To write love on her arms...

A couple of years ago there was a girl, she had major self hatred issues. Being so over taken by all of her flaws, she took a knife and wrote everything she hated about herself on her forearms. Over the years, that left a scar, when someone found the scars they started To write love on her arms. Basically you want to write over the scars of hatred and pain with love.

Did you know that-

-121 million people worldwide suffer from depression. (World Health Organization)

- 18 million of these cases are happening in the United States. (The National Institute of Mental Health)

- Between 20% and 50% of children and teens struggling with depression have a family history of this struggle and the offspring of depressed parents are more than three times as likely to suffer from depression. (U.S. Surgeon General's Survey, 1999)

- Depression often co-occurs with anxiety disorders and substance abuse, with 30 percent of teens with depression also developing a substance abuse problem. (NIMH)

- 2/3 of those suffering from depression never seek treatment.

Untreated depression is the number one cause of suicide, and suicide is the third leading cause of death among teenagers. (NIMH)

In my opinion this is a terrible and scary thing that is happening to teens and adults EVERYWHERE. On Friday the 12 of November there was a protest around the world where you write love on YOUR arms to tell people about TWLOHA.

A 'good' life

The dictionary's definition of good is:

1.
morally excellent; virtuous; righteous; pious: a good man.
2.
satisfactory in quality, quantity, or degree: a good teacher; good health.
3.
of high quality; excellent.
4.
right; proper; fit: It is good that you are here. His credentials are good.
5.
well-behaved


And so on. With these definitions in mind, Have you lived a good life? Think about this, number 3 says high quality. Is your life high quality? Is it excellent?

I recently read a book called Amos Fortune. It starts out in Africa with a young boy of about fifteen being crowned chief of his village. Next the 'white men' come and take aut'mun (Amos) and about half of his people into the jungle and make them walk for days on end in all weather. Next, the white men put the African men and women into pits in the ground with little food or water, killing off the weak ones. After about a month, they move the live people onto a boat for over two months, lying on their sides, like spoons to be sold in America as slaves.
When aut'mun is sold his name is changed to Amos and he is bought by a caring household where he learned to read and write and speak in English. Amos stays with this household until he is in his late thirties when he is sold to a new family. In this family Amos learns to be a tanner. He enjoys this job very much and is very good at it. Amos stays with this family until he is about fifty. From the time that Amos left Africa he has been looking for his sister, hoping that one day he would find her. While looking for his sister at a slave show, Amos saw a young women and decided he would buy her and make her his wife. After being married not even a year she died. Amos did not handle death well for someone who has seen it his whole life. He was traumatized, but after a couple of months of looking for his sister he found another young lady to make his wife. This woman is already owned by someone, Amos goes to her owner and buys her and her daughter. All his life Amos wanted to have a beautiful piece of land with a house big enough to have his tanning supplies and all his wife's furniture. Every bit of that dream came to him by the time he was seventy. Amos died when he was eighty one a few month later his wife died too.

Now did Amos live a good life? After being in slavery most of his life and seeing his wife die or is it what he died with, like possessions, family and status,that made him have a good life? If this was you and no matter what happened to you, could you have stayed positive and loved God anyway. Would you classify yourself as having lived a good life, if you had to live the life Amos lived? I would! The answer to a 'good' life is all in attitude.

Survivors of abortion

Gianna Jessen's mother was seventeen when she went into an abortion clinic. The abortion that she chose to have was called a Saline Procedure in which the doctors inject poison into the womb that burns the child to death and then the mother must give birth to a dead baby. When Gianna was born she was alive, on April 6, 1977 inside the abortion clinic one doctor actually took Gianna to a hospital to be taken care of. This is strange because if a baby is born alive the doctor is supposed to leave it for dead or proceed to kill it. a law was past in 2002 saying that if a child was born alive during abortion they must take care of it. Gianna was born in 1977, not until twenty five years later did that law pass. And yet Gianna is alive. Why is this? Because God wanted her to have an impact on the world. I believe that aborting babies is wrong. Gianna speaks all over the world, telling people her testimony of how God provided her with life. We can either take life in or just go on through the day not knowing what life could be like if we enjoyed every second of it.

Motivation

I am almost a teenager, and reciently I haven't had much movtivation. During school I don't have good comprehention or a long attintion span. I don't mean to do this but I can't help that I'm not motivated recently. Actually I love school, but that is a hard thing to convince my parents to believe. No matter what I do at some point in time I just lose interest. I have come to think about how I can try to be more motivated. WILL POWER. Will power is something I need to work at to help with my motivation in school and dance and work. I will work very hard for one week at this and write again what the effect is.

Where I belong

I am reading a book called Stink Alley and it is about pilgrims from England.
They move to Holland because of their religion. The Separatists really don't feel at home in Holland because where they are from in England, everyone could work. Farming isn't as popular in Holland as it is in England because they don't have as much land to spare. I can relate with the Separatists because as a Christian not all places I visit feel safe. I think that once you adapt to a specific environment it is hard to move into a different one by choice, but even harder when you don't have a choice.
I base my opinion on John 15:18-20 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours."
And also on, Matthew 5:10-12 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
I base most of my opinions on Scripture. I do this because it is written and it is True. My point is that Christians are being persecuted at all times in America and all over the world, and that makes going from where Christianity is welcome to where it is not very difficult. Here are just a couple examples of Christianity being persecuted in the world today.

- Saudi Arabia bans churches, public Christian worship, the Bible and the sale of Christmas cards. Christians are regularly imprisoned and tortured on trumped-up charges of drinking, blaspheming or Bible-bashing.

- Egypt law states that Christians must get permission from the president to build or repair churches, but he usually refuses. Christian girls and even the wives of Christian ministers are abducted and have their religion forcibly converted.

- In Indonesia, some 10,000 Christians have been killed in the last few years.

- In Pakistan, dozens of Christians have been killed in bomb and gun attacks on churches and Christian schools in the last few years.

- In Nigeria, thousands of Christians have been killed in the last few years.

- In Sri Lanka, religious tension led to 44 churches being attacked in a four month period, with 140 churches being forced to close because of intimidation.

- In India, there have been hundreds of attacks against the Christian community. The government’s affirmative action programme for untouchables guarantees jobs and loans for poor Hindus and Buddhists, but not for Christians.

- In China, more than 100 ‘house churches’ were closed down and dozens of priests imprisoned. If you join the Communist party you get special privileges, but you can only join if you are atheist.

I can't imagine how it felt for the Separatist people to move into such a religiously loose culture. I have to admit that it would be very difficult for a large group of people to go through their life knowing that everyday in their country they are breaking the law because of their religion.

New Pastors

Last March the head pastor of my church passed away, the church has been looking for a replacement ever since then. We have had many candidates, but none of the Pastors really stuck out. Last Sunday one family came to try to be our pastors, Pastor Dean preached and we loved it. The family has four boys and then Shay and Dean, the ages of the boys are, 14, 17, 19,and 20. This family is amazing, they all have a burning passion for Jesus. Other than the fact that there is no girls I think that our church will prosper with this new Pastor. While the Bailey family was in Nebraska we went out to eat and of course the adults stayed and talked and all the others people (I don't want to say kids because none of us really are kids) went over to Fort Cody which is really just a tourist store, we had so much fun. While out showing Jonah, Kevin< Ethan, and Justin the town we got to know each other very well. I love this family and I believe that they are whole hearted for God.

Violin

I have never played an instrument in my whole life, I've just always been more interested in dance. Well this year I've got my schedule worked out with school and dance to where I have enough time to play an instrument, deciding was hard but I choose violin. Being myself I looked up the violin and everything that I read about it said that the violin I a very hard instrument to learn to play. But I am going to stick with it, my violin took around a month and a half to come into stock at the music store, I just picked it up yesterday and my first lesson is tomorrow, now my opinion could be changed on how hard this will be very very soon. I suppose I will write again after my first lesson.

Coincidence? I think not

You know how there are those people who when they want something so bad and it always seems to go there way? Well, some people may say that they just have good luck, some say its just a coincidence, but I say God put that specific opportunity in their path for a reason. I don't believe in coincidences, and there is a fine line between saying that God planned something and that this is your 'fate'. Fate is just a way of saying this is supposed to be, or you can say that someone (God) planned your life and knows everything that will happen. (refer to Psalm 139) I know someone who no matter what it is, getting into college or buying a pair of shoes he always happens to get what he needs, this guy happens to be my older brother. Whenever Brian has a problem it all just works out. Am I jealous? NO WAY!! I think that the problems you go through better your mind and body for the future.

Me, Myself, and shoes!

Hey!!
I have a style that no one else in the entire world could match. Meaning I can go from wearing skinny jeans a V-neck shirt and converse to a leotard and knitted shorties assisting a petite ballet class. My shoe choices are not any that any 'normal' person would choose, I like my medium high top denim fold down converse, however my mom past, present, or future, would EVER be seen in these shoes. Every year since I was probably nine a neon array of converse have been on my wish list, someday even if I get them myself, I will own a pair of custom made extra high converse. You may be thinking, "Does this girl only own converse?" totally not true, I own flats, flip flops, boots and all different types of shoes. But I do like converse a lot. As you may have noticed I am how some people would put as weird but as soon as someone can define normal to me I will try my hardest to be 'normal' but if be like Taylor Swift or Kesha is what normal is, I want to be far from it. The last thing a want to be is some Twilight loving freak. I mean vampires? Really? Well that's a whole different blog, so thanks for taking some time out of your busy life to read my thoughts!!

are friends in different places still 'close' friends?

Hey!!
I went to a two week camp this summer at IHOP (see blog explaining) it is called ATC, Awakening teen Camp. Many kids from ages 11- 18 come from all over the world. My room of four girls happened to be from ALL OVER, I am from Nebraska, Grace and Zion were from different parts of Texas, and Shery is from egypt. Wide variety huh? Shery was a great roommate to have she is so funny, and speaks english fairly well, yep thats right FAIRLY things like drinking from the tap were VERY new to her, since in Egypt the water is not clean. Seeing her try new things was an amazing experience. Zion and Grace are amazing friends and I love both of them, with friends like these what could go wrong right? Wrong. Two weeks isn't actually a very long time, not nearly enough time for these close friends to spend time with each other. So with goodbye came tears from Zion first to leave, then Shery, and then me and Grace last to go, it is one of the hardest things to go far away from friends that you spent fourteen strait days with. Talking to them now is hard also, with facebook and phone calls as our closest ways to communicate, it doesn't seem like enough. To answer the question one the title of this blog, yes most of my closest friends are ranging from every state in the U.S to Egypt. I LOVE ALL MY ATCers!!!!!

Cars...

I'm only twelve but I have been looking at cars for when I am fifteen and can buy one. I have decided that I like mini- coopers but there are many different types and I know that but so far my favorite happens to be the mini-coopers, 2002 to be exact. But as it has and always will be opinions will change multiple times before a final decision is made, there is over 10,000 types of cars in the world thus my opinion is VERY likely to change. Looking is worth it though.

Calligraphy

Hey there!
As a dancer my teacher was Miss Nebraska of 1999 (Becky Smith) and I have been asking a lot of questions, hoping to assume this title myself. One thing that has stuck out to me recently would be thank you notes, after being voted to further levels in the competition it is only proper to write thank you notes to the judges. Thus handwriting would need to be fairly nice looking, mine however does not look the greatest. With this information I decided to work toward better hand writing as I was looking at different styles one stuck out to me, calligraphy. Luckily my Grandmother writes in beautiful calligraphy, this Saturday I visited her and she taught me to write my name and gave me a booklet with the alphabet, as I looked through it I worked on different words and though it has only been two days since I was taught, I think I have improved greatly. I think calligraphy is a beautiful style of handwriting and I am proud to have the chance to learn how to write in this amazing art of writing.

EmmaRaye

Well I was named EmmaRaye off of my mom's favorite movie 'Something to talk about' it wouldn't be such a funny movie without EmmaRaye. The plot is that Grace (EmmaRaye's sister) finds out that her husband is having an affair with her, so she goes to stay with her very funny sister EmmaRaye and she doesn't take the news well, she has a bit of a temper. While Emma is saying her small remarks about in her words "The lying,cheating, bag of dirt." It slips out to her and Grace's dad, he's not happy about it either. But as the movie ends there is not one person who doesn't like EmmaRaye, I guess my mom thought that personality would fit me. I think it does... sweet at times but when it comes to friends or family I can have a BIG attitude problem. Well I guess my mom picked a great name for me... I love it and the story behind it.

PICNIK

On my facebook page in my photo albums there is one album titled picnik it is where I put all of my edited pictures. Not a lot of people edit pictures well people my age anyway but I enjoy editing, sometimes I put quotes or song lyrics basically anything that has my style or character in it. I really enjoy editing pictures because it really livens the photos up adding character and enthusiasm to them. I think that I will always love doing this as a hobby in my spare time.

Goliath the Watchtower

I have four dogs, two basset hounds named Rufus and Ruby and two Doberman pinshers named Gabby and Goliath. Goliath is my dog, he is allergic to grass crazy I know! But when he gets to rolling around in the grass he loses the hair off of his stomach and around his eyes and ears. Doberman are supposed to live to be about 7 or 8 years old Goliath will be turning 9 this year! He is so obedient and lovable and FURRY now that he is getting better!! I LOVE YOU BUBBA!!!!

Ella

A couple of weeks ago I went to Maryland with my family, for a youth rally.
We usually stay at a camp that is owned by some of my parents close friends, but this year we stayed with a family that we had never met before, they lived in Maryland in a average house, no complaints on their side. They are very content with the way they live, Gordon Sisler, great father and husband all in a wheelchair, yep thats right just like I said it before, NO COMPLAINTS he prays for healing in his spirit not his body, I love this man, he has two wonderful daughters, Ella and Lydia.
I am here to talk about Ella, she is 12, my age, super beautiful, funny, and has a heart for God, this is my long lost sister, she has my heart for dance and God. This girl was waiting for a bunch of teenagers to invade her house, and even her room! She didn't know who was going to be coming to her house,NO IDEA AT ALL. She was very surprised to find another twelve year old staying in her room, I knew there was a 12 year old at the Sislers so I wasn't nearly as surprised. The next day we went to Coopers Rock, a state park, Ella came with she rock climbed with us and hiked the trails with us, the point is we had a great time. Ella has to be one of my closest friends, I stayed with her for three days, and she is my best friend. Ella Sisler is the only girl I know with the same prayer and dance call on her life as me! I LOVE YOU!

The prayer room

Well there is this place in Kansas city MO, called IHOP International House Of Prayer (not pancakes) usually when we are passing through my family stop at IHOP to go to the prayer room, the prayer room has 24/7 worship and prayer. We go there to soak in the spirit, IHOP has a web stream that you can watch any time! We love the prayer room and I watch the web stream all the time. If you want to check it out go here ---> http://www.ihop.org/Publisher/Article.aspx?ID=1000058181

I would highly recommend checking out and getting involved with IHOP

Justin Bieber vs Miley Cyrus, HA

I will be doing a vs. today, this should be interesting...

Justin Bieber

Everybody knows about him, the 16 year old that sounds like he is like 8. Yes Justin Bieber is 16, hard to believe right?? He is the one with all the songs like 'Baby' 'One less lonely girl' 'One time' and has songs featuring Usher and Sean Kingston and Ludacris. Yep that's Justin Bieber, Almost every girl from the ages of 10-15 like his music, I'm not saying anything is wrong with his music but the very few sane people that dislike Justin and in my opinion they are correct. I prefer classic music yea that's right the good stuff MICHEAL JACKSON for one Cory Asbury, Misty Edwards, Bob Marley, and such music.

Miley Cyrus

Another one that everybody knows, her career started at age 12 with Hannah Montana. She is on her final season of her show and she is now 18. Her singing is amazing but she is not a very good influence on her fans right now. With videos containing seductive dancing and inappropriate clothing, I would defiantly not want the girls I know to be being influenced by this role model. I am not bashing on Miley but in my opinion she isn't a very good role model for kids and teens.

Well Justin or Miley??

Both great singers but I'm going to go with neither but stick with the classic Micheal Jackson, you decide who you like better...

-Blueyedancer >

Brothers vs Sisters

Well my friend Cristeena came over to my house a couple of nights ago, and she told me that since she has all sisters it would be fun to have brothers... I disagree. I have all brothers living with me believe me if you have brothers you know my feeling. There are ups and downs to both brothers and sisters, lets start with the ups!

Brothers

1.) Funny comments are plentiful

2.) You are always protected when Dad isn't there

3.) Anyone that you don't want there, wont be there.

4.) They can always make you smile!!

Sisters

1.) You always have someone to talk to

2.) Someone to do things with when your friends are not around.

3.)You can trade/borrow your sister's clothes

Now lets go to downs

Brothers

1.) They stink, literally

2.) They can be way more protective than they need to be.

3.) They could be way to rough on you.

Sisters

1.) DRAMA!!

2.) Teasing about boys

3.) Bad advice

4.) Wrong role model for you!

Well we can now see that there are ups and downs, since I have all brothers and I really don't want sisters I say I would like to be an only child.

But every only child I know says that they would love to have siblings, well I guess you can't choose your family so I won't complain. Which would you like to have brothers or sisters?

I will NOT...

Hey there!

I had a lot of trouble naming this blog for two reasons.

1.) What if someone doesn't like what I pick?

2.) What if I don't like what I pick?

All good questions, but after I thought about it for a while I came to the conclusion that, it doesn't matter what people think.

I mean obviously I'm not going to just stop taking care of my self, but I will not wrap my entire life around what someone thinks. So I went right for my favorite blog name that I had picked yet, hints The world from a dancers point of view.

After I had made my page I told everyone in my family what I had named my new blog, but then it started Oh, that is cute but you should have done this with it. Or Well I like it but I think it should be named this. And on and on and on... But I was determined to have it named what I wanted it to be named, not what anyone else wanted. I eventually got over number two because if I picked it, I must have liked the idea at least a little bit, also if I like it and there has to someone else out there who is a dancer going strong for Christ, that means somewhere out in this huge world, someone likes it just as much as I do.