This is me trying to put a pot roast in the microwave.

I've always been a person the rushed through everything. I've lived 27 years like this: I wake up throw what ever is clean on, brush my teeth, stare at my hair and think its okay i'll wear a hat. When mowing the lawn i run everything over, i never clear out the lawn or even bother looking. I drive fast and if it fits in the microwave then i nook it! A dear friend sat me down recently and said you go so fast you don't enjoy your life....

I know Im a million miles an hour. I can design a site, listen to music, all while making dinner, washing clothes, talking on the cell phone, and as i'm running through my day I don't enjoy it. Im constantly waiting to live my life. I'm waiting for the next big thing. The next season....that one season i've been waiting for for 10 years.

And a bout a month ago I just stopped running things over. I just stopped. I woke up on my 28th birthday and I looked in the mirror and thought what have I been waiting on. I spent my birthday at The Shine Conference and just felt like all that i had been running over and rushing through were life lessons, character builders i missed. So i just stopped trying to do it all. And I gave it back to God. Here...i don't want it anymore unless your in it. So be it.....life please begin.

I stopped asking, and wondering and just sat still. I just sat still.
And everday God just started to show me, move me, I'd hear watch that, speak these words...

i've been an emotional head case ever since.

So i sit here 28 and exactly where im supposed to be. Hanging off a cliff, with nothing attached ready too jump. No agenda, dreams given back to the one who gave them to me and ready for whatever is next....

humbled.

I'm ready now.........


-chari

Life is too short to live halfway!

“Let us be about setting high standards for life, love, creativity, and wisdom. If our expectations in these areas are low, we are not likely to experience wellness. Setting high standards makes every day and every decade worth looking forward to.”

-Greg Anderson

There are things in my life I have failed at....whether it was a friendship, job, or a goal I set for myself....if I failed it was because I gave up, fell asleep, lost interest, or it was removed from me....never because I lacked the ability or know how. If anything I have always been very goal oriented, and even though I've always been a bit disorganized...its a controlled chaos... :) ....but too many times in my life people have said that, "I shouldn't set my standards, goals, or ideology on other people". I was even told my standards were too high....

The Bible says to be "Imitators of God" and if i'm chasing that goal shouldn't my standards be reaching as well? I am supposed to try to be the best wife to my husband, and the best daughter, the best guitar player, I am supposed to try!! Its what God placed in our DNA to do things in excellence unto the Lord!!! UUUUGGGGHHHHH!!!!

I know I have failed...in so many areas...but what's wrong with chasing excellence and making sure the circle you influence desires excellence as well. I am the queen of acquaintances and my true inner circle is very few.....but even with that I pray that whoever you are that you see that life is to short to live halfway!! Too Short to Live halfway!!!

I won't apologize for chasing things i may never catch...i'd rather live this life knowing i tried, i fell, i conquered, i loved and lost! So in everything i do I try.....to be on time, ready to go, and ready to be who God has called me to be....in excellence, with fervor, and covered by Grace....by grace.

-chari

"Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children"
Ephesians 5:1

the Unexamined life is not worth living...

Socrates said...."the Unexamined life is not worth living..." ..i find this quote to be so true and it has become something i try to live by...always searching my heart for the right motives and making sure more than anything i am positive influence to those in my circle...those who are moments and those who watch me from a far.

I've spent most of my days feeling misunderstood...and sadly most of those days I rarely examined my motives or the why behind the what...And now i spend my days in a constant wonder, "am i making the right choice, what is my motivation.......I just want my students to feel inspired..those who hear my music to feel there soul lifted, and mostly those who know me to know 2 things....1. i love God more than anything else..and 2. that my influence be a positive one..

the bottom photo is a collage of some my amazing students who are my inspiration, my heart, and my motivation to constantly search myself...

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
Psalms 139:23



-Chari

The women in my life.....

I'm 27. A wife of almost 5 years (feb 14th) and i can truthfully say the most influential woman in my life up to about a year ago was my amazing mother. I say she is amazing because when i was little i was very sick and she never gave up hope i would be healed. And when we were young and had no money and our car had no heater as we drove to school in the Michigan winter she would sing us songs so we would forget how hungry and cold we were....my mother is amazing....a dreamer to the core.

But about a year ago i found myself in a very unfamiliar place where i felt quite alone and uncertain about my future or whether the calling i knew God has placed upon my life was ever really going to happen. In this year i was literally stripped of everything i ever thought i was and i felt the most forsaken. It's to date the darkest moments of my life, i won't elaborate... i'm not in a place where i feel led to share about those moments....i'll just say i'm grateful to be looking back and seeing how God brought me out of it. Maybe one day ill share that....i'm just not there yet....

But today as i sit drinking my starbucks in the empty kitchen of my home church i find myself thinking of the women God has placed before me this past year. The women God placed in my life in this season so i wouldn't feel like i was alone or walking this life with no direction or examples. So i want to take this opportunity to tell you (whoever you might me) who these amazing lighthouses for me are. They are in no particular order.....

Melissa Johnson:
This is a person who never lets me get away with anything. I mean i try, i won't lie. But she just calls me out on EVERYTHING, and in the greatest way.....with love. She is my reminder that the dream is possible and the tears are totally worth it.



Linda Riddle:
Ever had someone in your life who just see's past your BS? Linda is my BS meter. She will just say something to me, speak into my life in such a way and it always seems to just pierce my heart and always end up making me feeling like OMG she knows!? I want to be like the Jesus in Linda. She is the coolest person i have ever met and in the lonliest moments of the last year, God used her to harass me via email....and every time i would read her emails i would just cry and be like man if she only knew how screwed up i was..and alone i felt...every time i see her i just want to hug her and be like, " you helped save me....and you don't even know it!".... and then i'd cry like an idiot...cus i've become a crier in secret .....shhhh don't tell.

Pastor Kerri:
This woman is kind of my hero. Even though i feel like every time i have any kind of moment with her i totally make myself look like an IDIOT she always smiles and makes me feel important. And during the year where i spent trying to hide from church...and when i actually came but just tried to be invisible..she would stop me and say "we've missed you", or "where ya been?"...and when i finally dragged myself totally broken back to church, her words were always encouraging and made me want to be a better person & a better wife. She will always be my reminder that
1. God entrusted me with his call
2. Empowered me with the strength to persevere through the storm
3. Chose me even though i am unworthy of it all
4. and more than anything that he looks upon me and calls me Beloved.

Thank you Pastor Kerri...you just wrote the title track to my upcoming album....


Heather Lester:
One day when i become a mother i hope that i can be a mother like heather. Her kids are amazing and she is so awesome. And more than anything she understands me. I can tell heather anything and she just understands my heart. And that is so rare to find.




My LindseyStar:
The only person besides my beautiful husband.....who really knows who i am. She knows me. She knows the worst parts and the best parts. She knows my songs, and is able to see through my tears and understands my ramblings, and incoherent thoughts. She is my dearest friend and one day the godmother to my children. Her songs make me cry and want to leave my heart on the altar. And in my darkest moments i would think of her and how she survived things no one should be able to survive and she still worships God in Spirit and in truth. She's my LindseyStar, my lighthouse, and if i were Jonathan she would be my David.



And so i guess i'll leave this blog saying i'm grateful. I'm, grateful for my husband who puts up with me and always makes me feel beautiful even though im constantly saying...i need to loose weight. I'm thankful for my family...who even though they're totally nuts they've helped shape who i am. I amazed God gave me these women to help mold me in this moment in my life and im thankful this fasting season im not fasting from the church, but for the first time im becoming part of the body Christ in a way i never new possible.


-Chari
"every bone in my body, Lord it cries Holy. every thread of my being, Lord it cries, Holy!"

My hands look old....

My hands look old. I am not generally an "old person", i'm only 27....

But last night i looked at my hands and just thought "wow, my hands look old".

Life has been at times very difficult and other times life has been like a sunny day,

but lately i believe my hands reflect the last season or year of my life...

One of my goals for the next 21 days is to read more. Whether my Bible, or one of my books collecting dust....just to read. Today I read Ephesians, and Ephesians 4 moved me....."Live a life worthy of your calling" it said...

Live my life worthy of my calling....wow....I pray for that. I hope for that.  I look at my hands and I wondered have these hands played my guitar worthy of my calling. Has my voice sang or said words worthy of my calling.....

I hope so. I really hope so.

Anne Hathaway: My Silent Protest

Oh Anne!!


Washington Post Report on the issue

So i love Anne Hathaway....seen almost all her movies and well i am a fan. But what just drives me mad are celebrities who do or say things that if the normal person did or say then they would be deemed as wrong or not politically correct.

So Anne is a Big Obama Fan like most of the Country....and that's fine....but she has issues with the person he chose to be his "clergy rep" at the inauguration, Rick Warren. Ok Of course he is against gay marriage he is a Christian....doesn't take a brain scientist to know that! Well.. Miss hathaway is going to wear a red bow on the inauguration day in silent protest against Rick Warren! Okay I get it her brother is gay...But Rick Warren isn't bashing homosexuals he just has a system of beliefs that are contrary to many people that are not Christians.....

Dude! Come On...It's Ridiculous! Why doesn't she wear a ribbon to protest the war on terror, or the fight going on between Gaza and Israel or Abortion.....there are so many things she could put her talents into then wearing a stupid ribbon to protest Rick Warren....If Tom Cruise was the person picked to pray would she where an alien costume reppin' Xanu or Scientology.....How bout if Obama was a Mormon, would she rock Holy Underwear in Protest??? NOPE prolly not....

UUUUhhhhhh! I wish people just would start thinking for themselves and stop looking at hollywood for their moral code!

Ridiculous.

Eh...? huh...no...what! (inappropriate moment #4,675,987!)

Yea...so every Thursday i have lunch/hang out time with my dear friends Mel, and Lin*! And today was no different...We went to our place and within seconds i do what i normally do when I am faced with an awkward moment...i embarrass myself and those around. As we walk in Mel immediately starts reading the menu board.....and lin quietly awaits the hostess....As for me i spot her coming towards us with a white shirt and red polka dots that seem to be trying to escape from her bra! And instead of acting like an adult I burst into laughter and turn my face so i won't like just be staring at her crazy get-up.....Mel notices and just starts mumbling...and trying to keep her composure and she blurts out "mmmmmm biscuits!?" And the poor girl says "you guys are laughing at me, yea my bra is showing"...and Lin with the most serious face and amazing composure says, "no! Wha? no not at all!" The girl actually believed her and went on her way....


Forget that the moments continued through out lunch and even as we went to starbucks...

I need to remedy the fact that my reactions tho honest, are usually quite inappropriate and wrong...most of the time they are wrong. Jesus must really love me because i am a mess..just a mess....well...i will be adding this to my fasting list!