Dear Jill,

Why are you living for there when you know about here?

                                                                        -God

hello September

NOTE: I love my planner.

As this month so quickly arrived I have realized something about September: this month can make ya or break ya. It means summer is finally over. For some of us that meant we had to say goodbye to friends or family. Maybe your summer was the best yet. For some people it was full of nights you can't remember and moments you wish you could forget. But either way, it was a specific season in each of our lives and things are changing. Now, during this month, is when you'll decide to change along with the season or stay the way you've always been. For me, summer taught me a lot of things this year. I saw God in ways I never thought I would and I acquired a passion for an island 5,000 miles away. I realized how precious true friends are! I saw some people my age lay down their pride and accept His gift of salvation...leading me to truly know what it means to say, "I'll become even more undignified than this, some may say it's foolishness. I'll become even more undignified than this, leave my pride by my side," while dancing like Sandra Bullock in 'The Proposal' (ok, not JUST like that. but you get the idea). This was definitely a summer I'll never forget. [if you wanna know more about it all just browse through some older posts...you won't be disappointed!]
But all of that can be reduced to nothing if during this month I choose not to apply it or remember it. I've already gotten so caught up in going to work and school every day that those things that became so important and precious to me this summer have been forgotten. September is wonderful, and I am thankful it is here. But it offers me the option to settle. It makes the mundane look appealing. It threatens to make every victorious and life changing moment of the summer fade. It tempts me to give up on love and running...two things I need the most. So I am fighting every morning to keep September from taking all of those things from me. I am determined to fuel my passions and to not stop seeking until I find. I will take moments of each day to remember the moments when He came through and I saw Him so clearly. When all I wanna do is the easy thing, I will choose to do the hard thing. And no matter what, no matter how tired or frustrated or weak I get, I will not let September steal my summer.