i miss my brothers. but i must admit that right now it's for selfish reasons. you see i have a party to go to. fun right? wrong. i'm not much of a party person...okay so i know what some of you are thinking so let me correct that. i'm not much of a party person when i don't know the people that are going to be at the party super well. and that's what it's going to be like tomorrow. on top of that, i have to dress up. and it's supposed to be freezing tomorrow. my legs are gonna die in a dress...

you are probably wondering what this has to do with my brothers. well me being a girl, i usually don't understand how my clothing might be negatively affecting a guy. this is where my brothers come in. you see when i am at home i ask them about my outfit - is it appropriate, is the top too low, if a girl that was not related to you was wearing this would it be problematic, etc. with them not being here i only have girls to ask those questions to. i know that doesn't seem like a problem but girls don't understand guy's struggles the way that guys do so a lot of the time they ok an outfit that shouldn't be okayed (if that makes any sense at all). and asking a guy friend is just too weird, and awkward.

i don't know what i am going to do. maybe i'll just stick to an outfit i already has my brotherly stamp of approval...

i am jealous of my friend K. why? she's in love. you can tell. last time i saw her she was glowing. no joke. i didn't think that was possible, but it is. when she talks her eyes light up. it's really beautiful to see. so why am i jealous? i want it. i want to be in love with Jesus just like she is. yes, you read that correctly, she is in love with Jesus.

as i have been pondering this the last few days i couldn't help but think about parallels in a dating relationship and our relationship with God (or at least, what it should look like). when you start dating someone (and this is coming from a person with next to no experience so if i get a few things wrong, please forgive) you want to think about them all the time. you want to be with them all the time. you want to talk to them all the time. you want to talk about them all the time (much to your friend's dismay). you have this dreamy look on your face that makes you out to be some airheaded loser. but you don't care cause you are in love.

why can't our relationship with God be like that? why don't i want to think about God all the time? why don't i want to spend time with God all the time? why don't i want to talk to God all the time? why don't i want to talk about God all the time? if Jesus is supposed to be my first love, if He is my everything, then why do i treat Him like an ex-boyfriend that i am kinda friends with but not really?

i want to be like my friend K. i want to have that glow whenever i talk about Jesus. i want to have that stupid grin on my face when i realize how much i am loved by the creator of the universe. i want to be in love...with Jesus.

falling down is not something that i am good at.

perhaps i should explain. today i had the privilege to eat lunch with Holly Sheldon (one of the main speakers at Winter Conference) and some of the other staff women. i loved being at lunch and learned a lot from Holly. she is very knowledgeable and i just wanted to soak in everything she said. part way through i remember thinking that i should have taken a notebook with me so that i could write notes to remember all the tidbits of wisdom that she shared with us. there was one thing that stood out among everything else that she said.

Holly mentioned one of C.S. Lewis' books (A Horse and His Boy) and how there is an analogy that really explains the Christian life. in the story the boy, Shasta, and the horse, Bree, are planning to escape from a life of servitude. Bree asks Shasta if he knows how to ride a horse and Shasta responses that he doesn't. Bree then asks, are you willing to fall to which Shasta says sure but Bree asks, are you willing to fall and then get back up and fall and get back up and fall and get back up over and over and over and over (times infinity) again. Holly mentioned that this is what the Christian life is like. we must be willing to fall and get up over and over and over (times infinity) again.

like i said before, i am not good at falling down. in fact, i suck at it. growing up i was the good two shoes, the golden child if you will. i did (almost) everything right and excelled at pretty much everything that mattered. my parents encouraged my to be the best that i could be and i hated (actually truly despised) when i failed at anything. and failing to me was not doing it 85% well. i did not fail. at anything. until i got to university. and then i realized that i do fail. and i realized how scared i am of falling. and how i do not fall well at all because, well, i just don't fall. i don't allow myself to fail.

while some may think this is good and all, the thing is, it has caused my dependence on God to be a real rocky ride. because Lisana doesn't fail, God can't use my weaknesses to glorify His name and make me that much stronger. so He has to break me. and it's at the point where i realize that i am going to fall. and i am terrified. completely and utterly terrified. why? because i'm not good at falling and getting back up. because i haven't really had to do it before. because i know that it's going to hurt. because it means that i am not the perfect person that i think that i am deep down inside. and because it means that i need to be okay disappointing my dad. and that for me is huge. like monstrous.

the only thing that i can do right now is cry out to God. i honestly don't know where this is going to go and how i am going to get through this (actually my head tells me that God will bring me through but my heart is definitely not feeling it right now). God give me strength and give me the desire to trust You. because right now i need to want to desire to trust You. if that makes any sense at all.

right now i am sitting at registration for winter conference (east) registering students from campuses all over eastern canada. it's so exciting see familiar faces and meeting new people. i can't wait to see what God has in store for each of us at this conference.

as i sit here, i remember how i wanted all distractions kept from me this week so that i could focus on God and what He wanted to say to me. it's so crazy that i have only been at this conference for 6 hours and the devil has placed distractions in my mind. it makes me realize how much i need God and how much i need to be filled with the Spirit on a moment by moment basis.

hopefully i will have time to update my blog this week and share what God has been teaching me. we'll see. i haven't been doing the greatest job since november but hopefully i will rectify that.

i love to bake. it's one of the things that i have loved since i was in my preteens. i am not much of a cooker (although i am trying to change that) but when it comes to baking - one time i baked banana bread for dinner because i was hungry and i didn't want to cook. 'nouf said.

this weekend we (my roomie and i) were almost out of flour. we had one cup left. she went to visit her sister and saw flour for cheap and decided to buy some while telling me not to purchase any. this put me in a dilemma cause i was in a baking mood this weekend.

well she is home now (sort-of) and yes, the flour is here. what was the first thing i did when i walked in the door from work? yep, i baked. these delicious cheesy biscuits. i couldn't help myself. they're in the oven right now.

i'm not much of a picture-taker-while-baking kinda person but there are pictures where i got the recipe from. i left out the bacon cause i didn't have any. still good anyway (yes i have had them before). anyhow check out the link yourself and see.

now for clean up. ughhh the worst part about baking. if only i had a maid...

i am currently chatting with a friend (yes i know what time it is) and we are discussing why guys don't walk girls home when it is late and dark and scary outside and how we wished that they would. as i was writing this, i realized that while girls will get together and gripe about things that they wish guys did, guys probably have some things that they wished girls did/didn't do. and i want to know what those things are.

so guys out there. if you have suggestions please post/comment/inform me in some way. i'm curious.

today was a gorgeous day. made me wish that this was the coldest montreal ever got. now to brace myself for torture.