Digging Deeper (part:1)

A few short weeks ago I finished reading Crazy Love.

It really resonated with me and I have decided to share some of the thoughts I had.

----

God is in love with you.

You say, “Duh, I know that.”

Do you, though?

He is SO in love with you.

We don’t deserve it. We are people filled with sin and evil. That’s what is crazy about it! He has this deep, radical love for us even when we turn away.

I was reading through Psalm 18 recently when I stumbled across this verse:

“He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.”

I re-read it. I highlighted it. I wrote “He delights in me!” beside it. I read it to my roommate. I prayed to Him in complete awe.

He delights in us! And all He wants is for us to have the same crazy, radical, consuming love for Him! He wants us to delight in Him!

It’s crazy. It’s absolutely nuts, this love that God has for us.

The God who created algebra and giraffes, Hawaii and Dr. Pepper, loves you. Oh how He loves you.

My fear is that I won’t look to Him with fresh eyes every morning; my fear is that His love for me will one day feel common, ordinary.

This week I encourage you to pray that God will help you to see Him with a fresh heart. Pray that He will help you to never lose sight of the crazy love He has for you. Pray that you can be filled with the same love for Him.

There is nothing ordinary about this love—it’s Crazy.

Can I Get A Decade Check?

I was walking to the caf today to meet my roommate for lunch, minding my own business, when I heard a low rumbling noise behind me.

I swerved to the edge of the sidewalk in just enough time for a girl on rollerblades to whiz by me.

I did a double-take.

Rollerblades?

Yes, for the love of all things 1999, she was rollerblading to class.

I pulled out my iPhone and typed up a quick tweet:

“People who rollerblade on campus.”

That’s all I said.

Self-explanatory.

#weird

Bless my sweet roommate who gets my tweets to her phone.

As soon as I opened the door to the caf foyer, there my roommate was, reading my tweet and laughing.

“Dude,” I said. “I just saw a girl rollerblading.”

My roommates eyes swelled.

Then she gestured behind me.

Girl with her rollerblades was standing right behind me.

Foot in mouth.

April Showers Bring Tornadoes.

It’s a mess.

My precious hometown—population 2,106—is a mess.

An EF-3 tornado ripped through my tiny community last night and left disaster and grief in its wake.

Pavement is scoured, trees are uprooted, and homes are destroyed. People are lost, people are trapped, and people have lost their lives.

This morning I made the very solemn 45-minute drive home from college. I could see evidence of damage very early—ripped up highway signs and tree limbs scattered.

That’s when the tears started.

What would I find?

Were the rumors true—that the high school field-house was destroyed? My old high school field-house?

Was Keith’s gas station really gone?

I couldn’t help but cry. My lifetime memories are wrapped up into this small town, and it is everything I know. I love it. I love my sweet town. I love the people and the sense of family.

When I finally made it into town, the National Guard was controlling the one traffic light in town. They were only allowing residents and volunteers onto Main Street.

What I saw a mile into town took my breath away.

Yes, the disaster took my breath away. It’s shocking and surreal, and my town doesn’t even look the same.

But that wasn’t it. It was the way people were responding.

Neighbors were helping each other. There were hundreds of volunteers everywhere. People were driving down the streets with water, clothes and food, ready and willing to give all they could.

Shelters were set up and gracious people were opening their homes to people who had lost everything.

And that’s what took my breath away.

People rolled up their sleeves and said “Yes, there’s been a disaster. Where can I help? What can I do? What do you need?”

Food? Got it.

Water? Got it.

That tree out of your house? Let me get the chainsaw.

My memories aren’t in the town. I don’t love the geographic area.

I love the the giving, praying, loving community.

Home, we will get through this.

Let’s get to work.

View Full Album

Follow Jesus

Canadian Cupcakes

Did I ever tell you about my dream of opening a cupcake shop?

Surely I did. It is pretty high up on my list of the 66 billion things that I want to do.

I seriously have too many interests and hobbies. Running, photography, writing, baking, hiking…

I’m getting off track.

Cupcakes!

And what do I love as much as cupcakes? The girls I went to Canada with for spring break.

This past weekend we had a sleepover and decorated cupcakes.

 

Then we ate our weight in hummus, pita chips and yes, those cupcakes.

Talk about a perfect night in Autumn’s World.

Dressing To The Nines

Friday night found me at the swanky Arkansas Arts Center for our annual Iota Chi spring formal.

Good gravy on biscuits, I love formals.

The dresses, the fancy dinner, the dates; girls eat that stuff up.

This formal was no exception. I had a cute dress

…and a very awesome date.

Don’t even get me started on the chocolate cake we had for dessert. Seriously, don’t ask about it, because then I am going to want some. But it was good. There, that’s all I’m saying about it.

Of course, friends make formals all the more fun. Especially if you have awkward friends like I do.

 

Then we went to an after-party and got really drunk.

I’m kidding obviously. What do you take me for? Some state school student?

Psh, no. Us private school kids got TCBY and then went to the movies.

It really was a lovely evening.

On Embarrassment at Formal

“Why won’t you tell him what your blog is?”

The million dollar question of formal night.

“Because I’m embarrassed.”

Look, don’t ask me why I’m embarrassed because I don’t know. I get flustered whenever this blog is brought up.

It’s not you, it’s me.

I’ll say it again my precious little reader, it’s not you. It’s definitely some sort of chemical imbalance in my brain.

I would have been glad to eat my chicken and mashed potatoes without ever talking about this place.

Then someone (Barrett) said, “It’s aldtalks.blogspot.com” and I wanted to die. Roll me under a truck. Set me on fire.

And feelings of death usually put me into defensive mode, so I said “No it’s not. What does ‘ald’ even mean?”

Not the most solid argument I’ve ever made because then at least three people said “Autumn Lindsay Dixon” and somehow I still defended that aldtalks.blogspot.com was not my blog by saying, “That’s not my name.”

Since I detrimentally failed to convince anyone that that was not my blog, Ali said “My mom loves your blog! She talks about it all the time!”

I let it go then. Cool, people read my blog. Isn’t that why I have it?

Some part of me believes that you want to hear about tornadoes in Arkansas and my obsession with Utah, so I keep writing. And you keep reading.

That’s nothing to be embarrassed about.

…right?

Inland Hurricanes

Well Autumn got off to a late start this morning.

Not to blame the weather, but howling winds, thunder and rain interrupted my REM sleep in the wee hours of the morning. And I need my beauty sleep. I work hard for this face, people.

I looked out the window and saw what appeared to be a hurricane. It was actually tornadoes, no big deal.

After listening to the radio for an hour and eventually hearing that we were no longer under tornado watch, I went back to sleep.

Then I got the blessed call, voice-mail and text message from Public Safety saying that due to a power outage, chapel was canceled.

And then emails saying that all of my classes were cancelled.

Why?

Dude.

A Post About Posts

Man, I am feeling uninspired.

My best writing comes from times of sheer embarrassment and well, I have been fairly normal lately.

Lame, I know. What in the world am I supposed to write about?

I can’t write a post about being uninspired. That would just be lame.

Can I use the word ‘lame’ more than once in a post?

If your answer is yes, here, have a cookie.

If your answer is no, you’re lame.

See what I did there?

I could keep writing about Canada because there are two days I haven’t documented, but I was getting bored with it. How many different ways can you say “it was cold” and “I worked at a homeless shelter” without things getting redundant?

And sure, I could write about how I changed my major to Child Life but then you would probably comment and say, “how many times are you going to change your major?!”

To which I would reply “probably five” because Child Life is the fifth and (hopefully) last.

You can’t expect any less from this ENFP.

I wanted to write about Crazy Love- how it was a spiritual workout for me and something I needed, something that was life-changing.

The words weren’t coming, though. Thoughts and ideas were stewing in my mind but they will remain in my Unpublished Posts folder with several other unfinished works of art.

Hmm, let me think. What else could I write about?

The bag of trail mix my roommate and I downed in two days; how I take prenatal vitamins; an awesome purple pen I found in the hall on second floor; how I’m going to Florida in 66 days; how much I love smoothies; Mormons.

The angelic music of Coldplay?

How I’ve lost 20 pounds?

Do you want me to write about the Taylor Swift concert tickets I bought Thursday?

Wow this is getting wordy.

I better wrap this up.

I still don’t know what to write about.

Lame.

A Tots Life

Did I mention that we took Octo-tot to Canada?

He’s our half tater-tot, half octopus pet that lives on the dashboard of Brette’s car.

Which he likes, but who doesn’t want to go to Canada?

Here are a few of his favorite memories:

(right) Inspiration to tots everywhere. (left) Slots in Vegas airport.

Octo-tot flying Southwest. He loved the view of the Grand Canyon!

Checking his Facebook in the airport.

His very first hockey game!

He loved walking the cold and dangerous streets of Vancouver.

He doesn’t even look like a tourist, does he?

Total natural.

Adventurous Hearts {Canada: Day Five}

Thursday, March 17th

Thursday was our free day and we made the most of it! We woke up early, donned ski clothes and drove to Cypress Mountain to snow tube.

It was a blast! Most people are laying on the beach on spring break, but not us. We were in the snow and loving every minute.

After two hours of snow tubing, we drove down the mountain to Granville Island, a market place with lots of shops.

Our next stop was Jericho Park, which was right on the ocean and had an amazing view of the mountains and city!

What is touring Vancouver if you don’t stop at the 2010 Olympic torch?

By then we were tired and the sun was setting. We went to Stanley Park, sat on rocks right on the Pacific Ocean and watched the sky get dark.

Incredible.