A Year in Review...and a New Year Welcomed!!

2012 was an INCREDIBLE year for me in many ways!  From serving as Miss Moses Lake and competing for Miss Washington, to being named a Finalist for the world’s most prestigious academic award (the Rhodes); from traveling to Haiti and contracting a life-threatening case of Cholera, to speaking to thousands of people from Washington State to Washington D.C.

Through the excitement, in many ways, I have become a better person.  Entering 2013, I am in better physical shape, I am a better musician (both on piano and vocally), I have gained a better handle on my academic anxiety, my personal presentation and communication skills are miles beyond where they have been previously, and in many ways, I have even given more of myself to the world than ever before.

While, on one hand, I can look back and claim this year a success.  On the other hand, I stop and realize that all of the improvement I focused on, was directed inward.  But what is that to say about the love I am directing outward?  Even in serving the world, if not done in love, it means nothing!  Am I so focused on bettering myself, that I forget the emotions of those I am interacting with, and my directed love towards them?

Soooo….my 2013 resolution is stop focusing 100% on self-improvement, and start focusing on improving the way I make others feel!

This next year holds the end to my last year ever in a classroom, my board exams, the passing on of my Miss Moses Lake crown, more work in Haiti....and of course....the focus on making others feel valued, loved, and more like the precious treasure each and every person is.  2013, I AM SO READY FOR YOU!!!

1 Corinthians 13:2-3 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but don’t have love, I am nothing.  If I dole out all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but don’t have love, it profits me nothing.