in him is the fullness of all things

Sometimes, making one friend makes all the difference. This girl is one of the first girls that I connected with at my church in Chicago. I don't know if you can ever fully understand the importance of reaching out to new people at church until you yourself are a new person at church. Michelle and I connected initially because we were both fellow suburbanites who commuted to church every week. Not only did she express interest in hanging out with me, but she followed through! After she got my number, she called me within a week and invited me over and so it started! From the beginning of our friendship, I have been exceedingly blessed by Michelle's heart for Jesus. She loves to talk about what he is showing her, what he is doing in her life, and she truly has a desire to grow in deeper knowledge of him.  God used this girl powerfully in my life during my first year of school. It was terribly difficult being so far away from so many friend and family back home, ...

My sister and friend, Bethany Canfield . Have you ever seen someone and thought "that person is really cool--I want to become friends with them!"? Well, this is exactly what happened to me with Miss Bethany Canfield. I had been in a season where I was not feeling satisfied with my relationships with girls my age and was finding this growing desire for fellowship with older women in the church. I felt like God was highlighting Bethany as someone that I could possibly find that with, but I was kind of scared to approach her because I hadn't really talked with her before and in my mind (and also in reality!) her cool factor  was just way off the charts. Long story short, God led me to her and her husband's house church and our relationship began to blossom and grow. It's cool because when I was praying about getting to know Bethany more, I was asking God to give me a mentor. But what he had in mind was far greater (duh!). He gave me an older sister. Beth...

So, since I have so much free time (ha ha), I decided to start a mini series on the blog called "This is...". It's inspired by the new trend on instagram where someone takes a picture of a person and says "this is 'so and so' and this is what they do and this is why they are awesome..." I feel like God has blessed me with plenty of fantastic women in my life so I want to herald them for all the world to see! So without further adieu,  This is Karen Callis. I have known the Callis family for about as long as I have lived in Corvallis. We were members of the same church for several years and my brothers and I were around the same ages as her kids.  It wasn't really until my senior year of high school that I really had the opportunity to know Karen and her family in a deeper way than I could have possibly imagined. Without going into too much detail, there was a period of about 2 months that I was displaced from my home due to a family crisis...