j'aime la vie

there's no purpose posting this picture other than the knowledge that pictures make posts more interesting. it's the truth, admit it. but that being said, i do like this picture. the day i took this picture, this rainbow actually stretched across the sky in a complete arch... you could see the whole thing. didn't last too long, but it was beautiful.

moving on... so, the title of this post is "j'aime la vie"... for you who don't know french that means "i like/love life." i'll say that i like life. i love living, but i like life. don't read into that too much. i'm pretty content right now. i've had lots to smile about lately. i just spent a good weekend away camping in st. malo with family, working outside has been nice (although i don't always enjoy the work, to be honest), getting to know friends and family better is a real blessing (i really appreciate you guys), summer is a great season, and God is goooooooooooooooooooood. not just good, but gooooooooooooooooooood. i could definitely be doing a better job at getting to know his heart and spend more time with him... yeah, i'll be honest with that. i get pretty caught up in the craziness of life most of the time. but i really enjoy talking with God and sharing my heart with him... and just being quiet and letting him speak to me. he speaks in many ways though, and i'm still learning to decipher what is him and what is me... or others. but that's part of the adventure, right?

so, usually i start writing not knowing what to say, but just writing because i need to keep my "followers" entertained. i know i haven't written in a while, so i should write something! that's why my thoughts are all over the place. and i don't feel like sleeping yet, so i'm writing. this weekend i went camping with my family (and my mom's side of the family... those who could make it, that is). it was a horrible weekend to go camping weather-wise but we stuck with it. true sawatzky's. and i definitely spent some time in a bad mood because it was wet and cold and i was bored because i don't like games and that seems like that's all one can do when you're stuck inside and hate trudging through massive puddles to go for a walk... i know that's a run-on sentence. shhhhh. but that was just for a bit of the time. so aside from the "short" time i was in a bad mood, here's what i did this weekend: i had a great talk with my cousin jill, whom i'm very close with, i spent a lot of quality indoor time with cousins who felt the same way about the wet, cold outdoors (which was most), read some of a book, played with my cousin carly's hair (she's a dear... knows how much i dislike playing games, so she let me play hairdresser!), ate way too much food and did way too little exercise, actually played dominoes 3 times (be proud people), and really enjoyed the weekend overall as i was with my amazing family. it was a really good time. our extended family is pretty close, and i'm really blessed by that. not many extended families are close like my sawatzky side is. they are amazing people. it's just incredible what God can do with the lives of people... if we're willing. so, to all my sawatzky family: you bless me... and i had a great time with you this weekend.

so... going back to my last post... i still don't quite know what to do with myself... and this past week and weekend have shed a bit of light in that area. but it's still unclear. that's alright though. i'm feeling less nervous about it and more excited to see what God can do with me. yeesh. luckily he's patient. there has been a lot to smile about for me lately though. it's weird how i'm learning that even though i hate giving control over to God (even knowing that he'll do a better job with my life than i ever could!), i feel peace, excitement, joy, anticipation, and a huge reason to smile when i do surrender. weird. but wonderful.

well, that's what i'm going through right now... at this very moment. til next time...