What I am thankful for

November has always, at least for Americans, been a time where we can reflect on what we have and be thankful. Many people over social media, blogs, and vlogs, have been doing their day to day remembrances and I want to join in the fun. Unfortunately I can't be a daily blogger (sorry) but I can be a  one time blogger so here we go - The 7 things I am most thankful for.

1) My safety. Sandy and then Athena have shown me how blessed I am to have been spared even the mild inconvenience of a power outage. My heart hurts for those that have lost their homes and mementos. I wish I could do more than to send supplies and clothes. 

2) Amazing roommates. I am living with two of my good friends from College. It is great not having to get to know them on a base level. I have lived with Caitlin in the past and while it took some time to get used to it again we have hit our rhythm. Learning to live with Dana has been fun. While Caitlin and I are similar in many ways - Dana is the complete opposite from me and it has been a joy to get to learn new ways of doing things and getting to see the world the way that Dana does.

3) My Family of course :) I have always held that my family is one of the best out there (as I am sure many people do). I have grandparents that have nothing but pride in their grandchildren and simply enjoy watching us grow and become our own people. I have aunts and uncles that enjoy seeing their families and having crazy Dutch Blitz or Spades games. I have Cousins with whom I thoroughly enjoy spending time. Even though I am 4+ years older than all of them, age never seems to matter when we are together.

I have parents that have supported me and my siblings regardless of our actions and delight not only in their kids but in each other. They are my example of Happily Ever after. They make love real. Katie is my opposite in every way. Where I am reserved she is outgoing. Where she is spontaneous I am planned. We spark each other. In our youth these sparks became fights. Now in our adulthood they (mostly) mean a thorough adventure. Katie says we go and I find a way to get us there. Kristen is who I aspire to be. She is confident in who she is. She is quirky and fun and humble and outrageous. She frequently acknowledges her hate of spelling and then says that it instilled in her a knowledge that some things have to be fought for. John is the lynch pin of our family. He is truly spoiled. We didn't realize what our family was missing until he came along. He is fun and sweet and love sports and is so smart that he makes me sick. And popular. That kid walks into a room and everyone wants to be his friend. 

4) The boat that is my car. The Caddy has taken good care of me though you can't really same of me for it. It is a well made car and I don't think that I will need a new car for another couple of years which means that, hopefully, I will have enough saved up to just pay cash for a new one.

5) My Job. I got my job in the middle of the worst part of the economic downturn. Luckily I was a part of a program that was trying to get off the ground and it was spearheaded by the CFO. I had a job when people I graduated with were fighting tougher and tougher competition to get what jobs there were and the number of those jobs had dropped dramatically. Through that program I got to do something I love, auditing, and auditing has taken me to the west coast, Canada, South America, and Asia. The travel is tough and I complain about it some but some people never leave their home town and I feel extremely lucky to experience new cultures (biggest lesson I have learned: Argentines REALLY do not like that Las Malvinas are under the British Crown).

6) My Faith. And for so many reason and much bigger reasons than the one I am going to put here but if it wasn't for my faith I would be a push over. No really. I am a people pleaser to the extreme. If it wasn't for the faith that I believe in, and my need to actually defend and stand up for it, I might have compromised on a lot of issues that aren't even related to my faith. 

7) Penn State. College is where I decided to come into my own. I made friends with a ton of great people, lost a friend for a while, had a boyfriend, and shortly after graduation got a tattoo. Got an amazing education. Learned to have school spirit (never had it in middle school or high school). Most of all, I became Jessie. I was on my own and making my own decisions. I admitted my love of hip hop, country, sci fi, and other genres of reading beyond romance. Though I continue to grow, Penn State is where I stepped out of my parents house and started taking responsibility for myself. Those 4 1/2 years were amazing and I wouldn't trade them for anything.

Story of my friends through pictures

 Alpha Delta Class  Phi Sigma Pi

 Trip to DC/Baltimore to visit Lou

 Wedding of one of the sweetest woman ever

 My PSU crew in Philly to watch us crush Temple

 My amazing group of friends that say "OK" when I ask

to jump into a freezing river for charity

 Some of my Fave PSPers in Las Vegas celebrating Becca's Bday

 The crew at the wedding of Mike and Lori

 This girl is who I get crazy with even though 

she is all the way out in Montana

 Somewhat yearly pilgrimage to State College for Artsfest 

 Out with my PSPers

 Trust me - it's cold in the polar plunge

 Halloween SuperSenior year

 Fantastic Pictures

 The Church Crew

 The best way to move a couch is to

support it out of the trunk as your friend drives the 

car around the corner.

 Front Row to support the Nittany Lions

 PSP block for the whiteout

 Showing our THON family our support

with a great outing to watch the Lions play ball

 Winery Tour

 I miss this Crazy girl!

 Sledding in Manayunk

We're bad ass! Warrior Dash

My dream church

I want to go to church with the people who have tattoos. I want to go to church with people who have gauged ears, nose rings, lip rings, and wear chains. I want to go to a church with ex-cons, current cons, and future cons.

I want to go to church with people who fake tan, get their nails done, and color the crap out of their hair. I want to go to church with bikers and those immersed in the drug world. I want to go to church with Catholics, baptists, presbyterian, lutherans, mormons, ex wiccans, wiccans, buddhists, hindus, Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (in laymans terms Pastafarians), agnostics, atheists, and those that just needed somewhere warm to sit for an hour.

I want to go to a church with Soccer moms, stay at home dads, work-a-holics, alcoholics, drug addicts and prostitutes. I want to go to church with families that have a mom, dad, 2 and a half kids and a dog. I want to go to church with single moms, single dads, baby mommas, and baby daddys.

I want to go to a church where people struggle. Where everyone knows that everyone struggles. I want to go to a church that people say Hi to new people who come through the door and then get their life story. I want to go to church with Republicans, Democrats, Green Party, Torys, people who don't care about politics, and people who care waaaaayyy to much.

I want to go to a church where people don't leave after sermon, they ask how people are doing and get support for their own problems. I want to go to church with anorexics, bulemics, over eaters, under eaters, health nuts, gym nazis, vegetarians, carnivores, omnivores, vegans, and gluten frees.

I want to go to church with homosexuals, bi-sexuals, asexuals, sex addicts, transgendered, hermaphrodites, and those that just don't know who or what they are. I want to go to church with people in their 20s who want to change the world. Those in their 30s, 40s, and 50s who are changing the world. Those in the 60s+ who have stories and lessons to be shared about how they did change the world.

I want to go to a church with people filled with joy, despair, happiness, generosity, charity, grace, anger, peace, frustration, hurt, sarcasm, hate, hope, and maybe someone with all of those at once. I want to go to church with people who are rich, poor, just making do, on food stamps, work 3 jobs to pay rent, and those that are living off inheritance.

My dream church has pastors that share their real life struggles. Tells the hard truth about life, love, marriage, job hunting, money, and being a christian and what it means  - all without using vague euphemisms.

I want a church that scares the world, gives hope to the world, and comforts the world.

I want to worship next to the broken and sing praises with the redeemed.

I want to go to church with me.

My dream church leaves all the doors wide open. Does not support causes but supports people. Stands in the face of adversity, not with demonstrations but with compassion. But most of all my church LOVES UNCONDITIONALLY.

Hello. You are more than a Bird

I guess I should start by explaining the name of this blog.

About a year and a half ago I was getting ready to move from my first real apartment in a city I grew up in with friends all around to a city where I only knew one other person. I was moving there for my job for a temporary 6 months position. I didn't know where I was going to live and I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to be living with a roommate.

I had been stressing about it and it wasn't helped by my mother (who is very loving and really just looking after her procrastinating "chick") who was asking almost constantly if I had found a place to live. I didn't want to look for a place to live and was hating that I was going to have to move to this city, even temporarily. That being said I WAS looking and WAS stressing not only about where to live but how I was going to get all my stuff there.

In my not so frequent bible time I really felt God was putting Matthew 6:26 on my Heart.

"Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?"(NIV)

At the time I thought it was referring to the job that I currently had which was very challenging for me but I slowly came to realize that God wanted me to rely on him to provide for me. Once I began affirming that verse in my life (really I kept on panicking and saying "I am more than a bird" "I am more than a bird" "I am more than a bird" over and over) God opened a wonderful place for me to live.

One of my coworkers lived in that city and had recently bought a new house with his Fiance and needed to sublet his apartment. The rent was double was I was willing to pay and told him that, although I would love to sublet, it was beyond what I was willing to pay for an apartment. A month went by and the offer was once again given but at half the price of what he was paying for the rent. It was decided that I would pay half the rent ($500) and he would pay the other half. Since he was on the lease I didn't have to worry about him flaking off on the rent and He trusted me enough that I didn't have to sign a sublet agreement because I was basically taking the apartment sight unseen and he didn't want to lock me into something I wasn't happy with. He really is one of the nicest people I have ever met.

The apartment was in a great neighborhood with neighbors that always looked out for each other. I went into the shop next to me and one of the really nice old men that owned the shop asked where my young man had been lately. The only time a guy had been to my apartment was 2 weeks ago and it was  another coworker helping me move in a TV stand that I had just bought from Craigslist. It was walking distance to the local restaurants, half a block away from the gym, and a block away from the river.

The second God thing was the actual move out to the city. It is only about two hours away from where I was living at the time. I rented a small uhaul, got my best friend, current roommate, a guy friend, and his son to help me load it up with all my stuff. My guy friend was nice enough to drive the Uhaul out to the new city with me and his son riding shotgun and whatever the name of the middle seat is. My best friend was amazing and drove my car out to the new city. The only other girl I knew in that city met us at my new apartment, which I had only seen once when I went to get the keys a couple of weeks earlier, with her guy roommate. Within a couple of hours we had put everything into the new apartment and they had mostly arranged my furniture and my best friend had help me set up my bed so I at least had something to sleep on.

Within a few weeks I was attending a church I really enjoyed. Had a met a few friends and was starting a relationship with someone (which turned out not to work out but it was a good experience).

All of this would not have been possible if I had not trusted God. He gave me an apartment and moving plans within 4 weeks of praying and left me a month of relaxing knowing that he had taken care of me.

Frequently as I have been going through my life and people are telling me of things that they are going through all I can say to them is that they are"More than a bird".

This verse has become so real to my life that I hope to get a small silhouette of a sparrow in flight tattooed in white on my inner wrist (I already have a tattoo of the Chi Rho on my foot).