Wow God Moment!

Ok so every time I think back and reflect on this moment I get all giddy and excited so please bear with my as I attempt to share with all of you just how awesome God is!

As most of you know I am a theater teacher and work steadily in the Chicago theater scene. It has been a major blessing for me to be able to teach at a Christian school and I love every single second of it, but working in theater around the city I am usually the only Christ follower in a cast and production team full of people. It is just not the norm to have believers in the main stream theater circle most of the believers that I know that are working in the arts work for Christian companies.

So when a good friend of mine asked me to come on board his project and stage manage for him I was of course more than happy to help a friend and have another opportunity to shine Gods light and love into and onto a cast and prod. team that I was sure didn't and would not know him.

As all of the actors and production team were getting to know each other with the first week of rehearsals there came the ever so  common find me on facebook. haha. so slowly I had friend requests trickling in on my facebook page. One of those requests came from the actress playing the mother in the show. I accepted and the next day I had a cute little message from her in reference to my religious views -"I love Jesus" she said "you love Jesus,Me too! :) "  I was so excited that there was another believer here to go on this ride with me, another person here to share the love and light of Jesus!

The next day at our rehearsal we were chatting about the Christmas programs at our churches and our producer walked over and said "Are you guys believers?" We were both like yea and then found out that he is as well. My head was spinning, like I said this is not the norm. I was happy to have one more believer but to have three of us I was already in awe, but God was not done yet another one of our actors overheard Les our producer asking us what churches we went to and walked over and burst out and said are you guys Christian? Both she and I answered yes (He and Les go to  the same Church).

There are 4 Christ followers working on this production! None of  us could deny the awesome-ness of this and fact that again it is not normal to have even one believer in a cast or on a production team let alone 4. None of us could deny that God is doing something great and moving in a mighty way and that this small army of believers is no doubt going to be used for HIS GLORY! This is no accident God knew exactly what he was doing when each of us signed on to take part in this project!

I am still in awe and I am humbled and excited to see where he will be taking us over the next 2 1/2 months. God is doing something big and the fact that he is using me to do it just knocks my socks off! I am so thankful for this opportunity that he has given us to be his walking talking billboards! Please Pray for us as we take on what ever God puts before us!

Happy Thanksgiving

This year my thanksgiving plans were not the usual. I did not go home to Michigan this year due to finances, so I spent my turkey day here in Chicago with great friends. I woke up somewhat early and headed downtown to take in the Thanksgiving parade! That was great fun! After the parade I headed up north to spend the day with some great family friends!

Even though I was not able to go home and spend the time with my family I still had a great day. It was so nice to be with friends and fellowship and share. This thanksgiving holiday I had/have so many things to be thankful for.

• My Saviour! God has blessed me and my life well beyond what I deserve! I may not always get to do the things that I want to do and its rough financially but I still have a roof over my head,food in my fridge,clothes on my back and shoes on my feet. warm coats and hats to see me through these winter months. God has given me everything that I need to survive and he has also given me the most precious gift his son! Because of his son my life is secured! God is Good!

• My amazing family! They are so supportive and wonderful my momma is always there to talk me down and give me prospective when I am rambling on about things that frustrate me and annoy me,my grandmothers! they are my most amazing examples of what a good christian woman,mother and wife looks like and they are always there to encourage me! My sister she is my sunshine I love her so much and I am so very proud of her and the young lady she is becoming! LOVE all of you!

• My amazing Church family!! In this past year my church family and small group ladies and young adults group have been a major blessing! praying with me teaching me challenging me and encouraging me to be the person that God has called me to be! I love all of them so much! Because of them I have gone from having no one here in the city to hangout with and feeling so lonely in this great city full of people to having so many wonderful and amazing friends to fellowship with and call on!

This thanksgiving and this Holiday season I have so many wonderful people and things to be thankful for. I thank God for his amazing blessings and his grace and for giving me so much to thank him for! I hope all of your thanksgivings were wonderful and that you all took time to allow your heart to be grateful for what God has done in your lives this past year!

Playing catch up!

Sheesh! Talk about lack of post updates haha.It has been an overwhelming,crazy,busy past couple of months. Of course work as usual and I have started working on a new show so that takes up a lot of time, but one of the most major things that has been going on here is the accidental death of the daughter of a great friend and mentor at church. Her Daughter was standing outside her car talking to a friend when it and her were sideswiped by a vehicle. The man who hit both her and her friend ran and not only that was drunk. So needless to say it has been a rough couple of months.

The man later turned himself in and is on trial. We as a church family have been really trying to support the family in prayer,cooking and  offering services like that but we are also showing our support by attending the court dates. I was not able to attend the first one but I hope to attend the second one coming up in mid December.

We are just trying to stay prayerful for the family and show our support any way we know how! I urge all of you to keep the Rodriguez-Gamez, Cardenas family in prayer too! Thanks!

love,creativity and Alyson Stoner

Ok so I have a lot to say today which means that this post if going to just be all over the place haha. You have been forewarned, so I will continue. I love my job, I am a youth theater arts teacher here in Chicago and I really do love every second of it. I adore working with all of the fantastic students that I have and watching them grow and explore their creativity. It is my goal to start a Christian based youth performing arts company that focuses of many creative outlets such as theater,dance,vocal and instrumental music,creative writing and spoken word just to name a few with Christ and christian values at the center of it all, promoting love and respect for your self and each other while exploring as many creative avenues as you can!

With that being said in my attempt to keep this post flowing in a some what fluid manner there is a young lady who is an Actress/dancer/singer who made a name for herself early starring as a dancer in numerous missy elliot videos and went on to work with artists like Eminem and outkast in videos as well as live events. She later went on to work on the super fun films cheaper by the dozen 1 and 2, and has more recently gained popularity starring in those fun and spunky Disney channel originals camp rock 1 and 2 and as the voice of Isabella in the totally infectious Phineas and Ferb (which I totally love watching btw). By now your probably thinking so how exactly is this flowing fluidly, well here it is. Of course my students absolutely love her, and I try to make it a point to check out all of the stuff that they are talking about and all of the things that they are interested in so that I can 1. engage in conversation with them about things that they care about and 2. I can be aware of things that are appropriate and things that are not. so of course I had to watch that catchy camp rock 2 and one day I just decided to totally google some of the young stars and Alyson was one of them.

My google results bought up Alyson's website and blog I decided to take a little looksey. What I found was amazing and refreshing. This young lady is so intelligent and articulate and has so much integrity,class and heart!  I was just blown away! As I read further into the post and read some earlier entries she had written I just wanted to cry. This girl has such a beautiful and gentle spirit, she is full of love and respect for herself and others! One post that she had written really spoke to me.She was talking to young girls about respecting their bodies, purity,and modesty. I just was sobbing reading it because it was so honest and heartfelt and it touched my heart to know that this young girl was putting herself out there and trying to let other young ladies know that love is patient and respectful and you don't need to engage in those acts to show your love to a boyfriend! Working with alot of young girls I am always trying to speak to them in love about respecting their bodies, making good choices when it comes to boys and relationships, and speaking to them about remaining pure without over stepping my boundaries.

I just want to share a little snippet of the post with you just so that you can get a glimpse her sweet and loving spirit:

"True love is patient and respectful; it aims to preserve the wholeness and innocence of those involved. I’m going to be bold here and stand for self-respect. This Valentine’s Day 2010, remember just how precious you are ladies......   Be wise, my sistas! Keep it clean and brand new. Like anything, once it’s used, the value depreciates. Preserve yourself and you’ll become the girl that every guy wishes he could have. Though you may hurt his ego by not giving in tomorrow, later on, he’ll have mad respect for you. And if he doesn’t, do you really want to be with a guy like that, anyway?I believe in you and I’m standing with you for respect. You got it, girl!"
-Alyson Stoner

Ahhhh I love it! I just get all teary every time I read this because it's something that I can integrate into conversations when the opportunity arises and my young ladies will really stop to listen because its not just coming from me now haha its also coming from someone that they "look up" to and aspire to be like. So thank you Alyson Stoner. You are a beautiful young woman with a beautiful spirit, and I am so glad that God is using you to be a bright light in a dark world!!! Ok my ramblings have come to an end. Even though I still have much to say on the subject my tummy is quite hungry haha. To learn more about the lovley Alyson Stoner go here.
 
Lots of Love,
 

The soundtack of our lives

Those of you that know me well know that I dont really listet ito alot of radio. It makes me angry because they just play the same things over and over again and the majority of it it just absolute garbbage to me.A lot of it is just this factory made insta hit no heart stuff. I have those few songs that I really like, those few guilty pleasures if you will haha but for the most part I really do not enjoy whats on the radio these days.

With that being said I have always enjoyed the great talent singer JoJo has, and recently I came across a free download for her new mixtape that she recently recorded.Let me just say it is amazing and I just can not stop listening haha.

This mixtape showcases her undeniable talent of course but it also shows just how much she has grown as a woman,an individual and as an artist. It is so great to listen to this mixtape and hear her as an idividual as a young woman to hear her her thoughts,her heart!

Here is just a little taste of what you can expect if you go and download JoJo's mixtape!!




You know you want to get this mixtape, so you can rock out!!Just do it haha!



Lots of love-

Hail to the Victors!

It's that time of year again, that special time that causes even the best of friends to go up against each other... Football season!! Let me tell you I could not be more excited that my wonderful boys in Maize and Blue the mighty Michigan Wolverines are back on the football field!!!

I am just overcome with joy haha. May I just say that even though we are just about 2 1/2 weeks into the season we are already lighting up the field. As always we have some fantastic talent on this football team. The name that you will be hearing the most this season though is probably that of our QB Denard Robinson. I can't even put into words just how amazing this young man is on the field but I can show you :)



It is going to be one great season to watch!!! What teams will you be following this season? Both college and NFL.

fall is just around the corner

Well as usual its been a busy and crazy couple of weeks! The show is over now it went pretty well there were some bumps in the road but we got through them and moved on.

Now Its back to school, we have been back for two weeks but I have only been back for about a week. We have a lot of new students and of course we have returning students!I am praying for a great year full of fun and great kids! I am grateful for this long weekend though haha.

For this Labor Day Holiday I am planning on keeping it pretty low key. I am planning on going to a friends house for a bit and the meeting some other friends from church at the lake front to bbq and just hang out and enjoy the last bits of summer. Before you know it it will be October and we will be well into fall.

After summer fall is my favorite season I love the crisp temps where you can wear a sweatshirt or a light jacket and a cute scarf, if only winter didn't have to be right on its heels lol. Of course my favorite thing about fall is the fact that football season has arrived! GO BLUE!!! The Michigan Wolverines had their first game this past Saturday and we whooped some uconn booty! I am hoping that this season is a good one for my wolverines. The last two seasons have been ick! HAIL TO THE VICTORS!!! HAHA.

I hope you all have a great Labor Day and enjoy your day off!