9,020 words.

In case ya didn't know, I am an *Official Participant* of NaNoWriMo 2010. That big fancy word with a bunch of capital letters randomly in the middle stands for National Novel Writing Month. The challenge is to write an entire 50,000 word novel in the month of November. 30 days.

Sounds like fun, right?!

So I am now at Day 6 with a grand total of 9020 words. (Which is actually a wee bit behind. But don't tell.)

My novel is an allegorical fantasy detailing the life of a young girl with multiple names. The name thing actually isn't in the plot; I just can't find a name I like. But the other characters don't seem particularly fazed at the fact that one chapter she's Camellia and the next she's Dahlia and then two sentences later she's Brinhilda von Schwesterkrank. (not really the last one. Although that would up my word count considerably considering how often her name is mentioned...)

Anyhoo, so my story is set in a high fantasy setting. Which is cool, and I'm getting the feel of it. But after 1667 words, I start getting the urge for one of my characters to burst out,

"Crikey! There's an amazing magical pony with rainbow hooves! It will show us the way!"

Or something else random and totally not high fantasy. Something with goofy comic relief. Something like you'd see in The Princess Bride.

But, I shall succeed! I need to go write some more... :)

Joyness

So I realize I haven't posted in like, FOREVER, and I can't really offer a valid excuse, so I'll just say "sorry!" and continue.

SO, of things that have happened since July, there are a few that are cool enough to post about, so I shall list them here:

August: We went to DISNEYWORLD!!! Yeah, it was awesome. We went to the Night of Joy, which is a big Christian concert in the Magic Kingdom. We got to see Group 1 Crew, Sidewalk Prophets, Tenth Avenue North and Barlowgirl LIVE! The craziest thing though was hearing Christian radio being played in all the shops and streets. All in all, it was AMAZING.

September: We went to the wedding of Dave & Cindy, which was LOVELY. :) Then, September 16th through the 19th was the Releasing Conference at BOL.

That. Was. Incredible!

I can't even list all of the things that happened, it was just fantastic! The main things though, were

1. I gave JP a book sort of thing with 9 of my songs, and he said they were great! Well, his words were, "You've got MAD talent!" but that's pretty much the same thing. JP is amazing; I am so thankful for him!

2. I met two awesome sisters, Danielle and Hannah. We have a lot in common, and I have a feeling we're going to be really good friends! I've been really praying for some Jesus-loving friends, and I think they're it. (It was crazy because Danielle said pretty much that exact same thing to me!) And Shantia of course!

3. I went to a dance workshop which was great--I finally learned how to use flags! And so far I've only hit one person by accident. :P

God answered sooooo many of my prayers in those few days, I am in awe.

Anyway, moving on to October (Which is almost over! Where did it GO?): I got my wisdom teeth taken out, which was narsty to say the least. :P BUT, the major thing is that I'm on another song-writing joyful spree!!! I'm really happy, especially because an old friend texted me a few days ago, and she seemed SO much happier and closer to God then she used to be. And she wants to visit BOL! Hopefully we're going to meet up sometime this weekend.

I suppose I've said enough... for now at least. Hopefully I'll post more often! But if not, know that my time spent not posting is not being wasted. :)

~Hannah

I'll put the kettle on...

I love English people. They just make me exceedingly happy. Actually, I am about 1/4 English myself, which I love. (I'm also German and Irish!)

I was reading the other day about how in an English household, if someone comes home and something bad or upsetting has happened, someone is bound to say, "I"ll put the kettle on," Because it's not a stereotype about the English drinking a lot of tea. They really do. It's something comforting to them, I suppose.

I was thinking about this when I happened to notice a text I had sent myself (Yeah, I do that, if I don't have pen and paper handy) while "cleaning out" my phone. It was a little metaphor I had written about... teacups! It's something very interesting to think about...

"A woman's heart is like a fine china teacup.

Some may consider it useless as it is so easily broken, but its intricacy and delicacy show its worth.

But is IS useless if it just stays on the cupboard shelf locked up for fear of it breaking. It must be used, but wisely and carefully given to someone with gentle hands.

It will never be in more careful and loving hands then the hands of the one who made it.

It is filled with sweetness and warmth, but it's horrible if what's inside gets cold.

And if you look underneath, you will see the seal of its maker.

However, with real china, if it is broken it loses its worth. But with a woman’s heart, God considers every chip and crack precious. And if you give the broken pieces to Him, in his care it will be mended, with no sign of brokenness."

A Poem

A lovely day, a lovely day,
a sky that takes my breath away,
the sun shines brightly in the sky,
i almost wish that it would stay,

but a setting sun, a setting sun,
a signal that the day is done,
will bring a new show to the sky,
a sparkling, shimmering, glittering one

a lovely night, a lovely night,
will greet us with a soft dim light,
with moon and stars in a midnight sky,
a sincerely majestic sight,

the stars do tell of their maker's hand,
then gradually dim to make way,
for the sun to rise again--
the start of another lovely day.

'Ask and ye shall receive...'

For the past couple of weeks God has been teaching me about love--His love. And every time I think I finally understand it, he shows me something else. He told me, “Often the teaching will end before the lesson is fully understood, but when I teach, I won’t stop until you fully understand.”


I kept thinking, “Yes, I need to get closer, deeper, I need to study more, I need to really understand your love. And God just kept telling me, “Just ask. All you have to do is ask.”


Now, I’m a writer, and I’ve been working on notes for an allegorical fantasy novel. I’ve been working on making a Jesus character, an I’ve been trying to think of a name. In the Chronicles of Narnia, the name Aslan means 'lion' in some language or other. I decided to do kind of the same thing with a different word. I was thinking and thinking, trying to figure out a word to describe Jesus, and it finally came to me: “God is love.”

So I go online to a language translator, and I type in 'love.' There are like 50 languages to choose from. I randomly pick Turkish, out of the 50 languages.

I click ’translate.’

And when I look to see what the Turkish word meaning 'love' is, I find that the word is spelled A-S-K. Ask.


To receive the love of Jesus you don’t have to work or study or make promises. Jesus gives his love freely, he died to give it to you, there’s nothing he wants more then to give it to you. You just have to ask.

Hey there! Feeling sad or unloved? What you need is a Jesus-Hug!

The new improved way to lift your spirit--a Jesus-Hug is an instant pick-me-up! *Wink* (Haha, lift your spirit, pick-me-up...)

Yes, there is a time to bow down and revere Him as the all-powerful Lord God and King of the Universe...but there's also a time to just to run up and give Him a big bear hug!!! (Rawr-ing is not necessary...)

What is a Jesus-Hug? Well, I was hoping you'd ask! *Wink, wink*

'Jesus-Hug' verb.
1. To experience a sudden ease and comfort, like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders. 'I was feeling blah, but now I feel great--it was a total Jesus-Hug.'

2. A sudden feeling of assurance, like someone telling you, "Hey, it's all going to be okay. Trust me."

3. Random explosion of joy, usually as a result of an awesome spiritual experience. 'That praise and worship was incredible! I just got a Jesus-Hug!'

4. An "awwwwwww!" moment.


Have you hugged Jesus today?

Captain Warrior Princess Ninja Hannah

Like my new title? I figure if there can be a Detective Chief Superintendent (Is that really how you spell that?) then there can be a Captain Warrior Princess Ninja. In case you didn't get that comparison, I've been watching Foyle's War lately. Anyway...

So we all need to embrace the fact that there IS a war going on. You can ignore it, but that doesn't change the fact that it's happening all around us. Yes, it is a spiritual war; but if you think what you can't see can't hurt you--Special Delivery! You've got a reality check coming.

So you've heard the whole armor of God spiel. Many, many times you've heard it. But have you ever actually done it? This is not just metaphorical, people.

What really irks me sometimes is when people pick at Bible verses, trying to uncover all these hidden meanings. Because sometimes, what it says IS what it means. And If you pick at something long enough, it falls apart and is useless.

So when it says "Take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God," it means, when the enemy comes at you, you are supposed to defend yourself by taking up God's Word. Every verse like "No weapon formed against shall prosper" or, "By the stripes of Jesus I am healed," or, "There are angels encamped all around me," it's like a stab of the sword.

And when it says, "The shield of faith," it means that when those flaming darts come at you, you need to hold up your faith, faith that by your faith itself, those darts will be extinguished.

The helmet of Salvation? That means that what tops you off, what keeps people from messing with your head and thoughts, needs to be your salvation, the blood of Jesus.

This was all spur-of-the-moment, but the truth is there. Think about it.

--Captain Warrior Princess Ninja Hannah

AMPLIFY

Ah, gotta love a new creation, all bright and shiny.

God says, "Do not dwell on the past, do not look to the former things. See, I am doing a NEW THING. Do you not perceive it?"

Well, let me introduce you to this new thing, it's called AMPLIFY. No, the letters do not stand for anything, but with a word like that, it just has to be in caps, and spoken in a deep, monster truck rally voice: "AMPLIFY".

What is AMPLIFY? Well, right now it's a group of on fire, spirit-filled, gospel gangster, Jesus freak, Bible-studying, ninja-kicking, praise-and-worshiping, intense-praying teenage girls. But who knows where it will go. We have no limits, we have no fear, and honestly, we have no plan. But God does, so we're letting Him in the drivers seat. We'll all just pile in the back with the windows down jamming to K-LOVE.

All we know, is that this is going to be Big, and Awesome. And a bunch of other adjectives. It's time to turn it up a little. It's time to AMPLIFY.

A moment of peace is a beautiful thing.

What to write what to write...God is good, all the time. What more can I say?

Mmm...peace is a beautiful thing...but I suppose I've said that already. Well, I guess that means its worth saying again. :)

*Sigh.* After a long day, sometimes you just want to become immune to the world. But, sometimes you just have to stay standing there, smiling and nodding and looking like you're thinking, "There is no where on earth I'd rather be then right here, right now."

When in truth, you'd really just love to be at home in your jammies on the sofa contemplating the great mysteries of life.

Sometimes, God's the only one who can keep me standing and smiling.

I honestly don't know what the above statements mean, but that's just what I felt like writing. So if you don't get it, join the club. :)

On a side note, I probably really made God laugh a few days ago at Camping World.

We were looking at the RVs, and a few of them had built-in radios. In one of them I sauntered over and changed the station to K-love. I was so pleased at how 'bold' I acted.

Later I realized that seriously, if that was as 'bold' as I was, I needed to go to Boldness Bootcamp for a while.

But who knows, maybe come previously non-happy camper is now a happy camper because of hearing 'Positive, Encouraging, K-love' in an RV...

hey, you never know! :)

It's funny how a single thing can make your day seriously awesome. Today, my cousin quoted one of my status' on Facebook. I was in shock, and incredibly flattered. Now you could say that it was my cousin who made my day. But have you noticed, when you look down deep, God is always at the root of everything? So here's the story:

The thing God's been working with me on is boldness. Stating my opinion without fear of being persecuted/embarassed. It's a lot harder actually doing it then just talking about it. So I thought of this status:

'Those who cannot see God's amazing love really do have their eyes shut tight. Those who can see it but don't accept it I simply can't understand.'

So I post it, then I start flipping out, like, "Oh my gosh, someone's totally going to get offended, should I delete it? Ahhhh!" But I remembered my own words of my 'It's time to come out!' post and thought, "Okay, here's me new motto: As long as it has God's seal of approval, I'm going to post it. His approval is all I need."

I posted 'It's time to come out!' as well, just to top the whole thing off, and tagged a load of people in it.

In the morning, my status had no comments and no likes. I was like, 'Whatever. God liked it." and went on with life. Then this evening, I saw my cousin posted it as her own status!

God is good, all the time. Don't let anybody ever tell you different.

His timing is perfect.

He knows our hearts even better then we do.

In short, he is amazing. :)

Look to the skies...

God's promises should stand out the most in our times of trouble.

Sometimes, that's exactly when we forget them.

After all, it's easy to remember things like that when you're happy and joyful and all promise-y.

But when things start to go bad, we often think about how bad things are going.

And we get all dramatic wondering if it could get any worse.

And if we'll even survive.

Instead, we should be thinking about how AWESOME it will be when God pulls us through.

Because He will.

He makes a way out of no way.

He pulls us out of the pit.

He stands our feet on solid ground.

On Saturday night it was raining. We were driving home from Indianapolis at 8:00-ish. The wind was blowing, the rain was falling, the tempature was warm. "Wow, this is perfect weather for a tornado. You don't know how perfect it is." Sarah said.
"Oh, believe me, I do." I told her. Sarah is the kind that wanted to chase tornadoes. I am the kind that wants to camp out in the basement with a book and a flashlight and a Hershey bar and wait until it goes away. The thought of a tornado was jabbing at me, trying to strike fear in me. But as we were driving along, I sat up straight and said, "Oh my gosh, look, a rainbow!" It was dark and cloudy, yet there, clear as day, it was, a shining reminder of God's promises. He has really great timing, you know? :)

Come out--By using the gifts God gave you:

Here we go...

We think that an ideal life would be one lived in comfort and safety, without fear, and without doing anything that makes us nervous of self-conscious.

However, we have now grown up and departed from Neverland, and have to live in the Real World.

In every one of us God has placed amazing gifts and talents, ways to glorify Him and guide others. Once we discover these gifts, we practice and refine and test them, until we become confident. However, some of us can practice and refine and test for a long time without thinking we are good enough.

We sit and think,

“Well, I can use my gift to glorify God…by myself…no one else has to know about it.”

We think this because at first, showing our gifts to the world can be very humbling, and sometimes we even feel embarrassed, two things we usually want to avoid. But, when we humble ourselves before God for the world to see, it’s twice the glorification to Him. Because it’s easy to be humble before Him when you’re alone. But it takes boldness to have the world see you humbled before Him, and to not care of what anyone but He thinks of you.

Or sometimes we think,

“Well, I don’t have to do this; other people have the same gift, somebody else can do the same thing.”

But what if there wasn’t somebody to take your place? Because that’s the truth. Nobody can do what you do exactly the way you can. Did you catch that? God has an empty spot in the Kingdom that only you can fill. He has a purpose for you that only you can do.

And then there’s that thought of,

“Well, I’ll just wait until someone discovers my gift and asks me to use it. I don’t want to seem show-offy.”

But what it really is, is God’s gift that He gave you. And someone has discovered that gift--You! And someone’s asking for you to use it--God! And since it’s His gift given to you, it’s His desire and His plan to show it off because it glorifies Him!

God gave us boldness. We may be afraid to publicly use our gifts because we may be judged or we might mess up or someone might not like it. And all of those things could, and are almost likely to happen. But what we have to realize is that the world’s opinion doesn’t matter. Your not using your gift for them, you’re not performing, you’re glorifying God for how wonderful He is.

So we have to stand up and use our gifts regardless and in spite of what the world may think or say. We need to stop making excuses! We need to stop being nervous or embarrassed! God did not give us a spirit of fear but of power and love and sound mind! (2 Timothy 1:7)

Our purpose here is to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. And to do that we’re going to have to get out of our comfort zone and be bold and use the gifts God gave us!

Starting…NOW. :)

Random thoughts for the day--Goodbyes

Goodbyes are a funny thing. We always get so worked up about how sad they are, but honestly, we should be thankful we get a goodbye. Because what is so much worse is when you don't get a goodbye, and the next thing you know, they're gone. Gone until further notice. Without a word. That, my friend is something utterly sad. So the next time you say goodbye to someone, just be a little thankful that you got the chance to say it.

"Surprise!!!"

You know it's one of the most incredible things when you finally see a manifest answer to prayer; when you finally experiance something you've been waiting and longing for. But you know what is just as incredible? When out of the blue for no reason whatsoever God just gives you a gift. You didn't ask for it, you may not have even thought of it, and God's just like, "I've got something for ya!" and suddenly there is this amazing thing in front of you.

Those moments just really make my day. It's amazing that God cares for us so much. It's amazing that He delights in us. I can almost imagine Jesus up there, tying up the gift with a big red bow, smiling all excitedly and saying, "She's really going to like this one! I can't wait to see her face when she gets it!"

Another fun thing is seeing when God answers your prayers in a way you don't expect. You kind of imagine how you want the answer to be manifested, but then suddenly when you're not expecting it God pulls out this crazy awesome answer that you couldn't imagine. At those times I just have to sit there and laugh and say, "God, you are awesome!" Because sometimes, that's all there is to say.

It's Time to Come Out!

So many of us are stuck. We hang out where it's comfortable in our own little worlds. We limit what we say because we don't want to offend anybody. But sometimes because we don't want to offend anybody, we miss the opportunity to impact somebody. A simple fact of life is that you can't please everybody. Somebody, at sometime, will get offended. And don't think that this is something new. 1 John 3:13 says,

"Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you."

And 2 Timothy 3:12 has an equally comforting message:

"In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted."

This is seriously a test of our faith. We have to have enough faith to stand up for what we believe in, even though it is likely that someone will be offended, or we will be persecuted.

So since we know this is probably going to happen anyway, why are we so hesitant to proudly proclaim our faith?

We need to spread the message to 'come out!'. Come out of that place you've been stuck in for years. God's doing new things, it's time for change! Shake the dust off your feet and come out! And then, shout that message to the world! Come out and join the human race! And we are in a race. And we're not going too fast just sitting there. Go on, get up, and come out!

I mean, personally, if I'm going to get persecuted, I'm going to be persecuted for doing something, not just sitting there contemplating all the amazing things others have done. We need to be DOERS of the Word and not just HEARERS.

Okay...let me finish with this:

'Come out'. If those two words brought Lazarus back from the dead, then by the power of Jesus they should work for this world. --Hannah

Bring it on

When a morning starts off shaky, turns just plain bad, gets worse, and then it starts to rain outside--it's hard to look for the silver lining. But I'm seriously sick of moaning and groaning about how sad life is--that's just no fun and it solves absolutely nothing. So my opinion? Bring on the rain.

A single step...

You never know where a single step may take you.

Creating this blog was a step. Who knows where it will end up. Maybe I'll end up right where I began, maybe this is the start of an incredible journey. One things for sure. I'm ready to dive in headfirst, wherever it may lead. Hopefully I may touch some hearts along the way. Maybe some of you will jump in to see where this takes me. But God's in the driver's seat. I'm just going to enjoy the ride.