life happens.

you’ve come 18 years for this…

well this time of year is unavoidable, it comes at the same time every single year. and its bitter sweet. this year, i have been an emotional disaster for about three weeks now. my bestfriend and brother are graduating high school and quite frankly i can’t handle it. i probably will be unable to shed anymore tears at their graduations because i have had so many breakdowns at the thought of them graduating and moving away for school. lately i have been spending so much time with my bff bc i know that i dont have her here for much longer. the other night we were on our way home from dinner and i drove around for a good 45 minutes just so i could spend more time with her, i know that i wont be able to have those sweet times with her for much longer. i know she will be coming home and stuff but its different. i am so proud of her and the person she is becoming. i have seen her come a long way and it makes my heart so happy to see her on fire for god and living her life pleasing to him and glorifying his name. one of my favorite things to do with her is worship, i love seeing her in love with god! i know god has some beautiful plans for her life and i cant wait to see her live them out. i love her more than any words could ever describe i know she is a gift from god and i could not be more thankful for our friendship. she has taught me to not care about what other people think and how to have fun and just let go. and i love her for being able to do those things! she always knows just what to say and her hugs warm my soul. i will miss her not being just down the road but i know that this next season of her life is going to be wonderful and god is going to reveal parts of his plan to her. i could not be more proud of the person she is becoming! 

dear god, thank you for blessing my life with such a beautiful person. i cant thank you enough and i could not have ask for someone better to be able to call my bestfriend. thank you for the sweet times we have had together. please be with her as she embarks on the next chapter of her life. watch over her and guide her, show her your beauty in this world. help her to always remember that you are the only one that can satisfy all her needs. help her not to forget that your timing is one of the most perfect things. i know there will be tough times in life and i know you will be the one to help comfort and guide her through those trials. thanks again god for our friendship! 

love, an incredibly emotional bestfriend. 

oh the places you’ll go.

you’ve now turned three and don’t really need me, well not as much. you have become very independent and like to do a lot of things on your own and you do them very well. you are very smart and funny and can make me laugh like no other kid can. you have a sense of humor that a 24 year old should have. you don’t like to be dirty, but playing in the dirt is one of your favorite things to do. some days your face turns black from the amount of dirt that your snotty runny nose collects. you like to play outside and go to the trampoline, play in the sand and go for walks in the woods. you can eat crackers until your face turns blue and cupcakes make your world go round, they’re your favorite. some days after school i like to take you to the daisy to get one for a special treat, lets keep that our secret! you like to play with your train table and bubbles are a lot of fun! whenever i put sunscreen on you without a doubt you say “i don’t want to get a burn”. when you wake up from a nap and you’re ready to get up sometimes you say “mommy, daddy, taylor!” you know that one of us will be there to get you up and the fact that i am considered in the group of mommy or daddy makes me happy. whenever i get a tea from the daisy you like to pull the lever and “help” me get my tea. the first time i let you help we accidentally overflowed the cup and sweet tea went all over the daisy. whoops! since then we have learned how to let you do it without making a mess, you get a straw every single time we go in there. recently you have fallen in love with mickey mouse, winnie the pooh and tow mater. you love to paint, color and play with play dough. we have listened to so much taylor swift! she’s your favorite! you are very smart and say some of the greatest things. every afternoon when i leave and you are suppose to say “thank you and see you tomorrow” and you include “i love you” in there my heart melts. I’ve learned a lot from being with you every day since last February, in those 14 months we have done a lot. I potty trained you in three days and now you’re a pro! such a big boy! I am so proud of you! You are doing great in school and I can’t wait to see how well you excel next year in Mrs. Lisa’s class. Next school year we are really going to focus on learning that French and both of us are going to get really good at speaking it. We might do some yoga as well! I am excited that you are coming to summer camp for all six weeks this summer! I can’t wait for you too see how much fun it is and why i enjoy it so much! Thank you for teaching me how much patience I actually am capable of having and how to love unconditionally! Thank you for sharing laughs, hugs, kisses and cupcakes with me, I can’t wait for the many more days we will spend together being your nanny has been so rewarding and seeing you grow up has been amazing! You have changed so much from 2 to 3, I can’t wait to see how much you learn and grow from 3 to 4.

I love you little man! 

last night I had a dream. 

A dream that has had me thinking all day. what does it mean? does it mean anything at all?  here’s what happened in the dream. 

God was my art teacher and his assignment for me was to make all the streets gold with glitter. He had me use a paint brush to spread out glue on the streets and then sprinkle glitter on the glue. I don’t remember too much of what happened but I know he stayed by by side the whole time I was making the streets glittered. It was hard work but he kept telling me that it will be worth it in the end. and then I woke up. So as i’ve thought about this dream I just keep trying to figure out if God is trying to tell me something or if its just a crazy dream. Here are some things that I have thought about. My name is Taylor and it means tailor and tailor means to make, repair or alter. My middle name is Danielle and it means God is my judge. I recently attended a middle school girls retreat as a leader and we talked a lot about your identity and name meanings and since then I have been thinking about my name meaning and Gods plan for my life and all sorts of things. so then when I had this dream I started thinking again. The streets are so heavily traveled by so many different people, they are dirty, stained and rough but in the dream God had me put gold glitter on them to make them beautiful. I know there are many people out there who are just like the streets. so then this all comes back to my name meaning. I know God has called me to love people, to help them, to show them compassion. my heart hurts when I see people hurting. I know God has at least called me to do that. I don’t know what I am suppose to be doing with my life, I haven’t figured that out. I think Gods plan for my life will most likely have some obstacles and be hard at times but in the end it will all be worth it to bring God glory! But with my name meaning tailor, which means, to make, repair or alter, I feel like maybe I am suppose to be helping the hurting, the people that have been through a lot and forgotten that God also has a plan for them, a plan that is beautiful. I feel like when people are placed in hards situations in life, for instance, death of a loved one, substance abuse, feeling unloved, lost and like there is no where to turn to they often find it easy to forget that God is running this whole show down here and he is orchestrating all of this for the good of that person. I think sometimes people just need a reminder and a person to love on them and show them Gods love. I’m not saying that this one dream means all of that but it has definitely made me think about a lot of stuff today. 

today i chose joy.

the past few days i’ve been down on myself…

i had feelings of being forgotten, unappreciated, not very loved, put on the back burner. being a friend of convenience. the reasons for these feeling were from my friendships that i have with people. i understand that we all have very busy lives and have so many things going on that when we have people that we don’t see on a daily basis it is easy to have the ‘out of sight out of mind’ mind set. i understand that i am not always going to be in the same seasons of life as many of my friends. we all do different things, are different ages, and so forth. i get it, its part of life. but you see i am the kind of person that tries hard, really hard to show and let people know that i love them, care for them and appreciate what they do for me and just for being my friend. i love people, a lot! my heart has so much love for people. sometimes i wonder how i can love people so much. it blows my mind and then i think about how much God loves me and i usually end up in tears of joy or smiling so hard my face hurts. so when i usually put in a lot of effort into the relationships i have, i get upset when i don’t feel like that person appreciates, loves or cares about me. i feel like i am the only one that cares about the relationship. that is what has happened the last few days, i was pretty hard on myself as well. i told myself that i wasn’t a good enough friend, that i needed to do more, try harder, say sorry for things that i didn’t even do just to make things right, i lied to myself about these things. after a night of crying and realizing that just because someone doesn’t respond to your love and the things you do for them does not mean that am not good enough or that i don’t try to be a good friend. i think what i am trying to say is that people are not always going to react to things in the way that you want them to. you have to know what you know in your heart and be okay with the fact that people are people and relationships are messy and peoples feelings will always get hurt. i have been finding peace through this situation in several songs that just remind me that my God will always be there for me, and even though i fail him every single day he will never fail me, and his love endures forever! he made me in his image, i was created for him, he is shaping my life through every situation i experience. he breathes on me, he revives me and i am alive! i have a purpose, a calling and he has a plan for my life that is so much greater than anything i could ever imagine. my life is for him and if i am worrying about these silly things that i shed tears over that is only distracting me from growing closer to God and that isn’t what i want for my life. i want to be as close as i possibly can and live my life pleasing to him, i want to be a reflection of him and i want others to see him radiate through me.