This is my life...

Only Trust Him/House of Fizzle

If you're looking at the title to this post and scratching your head in confusion while wondering if I've lost my mind in the 8 months since I last "blogged"...good, and probably. :)

House of Fizzle is an affectionate nickname for House of Faith. Because things are usually "fizzling" around here. Or something. I didn't come up with the nickname, I just laughed at Mindi and Eva the day I heard them answer the phone like that and then decided it was a fitting nickname somehow.

but I digress.

So...since it's been forever since I blogged, I guess a long, rambling post catching everyone up on my life is in order.

sorry.

Maybe someday I'll get around to said long, rambling post, but tonight is not that day. In the words of Inigo Montoya on "The Princess Bride": "Let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up." :) So here's the summary of my life since January. For the really short version, just read the stuff in bold. ;)

February I started interning full-time (read: working for free...raising support) at House of Faith because that was unquestionably where God was leading me to work. It's been an adventure and a stretching, challenging time since then, but I still love it! :) Also in February, I made a wedding cake for a friend who was getting married. It was fun! :)

March...I don't remember any big happenings in March, other than my dad's birthday. :)

April started off with House of Faith family camp, and then had us making a family trip to California for a very special graduation ceremony as Caleb became a Marine--officially. :) We had a great time and we are soooo proud. And since we're talking about birthdays....Mom celebrated her birthday this month! The only other big event in April was that Amber moved into her own apartment.

In May, Josiah turned 15, I turned 25 (no, I didn't get anywhere near accomplishing everything on my list), and our House of Faith summer interns arrived! I was part of the leadership trio within the intern team (our official title was "intern coordinators") so this was a really big event in my life!

June and July will be combined for the sake of brevity...basically, they can be summed up in four words: House of Faith Summer! It was fast, furious, and fabulous! Being in a position of leadership among other young adults, rather than just kids, was a new and sometimes difficult thing for me, but I discovered that I kinda liked it. And I loved our interns! :) Over the course of these two months, we did Sports Camp, 2 Kids' Connections, 4th-6th grade Overnight Camp, and 7th-12th grade Overnight camp, complete with lots of planning and prep in the midst of all that! Also in June, Amber got engaged to Chase Bowman! :)

Then came August...which was supposed to be slower...but instead, in the first two weeks, I coordinated/directed VBS for the first (but probably not last) time in my life (it was great! :) ), and Amber got married to Chase Bowman! And I made her cake! And was her maid-of-honor! (the day after VBS ended!!! :) ) And I became an aunt! (Chase has an adorable little 4-year-old girl named Brooke with whom I am totally in love, of course!)

And now we're still in August, and my computer is beeping low battery at me, (oops, sorry...guess that isn't big news?!) and I got hired part time at House of Faith! Like, a paying job!! At a place I love enough to work for free. How awesome is that?! I am so super thrilled! Like one of our interns this summer, the dearly loved Christine, would say: God is real. :) I mean, I already knew that, but it's fun to see His "realness" in the details of my life.

And now...the "only trust Him" part of the title...in 4 minutes or less, 'cause that's all I've got before my computer dies...basically, it comes to this: that's been the theme of my year. From stepping out in faith to raise support and work at House of Faith, to being part of leadership with the interns when everything in me said, "I can't do this!", to coordinating/directing VBS--the same week my sister got married, in case VBS wasn't overwhelming enough!--to trusting God with my "I really don't see how this is going to work out come December" finances just to have Him give me a job doing what I love at a ministry I love with people I love... "only trust Him." That's all my life is about.

the end.

(maybe details on some of this will come later...for now, be happy. I thought of all of you. Whoever "all of you" are. :) )

Slumber party! :)

with two of my favorite little ladies... :)

Pretty Special...

So, I've been working on a couple of the things on my little "things to do before I'm 25 list". Namely, the reading ones. :) Which means I'm currently reading about 4 books AND the Bible... :)

I've read the first three of the Anne of Green Gables books and have definitely fallen in love. I really can't believe I have never before read them! Anne Shirley is the sweetest, most bewitching fictional character I have ever met, and I'm pretty sure that if I could write like Lucy Maud Montgomery I would be the absolutely happiest person in the world. But, alas, I can't write like the wonderful L.M. Montgomery; I can't even write like the sweet, sometimes silly, fictitious Anne-girl; yet I'm still awfully happy. Because I happen to know that it is just as sweet to brighten someone's day with a simple card or letter as it ever could be to be a "literary giant" writing "best-selling classics". So there! :)

And...there's someone else I'd dearly love to be like: Jim Elliot. Yep, I'm slowly working my way through his journals and I just become more and more amazed at this guy! His passion, his focus, his all-out, sold-out, diving-in-the-deep-end approach to a life lived solely for God...it's all so incredibly inspiring! It makes me want to burn all my old journals and start over and make them ever so much more like his! It's not so much that he was perfect as it is that he was perfectly in love with Jesus and it showed so perfectly in his life! And I want to be like that...but I so continually fall so far short of who and what I think I should be.

So I'm coming to another conclusion: my life is entirely too much made up of comparisons and imitations. There is, of course, nothing wrong with having good, strong heroes and even striving to be like them in various ways. But when all that I am is an imitation of someone--besides Jesus Christ, unadulteratedly--something is not quite right. Why is "just me" not good enough? God thinks it is! My life and the way I live it is not going to look just like anyone else's, whether it be Jim Elliot or Anne Shirley. I wasn't made to be Jim Elliot or Anne Shirley, I was made to be me, Haley Nicole Miller. And the funny thing is, God kinda likes me just the way I am; just the way He made me. That makes me feel pretty special... :)

Beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Happy (half) birthday to me! :)

So...today is November 16th, which happens to be my half-birthday. That means it is exactly 6 months until my birthday. To celebrate, I jotted down this little list of 25 things I want to do before I'm 25. Granted, since I only have 6 months left, I may very possibly not actually accomplish all of these things. But it was fun making the list... :) (and yes, the idea sprouted from a comment my mom posted on a previous "25 things" list of a different theme on Facebook. :) ) These are really in no particular order!

1. Read all of "The Journals of Jim Elliot"
2. Scrapbook the trip to Bolivia
3. Finish the Beth Moore Bible study I'm currently doing (A Woman's Heart: God's Dwelling Place--great stuff! :) )
4. Learn to skate on in-line skates
5. Read all the unread books on my bookcase
6. Apply for the fall 2011 semester at Ellerslie (http://www.ellerslie.com/)
7. Beat my sister at a speed game (Dutch Blitz, Spoons, Blink, etc.)
8. Finish editing my "Let There Be Light" story
9. Submit said story for publication somewhere
10. Get to where I can play a game of tennis with my brothers--and actually score points!
11. Read the "Anne of Green Gables" books
12. Write a Bible study
13. Improve my cake-decorating skills
14. Love as many children as possible...or at least as many as God brings me!
15. Learn to actually play at least one song on the harp
16. Learn sign language
17. Co-write more songs
18. Record a CD with the songs I've co-written
19. Improve my piano-playing
20. Read the entire Bible through from Genesis to Revelation
21. Pet some kind of big wild cat (leopard, cheetah, lion, tiger, panther... :) )
22. Memorize Psalm 119
23. Try at least 10 new recipes of some sort
24. Start a puppet/ministry team
25. Fall even and ever more deeply in love with Jesus Christ, Lover of my soul and the Love of my life!

determined

The other day, I was flipping through some old journals and I came across this, dated March 24, 1994: "I am determined to see Jesus." I was seven years old, not yet saved, and a stubborn brat. I was "determined" to do a lot of things: eat as much sugar (candy, cookies, whatever!) as I could snitch in any given day; do as little school as I could get away with; spend every spare minute (and quite a few that weren't spare) either reading or playing outside; drive my sister crazy by imitating everything she did, said, and wore; boss my little brothers around to get my way; get dirtier than my mother ever dreamed was possible by playing in the mud; keep everyone outside my family convinced that I was a sweet, perfect little angel... etc, etc! OK, so maybe I didn't do all of those things on purpose, but hey--it is who I was! Yet somehow, God was already working in my sinful little heart to draw me to Himself. How amazing is that?! And in the midst of my little girl world, I simply knew that I wanted to see Him. I wanted to know Him. I was determined to see Him!

I've outgrown (by the grace of God!) a lot of those little girlish kinds of things. I'm older, more mature, and hopefully more like Jesus. But one thing I've never outgrown (also by the grace of God!) is that determination to see Jesus. I'm still determined to see Him. I still live to know Him. Whatever it takes, whatever the cost may be, I am going to seek my Jesus. Through every fall--every time I compromise--every time I yield to a temptation--every time I'm too distracted or too busy or too tired or too whatever--He is still there, drawing me on. And I'm determined to keep running toward Him. I am going to see and know Jesus Christ! Who's with me?!