all is calm, and all is bright.

merry christmas friends! christ our savior is born!

this christmas season hasn't been very restful for me at all. i haven't really been able to soak up the severity of it all, which i am pretty bummed about. i was busy with finals up until december 16th and come december 18th, i got a bad case of the flu. but now, i am finally rested and well and i can rejoice at the fact that a savior was sent to rescue us.

about a month ago i found out my dream of getting into grad school at virginia tech came true! i had dreamed of it for so long. i had meticulously planned out the application process. and i prayed a lot about getting in. the day it happened i was overjoyed. i wanted to tell everyone. a month later, i am still very thankful that my dream came true, but, the feeling i had the day i found out didn't last. don't get me wrong, i am very much still excited about what happened. but that feeling and that excitement wasn't "it" for me. it didn't fill me. it didn't fix me or anything going on around me. before i got in to grad school, i remember having thoughts like "if i could just get into grad school then i wouldn't be stressed" or "then i can relax" or "then i will be nicer because i won't be worried about it". did any of those things happen? maybe for a hot sec, but not nearly long enough to count for anything. i genuinely thought me getting in to grad school would fix some of those things.

there is so much beauty and freedom in the fact that nothing that happens in our lives, whether it is good (like getting into grad school or winning a national championship [lol]) or bad (like death or illness or heartbreak) is ever going to have the pressure to make or break our lives.

when tragedy hits my life (and i can promise that it will), i'm not going to look back and say "oh, but i know everything will be okay because i got into grad school that one time". that's silly to think that! what i can say with confidence is that everything will be okay because a loving God sent his one and only son to die for my sins and the sins of my loved ones so i don't have to carry that weight.

today, i am still thankful for all the good things that happened  in my life. but i am even more thankful (substantially more thankful) that our savior was born on this day a couple thousand years ago. this is a big deal, and he is a big deal. every little event in my life now doesn't have to feel like life or death because a perfect, sinless person was born to carry out his father's promise to the world.

i hope y'all have a merry christmas.

(also HBD to my bestie CJP.)

you won't always be here but this i surely know; that you'll quietly spot me anywhere i go.

mom and dad--i did it! i couldn't wait to get home and take this picture so i could tell you i finally did it. who would have that that 3 year old girl with messy hair who loved a bug's life and going on dates to taco bell with her dad would be here, getting accepted to grad school? i sure didn't. i have been planning on doing this for a while, depending on if i got accepted or not, and i hope i do it justice.

i remember my first days of pre-school vaguely. i remember 2 things pretty clearly though--i had an elephant lunchbox and i sure as heck didn't want to leave my parents to go to this thing called school. i remember kindergarten and being excited about becoming a "big girl" but hated (absolutely hated) being separated from the most loving humans i had known. and i remember being dropped off at college, and let me tell you--that was the worst. i can promise you that i missed you and needed you more than you missed and needed me. but i also knew i needed to go out on my own and grow into who y'all taught me to be.

who exactly did you teach me to be?

i'll start with mom. mom, you taught me that loving people is the single most important thing in life. thank you for being such a great example of love in the form of acts of service. you continually put yourself last to serve others and do things for others, especially your kids. not many moms would sit in 5 hours of traffic to watch her daughters boyfriend of 3 months play soccer in the next state over. you never questioned what i wanted. not that you gave me everything i demanded from you, but goodness gracious you gave me your service. and from you, i learned to do the same. i learned that putting someone's favorite candy in their pillow after they have had a hard day can really make a difference.

dad, there is no doubt in anyone's mind that i got my sense of humor from you. my ability to be silly and laugh at even the hardest situations is such a gift from you. i don't take myself and my circumstances too seriously (in the best way) and i have you to thank for that. you are witty and funny but you have also shown me so much guidance. when things were bad in high school and friends were being awful to me, you reminded me that those feelings weren't from the lord, but they were from the enemy. i will never forget when you said that as we were passing cracker barrel--i still remind myself of those words to this day.

because of you two and your ENORMOUS love for me, i was able to achieve this. thank you thank you thank you. for your guidance, support, and love through everything.

part of me is sad i can never be that messy-haired little girl with an elephant lunch box anymore. but knowing the two best parents in the whole world are behind me and with me eery step of my life makes life and big decisions so much easier. i love making you two proud, those are my favorite moments in life. i don't know if i will ever be able to express to y'all how great of parent you are, but hopefully this gives you an idea. i did this for myself, but i also did it for you. and you helped me every step of the way. i love you forever and ever and ever.

love,
your little hokie.

i'll be the greatest fan of your life.

since i started this blog (about a year ago), i had ideas about what i would write about when the time came--applying to grad school, turning 20, getting engaged (if i'm still blogging in a thousand years), etc. this list also includes writing a blog about the most wonderful person i have ever ever ever met. like ever. (had to, sorry). specifically, writing about something so important to this person possibly coming to an end. for those who haven't caught on yet--this post is for ryan edward zinkhan in regards to his upcoming senior night for the uva mens soccer team. wow. i can't believe that is here

ryan and i started pursuing each other literally the day he left for summer school to train for his freshman soccer season. that was july 6th 2011. we went to high school together and he always made our school proud (along with all the whole soccer team) by making soccer something we were good at. i say we like i was on the team, but i wasn't (i was the jv boys soccer manager my freshman year so that counts right?). anyways, back to ryan. my point in saying this is that soccer has been something so interwoven into our friendship and now relationship and how we interact with each other. let me be clear on this: soccer (and the popularity that came with it) wasn't the reason i wanted to date ryan. i wanted to date him because i hadn't met a boy who i thought was as funny as i was until i met him. i still feel that way. so with all this being said, ryan, here is my open letter to you for your senior night and the soon to be end of your uva soccer career:

ry--i can't believe this day is here! if you would have asked me how i felt about this when we first started dating i would have said i was happy. soccer got in the way of everything. it took up all of your time. but now that i've had the chance to not only fall in love with the game but to fall in love with the way it makes you light up, i am sad. i'm not sad because of the fear that you might not get the attention you do now, i'm sad because i don't want to lose the ability to watch the person i love most to do the thing he loves most. i don't know if you realize how proud i am of you. you have been injured, emotionally drained from seasons, and sometimes just fed up with the roller coaster that is a soccer career--but you, my dear, are resilient and never let those things stop you from giving this game your absolute all. there were times i despised soccer and felt it took precedence over me. and sometimes, it probably did come before me. i didn't understand why that was okay until recently. in the last year i have realized how much this game means to you and how much it has done for you. i love watching you play. i love how you do that weird thing with your fingers through your hair when you're frustrated during the game. i especially love how you pull your socks up higher than anyone else i have ever seen. i love how much you love your teammates. i love how at halftime when everyone else is still on the field i see you head straight for the locker room or whatever that thing is under the bleachers. and i love the joy on your face after you just made a huge difference in the game. in seeing how much joy this brings you, that brings me joy as well. i think you even told me one time that one of your teammates thought it was funny how concerned i looked when you got hurt (maybe that was a dream?). when this season ends, i will miss those things. a lot. 

the end of this season could very well be the end of ryan zinkhan the soccer player. i just need you to know that whatever comes of this next year for you, i will be so proud of you. no one i know puts more thought into everything he does. for goodness sakes you spend hours thinking of a way to respond to a text that comes off nice but not too nice so they don't think you're being fake. you could ignore your degree from uva and decide to be a janitor (not putting down janitors, also don't know if you need a degree to do that?)--and i will be so proud! because i know you would be the best dang janitor in the world. 

my hope for you is that you will find the joy that you have in soccer in whatever you end up doing in the next year. i also think it would be sweet for my favorite soccer team to win the acc championship or even the ncaa championship. totally possible. i have a good feeling about this season. 

lastly, i want to thank you for inviting me into this crazy schedule of yours and loving me through it all. you have stood by me through all my weird videos, my annoying sappy Facebook posts (and i guess now add blog post to that), and my ~immature~ ranting on twitter (aren't we glad i'm past that phase?) even though uva soccer is the reason we haven't spent more than a month together in the same area in the 3 years we have been dating--i wouldn't trade it for anything. i have learned so much about you through watching you do what you love. you will excel at anything you do. i can say that with absolute certainty. you are, and always will be, the most wonderful person i will ever know (even if i met taylor swift… wow). 

oh, and be prepared for senior week surprises. you know i love surprises. 

i'll end this the same way i started our flirtationship--with lyrics that remind me of you. 

"you're beautiful, every little piece, love. and don't you know you're really gonna be someone. ask anyone. and when you find everything you've looked for, i hope you life leads you back to my door. oh but if it don't, stay beautiful."

i love you always. i will always be proud of you and the person you are. i can't wait to see what kind of joy life brings you! 

xoxo, morg. 

i was a ~fashinista~ in 2011

Sept. 2014

i'll go where you will lead me.

wow, i can't believe time is going by so fast. i feel like i was just stressing out about writing my essay for my grad school application and now i'm sitting here with all of that behind me. for now at least. i don't know why it was so stressful applying to grad school, but let me tell you--it was. there were times i just wanted to crawl in bed and forget about all my responsibilities (applying to grad school, being in charge of utilities, keeping up with classes, and just living life in general) and watch desperate housewives and eat cheese fries in bed. but i couldn't do that because i had my future to think about. it's funny how i have literally had this all planned out since i was a freshman here at tech--i would graduate a year early and get into grad school here and do that 1 year program and leave tech at the same time my friends would be leaving. but now that it's here and its real--that plan seems awfully scary. i would be lying if i said i wouldn't mind not getting in to this specific graduate school. of course i would mind, i want to be a hokie for as long as i can. i also want to live life alongside my best friends for as long as i can. virginia tech is a place where my relationship with the lord has grown so much and i really am not ready to leave. while all of these things are true and valid, i think it is important for me to recognize the bigger picture. i can only see a little bit of the future in front of me and make somewhat accurate predictions of what could happen. but all i can do is make predictions. i don't know for a fact what will happen. i am not able to see the thousands of tiny roads i could take, that could lead me to something so much greater than i would have thought. right now, all i can see as a plan that would "work" is me having another year at virginia tech. but i don't want to miss a chance to really trust the lord with this. up until about a month ago, thinking about finding out if i would be accepted or not made my stomach twist and turn, y'all. but luckily i believe in this great guy named jesus and oh, he calmed my nerves. the fact that when i turned my application in to the admissions office today, i basically gave jesus my future, gives me so much joy. as that envelope with all that i've done to work for this these past couple of years left my hand, i told jesus to do what he wants. i prayed that he would place me where i'm meant to be. i smiled, and i wasn't nervous at all when i was turning in one of the biggest things in my life thus far. if you know me, you know i get nervous a lot. i get nervous when i have to say "here" during the first week of classes--should i say hi, here, present, or just give a lil wave? ugh i still don't know!! but what i do know is that the creator of the universe and the person who is the main character in the absolute greatest love story ever told is deciding what happens. this truly brings me joy. i'm not saying i won't have a tear fest with my roomies if i get rejected and i won't be with them next year. because i will. oh gosh that will be so sad. but i have hope in his plan for me and that whatever he has in store for morgan elizabeth jacobsen next year is far far greater than what i have had planned out since my freshman year at college. i am beyond thankful that the hard part of the application process is over--the part that depends on me. when it is in my hands. now, it is all up to jesus and he has to do all the hard work. when i have tried to force things to work for myself in the past, i made a big mess of things. similar to the way we fill our lives with material things (like academic success, relationships, and acceptance to fill our void), i tried to control if i got into grad school--at the beginning of the process at least. but jesus wants that burden from me. he wants all of it. he wants the doubt, the fear of rejection, the stress that comes with planning everything. he offered to take all of that off of my hands just so i could be truly free. it is so comforting to be able to see the gospel concretely play out in my life. (jesus you are so grool!!!). i am a lucky, loved girl. now--enjoy a little picture update of my senior year at vt :)

    our humble abode aka the knob

my beautiful, perfect roomies (ily long time)

 

blurry pic with da bestie

<3

~forever taking awkward pictures~

hokie nation am i righhhht?

thanks for reading this whole post mom (and the few other people who also read the whole thing). love y'all. love life. have a grool weekend. 

i had the time of my life fighting dragons with you.

i know i promised in my last blog that my next one (so, this current one) wouldn't be all about me and my life but i'm breaking that promise don't hate me.

this one will be hard to write. i'm in west end (dining hall at vt) writing and i might get weird looks because i might start crying but maybe not. we'll see. i'll keep you posted.

when i found out i got into tech, i was excited. i was also a little bit sad because i had also found out that i was straight up denied by uva (not even wait listed like geeze sorry i suck). i really wanted to go to uva because it was way closer to home, it had an undergrad education program, and my favorite human was there too. i only knew of one other girl in my group of friends that was considering going to tech so i texted her and she got in too! she was waiting to hear from uva and would base her decision off of that. i woke up to a text the next morning of her telling me she didn't get into uva and we decided then and there we would be roomies. we were both shy and nervous and didn't really want to leave home but knew we needed to. fast forward a couple of months on move in day. i remember opening the doors to west egg, walking up the stairs, and down the hallway to my room. i had knots in my stomach and i was suppressing an enormous amount of tears. walking down the hallway i began to look around and i. wanted. to. run. i wanted to turn around to my parents and say lets go back home i don't want to be here please please please don't leave me here. i didn't do that though. i sucked it up and held it together and put on a smile and faked excitement. when i walked my parents and sister out to their car i knew no amount of strength i had or clenching my teeth or singing rap song lyrics in my head would stop the crying (singing is a great distraction from sadness, just a tip.) i cried. they cried. i looked like a lunatic. i shut the door and caitlyn and i exchanged pitiful looks and we hear a knock on the door. i was thinking OH MOM YOU CAME BACK FOR ME YOU KNEW I WANTED TO LEAVE!! but, it was a lady handing out free bagels. i was so sad i denied the bagels (wow i'll never deny bagels again in my whole life) and shut the door. that night, cait and i watched a cinderella story. we felt helpless. we cried. caitlyn ate strawberries and nutella.

fast forward a couple months on monday nights at bible study. this changed everything for me. we drank hot chocolate and apple cider while eating big cookie and sharing about our lives. we were honest, we cried, we laughed, we skipped bible study (oops, that was me), we formed bonds, and we became best friends. this is what made college easier. we deepened our relationships with each other and with jesus. we held each other accountable. we talked about boys. some of these girls would end up being my roommates later on.

fast forward to two nights ago. i still live with cait, but we picked up some pretty grool people along the way. so now, its me, cait, meredith, logan, and megan. we all ended up in meredith's room that night and were just being silly. we laughed, told stories, laughed some more, added things to our snap chat story and punched each other (oh wait..no..that was just caitlyn when she punched me). i was sitting on the floor at one point  we were talking about "next year" and how excited we all were. i was overwhelmed with fear and sadness thinking about how this might not be my reality next year. i had tears in my eyes, ready to roll down my face, but rap music came to the rescue again. so my roomies don't know that i almost broke down and cried to them and that i came close to losing my sanity for a short time.

wow, just realized some of you might be thinking: why won't she be here next year? is she dying? the answer is no, i'm not dying and i'm not sick. i'm graduating a year early so technically it's my senior year. it's been hitting me lately that i will be a 20 year old college graduate and that freaks me out. am i rushing growing up? am i not my parents' little girl anymore? what am i going to do next year?
my plan is to attend virginia tech for grad school, getting my masters in elementary education. the application is due in a month and i am freaking out. i want this so bad, and i'm really not sure i'll get in.

i have been dealing with a lot of conflicting emotions lately. i want to graduate early, but i don't want to grow up. i want to get into grad school here so bad, but i want to go home next summer and live with my family. i want to start my life and be a grown up, but i'm not ready for that at all. i want to eat bagels for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but i want to be healthy--do ya'll see my dilemma?

basically, the point of this blog was for me to put into words how thankful i am for my time in blacksburg. this place has welcomed me, and made me fall in love when i didn't want to be here. most of all, i love the people here. thinking about leaving my roomies and the friends i have made here makes me get that same feeling i got when my parents dropped me off. for the first time in my life i feel like i have found friends that don't make me feel the need to always be my best and funniest self. just being myself is good enough for them. i'm scared of not finding that anywhere else. i know that's irrational thinking, but i can't help it. i love these people. i love this place. i'm not ready to leave quite yet. no matter what i find out in the next couple of months in regards to where i will be next year, i will always remember blacksburg as the place that made me grow in my relationship with the lord, the place that provided me with the greatest group of girls i could imagine, the place that showed me everything i am capable of.

i've found time can heal most anything.

as i'm in the last couple hours of being 19, i've done some serious reflecting on the last year. 19 was a huge year of growth for me. if i'm being honest with myself, it was the biggest year for me so far.

my birthday last year was celebrated with a heavy heart as the most influential man in my life was close to the end of his life. my grandpa passed exactly 2 weeks after my birthday. his death was hard to deal with because it was the first death that i experienced in which i was old enough to understand that he wasn't coming back.

here's what 19 at school looked like for me:

i got 3 new, awesome jobs (currently working at ALL of them)

woke up literally 7 minutes before an important final exam, panicked, and accidentally but thankfully woke my roommates up. Got driven to the exam in what i slept in, flip flops (in December), and my teeth not brushed. it was a good day.

had friends turn into best friends at VT.

started a blog (ohhhhhhh heeeeyyyyyy)

ate more cookies in this year than all previous years combined.

learned how to cook! (and by cook i mean i learned how to grill chicken and buy vegetables that you can heat up in the microwave…that totally counts as cooking)

signed a lease for the most beautiful house with the most beautiful ladies.

lots and lots of eyedrops and eye ointments.

got snowed in, with snow up to our freaking knees, with my roomies and walked to 7/11.

went to a taylor swift concert with my absolute favorite person in the world 9so basically the best day ever).

got asked to be a bridesmaid, for the first time EVER (#dukesmarriesluke)

2 days before spring finals started, i got a call from my mom. she told me she wasn't sure our family dog of 16 years would make it until i came home from school. i was devastated. that sweet girl got me through breakups, fallouts with friends, deaths in the family, and so many more things. my mom reassured me that they would wait to put her down if they could, she just wanted to warn me. my gracie girl was such a fighter, and got so much better. i gave her plenty of kisses when i first got home, knowing i could have easily might not have been able to say bye to her. 2 days into summer on may 17th, our family went out of town. we got a call from our neighbor watching the dog and they found gracie passed away in the corner next to all my things (because i hadn't unpacked yet). we came home right away. that was hard to see. watching my dad pick her lifeless body up and put her in the back of my car is a vision that i would love to forget. i hate that she was alone, and i wonder if she was scared. but she had a long, grateful life and i miss her a lot.

so now i'm here. a month ago i took the praxis core, in which i needed to pass in order to get into the grad school i want to get in to. a couple of days ago, i found out I PASSED!

oh 19, you sneaky mom. there have been very high-highs, and very low-lows. but this year was full of life. and in the end, i wouldn't change a thing. thank you, 19, for being the year that i became closer with jesus than i ever thought would be possible. sad times make you realize how much you need to be reminded that you are so loved that you're worth dying on a cross for. it's been a great year, and i can't wait for 20.

if you took the time to read this, i applaud you. because it's really just me talking all about myself which is super annoying, but that's okay. i promise my next post will probably be more interesting than this…hopefully.

thanks for an awesome time, 19.

you're the prettiest lady in the whole wide world.

happy mothers day to the best momma out there. you are a fake mom to many, and i'm so blessed you're my real mom.  you taught me many things, but the greatest thing you taught me was how to love people. you have sacrificed so much for your children and we can't ever thank you enough for that. i want to share a story about one time when i just needed my mom. nothing else could make it better, except her.

i was a senior in high school the time i needed my mom the most. we were on our way back from an away game (side note, i was a cheerleader and she was one of the coaches--second side note, no i didn't make it because of her, she wasn't even allowed to be in the room when i was trying out). I was sitting in the back with my friends and she was sitting up front. not going in to details but things happened with friends that left me feeling like a loser and left me feeling angry and hurt and so many emotions. i was a senior in high school, i wasn't supposed to feel like the odd guy out on the playground anymore, but i did and it sucked. a lot. all i could do was get up and walk to the front to sit down with my mom. she immediately knew i wasn't okay and just held me while i sobbed the whole ride home.

it's the little things like that, that only mothers can do for their children. father's can be wise and offer comfort but not like that. she carried me around in her womb for 9 months--theres something about being comforted by your mother that brings you back to simpler times.

i never told my mom how much that meant to me. so mom, just so you know that meant everything to me. it didn't matter if i was losing friends that night because you held me and just let me cry. no questions were asked. thank you thank you thank you alfie!!!

i'm so lucky to have you as my mom. i don't know what i would do without you.

don't lose the way that you dance around in your pj's getting ready for school.

i'm really growing up, and i'm not sure i like it. i'm at the beginning stages of my life where i become a real adult when friends get engaged and have babies and i have to figure out car insurance stuff without my parents' help and get shots without someone holding my hand and it sucks. lately, my thoughts have been consumed by i'm only 19 years old and i'm applying to grad school in 7 months. what the what, i am not old enough for that!!!! i still feel like i'm too young to get into rated r movies, how am i applying to grad school in october? and with these thoughts, i also have to think about hard goodbye's and nervous hello's. i can't think about not being at tech 2 years from now because i don't want to imagine having to watch my besties' lives through twitter and instagram. i don't want to think about student teaching and meeting new people and job interviews and all those adult things. i'm comfortable here.

the best part of my week is friday morning at 9:30, listening to 8 two-year-olds screaming and laughing.  i learn something new every time i leave work from these little angels--most recently they taught me that i can be loved even though i have a huge zit on my forehead.  they remind me of my childhood, and my childhood was the absolute best. i think that's why i enjoy being around kids so much, because childhood is the most beautiful and precious thing in this world. and i don't want any kid to have that stolen from them. they deserve a childhood like mine.

one filled with disney movies. and one with dr. pepper filling the fridge in the summer. they deserve a mom that is willing to drive an hour to and from practice 3 times a week just so you can be on a mediocre all-star cheerleading team. childhood deserves a dad who works really hard, but still has time to take you to the pool and throw you around in the water and tell you elaborate bedtime stories every night. these kids deserve to have a wonderful dog who, although stinky, has always been there to cry on (from bad grades, to mean girls, to break ups, to leaving for college). a wonderful childhood is  falling asleep on christmas eve in your brother's room with your siblings and giggling until you fall asleep. kids deserve a childhood filled with VHS tapes, crayola crayons, and dunkaroo's. they deserve white chicken chili waiting for them when they get home from trick-or-treating.

childhood is sacred and wonderful and i miss it a lot. but i am also excited/nervous for the upcoming things in life. whatever that may be. i'm excited for different milestones. i've noticed that i spend a lot of time either wishing for the past or hoping for the future and no time enjoying right here right now. one day, i will look back and miss this so much (even though right now i can't see why since i want to pull my hair out from stress every day). but i will miss nights like last night. i'll miss dinner at el rod's, late nights with my roomies, and the look of blacksburg in the morning. so i'm going to enjoy my life right now. my stressful, typical college life. i won't be sad about not being a kid, and i won't get impatient waiting for the future.

here's to enjoying the right now. 

also, here's a lil chunky morgs (with the most beautiful mom!!) for some enjoyment: 

this is the golden age of something good and right and real.

although i've only been studying for an hour, i'm rewarding myself with a study break of blogging. i've been learning a lot lately, for example: maybe i should start washing my hands so i don't get sick every two weeks, maybe bean and cheese burritos from taco bell aren't as healthy as i once thought, and disney soundtracks make for really good motivational running songs--just to name a few. but mainly i've been learning about words and how powerful they are.

words can make someone's day or make them feel awful for years. i just think it's so cool how different combinations of letters make different words and different combinations of words make sentences. different combinations of 26 letters can change someone's life. whether it be "will you marry me?"or, most recently for me, "he's gone". life changing. i'm a big thinker, so maybe this just blows my mind because i'm weird, but i think this is something that's very underrated. words are beautiful and powerful and wonderful. so this got me thinking--while words are all these great things, they can be detrimental in relationships and friendships and families. all to often, we rely on words to get across what we are feeling. words are for the lazy.

here's what i mean.

last week i had 2 tests and a speech all before wednesday and i woke up monday feeling incredibly sick. went to the doctor and i ended up having strep. (side note: i thought i was over that stage in my life where i got silly sicknesses like that, but nope. and it was horrible timing). so i texted all my roomies and told them i was sick and warning them to be cautious and wash their hands and all that fun stuff. when i got home from classes that day, my most favorite candy and soda (hot tamales and dr pepper in case you were wondering) in the whole world was propped on my pillow with a note from my roomie, hannah. i actually started crying because in that moment i felt so loved. she didn't just tell me she hoped i felt better, but she let me know she was thinking about me by getting me my favorite things to look forward to consuming after i was sick. i'm not saying people need to buy other people things to prove they care about them. but that whole 'actions speak louder than words' phrase has so much truth in it.

that's where i got the inspiration for what I'm giving up for lent.

 i've never been catholic, but i do believe in God's grace. lent, to me, is giving Him control so something magical can happen. so for lent this year, i'm giving up saying i love you. (i know some of you probably got excited thinking i was giving up talking in general, but too bad so sad). i can say i love you as much as i want (which is a lot), but these words have been used as a crutch for me for so long. if someone is mad at me, or sad about something, or anything--i love you. while that probably makes them feel great, i want the Lord to challenge me to show my love for others instead of just being able to say it. i don't know the statistics of my next statement, so don't quote me on this--but Jesus served his disciples and made them feel loved, he didn't just run around telling everyone he loved them. he healed people, he loved the sick and sinners, he died on the cross just so we had a choice to choose salvation. so, these next forty days will be dedicated to letting people know how much i love them by showing them. no laziness allowed. i can't take the easy way out and just say it. and i'm so excited for this challenge.

when you think taylor swift, i hope you think of me.

the title of this post is a lyric from a popular taylor song called tim mcgraw (but obviously i changed the lyrics a little bit). as i was sitting in a random building waiting for my next class, this song started playing. i had head phones in, don't worry. and it brought me back to the summer before my senior year. the summer that things with ryan and i started. the summer i will never ever forget. we started becoming good friends in april 2011. and by good friends i mean i would text him every day and he's so nice that he didn't ignore me. and by that i mean i was really annoying and persistent. he was different from anyone else i had ever known. he made me genuinely laugh and he was funny. i had finally met my match, because before this i didn't really know anyone besides myself and my dad that made me laugh so hard it hurt. yes, i make myself laugh and i tell myself jokes when i'm bored and i think its so fun. oh ryan, he was SO funny. i can't emphasize that enough. anyways, as girls often do, i started liking him. unlike anyone i have ever liked before. ever. i'm talking, changing-lyrics-to-taylor-swift-songs-in-the-car-with-my-friends-so-they-fit my-situation kind of like. [some background information here--ryan was the groolest guy in school. and i was such a freak and i was weird and goofy and my idea of fun was seeing how many cookie dough bites i could eat.] so i was definitely surprised that our friendship got really strong and i had a raging middle school girl crush on him, and maybe he liked me too? (spoiler alert, we are currently dating so hopefully he likes me)! i remember every detail of those days. i remember going to salsaritas with him before a cheer meeting and i ordered this big ole plate of nachos and when we sat down to eat i nibbled on one chip the whole time because i didn't want him to see how much of a savage i was. he asked why i wasnt eating and i told him i wasnt hungry. such a lie. he was supposed to just drop me off at my meeting and then that was it, but we wanted so badly to hang out that he waiting an hour in his car just so we could hang out longer. thats when i suspected, okay maybe he does kind of like me too? soon enough we had a talk. we told each other we liked each other in the food lion parking lot but (that stupid but) he was leaving for college on July 6th and it was already 10 days into June. We liked each other a lot, but the timing was off. we remained friends and continued to hang out the same way we did. and then camp came. we were both going to sharp top cove, a young life camp in Georgia, sometime in late june. we both were there to show others how wonderful living with Jesus is. during those 7 days i missed him so much. we were so focused on our reason there we couldn't hang out much. but one night there was a "hoe-down" type thing. and right before we had to go back to our cabin, they played one last song. and it was a slow, sweet, love song. i wish i could remember what it was but i don't. another one of my friends asked if i wanted to dance and i just stared at him and then looked at ryan. a second later ryan asked me and obviously i chose him (wow i'm such a brat). i was dying literally dying inside. i was slow dancing with ryan zinkhan!!!! so the song ended and the people running the camp were handing everyone an ice cream sandwich. as ry and i were walking back to our separate cabins he stopped me right before the bridge and said (trying not to laugh) "the way your eyes shine put these georgia stars to shame tonight--thats how it goes right?" in response to that, i took some of my ice cream sandwich and wiped i ton his face. i don't even have to explain how i was feeling but basically thats the moment i decided i couldn't let ryan go. he understood me and did things to make me happy even if it was silly. a couple days later we got back on the busses and started our way back to virginia. i had to tell ryan how i was feeling but we were on separate busses and my phone was dead. so i wrote him a note explaining to him that he's going away to school and it would be hard but there is something between us that can't be explained. i spent probably 3 hours perfecting that note and it probably had less than 70 words on it. then i spent 2 hours planning out with my friend michelle how i would give him that note. it was at a rest stop at like 4 in the morning--how romantic! we got back to fredericksburg around 7 and i had no idea how ryan reacted to the note because my phone was still dead. so i went home, plugged my phone in and fell asleep. i woke up to a text that said something along the lines of "i agree". so thats how we got here. over 2 and a half years later and i still get giddy around him. this is so cheesy, but there is something magnetic between us. when everything was working against us, we still stayed together. and i love him to pieces and love Who our relationship is about.

then:

                                                                               ice cream on his cute face

now:

inside and out, he's better than i am.

today is the day that my older brother zach foster jacobsen was born. and i can't say it was the best day of my life because i obviously wasn't born yet. what i can say though, is that no one has ever loved me the way my brother does. i began to collect videos to put this video (later in the blog) and while watching them i recognized that even at the age of 2, my brother delighted in me and was so proud of me. even though he and my older sister would see how far they could make my head bounce when my mom left the room (when i was like a month old, might i add--that explains a lot)...even though he dared me to slide down the stairs on my stomach head first in a sleeping bag and i nearly knocked out my teeth...even though he told me NOT to walk into the school with him my first day of high-school, i know that my wonderful brother loved me. i miss the old days with zach. the elementary school days. when we would fight over if we watched the wild thornberry's or sports center in the morning before getting picked up to go to school (clearly the obvious choice is wild thornberry's but sports center always won because my dad would want to watch it too). the days where we would pop a cd, usually something along the lines of "play" or "no secrets", into my super awesome purple boom box and toss a nerf ball around. it is those simple moments with my brother that i remember most. it was just me and him and in those moments, we were best friends. but then middle school came around for him and we drifted apart. he met his best friends that year and they now live together. thats another thing about zach that amazes me. he has kept the same group of friends for almost 10 years now. i guess that concept is so foreign to me because typically the friends in my life came and went and thats okay. we drifted apart in those years and i wish i could go back and hang out with him more and not be so annoying so he would want to hang out with me. but then in high school we got a little closer. he was so protective of me and i was so protective of him. i remember we were at a young life camp, summer of 2009, and it was my birthday and my friends made a huge deal about him saying happy birthday to me and giving me a hug. he was so embarrassed but he did it. i knew he loved me. later that day, i was in a pie eating contest (side note--i love eating contests). it was actual apple pie which i dont like, it wasnt just whipped cream. and i remember feeling apple pie in my nose and coming close to vommitting in front of hundreds of people but i look over and zach is there. oh zach. my proud brother who was almost jumping on the stage cheering me on telling me i could do it. he believed in me so much. and now, zach and i are closer than ever. he is legitimately the kindest, most thoughtful and peaceful person i know. any "good" words to describe someone you can think of, thats my brother. sounds so cliche, but i mean it with all of my heart. if i was even half of the person my brother is, i would be a wonderful person. a little before christmas i remember talking to him about what we were getting for the other people in our family, and trying to do something special for my grandma and he said "i don't care if i spend all my money i have, i'm going to make sure i get you all something special" and i just thought that was so nice. how many 21 year old college boys would say that?! not many. so this is a tribute to my wonderful WONDERFUL brother. zach, thank you for making me feel so protected and loved and special for all these years. i love you more than you will ever know.

watch the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG82Klo_xTQ&feature=youtu.be