My life has been filled with small joys recently, scattered around the parts of my day helping me to wriggle out a smile. Things that I have worked on many moons ago are finally starting to come to life, in mysterious yet simple ways. 1.) A long time ago, when I was figuring out my photography Facebook page, I was trying to make a cover photo for it. After many hours and hours of trial and error I had made dozens of picture collages with various themes. One of them included the best pictures (in my opinion) of the Mexico trip last year - taken with my DSLR. I never used that collage cover photo for anything, picking something else to use for Facebook instead. It still stayed on my computer in the "downloads" folder, forgotten and alone. ... Fast forward to a few days ago when I was working on my Mexico post. I was rushing out the door trying to update it, adding some kind of photo of Mexico really quick before I left. All of a sudden my eyes popped upon that one cover photo I had made of Mexico many months before. It was perfect. The perfect shape, size, combination of photos for the Mexico recap blog post. Because it was a recap collage! I had not realized it at the time, but it was the exact accessory I would have wanted for that blog post. All that time really paid off. It's the simple things. (...I don't know how I found it so fast back then. It took me forever to find it just now. ^) 2.) It was a long dark stormy morning, and I was depressed and dreading having to later babysit for 12 HOURS. Being tired and sickly, I tried to edit videos but became overwhelmed at the little time I had left before I had to leave. It was no use. I tried to nibble on some supper before I left to go babysit but I was already late... Then the sun came out. Looking at the random package on the island, I realized it was addressed to ME. ME! I opened it and it was my Young Writers Workshop: Do Hard Things shirt, the one I had been waiting for for weeks! It brightened my mood. I looked out the window and it was sunny outside! A glorious day. Then, to make matters better, I found out I didn't have to babysit after all! My energy magically returned which ensued in a dance of excitement around the kitchen, and productiveness rushed through me which I am now using to write this blog post. What a delight to happen on this one-sad day. I am so thankful to the YWW for lifting up my somber mood and etching a smile on my face of gloom. As you can see in the pictures below, my shirt is awesome and I am smiling. Also, Megan is photobombing the background but just forget that. 3.) These are mostly about writing and the Young Writer's Workshop, but whatever. Once I was trying to multitask - to write an article about living life and memorize the book of James at the same time. I was sitting at my desk, looking up and down from the many pages of verses to the computer and back. I was memorizing James 4:14 when I looked up at my computer...and I realized... the verse I was memorizing fit PERFECTLY into the blog post. I hadn't thought about it before, but that is what the whole blog post was based on! Shocked, I quickly typed the verse into the post with italics, and ever since then I've known the verse and the reference. Crazy, huh? 4.) This is also about the YWW. I read Do Hard Things in Bible class, which led to me liking the page on Facebook, which led to me learning about the YWW and joining it, which led to me reading the Rebelution, which led to me wanting to post more on my blog. I hadn't done it for completely a whole year! I then started to write Christian nonfiction. I got newly inspired, and based the format of my new Christian Living articles the way the Rebelution did them. I started this really long piece about life (continuing the article before) and I had a lot of extra stuff I had written about "life is an adventure" that didn't fit into the article. Well, I copied and pasted the extra stuff I had to save it for later. I would post it later on my blog, I supposed. Last Saturday or so I got newly inspired to finish that blog post. I took a couple paragraphs I had already written, added a beginning and middle, and decided to have people critique it on the YWW. I got awesome feedback and decided to submit it to the Rebelution.com to be submitted... Well... suprisingly... I opened my email a couple days later and IT GOT ACCEPTED!! It's being posted tomorrow! I am so thankful for Bible class and the book Do Hard Things because that's where this journey all started. (In fact, one of the things in the article I learned in Bible class.) I'm so excited to keep on writing and continue this journey. 5.) A few years ago, some future missionaries came to our church to do a service. The Cressmans they are called. They were currently in language school, or preparing to go, and were planning to go to Honduras in 2017. I loved the service so much, and it made me want to be a missionary. Looking forward into the future, it seemed like 2017 was so far away. Fast forward a lot until this spring. Yeah 2017. It had come so fast, somehow. We walked into a frozen yogurt store, and saw those same exact missionaries there! We caught up a bit and they mentioned they were leaving for Honduras in a couple weeks. Well it just so happens that at that moment I was stressed about possibly being accepted to go on a TLC trip, to Honduras. I had no idea if the trip was going to happen because I hadn't heard anything about it, but I had wanted to go on a TLC trip for so long and really wanted to go. I told the Cressmans that, and apparently the same exact TLC team I wanted to go on, was going to their house! It was the same exact place, to work with the same exact missionaries! What a small world. Mrs. Cressman looked into my eyes, and said "I'll put in a good word for you." Fast forward again to several months later... and I was in Honduras, on a TLC trip, in the Cressmans house, having the best 10 days of my life. It was a crazy, coincidental, amazing happening that would never have happened without God; I'm so absolutely thankful I got to go.
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about the authorAs a 21 year old aspiring teacher, Karissa loves to write, travel, play piano, and read. Many creative things have her heart. archives
November 2021
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