overwhelmed.

it seems so fitting that the day after i post all about my wonderful internship, i come to write about how overwhelmed i am right now. upon entering this internship, i knew that my big, sunday afternoon, italian family dinners wouldn't be able to happen for a year (i'm at church till 5pm on sundays). i knew that i wouldn't be able to pop over to my sisters' houses to see the kids multiple times per week (i have intern duties 2 nights a week and i live 30 mins away). i knew i'd miss my dog (she lives with my mom & dad). i knew all of this, yes; but it doesn't make it any easier. now that i'm 8 weeks into the internship, i'm really starting to miss the freedom of just laying around when i get home from work. i miss having every saturday off and it frustrates me that chad and i have to work really hard to find a time where we can go to the apple orchard before it gets too cold. my good friends ben and jen are in town this week and yesterday i had a mini-meltdown because i realized how hard it's going to be for me to find time to see them. i just want more days in the week! more hours! i found myself dreading my intern duties yesterday. i found myself wanting to complain and get bitter about all of the stuff i've got going on. i wanted to crawl into my bed and quit.

after i regained my composure and realized that i need to get ready (and fast!) to get to dinner with chad, i decided i would just ignore my feelings and deal with them later (always the best of ideas, obviously). we had a good dinner, i kinda forgot about my wallowing-in-self-pity mood, and i went to bed. this morning, upon hitting snooze twice and then freaking out because i actually turned my alarm off and almost fell back asleep, i sleepily checked my e-mail. i get a daily devotional in there that i usually read when i first get to school, but i decided to read it while i was still in my warm bed in my dark room. 

it was a passage from matthew 20, and it was kind of lengthy. i was still half-asleep, but some of this text struck a chord in me that spoke very clearly to my feelings yesterday. it said simply this:

"whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant

...for even the Son of Man came not to be served, 

but to serve others." 

wow. talk about conviction! it's so amazing to me how God, in the nicest, gentlest way, will just kinda hit me with exactly what He wants me to hear...even if it's something that's going to convict me and put everything into perspective. He is so wonderful. i know why i'm interning at substance. i know why God has called me to something greater and why i'm following Him. He's doing incredible things and i am so happy to joyfully serve where i can at my church- to see His Kingdom furthered. i'm so honored and blessed. 

an intern journey = an interney (see what i did there?)

so. i posted a while back that i was praying about/thinking about interning at substance, and then i posted recently that i'm doing it...i realize many of you are dying of curiosity as to how this all came about. obviously. here comes my journey to interning at substance (which, by the way, we have a new & improved website over here).

i have been leading worship for a very long time. in the past 5 or so years, i've really realized the call that God's placed on my life to be a worship leader and to further His kingdom in that way. since december of last year (after a crazy break-up and tons of awesome life changes and lessons that the Lord brought me through) i've been leading worship and actively attending substance church. this church is unlike any church you've ever been to. i promise. we believe that church begins once the services end (i know you're thinking, "what?!")...as in, we really believe that church should be a community and that you should be doing life with people from your community. whether it's playing sports with them, doing a Bible study with them, reading a particular book with them, eating at various restaurants with them...you get the idea. our subgroups (small groups) have a 116% attendance rate- meaning that people who don't even come to our church participate in them. it's crazy. it's one of the fastest growing churches in the united states and we just launched our fourth campus. i love, love, love my church and the stuff that God's doing there. never in my life have i been a part of something so life-giving and full of such substance.

shortly after i started attending substance, i met chad, who is currently in his second year of interning there. he has a degree in youth ministry and is actively waiting until God leads him to the next level in ministry. we startred dating in march of this year, and things have been incredible (as you've clearly seen in previous posts). as i got more involved at substance, more people of influence (pastors, ministry leaders, etc) had begun to ask me if i was thinking about interning this year. the thought of doing it really excited me, but i brushed it off because i teach full-time and the bill was too big for me to foot on my own. after more and more people approached me about it, i decided to pray about it and see if it was where God was leading me. my prayer was simply this: "Lord, this seems appealing to me, but i'm not sure if you want me to do it. if this is in Your will, please lead me toward it and make it happen!" doors continued to open and everything was great. as far as most were concerned, i was going to be the newest worship intern at substance. then the money came up. i needed to raise $3,500...and fast. the total amount was due on august 1st and i didn't have a penny to my name to give over for most of july! i prayed about it. i gave it over completely. i sent out support letters and kept in close contact with the guy in charge of the money for the interns. by the end of july, i had raised a little over a thousand dollars (including an incredible gift from both my parents & chad's parents- so blessed by them!), which wasn't even a third of the total cost. i had pretty much decided and accepted that this wasn't going to happen for me.

we had an intern retreat over the last weekend of july, ending with our first official intern sunday on august 1st. andrew (the money guy) told me to go on the retreat and that we would discuss it with pastor mark (who is in charge of the internship) when we got back. so, i went on the retreat. i was a bit fearful that the retreat would make me want to intern even more and then i would come back and find out that i couldn't do it. well...the first part is true. after that retreat, i knew, i just knew that God wanted me to intern at substance. i didn't know how it was going to happen, but i knew i was supposed to be there. we had our first sunday and everything was wonderful. i had begun to mesh well with the other interns and i loved spending so much time working so closely with chad. once we were dismissed and allowed to go home for the day, i approached andrew about the money sitch. he brought pastor mark over and began to discuss it (they had previously talked about it). pastor mark looked at me and said "angie, we want you here. just give us what you've got." i instantly started crying my eyes out and thanking God for His faithfulness. He is so good. i know he wants me at substance and i know i'm following His call on my life. He simply wanted me to give it over to Him and to completely trust Him...and to be okay with His will if it didn't include interning at substance. if there's one thing He's showing me right now, it's that He is just SO faithful. He promises all these blessings on my life, and i'm seeing them happen! God is so good. just so good! this internship has put a lot more on my plate lately, but i love serving in my church and doing the Lord's work. He is good.

"let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess,

 for He who promised is faithful." 

Hebrews 10:23

a delicious birthday

wednesday was chad's birthday. all week long, i've been surprising him with little gifts (more about that later), but last night was the big deal. his roommate bill woke up early and made him breakfast in the morning...isn't that sweet?! ha. and when chad told him that he didn't know what i had planned for the evening, bill questioned, "what if she proposes?" haha. those boys.

here's how it all went down. complete with pictures (lucky you!).

here we are!

-he arrived to my house around 5:45, so that my roommate could take a photo of us on our night out. when i answered the door, he gave a loud "yes!" complete with a fist pump. you see, a few months ago, we were in uptown with david & kelly and stopped in to heartbreaker. i tried on this cute, army green little number that chad loved. he wanted me to buy it right then, but i wasn't totally sold. so i waited. last saturday, kk (my other roomie) and i ran down to uptown just so i could get it and surprise him with it on his birthday. he claims it was yet another present that i gave him that day. ha.

oooh la la

-then i gave him his gift. i just couldn't wait any longer! when chad and i first started dating, i remember knowing exactly what i wanted to get him for his birthday within the first 2 weeks. apparently i'm that girl. i found the exact watch that i wanted to get online back in march. unfortunately, it was completely gone. i decided i'd wait until the day came closer and would find something similar and equally as cool. shortly after school was out in june, i was doing a little shopping at rosedale and decided to stop in the fossil store to see if they had any good choices. i looked around and there it was! the exact one i had wanted. so i bought it. 3 months early. i could hardly wait for him to open it up. anna, my roommate, was there and was equally as excited. he loved it and said he had no idea what i was giving him. mission accomplished.



-our reservation at bar la grassa wasn't until 7, but we decided to head downtown and check out the scene anyway. i had been researching where to take him for dinner for a few weeks (birthdays are clearly a big deal to me). after countless hours on yelp (okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration), i narrowed my choices down to 3 places, including la grassa. i made up my mind after looking online at their menu and seeing how many seafood options they had (chad loves the stuff), and after seeing a picture of their silk handkerchiefs with basil pesto.  my sister had also heard good things, so i figured it was worth the shot. now. there's something to be said about an italian girl choosing an italian restaurant for dinner. especially an italian restaurant that she's never been to. we're picky. nobody's red sauce is as good as my mom's. nobody makes authentic arancine (my favorite!). nobody has gelato quite like the kind i ate while sitting on the spanish steps overlooking the via condotti in rome. i'm snotty about italian food. it's true. so, going to la grassa was a bit of a risk for me. fortunately, it was one of the best risks i've ever taken. this place was absolutely incredible. here are some poorly taken cell phone shots of the food we ate...i was trying to be classy whilst taking them (cause who wants to look like the person who never gets to eat at nice places?).

ricotta & tomato bruschetta. i felt like i was in italy again. it was outstanding.

a very dark photo of the silk handkerchiefs. they melted like butter in my mouth and were covered in quite possibly the best pesto i've ever had.

chad's penne w/shrimp. it was all pan-seared and tasted amazing. i hate seafood, but i could have easily eaten more of this pasta. delicious!

after our delicious dinner, we popped over to uptown to go to sebastian joe's, home of chad's favorite ice cream: nicollet pot hole. this chocolatey, brownie-filled, sea salt-infused amazingness is something to behold. if you can get there, do it. do it! we rounded out our evening in our sweats, cuddled up and watching flight of the conchords. all in all, the evening was splendid. happy birthday to my love!

for some weird reason, it's taken me over a week to finish this blog. what gives, busy schedule? time to relax a little bit. now, if only i could find the time to do that...

i need a solution for my contact solution!

okay. i love target more than most people, but this is just ludicrous!

chad and i stopped in there to get a few things the other day, one of them being contact solution. now, you can buy the renu or opti-free or whatever you want for $8 or $9 a bottle, but i opt for target's up & up brand, which is just $2.99 for a 12oz bottle. it's good stuff. chad and i both use it. now, this particular target had only one single bottle of solution left, and a whole bunch of double packs. i know what you're thinking. chad and i both needed to get contact solution, so get the double pack...right? wrong! ONE 12oz bottle costs $2.99, and TWO 12oz bottles, packaged together, cost $7.04. so, if i buy the double pack, i'm paying $3.52 per bottle? how does that make any sense? i brought the one last single bottle up to the counter along with a double pack to explain this ridiculousness and to see if they would just ring up two singles but give me the double, since all other singles were gone and we needed 2 bottles so i didn't want to pay more because i was forced to and i didn't think that it was okay and...ahhh! come on, target! get it together! luckily, the pharmacy man was very nice to me and gave me the double pack as though i were paying for 2 singles. so...beware! something that may look like a 'value pack' may not be saving you any money at all!

back to life, back to reality...

school started today, so you'll be seeing many more angie-penned blogs these days. it's SO much easier to blog in the winter! there's just no time in the summer...you see, here in minnesota we take whatever summer we can get and soak it all in. now it's time to get back to the grind. i always feel like i'm ready to go back to school when mid-august hits. i felt this way when i was a kid, too. i need some structure in my life! there are a few things that come with the routine of school that i always feel guilty about during the summer: working out and eating right. as of today, my jillian michaels-style workouts begin once again! someone once told me that if you work out consistently for six months, you'll work out for the rest of your life. i think that's true. not because i love it, but because i feel so guilty about not doing it! and because i am simply terrified that i'm going to gain back the 50+ lbs that i lost a couple years ago. so here i am, getting back into my routine (which, if you know myers-briggs, i'm an "NP," so routine really shouldn't be my thing). i've got my coffee in one hand and my planner in the other. here i come! this year is going to be interesting, because i'm interning at substance and working full time. yikes!

my summer was great. it was hot, laid-back, and blissfully filled with love. here are some highlights:

being a part of the substance church intern army.

washington, dc for the first time with my niece and momma.

worship night @ substance. so powerful.

six glorious months with my love. 

twins games!

life is good. i live in an amazing apartment in the city with two incredible roommates and an unbelievable boyfriend who lives just down the street. i'm interning at one of the fastest growing churches in the nation and leading worship almost every weekend. God is good. i am so blessed and i can't wait to see what He has in store for the rest of 2011!