Filters

For a few weeks my sister and I have been going to Youth Group at one of the churches in town. (There are three, and I can never remember which is which. xD) It's a lot of fun! We go there and hang out with other people our age, and play games. At the end, one of the adults has us all sit and he/she talks to us about something they think is important, then they say a prayer. The first time I went, I'll admit it, I was a little uncomfortable because I've never gone to church before. I'm over it now, and love going every Wednesday.

Tonight the person who was talking said something interesting, and more importantly he brought it up in an interesting way. He held up a coffee filter and asked "What's this?" Someone said what it was, so then he asked "What does it do?" We all proceeded to say what we thought it did. "It let's water through." "It makes coffee." "It keeps the coffee grounds out of your coffee." "It separates!" Etc.

He went on to say that he believed everyone should have a filter. I thought he meant a mind filter, like some of our teachers have said. Something to keep us from saying everything we think. But then he said "The world tries to throw a lot of bad stuff our way. We all need something to keep what we don't want out of our minds, so we can focus on the good."

This isn't a new idea to anyone, I'm sure. We've all said in one way or another that we needed to focus more on the positive aspects of our life rather than the negative!

I just love how straightforward he was. "I can't make you do this," he says "you need to do it for yourselves." He made it so clear that the responsibility was ours to live our lives in joy. I 100% agree. We too often let the little bit of bad take over our life, instead of seeing the great amount of good that lies there. It's waiting for us to notice it. It's calling our names. It wants to be part of our daily lives. So, let's all use our filters to keep the bad out and let the good in. We owe it to ourselves.

Joy Rebel!

This weeks Joy Rebel Mission is to look back on our blogs a year ago. The idea is to acknowledge our growth and affirm what we would like for our future. I didn't have a blog this time last year, but I was doing things.

Last March I was...
Getting excited about my Junior Prom that I had in May
Keeping deadlines for the yearbook
Thinking seriously about what my senior year would be like
Looking forward to seeing my cousin graduate in June
Worrying about my license
Really, really, wanting summer to come
Becoming more aware of my path
Trying not to worry about what it will be like in college

This March I am...
Excited for my Senior Prom which will be in May
Filling out scholarships
Thinking about college
Looking forward to, and dreading, my own graduation in June
Endlessly annoyed that I don't have my license yet
REALLY wanting summer to be here
Wishing we could hurry up and buy a house to move in to
Blogging

It's not too different, but at the same time it is 100% different. I only have a few months until I am through with high school! It's both scary and exciting. My future lies before me, but I can't see where I'm going. All I can do is hope that it's worth the ride.

What changes have you gone through in the last year? A year goes by so quickly, and so much happens. Life is crazy.