It's the morning of my 23rd birthday, and I'm already overwhelmed with love. I have a whole week's worth of celebrating planned (starting tonight with ALL of my family... this is a miracle! It's hard with jobs and all to have a night where everyone is free...and the fact that it falls on my actual birthday is even crazier... we have a tendency to celebrate things on days other than the day itself!) and I'm already just blown away by the texts, fb birthdays (lol!), and more...

Words are powerful y'all. What you say and speak into people's lives can and will change their day! All of the encouragement and love is just healing to my spirit and refreshing.

Life is so beautiful and I am sitting here thanking the Lord for His grace and mercy and getting me to this point. Last night I was out to eat with my best friend and the girls next to us were talking about sleeping with different guys and everything and I just thought to myself "God thank you...thank you for sparing me from a life of that and for the fact that there is more to what I'm after right now than that." it really is only the Lord... I'm telling you, when you give Him your life it won't be easy, but it will spare you from pain and heartache that the world can only offer. i'm just sitting here, 23 years old, and wondering how i got here. even with the Lord, it's just so crazy that He has allowed me the opportunities and stuff He has. blessed.

In other news, I keep having these nightmares and it's pretty awful. I had three separate nightmares on Saturday night, finally waking up after the 3rd one around 7am and staying awake. I had two last night too. Horrible things...details and involving people I love. I'm really asking God to give me peaceful sleep because I don't EVER sleep through the night/well at all anymore.

He's good. Today's good.