WOW!  I haven't written since October!  It happens.  Life has been great.  I am so happy to be with my boyfriend Mark for about 6 mths now.  He is amazing.  We are taking classes at willow called 2 to 1 and are loving it.  We are really learning a lot about each other and having fun too.  I love him sooooo much. 

I am so happy to be back at church again.  I didn't go for a month because of the holidays and everything.  It just feels good to be home :)  Hmmmm, what else could I talk about?  I was re-reading blue like jazz and had this huge realization the other day that I don't allow God to love me the way I am which is why sometimes I feel like it is hard to love God.  It really was crazy.  See, I was sick the other night, couldn't sleep.  I kept thinking I need to read Blue Like Jazz.  I had no idea why, I hadn't read the book in awhile.  So, I re-read around the middle of the book and read a story about someone else had a similar relationship with God as I did.  He nearly killed himself because he fell so short of God.  He realized in this daze of being druged enough to die, that God loved him just as much as he always did, unconditionally.  I didn't even realize it the first time I read this, but that's how I feel a lot, like I don't spend time with God sometimes because I feel so imperfect and unworthy of his love.  I really had to remind myself, that is why a perfect being died on the cross...so that true grace could be given.  God already knew I wouldn't be perfect, but he loves me just the way I am.  Isn't that crazy?  Sometimes we know and even teach others the truth and goodness of our Father, and aren't aware that our own life may lack the very thing we are teaching.  Funny.  Life is good.  As a matter of fact, it is beautiful.

It has been awhile since I have written here.  I really don't even check my xanga page much any more.  Life has just been full of so much change, I have forgotten some of the things that once were.  The biggest change in my life is my passions.  They are growing with intensity that I can not explain.  I believe that God is preparing me for a mission.  I am fully focusing on getting out of debt, not buying things, and getting ready to travel.  I am going to not only be with God and rely on his full dependance in a fresh way, but I will look to serve and care for others whom which are less fortunate than myself.  This feeling is so intense.  I wake up in the morning with the urgency to be preparing and to stay focused on what God is asking me to do.  When I slow down, I see small visions of what the future will hold.  Then I think of words that have been spoken to me prophetically and I find so much encouragement, affirmation and even guidance to what is in store, what lies ahead.  I know that I am exactly where I am supposed to be in life right now.  Scary.

I miss my friends.  You know who you are.  I don't talk to a lot of people I used to any more.  Some people I have hurt, and some have hurt me or even both.  Some people moved away, others we just stopped talking.  It's crazy how life takes you down so many curved roads when you were certain the road traveled straight. 

I can't believe I have a boyfriend.  I keep wanting to run away, but I know right now...I am not supposed to do that.  It's hard, but refreshing too. 

Work is crazy.  My job is very challenging, stressful, awarding, fun....dramatic.  It's crazy.  I felt like I was never around non christians for so long, now I am around them all the time...and God is slowly letting my hand go and He is saying: Ok Cheri, tell them how far my love goes, how deep.  I haven't been doing that too well.  It's as though I work with people who are all the color red let's say, but each person has their own shape.  God asks me to walk in as the color yellow, in my own shape.......yet I kinda just go in as orange and inbetween my own shape and theirs.  Interesting analogy, I know.  In some ways, I know God is at work for sure in me, I just think sometimes I need to speak up a little more.  It is really hard in a work environment.  It shouldn't be any different though.

Thanks for reading.  'Bless ya all.

Some of my favorite things my friends have said.........

"Son of a gun in Texas" - Wes

"Are you kidding me?" - Tammie

"DTR" - Liz

"Cher the Bear, Cha-ree and Cheri Bop" - Dave

Phrophesy is the coolest!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

God is so cool and I feel so affirmed and encouraged!

I love you all, even if we don't hang out ever or all the time!