When Senior Year Got Involved...

  Senior Year Jitters

     Hey guys! :) Here I am with the next bit to this story, ready to hear this? This takes my the whole music project up to the next level of scary...

     I go to an on line project-based school called Edvisons. How it works? You get school credit by doing projects of things you love! Like... Once my friend and I presented a project on making a music video. That's right, we got to make a music video together, had loads of fun, and got to log time for it! This school rocks, but that's not what I'm talking about here. 

     A "Senior Project" is required for graduation at this school. It has it's own set of fancy shmancy rules along with regular project rules, and you have to have at least 300 hours logged for it by the end of the school year. It has to be big and (preferably) original, and you have to do a 20 minute presentation in front of a lot of people the spring of your senior year. In case you don't already know, I'm a senior this year... so yeah, yikes. 

  The Realization

     I first realized that my senior project might collide with my album when I watched my friend's senior presentation last spring. Wow, that's all I have to say. She did an amazing job, and I'm SO proud of her, but I realized... a senior project is bigger than I had been anticipating apparently. Meaning... I'm gonna have some serious work to do! This could majorly collide with my album... Which would mean that neither of them would turn out the way I wanted.

     I talked to my mom, and she wanted me to use my CD as my senior project. I thought she was crazy. I love her to death but she has no idea how scary it is to sing on a stage, let alone sing songs that you wrote! Telling my school, my teachers, everyone about it and showing them evidence (the CD, eventually...) was a horrifying thought. I'm starting to own up to the fact that I'm a big fat chicken about most things... even though I'm always talking about going on adventures and doing scary things, if it came down to it I can almost promise you I'd chicken out. The friend I was dragging to the roller coaster would have to drag me on. 

That's it, I'm getting brownies.     

     No really. I can't stand this craving anymore. 

oooh! dark chocolate... :D

mixy! mixy!

poury! poury!

  ohh my gosh I can't wait! I'm not even supposed to eat gluten, so hehe........ rebel midnight snacker. ;) ;) ;) Also I'm listening to Jingle Bells, just so you know. ;)

...It is obviously wayyy to late for me to be blogging publicly... I have a feeling I'm going to regret this in the morning. Don't worry mothers, I don't get deathly ill from gluten, it just isn't the best for me. ;) I'll let you know in about 28 minutes how they turn out!!!

     Where Were We?

     I'm sorry guys, I have an unhealthy addiction to brownies. Anyway! So I kept on thinking about doing music as my senior project, and the more I thought, the more and more terrified I was. I talked to my best gals about it, and they both said things like "I believe in you honey" and "If this is what God wants for you then you can totally do it!" you know, best-friendy stuff that best friends say. I was still scared. I was so scared that I didn't even talk to my dad about it until much much later. I knew he would say we could do it, and I wasn't sure that we could...

     I talked to Larry, my advisor for my school, and told him everything I was worried about. If I went into all the details right now of why we were so concerned it wasn't going to work out, this blog post would be even longer; and it's not even half over and already I'm feeling like I've talked forever. Someday I'll explain a little more, but for now, just know that we had a list. 

Anxiety.

     

     One of my biggest problems was the unbelievable amount of anxiety I was going through in all of this. After I first said yes to my dad, I walked around the house in a trance-like terror for days. I didn't want to eat, I didn't want to sing, I didn't want to listen to my favorite music artists much because the thought that I could end up as big as they were freaked me out too badly, I would have moments where I would breath hard and think "I'm crazy, I can't believe how terrified I am. I can't even think straight!" I didn't want to practice my guitar either, I was just a mess, and it went on for about three straight weeks until I finally came to a place where I could trust God, and say that if He brought me to it He would bring me through it. I knew that, until He actually brought me to a stage anyway, I would be okay.

     I still didn't sing as loudly as I used to, or practice guitar at all. It was like the deal I made with my dad- 

AH! BROWNIES! brb guys. This is an emergency. Yay! they're beautiful and I'm letting them cool for another 15 minutes or so, even though I desperately want to stick a fork in right now and have-at-it. Ugh. The struggle.

     As I was saying, it was like the deal I made with my dad ended up turning me off all the things I should've been aspiring toward. Not the ideal way to start making a CD, I know. 

     I told Larry that if I tried to make this even bigger and turn it into my senior project, I was worried my zombie-like self would come back and I wouldn't want to do anything for the project. He said that there were ways to get through anxiety, to think about it and talk to someone I trusted... 

Thank God for Youth Pastors!

     Jill, my youth director, is an amazing gift from God, she really is. I asked her to meet with me, and we talked about my fears. I asked her "If I'm so scared to do this, couldn't that be God's way of telling me not to?"

     I don't know what I'd be doing right now if she hadn't said the following verse to me, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be blogging about brownies and cold feet... 

 

     God does not make us timid and scared, he gives a spirit of power! Of love, and of a sound mind. Not a mind that is running around, unsure about everything and worry-some. So if this spirit of fear wasn't coming from God, and it was stronger than any fear I'd ever had before, well... Do I even have to ask myself who it's coming from?

     Then Things Turned Upward.  

     Oh I was mad, and embarrassed, that I had let the devil play me like a -

AH! YEAH! BROWNIES! hehe hang on. ;)okay, life is good now that I have half the pan in my bowl. the other two gone my brother took. what a hog.

           Anyway, I was pretty upset, but also, ready to fight him back. 

 The "I Am" pages

When I went home I did something I think was long long over due. I made "I Am" pages. They're something I made up that I strongly encourage you to do! It's so much more uplifting than making a list of good things about you that you come up with by yourself. Believe me, I've done that a hundred times, and having the encouragement come directly from the God of the universe means a lot more than having it come from you. 

     I googled some verses, and went a little crazy on these two pieces of notebook paper, underlining and using words in passages of the bible to describe who I was, through Him. Check it out:

 

 

These seriously felt awesome. When I was done, I read them over and over, realizing that if God said all these things about me, they must be true! I went right to my dad's office. Ready to do this thing. or, to at least think about it. ;) 

The Analogy That Made Up My Mind.

     I was going to be honest, I was going to just tell him the whole truth, I decided, as I sat down on the black carpeted steps across from his chair. With a beating heart, I began to tell him exactly what was going on, and all about my anxiety the past few months. 

     After he heard about the fear I had, even before I told him about the verse Jill shared with me, he started talking.

     What he had to say is what truly made up my mind. He said "Fear is the dark room the devil takes you into to develop your negatives."

     After a short lesson in old-fashioned film development, and finding out that film before it's developed is called negatives, he proceeded to say some pretty great stuff. So if I haven't lost you yet (I promise to make sure this is my longest post! I'm sorry!) please finish, I promise this is my last section before I wrap it up. 

     "Satan traps you in this dark room of fear, so you're stuck in the dark, and you don't know it, but the more fear you have, the more negative things about yourself will be developed." he started. "He takes every little thing about you, that freckle, that extra few inches, just anything you can possibly think of that could be negative about yourself and developed it more and more, until you're engulfed in your own fear and judgment."

 My eyes were widening, this was better than any analogy I had ever come up with. 

"But, my Arianna," he said, grabbing my eye contact again, "you don't have to fight him, you don't have to dodge the things he's throwing into your path as he desperately tries to stop you, you only have to open the door, and let in the light. And what is the Light?"

     Everything was clear now. God/Jesus/ His word is obviously the light that I needed to let in every time I was surrounded by that fear again, and brought back into that dark room. And I realized, no wonder I felt so good after the "I Am" pages! I had finally let some light into my section of desperate fear! Wow. I couldn't believe how spot on everything was. Suddenly I knew, Really, truly knew, that I could do this. That I was supposed to do this, and that I would do this. 

You're Finally Up to Date!

     Thank you soo SO much for reading all the way to the end of this novel! But hey! now you really know what's going on! 

     My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I encourage you with all of my whole heart to trust that God knows what He's doing, whatever you're facing! I hope I've encouraged you to seek prayer/guidence and have faith next time you have to make a huge decision. I learned so much because I wanted to make sure I did what God wanted me to do, and nothing else. God bless you all! I'll see you next time when I talk about stuff and things. ;) and probably ice cream, since that's my other favorite dessert. Btw, I hope I made you crave chocolate and bible time today. You're welcome. Hey, one thing I live by (this could be right next to my life verse...) is "Life is short, lick the bowl!" ;) Love you guys so much! Have an awesome week. :D

~Arianna