Hey guys! wow, it's been a while since I was on here. I've been thinking alot about my "future" and "what I'm gonna do with my life" as well as "career options". lol, i'm not sure why exactly I put those in quotations. :) but maybe it's because I don't really take those phrases super seriously. We listened to this song in English the other day and we were supposed to analyze it. When I first heard it, it totally reminded me of like my future and all the things I want to do, but then how the fears and risks and other people's views on my dreams sorta trap me. Here are the lyrics:

Let me fall
Let me climb
There's a moment when fear
And dreams must collide

Someone I am
Is waiting for courage
The one I want
The one I will become
Will catch me

So let me fall
If I must fall
I won't heed your warnings
I won't hear them

Let me fall
If I fall
Though the phoenix may
Or may not rise

I will dance so freely
Holding on to no one
You can hold me only
If you too will fall
Away from all these
Useless fears and chains

Someone I am
Is waiting for my courage
The one I want
The one I will become
Will catch me

So let me fall
If I must fall
I won't heed your warnings
I won't hear

Let me fall
If I fall
There's no reason
To miss this one chance
This perfect moment
Just let me fall

And it's not like super deep, but I think that this is the time in my life when I really need to break away, but in a good way. My relationship with my rents has totally been blessed in the past 6 months or so and we've grown so much closer. it's awesome because I know that this time next year I may not be living at home and so i want to enjoy all the time I have with them. but then again, the closer I get to them the less rebellious I am towards them and the more respect I have for their decisions and hopes for me. awesome, right? yes! BUT... I think recently I've been waiting for them to kinda push me in the right direction. I have all these wonderfully amazing options in front of me but when I present them to my rents, they kinda smile and nod and encourage me to keep looking into it. Where once I would have balked and sneered at THEIR thoughts regarding MY future, I've felt almost hurt, and sorta like a floundering fish. Ha ha, ok, here's a good picture. My horse, Billie, always tries to sneak outside of the gate when it's opened and then go running around the property, eating grass and carousing with the neighbours' horses. But sometimes he'll get out when I'm at school and then spend all day running in circles around the paddock trying to get back in because the gate has closed itself behind him. He doesn't realize he's free and while it makes it easier for me to catch him, it looks quite pathetic and hilarious. I think the worst thing I could do is not do anything. Like, the Lord has put so many visions and dreams and desires in me, especially regarding options for the years after high school, and if i were to sit here stressing and being so undecisive that i choose to do nothing, that would be the biggest waste ever. so i think i'm just gonna jump into something, pray about it, and then see where He leads. someone once told me that GOd likes to steer a moving vessel. You've gotta trust Him by leaving the dock, and know that if you're headed in the wrong direction, He'll flip that rudder around and have you moving where He wants you. hm... pretty sweet stuff. This God of ours, He just keeps getting more and more amazing, hey? :)
PS. that song "Let me fall" by Josh Groban is really about Cirque de Soleil... i was kinda disappointed :)

Hey again! Ok, first of all, Jess, your last blog was amazing! totally encouraging and just plain ol' sweet sauce! i woulda commented, but our lame-o conputer has a listening disorder, and yah, the dumb links aren't working too well. that's also why i haven't replied to Christine and Shay's comments on my last blog. :)
but anyway, i'm running away with myself. *yoink*... ok, i'm back! oh! do you guys wanna know why my blog's called gift of grace anyway? i mean, i guess besides the obvious, yet exhilarating fact that every day and every experience with Christ is a gift of his awesome grace, but that's what my name means. Janelle translates to "Jehovah's gracious gift" and Kristine is "Christ-bearer." I don't know if my rents knew that before they named me, but my name's taken on a whole new meaning to me. and like, in the Old testament it was a big thing to be like "oh, i struggled with my sister and won, so let's call this son Naphtali, which means 'my struggle'"... lol. i mean, your name and its meaning was everything and sometimes proved to be a prophecy of what would happen in your life. it's crazy.... names are sweet stuff!

i remember at the beginning of the year in Bible, Mr. Kennedy asked us what we thought the the single most detrimental thing the church does was. (don't quote me on quoting him, cuz he hates that :P) I had no clue then, but thinking about it today, the first thing that came to mind was idolatry. i think idols are the biggest blockages in the lives of believers and nonbelievers today for a few reasons:
1) they can be anything. ANYTHING. from living just to have fun, to boys (lol, or girls for your guys), to an ideal body shape/looks you'd kill to have, even to "spiritual" things like worshipping worship. it's all idolatry!
2) because they can be anything, it's not always black and white that what you're doing is idolizing something. Sometimes we need divine intervention to determine whether what we're doing is idolatry or if it's simply totally enjoying something to its fullest, which is a totally cool thing to do :)
3) idols have these crap-crazy ways of cementing themselves to the throne in your life that the Lord is supposed to sit on. sometimes pull as you might, those guys just DON'T COME DOWN. and even when we've given it all over to the Lord, He asks us to trust Him and He chisels away, slowly sometimes, at the image we've set up until it's nothing left but crumbs. Except before He gets there, I know I have on numerous occasions, found my crazy glue and tried to re-stick the broken pieces back to my idol. ouch. sorry Jesus!
I think i'm out of numbers as to why I think idolatry is a huge killer... i just know it is! and we've gotta be aware of the things in our life. NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING should ever sit higher than God in our lives. under no circumstances! we need to be ready and willing to drop ab-so-lute-ly everything for the sake of the cross! i guess that's part of dying to yourself, which is another thing that the Lord's taking me through right now. He's like sucking the Janelle parts out and replacing them with holy, perfect God parts! kinda like an organ transplant... yah :) lol! A verse that is coming to mind is the one Jesus spoke "do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and rust detroy and thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in HEAVEN where moths and rust cannot destroy and thieves cannot break in and steal. FOr where your treasure is, there you heart is also". i've gotta check out my treasures... the things i value, the things i put money and time into, and that's where my heart is. Oh Lord Jesus, thank you for your grace and faithfulness, cuz i've got a long way to go! :)

Tear down the borders that I have built
Crush the walls, stone by stone
Destroy my resistance that I hold so strong
It's just You and me alone
Till it's just You and me alone...

Worship. golly, so much comes into my mind when i hear that word. The Lord's been teaching me a lot about worship recently. in fact, i've talked to a few others and they've been learning more about it too, which is sweet sauce! one of the main things for me is just utter, soul-wrenching, deep-down, 101% pure love. I'm reading I Corinthians right now, and a couple nights ago I read chapter 13. familiar, yes, but exhilarating too! so i hope this isn't sacreligious in some sort of way, but let's replace the word "love" with the word "worship" for verses 4-8.
"Worship is patient. Worship is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Worship does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Worship never fails."
Wow. If I lived like that, worshipped like that... well, it sure would have an impact those in contact with me! now if the church lived like that, worshipped like that.... dear sweet beans, what a mind-boggling thought!
God is love! amen? so put His name in there:
"Jehovah is patient. Jehovah is kind. He does not envy. He does not boast, He is not proud. He is not rude, He is not self-seeking, He is not easily angered, He keeps no record of wrongs. The Lord does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. He always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Jesus never fails."
And this is the God of the Spirit inside us, inside me! As I said before, mind-boggling and super duper impactful!!! Praise the Lord!

Whew, is the rain ever coming down! There's so much about rain that reminds me of Jesus. maybe because rain is the most thought-provoking and emotional weather-type for me :) either way, it's raining in my soul right now. and that's a good thing!
the fish are spawning at the moment and we have rivers that run along both sides of our road and all the way down to 216th. it REEKS of rotting fish. and that smell will stay until the fish are fishined, i mean finished their thing, have died, and a there's a heavy rain fall to sweep 'em all off to the ocean. I remember last year we didn't get a heavy rain until JANUARY. that's a whole 2 months of stinky fish. hopefully this year they won't last around here as long. besides, my dog finds them sweet nectar of life, and that's just wrong.
now's the time for that mighty rain. the time where things look bleak, cold, and univiting, but the result? renewal! the time where the Lord's saying to me "hold onto something... like that Rock! yah, He's my Son.. grab him, cuz here come the big waves!" and woooooooooooosh, just like them stinkin', rotten, scaly corpses, once again He faithfully washes away the dead. and then comes new life!
What's really cool about the fish spawning is how they travel UPstream to where they were born to make it easier for their offspring once they've hatched. It's like we've got to go back to our Creator before the newness can arrive. Sometimes with the stench I forget about what's to come. lots of mini fish! new creations! tons of them! and God said It Is Good.

Oh dear sweet pickles, this whole blogging thing is way over me head! golly, it took me sooo long to find this page! hahaha, but anyway. Haha, first of all, I have to tell you guys something that happened in chapel this morning. Ev Shroeder was the speaker and she was talking about hearing the voice of God. She mentioned something about how Jesus is the shepherd and his sheep know his voice. At the end she led us in a listening prayer... she was like "ok, everyone ask God what he thinks about you and see what he says."
God was like "you're not a sheep, you're a goat!"
ok, so the first thing that comes into my mind? that song that goes "sheep go to heaven... goats go to hell"
i was like "what the crack am I smoking?"
God says: "No no, you're a goat, my little mountaineer. Keep climbing this God mountain"
it was pretty radical. and hilarious.
I think the best thing for me to do every morning is to open my eyes and say "It's not about me" before i even get out of bed. and then do some sweet action praying that i'd remember that throughout the day!
dudes, something that the Lord's been teaching to me is the importance of being vulnerable. just recently i've recognized how closed off i've become to so many people, even my tight friends. there's such a freedom that comes with being real tho. this is JR, signing out for now. over and out mes amis.

Hello all you out there! This here is my first blog ever! Let's take a moment of silence to commemerate this momentous occasion

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ps. you can send donations of flowers, chocolate, or gifts to Janelle herself at wwjd_veggie_tales@hotmail.com in remembrance of this special day