A Pocketful of Faith

     Hello friends, it’s been entirely too long.  My senior year of high school was hectic to say the least, packed with four AP classes, the college decision process, continuing to volunteer with Wyldlife (YoungLife’s middle school ministry), serving as co-editor-in-chief of my school’s yearbook, and receiving news of my family’s move to a different state this summer.  In the midst of the craziness my blog took the back burner.  I did a terrible job of keeping up with my blog this school year, but as you can tell from my sporadic posts throughout the year, I missed it a lot.  I’m hoping to get the A Pocketful of Faith blog and Instagram back on track this summer and as I enter college I intend to continue posting!  Today I’m rewinding and filling you in on the most significant parts of my senior year, so we’ll somewhat be on the same page again.  Enjoy!

     I started school on August 20th, and boy is the last first day of high school a weird feeling!  Senior year was a lot of fun but also came with a lot of rough patches, that’s for sure.  The first day back marked my first time meeting most of my teachers, and let me just say I LOVED most of my teachers senior year!  So many sweet, kind, and supportive people!

     Wyldlife Club started again on September 4th, with a sixth grade girl pinning a lot of clothespins to my face.  This year was just as fun as the last and I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to be a part of my area’s Wyldlife as a high school leader!

     Our YoungLife club kickoff was the Monday following our first Wyldlife club.  My area always goes big for kickoff, and this year we had Ice Cream Olympics!  Chocolate syrup and whipped cream were in places neither were ever meant to be but it was a whole lot of fun!

     One Thursday at the end of September I flew down to San Antonio, TX to drive through Texas with my grandmother and tour a couple my top college choices – Baylor and UT Austin.  From the moment I walked into my meeting with my admission counselor, I felt something special.  Baylor very quickly felt like home to me – so much that less than two weeks after touring for the first time I applied early decision (which is a binding application, meaning I had to attend BU if I got in)!  After touring Baylor I made a quick visit to the Silos, how could I resist?  The day following my tour of Baylor I toured UT Austin.  UT was my original dream school, but I very quickly realized it was way too big for me.  While I was in Austin I had the opportunity to have lunch with Jade and Lexi Lynn (as well as Lexi’s daughter Moxie and the sisters’ parents) from Jadelynn Brooke!  After serving as a high school ambassador for them since my sophomore year it was so cool to finally meet them in person!

     A week after my Texas visit, I went to a YoungLife camp called Windy Gap for my area’s fall weekend (read my recaps from previous years here and here to get a more detailed idea of what went on!).  This time around I actually led a cabin of freshman girls (which were my Wyldlife girls the school year prior) with a newer YoungLife leader who had never led at camp before!  We had an absolute blast but it was so hard for me to say goodbye to that place.  I made the decision to follow Christ completely at Windy Gap my freshman year, so going one last time as a student leader was bittersweet.

October 16th was my area’s YoungLife banquet, which celebrated the accomplishments and shared the happenings of YoungLife in our community with donors, supporters, and parents.  I was asked to share my testimony and as terrified as I was to share in front of a couple hundred people, it was such an incredible opportunity and I’m so glad I did it.

     For Halloween this school year, my county decided to do an all area YoungLife club – meaning the three high schools in my area came – on October 30th!  We had an awesome time and I went dressed as a unicorn (honestly my best costume yet in my opinion)!

     In the middle of my study hall period on Halloween, I just so happened to check my Baylor portal for the millionth time.  To my surprise, I had a decision the day before the application deadline.  I got in!  About a week later I received my physical acceptance in the mail.  Talk about a big mail day!

     My school’s YoungLife wrapped up the semester with a Christmas-themed club.  My leaders asked a couple of seniors to answer some questions for our peers in regards to our testimonies and relationship with Christ.  I was both honored and petrified to be asked to share.  Ultimately I’m glad I shared, I feel that being vulnerable in that way lays a good foundation for authentic living and real relationships, both of which are super rare in high school.  My leaders and friends were right there supporting me the whole time!

     My Christmas break began December 21st and I kicked off the holiday with a sleepover with my two best friends (as well as a dramatic hair cut haha).  At this point we were all accepted and committed to our colleges and it was such a big relief!  From there on out senior year, while still stressful at times, provided rest in the reassurance that our work was paying off and our collegiate dreams were coming true.

     My family traveled to Virginia to visit my stepmother’s family in Lynchburg in the days between Christmas and New Years.  This year we also spent a night at the Homestead in Hot Springs, VA!  It was so nice – my family enjoyed the ice skating rink and the food and desserts we had at dinner were to die for!

     A couple days after New Year’s I received a text in the morning from one of my best Work Crew friends, Derren (who lived about two hours away from me), saying “hey so me and Lauren are 45 mins from your house” (Lauren lived about six hours away from me so this was huge).  They picked me up and I spent the day showing them all the best parts of my city, including my favorite local restaurant, the place where we have YoungLife club, our downtown mural, the best thrift store ever, and the adorable coffee and ice cream shop where I had Bible study every week.  I hadn’t seen Lauren or Derren since our Work Crew session at Saranac Village ended in July (read more about my month on Work Crew here), and this visit was just what I needed.  Boy did I miss them!

A day or two after Lauren and Derren came, I went with my best friend Cammie to her first Duke basketball game!  My father attended Duke, so I grew up going to Duke basketball games.  Cammie is a total genius and will be heading to Duke this fall so I was so honored to show her the ropes of being a Cameron Crazie.

     I had the incredible opportunity to lead on my area’s Wyldlife Weekend at Carolina Point again the weekend of February 1st through 3rd (read my recap of last year’s here) and this year’s trip was just as fun and rewarding.  I was in a cabin of sweet and hilarious eighth grade girls and I feel so blessed to have been welcomed into their lives the way that I was.  I also enjoyed getting to know the other leaders better, as well as getting to lead alongside my best friend at camp for a second time!  Late night giggles were had, big cookie was eaten, frisbee golf was played, big questions were asked in cabin time, and the Lord was welcomed into the hearts of many.  What a joy it was to be part of something so sweet!

     Lacrosse season extended from January to the beginning of April.  After losing nine seniors, of which four went on to play collegiate lacrosse, this season was nowhere near as successful as the last.  Despite an escalated number of losses, I still loved this season.  All of the freshmen that made varsity were in my cabins at Wyldlife camps last year, so getting to play alongside and become better friends with them was such a treat.  I, along with the three other senior girls, was a captain of the varsity team and I enjoyed using the leadership position as an avenue to support my younger and less experienced teammates!  Our senior night was bittersweet but our final game was against our biggest rival and I’m so happy and proud to say that we won!  That victory was the best way I could’ve hoped to end my senior lacrosse season and I’m so grateful for that.  I was so surprised and humbled to receive the Most Improved Player award at our sports banquet and just last week I found out that I was also honored by our city’s newspaper as an All-Academic player!  I played lacrosse from eighth grade to senior year, five years in total, and while I was sad to leave my school’s program, I’m so thankful for all the friends it provided me with and all the lessons it taught me.

     For spring break this year, my sister and I flew to San Antonio, TX to spend some time with our family there!  I spent most of the trip hanging out with my cousin, Julia, and her friends (all my age!), but we also made our rounds to the typical San Antonio tourist stops and even made a short trip to Waco!  Aside from YoungLife camp, I’m definitely at my happiest when in Texas and this trip was a good reminder that going to college a thousand miles away isn’t as risky as it sounds.  I loved showing my sister around my future home (she hadn’t been on Baylor’s campus before!) and of course stopping at the Magnolia Market!

     Yearbook Distribution Day is without a doubt my favorite day of the school year, and finally getting to see the book and people’s reactions to it on April 19th was all the more rewarding given that I oversaw the whole thing this year as co-editor-in-chief!  Yearbook was definitely one of my favorite things about high school.  It made me realize how passionate I am about journalism and gave me the coolest group of girls to spend seventh period with everyday!  We celebrated the success of the year with a small party at the other co-editor-in-chief’s home and there we ate lots of yummy food, opened gifts (I made everyone friendship bracelets, big surprise haha), and took lots of pictures!

     Prom this year was a lot more fun than last in my opinion!  I went with a guy friend in a big group of mutual friends.  The dance was such a good time and I think I felt a lot freer to dance and make a fool of myself as a senior because I wasn’t so consumed with what other people thought of me.  My family and one of my YoungLife leaders came to pictures before dinner and we got a lot of cute shots!

     A week after prom I went to Columbia, SC with a couple of friends to see the band LANY!  My ticket was a Christmas gift from my good friend Scout and the wait was so worth it!  Scout and I have been listening to LANY for a couple years and they were just as good as I’d hoped they’d be live.  We waited outside for nine hours before the show and ultimately scored third row!

     My last YoungLife club as a student was highly emotional for me.  The seniors ran club – senior girls and senior guys each orchestrated a short skit, we picked games, and at the end we had an opportunity to share what YoungLife has meant to us in high school.  Cue the tears.  You all know maybe a little bit too well that YoungLife introduced me to the Lord in such a way that made me want to pursue a relationship with Him, but beyond that it also gave me my best friends and some experiences I wouldn’t trade for the world.  I am a different person because I was so heavily involved in YoungLife as a high schooler and I’m so beyond grateful for that.

     My fourth and final AP exam this year was on May 17th, which also marked my last day of high school.  In case you were wondering, this school year I took AP Psychology, AP English Literature, AP Statistics, and AP Microeconomics.  I absolutely loved AP Psychology and AP Statistics was definitely one of my favorite high school math classes (following only geometry).  AP English Literature was also a lot of fun, I adored my teacher!  Finishing my final AP exam was the biggest relief and when it was through I turned in my school-issued MacBook Air and walked out of my high school’s doors for the last time!  That moment was bittersweet but it looked a little like this:

     I had a week between my final AP exam and graduation, most of which I spent going on lunch dates with friends, doing morning workouts out at the YMCA, and slowly packing up my room for my family’s move to North Carolina.  Graduation itself was a weird time for me.  It’s funny how as high school goes by you resent it, but suddenly, as your principal brags on your senior class’ accomplishments and reflects on the past four years, you realize that you loved it.  I feel so blessed to have gone to high school where I did and I know I will carry these friendships into the next chapter with me.

And that was my senior year!  Thanks for reading!  Consider yourself filled in on my life.  Here’s to doing a slightly better job on keeping y’all up to date in the future.  Stay tuned for more detailed posts on my recent life events coming soon!