Dare2Share

I had such an AWESOME time "shreddin the gnar" at D2S!!

For those of you who don't know what D2S is go to www.dare2share.org!

The 2nd question that people have ask me is, "how was the concert?" Yea the bands where great and everything but that wasn't the point in goin the point was to get out of your "box" and share the gospel.
I was parred with 2 people(that don't really talk) to go door to door with and when i found out who i was parred with i was like GREAT I'm gonna have to talk. For those of you who don't really know me that is totally not my thing. But the 2nd door that we went to i was like lovin it!! i don't know if i was hipped up on NO sleep and ice cream or Jesus or all three but it was the best part!!

We came to a house where there was a a guy in his 60's. He was the first person that i have ever shared my faith with and it totally changed my thinking! i hope i get to see him in heaven some day!

God, you are so amazing!! I'm So sorry for not really caring if your children went to heaven or not that was SO selfish of me. With every opportunity i have i want to tell people of your great love for us all! I love you so much!! oh and God be with that man, show him that you truly love him and the only way to heaven is through You. may Your will be done!

JESUS totally rocked my world at D2S!!

What Is Beauty

How do you define the word beautiful? Most of the girls in the world have been told what beautiful is. For some, beautiful is stretching your earlobes down to your shoulders. For others, it means slicing their faces or backs and then rubbing salt into the cuts so they bubble into designs.

In some parts of Asia, girls smear bleach creams on their faces to make them look whiter.

In Thailand, women stack gold rings around their necks more and more until their shoulders have squished down and their heads are stretched high above their bodies.

A certain African group starts their beauty regime around age 20. First, they make a cut in the lower lip so that the lip can be pulled away from the mouth enough to fit a little round clay piece in the hole. In time, the hole gets stretched, and bigger pieces of clay can be put in. I saw a picture of a girl biting into a piece of toast. But it wasn’t toast. It was a huge clay piece stretching her lower lip out! Without the piece in, her lower lip hangs down to the bottom of her chin. She’s the most beautiful girl in her village.

Unbelievable, isn’t it? You may be thinking, These people are crazy! Who would go through all that junk just to be pretty to the people around you?
ok,so let’s not say they’re crazy until we’ve looked at ourselves first. How many Americans have gotten skin cancer from toasting themselves to a crisp on the beach? How many women have died from plastic surgery?
Paint your face with foundation until it’s all the same, even color. Then paint colors on top of that. If your eyelashes or fingernails aren’t long enough, you can buy fake ones to glue on yourself.
If your figure is too big, you can buy underwear that will squish you in until you can hardly breathe. If you’re too small, you can buy a fake chest built into your bra.
If you’re too pale, you can spray paint yourself to be darker. If you don’t like your hair, you can paint it, too! Change your eye color with contacts. Straighten your teeth by wiring them together.

Fake face.

Fake hair.

Fake body.

Fake smile.

Fake anything you want; that’s how to be beautiful.

It’s pretty easy to see how strange other people’s ideas are but hard to see the ones we read about in magazines all the time.
Am I saying trying to be beautiful in your culture is a sin? No. Am I saying it canbe a sin? Yes.
The world is lying to you about what is beautiful. The world is telling you to not accept yourself as God made you to be. The world says you can’t be beautiful if you’re just you. You can’t be pretty until you look like Barbie, like the girls on TV, like a model.
Well, here’s the truth: Barbie is plastic, the girls on TV are going to get wrinkles and flabby thighs some day and the photos of models are PhotoShopped.
There’s a culture that has a definition of beauty different from any you’ll find around you.It’s God’s culture, and you’ll find it in the Bible.
Let’s look at one of the beautiful women in the Bible: Esther.
The Bible says Esther did have beautiful looks, but I’m thinking she had some competition for the crown. What was it about her that caught the king’s eye?

1. She loved God.
2. She took advice from older people she trusted (Esther 2:20).
3. She wasn’t all about her looks. When all the other girls were going for the flashiest, most attention-getting clothes and jewelry, Esther shocked people by going for a simple, classic look (Esther 2:15).
4. She was smart. She thought about more than just the latest fashions.
5. She cared more about doing what was right than about being attractive and liked—or even being alive! This beautiful girl risked her life to save her people (Esther 4:11-16.)

Esther was a living example of Proverbs 31:30.“Charm is deceptive,(Don’t trust popularity too much.) and beauty is fleeting; (If your worth is in your looks, your worth won’t last.) but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” (Girls who are sold out for God and following His Word are truly beautiful!)
There’s nothing wrong with making the effort to be beautiful in your culture. (Well, I don’t know about stretching your neck out or faking your chest size.) But don’t believe the world’s lie that that’s who you are.
Be beautiful. But don’t make the “beautiful” of your culture what it’s all about. Be God’s definition of beautiful!

The happenings

Here are some pics of a bunch of different stuff that has been goin on and are a little late but i don't care!!

This is the little boy i have been babysitting!!



Our family Christmas!!

Colin thinkin he rocks!

Laina bein mischievous!

Adam bein cheese and Nicole bein...umm...Nicole?!

Brooke being cute as always!!

And Mom bein the best mom ever!!


Jewelry that I've made!!




well, that's pretty much what I've been up too!

Random Thoughts

WARNING: you may get lost if you read this!

Ok so inside my head it is pretty much like a hurricane! I have a bunch of random thoughts so I’m just gonna start blabbing.

I love Christmas!! First of all because Jesus was born, second it’s the busiest time of year and in case some of you don’t know, I love to always be doin something( we’ll talk about that later) and third I get to give and get presents!! Oh and there is OCC, which is a lot of fun!

Contentment is something that is really hard for me. Most days I just get up, do school, eat, and go to bed. Is this all that God has planned for my life? I don’t know about you but that is just plain….well….boring. Ok so as I am sitting here staring at what I just wrote and a thought just popped into my head. Maybe God is telling me to taking this time of unsocialness and be social with Him and get to know him more and to get closer to Him cause He is preparing me for something that is to happen. Maybe He is not putting a lot of things in my day so I will have no excuse for putting Him aside!

I hate the game of charades and will NEVER play it again!!

I can’t wait till I’m 16 and can drive to like babysitting jobs myself!!

Ice skating is going quite well…I just mastered a thing….. I don’t remember what it’s called; the point is I mastered it!! MAYBE someday if I ever get good enough I could be in a competition! I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what Gods plans are.

Ok so I’m pretty much out of things to say so I’ll leave you with a little poem I wrote:

I Am

I am tender hearted and kind
I wonder if I’ll ever be able to stand up for something i believe in
I hear the sound of music
I see flowers in early morning light
I want to never be hurt
I am tender hearted and kind

I pretend to be someone I’m not
I feel love for the homeless child
I worry I’ll never marry
I cry because i don't understand
I am tender hearted and kind

I understand Jesus will never leave me
I say we can win this battle
I dream of my prince
I try to glorify God in all things
I hope for too many things to name
I am tender hearted and kind

The Most Amazing Race

There must be something amazing about the TV show The Amazing Race. It's about to rap up its 13th season of people competing for victory with planes, trains, and automobiles.
There seems to be an element or something in most people that enjoys seeing competition, especially when it involves roadblocks, detours, and winners who give it there all to take home the prize.
The Christian life is kinda like that; a competition. And following Jesus is the most amazing race!

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and protector of out faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." (Hebrews 12:1-2)

The Bible compares the Christian life with a competitive race with everything already laid out for us by God. Each day we can find clues in His Word and through prayer that tells us where we should go next.
And of course, there are roadblocks and detours that try to slow us down or get us to drop out of this amazing race. Here is where the competition comes in. We are not competing with each other as believers- we are in competition with ourselves. We are our own worst enemy when is comes to serving Jesus.

• We let discouragement and lack of faith detour us and get us of course
• We let sin and rebellion roadblock our progress and trip us so we start to fall behind.
• We may end up getting the wrong idea about the race and drop out:

"You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? It isn't God, for He is the one who called you to freedom." (Galatians 5:7-8)

God called us to FREEDOM!! Have you truly enjoyed the race called the Christian life?
It's getting up each day and fixing our eyes on Jesus- who ran the perfect race and showed us how to truly live life the way it was designed. It's looking forward to His return, when everything will be set straight and the race will be over.
Followers of Jesus-run to win!
I hope you will see each day as a chance to defeat your sin nature and make more progress towards becoming like Jesus Christ, so that on judgment day we can stand in the winners circle with Apostle Paul and declare these words:

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. And now the prize awaits me- the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loves His appearing." (2 Timothy
4:7-8)

Five Truths

Here are five truths that i have been thinking about lately.

Truth #1 God is good.
Often, when I'm having a bad day and things aren't heading in the direction i had planned, I am sometimes tempted to believe that God is not good. But the truth is that God IS good.
Psalm 136:1 says, "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good."
Despite my circumstances, God remains a good and loving God. He is a able to provide good things for me even when my world is spinning in every direction. He is the giver of peace and comfort and wisdom. God is good!!

Truth #2 It's not about me; it's about Him.
The truth is that God is the creator and sustainer of all things. A me-centered universe is just a big illusion. Christ is the true center of all that is and all that will ever be.
Romans 11:36, "For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen."
"God must become greater, I must become less." John 3:30
I myself should not be the main focus in my life and my circumstances. It is not about me, it is all about Christ. He is the source of all things and my life is to give Him glory.

Truth #3 God's word is sufficient to lead me, teach me, and heal me.
Sometime i feel like i have know one and nowhere to turn to for help. sometimes it feels like there is no source of wisdom and advice to help me in my times of uncertainty.
Psalm 107:20 says, "He sent out His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction."
Psalm 119:105 says, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path."
God's word is living and active. It is God's love letter to me and it is sufficient to lead me, teach me, and heal me.

Truth #4 God is more concerned about changing me and glorifying Himself than about solving my problems.
This is a biggie. Sometimes my prayer life sounds more like a list of wants than a conversation between me and God. God is able to handle any problems or situations I am facing. But the truth is that He is more concerned about my spiritual life than He is about making sure my life is problem free.
Titus 2:14 says, [Christ] gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.”

Truth #5 My past does not have control my future.
I have saved the most difficult truth for last. This is a truth i know is true but, I'm still working on it. Sometime i think that my past does control my future a little bit.
Sure, God is able to forgive my sins and to keep me from repeating my sins, but sometimes it feels like my potential is limited by past mistakes and circumstances. The Bible says that in Him, I am a new creation. My past sins are removed as far as the east is from the west. They are not the compass that determines my future direction.
“ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17

well, that's all that has been on my mind lately. Have a great day and God bless!!

ME!

WARNING: my thoughts tend to wander sometimes!

Hey! My name is Brooke. I'm 14 years old, home schooled, and have 4 other siblings~Nicole-21, Adam-18, Colin-16, Laina-11. I love ice skating and babysitting.
I started ice skating when i was 12 ans start taking lessons when i was 13. It has been a hard and challenging, but also a lot of fun!
Right now i babysit two kids~ Bennett-3 and Tiffany-1 1/2. I like it a lot but, i wish i could do it on more days. Someday i think i would like to be a live in nanny!
Oh...did i mentioned that i have the most awesome youth group ever!! I have some of the best friends!
For a long time in my life I didn't really have any friends but, in God's perfect timing He brought them into my life. I think He was teaching me a lesson on friendship and that He should be the one that I turn to first for advice and such. I think it also brought me closer to my mom..... but then again maybe that's just cause I'm home schooled!
so, anyway, that is pretty much who I am and what I do!

Toodles!!