the heck I'm supposed to be doing. Yes, a few assignments were left until the last minute and I knew I would have to stay up all night to finish them, they still got done and they were done well.

This year is also the year that I'm getting the highest marks that I've gotten in all my years of University and it feels wonderful! Not a day goes by where I'm not putting my pencil to a piece of staff paper and writing music and it's one of the greatest feelings ever. I was concerned that by doing all these composition courses at once that I would discover that I didn't like spending all my time on it, but instead I've come to realize that this is exactly where I want to be in life. This is exactly what I want to be doing. Everything that I'm doing this term; composing, arranging, working as a copyist, this is exactly what I want to do for the rest of my life.

What a beautiful blessing to have something embed so deeply into your heart that you know this is what you want to do, no more wandering around aimlessly, this is it. End of story.

I truly wish this feeling upon everyone, that they discover what it is that they are meant to do. It's a beautiful feeling.

God Bless!

- Tay

Oboe of a Different Kind

So as I'm sure some people know, I'm an oboist, which means I play the oboe. It's a classical instrument that plays a lot of baroque music. Not very popular today outside of accompaniment in orchestras now a days. Also, if you choose to play a piece meant for oboe you're pretty much guaranteed to be playing it with piano accompaniment.

Well it's time for something new. I had some great chats with some of my classmates tonight while we were all put at the bar, because where else would musicians hang out?

The idea of jazz oboe came up and it seems pretty interesting, a lot of my classmates seem pretty interested in hearing it and want me to give it a try, even willing to help me get better at it.

The second awesome idea was that I wanted to play something that had accompaniment other than piano, so even if that meant doing a few oboe studies/duets and having a guitarist playing the other part. Lucky me, I found someone who is willing to give it a shot. I'm looking forward to trying something new in that way. Oboe and guitar should be a pretty combination.

It's time to branch out from my comfortable circle of music and get more passionate about playing more often and trying new and more interesting styles.

I'm really looking forward to this. Should be good.

- Tay

The Written Word

It's amazing how often people under estimate the power of the written word, and I do mean written as opposed to typed or spoken/recorded. There's something much more intimate and freeing about something written down. There is power in words.

Durning my faith study the other day I was discussing with my leader how, I write everything down in journals, have for a long time. We began discussing the darker years of my life, and how I have very thing written down in there and still have it to this day. The thought came that I should get the books blessed so that anything dark that I was involved in would become harmless and that it wouldn't have the possibility of something that would linger over my head.

On a brighter note, I've decided to tackle a new project, one that I am keeping very secret but I am extremely excited for. It's a personal project that will involve me writing a lot of things down in one location for future reference. It sounds both incredibly boring and creepy when I say it that way, but it's going to be something magnificent if everything works out to plan.

I guess I'm slowly trying to get away from blogging and typing things up. It's certainly a lot easier to type things up, but there's something enjoyable about being able to look back on all the things that I have written down from years ago. It's quite the gift.

-Tay

Television Addiction

I'm sure everyone else has ha those moments where you get really into a tv show and so all you do is watch every single episode in rapid succession? Yup, I'm there.

In the past 3 weeks I've made it to season 5 of 7 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I think I like the strong female role model who isn't helpless an defenseless. She's not a damsel in distress and she doesn't have to wait for a guy to come and save her, she can do it all on her own.

Plus, while I never thought about it the first time around (because I never thought it needed saying) the vampires are portrayed as the bad guys. As they should be. Vampires are evil creatures who have no soul, they burst into flames if the sun hits them, and they aren't lovey dovey. They are demons.

Granted in the show there are exceptions, but they have really valid and plausible explanations! Not saying I condone them, but it's just a little better than "I love you" vampires who sparkle.

There's also the whole thing about James Marster's character of Spike, who has so many hilarious lines. I really liked Angel when I started re-watching the show, but Spike is by far the funniest character. It's hard to watch the episodes late at night and not burst out laughing.

Things are getting a little funny though, I think it's odd that in a show that's from the 90s there would be such a strong homosexual message considering how taboo it would have been for the time. That's just starting up now and it's a little weird. Okay, a lot weird. Leave it to Joss to push the envelope of the time.

Lent

The season of Lent is upon us once again, and it is that time of year where we put away foolish things and strive to become closer to Jesus.

All my life I've tried to do something drastic and very difficult for lent, from giving up meat (the one food group I actually like), to giving up television (which is ALWAYS on in the background, to the hardest one last year, I gave up Facebook. I realized the amount of time I wasted on Facebook just took away from my productivity, and made me generally miserable. It was an addiction that I needed to break.

While most years I try to do something different, I really think that leaving Facebook for 40 days is the most challenging thing I've ever done for lent, and I've decided that I'm going to take another running stab at it.

After Easter of last year, it was amazing how free I felt from my addiction to browsing on Facebook. I've come to the realization that it is just as bad now as it was this time last year, and that somehow I had become dependent on it once again.

It was a real learning experience for me and so I believe that it is time for me to do this challenge for a second year in a row.

As well, I want to make a promise myself to use my free time to try and at least twice a week, spend some time in discernment of what God has planned for my life. Perhaps spend more time in Adoration.

This is an opportunity to get closer to God and to take a step away from all the things I've been wasting my time with.

This should be a fun journey.

-Tay

Gentlemen - Chivalry Is Not Dead

Have you ever noticed that once you really like someone, it's like every other guy out there is suddenly interested in you. It's the same for guys, that once they start liking someone, suddenly they find out all these girls like them.

Life has a funny way of working out sometimes. Suddenly all these guys in my university program have begun to act like complete gentlemen to me and it's adorable. I think it's very sweet. It's just so funny that it comes out at a time where you're emotionally attached to someone else and their attempts seem futile.

There's this one guy in my program who was an absolute gentleman today and to look at him, you would never expect it. This guy is a heavy metal guitarist, long hair, leather jacket, pretty bad ass looking. If I didn't know he was such a sweetie, I'd hate to meet him in a dark alley.

We were heading to grab dinner at the campus bar and I thought we were taking the long way around (where we didn't have to step outside) and everyone else decided going outside was a short cut. I was just going to meet them all there, but before I had a chance to say it, this young gentleman had already taken off his leather jacket and put it around my shoulders. How very sweet.

We all proceeded to have a lovely time at the bar, as people usually do, and when it came time to leave he handed me his jacket again for me to wear.

He's not my type of guy, but it just goes to show that chivalry is not dead, and sometimes you can find it in some of the most unexpected people.

We Owned The Night

"Tell me have you ever wanted someone so much it hurts. Yeah your lips keep trying to speak but you just can't find the words. I had this dream once, I held it in my arms." - Lady Antebellum, We Owned The Night.

When I first heard this song I thought it was cute, just like every Lady Antebellum song I've ever heard before. I always thought they were cute lyrics that would attract listeners to their abstract ideologies of love.

Now I realize just how true those lyrics really are.

It took me a little longer than as per usual for me to open up to my mom about the way I felt this time around because honestly I felt like an idiot! Wanting someone so much that it hurt. That just seems silly, doesn't it. I had never felt that way about anyone and so when it started happening to me, I was scared to admit it because I thought my friends would laugh.

Well my friends did laugh, but no one in my family did. It seems like every single adult that I've spoken to has been through that in their life. So guess what young people, you laugh now, but it's coming for you!

My family keeps telling me that I've finally found love, which is crazy because I barely know the guy. However it is true that I've never felt this way before. Plus, I hurt. I really, truly, physically hurt because I care about him so much.

I'm not calling it love, because honestly how can you love a person you've just met. That's like believing in love at first sight and that seems silly to me. But I have noticed that there is something remarkably different in the way that I feel for this man.

Needless to say, song lyrics are starting to stand out to me a little more these days.

Who knows what God has in store for me in the future in this. I guess we will have to wait and see.

Thanks Giving & Celebration

Exactly one year ago today I got into a car accident. I tried to avoid hitting a car that cut me off and therefore put my car into a 12 foot ditch only meters away from a river bank, missing trees by only a cars length, and doing all this while not having airbags in my car. I would wake up the next morning barely able to get out of bed and using every ounce of strength that I had to crawl up the stairs out of the basement at my friends house that I stayed at overnight and unable to move or breathe properly. I was diagnosed with sever whiplash in my neck and back.

I spent the next 4 months in both physiotherapy and massage therapy while also cutting back to the bare minimum of courses I could take which also included not playing my instrument because I didn't have the strength to hold 5 lbs of pressure on one hand.

I was told I wasn't allowed to run, or workout anymore, I had to quit my boot camp class at the gym and I was told to take it easy, not an easy task for me at the time. As the months went on I was finally aloud to stretch and do certain yoga positions to start getting mobility back in my upper body. I remember how excited I was as I was slowly allowed to add different exercises back into my daily routine.

I've taken it easy all year and I've been careful and attentive to every small pain my body has given to me and not pushed myself too hard ever since out of fear of aggravating the injury.

Today, on the anniversary of my accident I celebrated. I worked out harder than I've ever worked out. I gave all that I had, it hurt to breath, I was dripping with sweat, and I was loving every second of it. It sounds stupid but I felt like crying, I was so happy that I could be doing that again!

I might rest a day or two in between for a while but I'm seeing some intense training days in my future. I'm not likely to do them multiple days in a row for a while, just to make sure I don't get injured again so soon, but it's time to start doing what I love again!

Not a day has gone by so far in 2013 that made me disappointed! Everyday has felt amazing and it's continuing to feel like a fantastic year!

-Tay

The Military Wife

I came across this photo today on Facebook. With so many of my friends being in the army, I realize how important and strong an army wife needs to be.

I thought it was very sweet and adorable and I just wanted to share it.

-Tay

My Resolution

Since we are now 10 days into 2013, I think it's time that I push through to my resolution for the New Year.

My resolution isn't to eat healthier, to go to the gym more often, to go do something, say something, or be a person that I don't actually want to be.

My true resolution is to find happiness. Not fake happiness, or temporary gratification but true happiness. This can only come from doing what needs to be done, growing as a person, and putting my trust in God. No one can give me the happiness I want but they are welcome to be a part of my daily laughter.

Even when you're sad, or depressed, or hurt, you can still be happy as a whole. I'm not saying that my whole year will be perfect, because I know that it won't be. There is going to be times that I will want to kick and scream because of how wrong things are going. But I can always trust that everything will turn out alright in the end.

Overall this will be my best year yet, no more relying on others opinions of me to dictate what I think of myself, no more waiting on my friends to join me on activities that I want to do. It's time to grab life by the horns and just live my life.

I hope you guys find happiness in the upcoming year!

God Bless

- Tay

Bible Reflection - Mark 2:1-12

So today's daily reading was about the story of the paralytic man. There was no room in the house to get close enough to Jesus, so they cut a hole in the roof and lowered him down.

Jesus then said "My son, your sins are forgiven."

It was then that he felt the doubt of some of the scribes that what he had done was blasphemy.

It was because of this doubt that he said, "which is easier, to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say 'Rise, take up your pallet and walk?'"

He then proceeds to tell the man to get up an walk.

So here's what gets me.

Jesus never healed the man right away, he could have told him to walk from the very beginning but he only did it to clear all doubt in the scribes hearts.

What would have happened if the scribes had never doubted? Would the paralyzed man have remained that way?

I know the greater miracle here was that Jesus or gave the mans sins, healed his soul first and then the human body.

I just find it curious to think what would have happened had no one in that room doubted. Would anything have actually happened there on that day?

- Tay