So this week I got to ride an elephant just riding it's bare neck with nothing to hold on to and I just had to brace my arms on it's head and it was so great! So much fun!!! The elephant I rode was also a mommy! So her little baby followed us and led the momma the whole hour we rode on the trail. It was so cute!!! Then we went and met some people from one of the hill tribes here and I finally got my blanket from Thailand that I've been searching for! THEN we had a great and yet simple lunch, went and saw a beautiful waterfall AND went bamboo rafting!!! It was so much fun!!! That was such a great and amazing day! I also got interviewed with Sarah about ladyboys, got to see a bunch of YWAMers do karaoke and have open mic night. Went into the slums, hung out and played pool in a bar in a red light district here, and got to see God move in amazing and indescribable ways! And even went to a temple on top of a mountain, and got to climb around on a waterfall that is only about a fifteen minute hike from where we're staying! Then tonight we went to this huge market down a bunch of streets called the Sunday market, it was HUGE, crowded, and had so much cool stuff!! This week was amazing! It makes me kind of sad though that I have only 14 days left in Chiang Mai and 17 days left in Thailand. These two months have gone by so fast...

So that's a brief description of my first full week in Chiang Mai, Thailand! God has also been revealing so much to me. There have been a lot of ups and great times, but also some down and tough times. Life truly is a roller coaster. And God is definitely taking me for a ride! But it's a completely fun and amusing ride and there are never times of boredom. 

The reoccurring theme of this week has been love, time, and God, and how all three of them fit together so well. They are such amazing mysteries. Love: the thing that everyone desires and yet fears the most. Time: the thing that everyone has but no one owns, possesses, nor can control. And God: the amazing driving force behind everything. He is in all, over all, surrounding all, and always there. 

So for time. Time is something we all have and yet can never get enough of. It's always going and always running out. We're always looking for ways to obtain it and control it and always losing it in the process. Time constantly ticks away and once it's in front of you to hold and to finally grasp, it is then gone and completely out of reach. Time is such an amazing and complex puzzle. No one can understand it and no one can ever keep it from going. 

Love. Love is such a funny thing. It's something we crave and long for and can spend our whole life searching for it yet at the same time spend our whole time running from it. Love is complete abandonment or yourself, and yet complete control over yourself at the same time. It's pure, always protecting, never keeping record of wrong. It's forgiving, and forgetting, it's holding on till the end, it's letting go. Love is patient and kind. Strong and endearing, as well as enduring. Love sticks it out when times are tough, knows when to walk away, knows when to hold on tighter. It is selfless, in judging, it is life, it is dying to your flesh, it is constantly giving without asking to get anything back. Love is a very strange thing. It goes on and on and on and can bloom and blossom in a moment, and grow for a lifetime. Never will we completely understand love, just as we will never completely understand God, who is love. Even when people leave, when they doubt, accuse, destroy, and hurt, love is still there. Still love remains. The love I'm talking about isn't some passionate lust, or a living need for someone, it isn't a dependency on someone, and it isn't the stuff of fairy tales. It can get rough, it can be painful, it can rip you apart, but in doing so it will bring you true life. The love I'm talking about is loving with the Father's heart. Not with your own. Love is a choice. But it's not a choice to give your heart away to that "one". It's a choice to rip out your heart and hand it still bleeding to The Maker and allow Him to stitch you back up and place His heart inside of your chest and make you more complete than you ever could have been with your own heart! 

So often I hear people talk about giving their heart away to the one they love, to that one person. But that's not the way love was meant to be. God has shown me this this week, and throughout my life. I may be only 18, but He's rocked my world and open my eyes to the things unseen. He's shown me what love really is. True love is giving your heart away to Him and taking His in return. Because our hearts are made to only be given to one, only to belong to one being. But God's heart is meant to flow freely, to give life abundantly, and to never run dry. Once we give our heart away to a person it can get broken. But if you give your heart to God He will shatter it (in the good way) and give you His heart in return that was you can eternally give away love and give it freely without being sucked dry. If you have the Father's heart and if that is what you love with then you will see life and potential and beauty everywhere. You will see everyone as they were originally made to be and you can help them reach that. And you can love "the one" so much more completely and purely. With His heart you can stick it out through thick and thin, in sickness and in health, till death do you part. 

You see God is eternal in all things. He is eternal in time, in love, in life, in light, in freedom, in everything. Especially in His imagination. Just look around you, look at what He made. He made it all! He made everything unique, there is literally NOTHING on this earth that is exactly the same as another. It's impossible. We humans can't creat perfect replicas since we ourselves are imperfect, and God didn't want to create any one thing the exact same as the other. EVERYTHING is unique in it's own way. How amazing is that?? Even the way that each person is meant to love and to receive His heart is completely different than another. It's just who He is. He is relatable, lovable, trustworthy, capable, and completely impossible to understand! It's so incredible how completely simple and yet absolutely complex He is. And we are made in His image! Literally the only one who can fully understand us is God our Father. We can't even understand ourselves completely. (And in my case I can't understand myself hardly at all haha) But I find so much comfort in knowing that no matter how confused I am about life, everything, and myself He still knows it all! How great us that?? He knows all and controls all! I love that about Him because it means I don't have to worry, all I have to do is say "yes", stop running, and follow His voice!

So these are the thoughts of this eighteen year old and these are the things that God has been speaking to me this week. Thank you for taking your time to read them! It means a lot! God bless each and every one of you! And remember, you're never alone in the struggle to stand still.