why me?

over the last year and a half i have been having a struggle with questioning God? it all started when my mom, dad, and i were taking a nice sunday drive on easter suday of 07. it was a beautiful day and we were just enjoying our surroundings. we were on the interstate and traffic came to an abrupt hault. when my dad hit the brakes they didnt work. he decided to go off into the median instead of hitting the car infront of us. well as we are trying to get the brakes to work we see this drop off/embankment between two bridges. so we start to panic. to this day i can still see the fence and then feel the floating feeling we got as we ramped off of it. we then hit the road below and came up the otherside a little. i just followed my first instinct and leaped from the van. i then ripped open my moms door and began to talk to them to make sure they were still responsive. i grabbed my teacup poodle from the floor because she was in my mothers lap and had hit the windshield upon impact. i grabbed her from the car and began my effort to keep her tiny frail body alive and to keep my parents responsive. it seemed like it took forever but the ambulances finally came. they rushed my parents off to the hospital and then me. my dog i handed to a lady down there and she then passed away at that moment. so we get to the hospital and i dont have to stay the night. my mom has broken her back and her sternum and my dad has broken two places in his back and had some blood clots knocked loose from his legs. this started the questioning. why me god why did this have to happen to me. about a week later i get checked out of school and driven to the hospital. my father is not doing so well. i rush into his room and see all of these new tubes and devices that he is now connected to and didnt have to have since he was very responsive the day before. they didnt know what was wrong he was just cracking jokes yesterday. it is about one in the morning now and i am called to talk to him before they take him into exploritory surgery to see what has gone wrong. i stood there with everyone else in my family in the background crying and sobbing beyond belief. i felt as though i had to be strong so i stood there and i talked and sang and read the bible to my dad until 3 in the morning. i dont know where the strength to do this without muttering a single tear came from but i know it had to be God. they took him into surgery. apparently they had missed a blood clot that had attached to his organs and was killing him on the inside out. my father passed away at six that morning. i spent he next few months in a rather deep depression. i had lost the person to make me smile when i was down. he was my humor of the day. i spent that summer not eating and becoming into an unhealthy state. i nursed my mother back to health and did everything i could for her because i knew that she was hurting too in this time. i questioned god the most in this time. Why god would you take him away from me. why wouldn't you let him see me graduate. why wouldnt you just let him move me into college or walk me down the aisle when i get married. why wouldnt you let him see his future grand children. i felt so low. i had the most awful senior year and i struggled the most. over the last summer gods plan has been in a way revealed to me. he didnt do it to hurt me. he did it for love. he showed me how strong i can be and how amazing he is to show grace through this situation. He has made me a stronger person and i have no doubt in my mind that my father is in heaven and he is watching over me. i know that he is having the time of his life up there. he gets to hang with jesus and everyone he has ever admired in his life. i know that oneday i will get to see him again and i will rejoice when that day come. you may go through times where you dont quite understand gods intentions but you just have to stay strong and let god reveal his plans to you. he does have a purpose for you in the end. i may still have my moments of questioning gods intentions but i know he did it all for a reason and he wouldnt do anything to harm me.

homesick

As a kid i never had that homesick feeling. i was always ready and willing to go anywhere for any length of time. well recently i have not been able to see my family for 3 weeks and it is really driving me crazy. i am way beyond homesick it is ridiculious. i never really realized how much my family means to me. i mean i love them more than anything but i never really relized how much i take them for granted. they are so amazing. the last time i went home my mom went out of her way to make me comfortable and i loved it. she was so amazing. she cooked for me even though she wasnt able to eat the food she made because she is on the nutrisystem diet. she threw me a birthday party. which was so much fun and allowed me the chance to see all of my really good friends. she let me sleep late which i highly appreciated since i have 8 o'clock classes every day. it was a time that i felt so relaxed. it was so hard to leave. i came back to school and lately i have been so stressed beyond wits end. i mean i havent really had MANDY time. it has been all school and rush. this weekend i have tried to spend it to myself but i think the boredom is way to overwhelming for me. i used to love to be left alone and just hang out by myself. but since i have come to mc i have found my desire for that social interaction with other people. i wish that i could be with my family and i still have 3 more weeks before i get to see them but i do enjoy the fact that my friends here are trying to make me as comfortable as ever.

Why are they watching me?

as a ministers kid i always got the be good speech. if you have never heard this well let me just give you the jist of it. you need to be good because the people in the church are watching you... or the younger kids are looking up to you. as a child this always creeped me out to think that someone would spend all of their time watching my every move just to see what i did wrong. i felt like why should my actions be reflected onto my parents if i did something bad. i was the one who did the wrong not them. why should they be punished. what if i did something wrong and one of the younger kids was watching me. what if i gave them the wrong idea of what was right and what was wrong. it always made me so nervous to think that they were always watching me. i was nervous to make mistakes because what if it could jepordize what my family had worked so hard for (it wouldnt i never did anything serious) but i still thought what if it did. at the age of 13 i got the chance to change this. we moved to a little town in louisiana that was 30 minutes away from my church which was in an even smaller town. though i hated the one stop light town i loved the weight that it lifted off of my shoulders. i felt like noone from the church could see what i did. i could do what i wanted and they would never know. i felt like the eyes were lifted away. i could really be myself now. i was always a shy and timid kid. i think that this is partly because of the people watching me thing. i think that i was too afraid to show who i really was. i began to express myself more freely. i opened up to people that i would have never of talked to due to the fear that they might know someone from my church and would tell on me. i began to express my more creative sides. i became a part of alot of organizations within my school. this eventually led to me being in the leadership role of a lifetime. I was the Mississippi state V.P. of Community Service for FCCLA. i was able to get over my stage fright because i had to get infront of people and talk. i was able to impact the people around me and do what i love at the same time. by this i was able to get over the people watching me factor. i actually wanted them to watch me. i wanted them to see that they can do this too and help others. i wasnt afraid to put myself out there because i had lost this fear. i wanted them to see me i wanted to be an example to the younger children. i wanted them to see that it is cool to help others and participate in your community. i wanted to be the example set for them. i was happy to be watched and for them to tell others what i was doing. dont be afraid of others watching you be what you were ment to be and set an example to the younger generation because they are looking up to you and they do want to be COOL like you.

Isaiah 43:18

So this week i have been compelled to write on the topic of Isaiah 43:18. it states," forget the former things do not dwell upon the past." This is a very hard verse for me to keep due to my humanly wants to dwell upon wrongdoings that people have done towards me. as a woman we are not known as the most forgiving beings, though a stereotypical label, it still has some truths. i have learned to forgive others of what they do to me but it doesnt necessarily mean that i will forget about it. i can remeber times in my life when i would have a run in with someone and i say that i forgive them but the next time that we have another run in i will most definately remember the first time that they wronged me and i will have a harder time to forgive them the 2nd time. Growing up in a christian family i have been taught these principles as far back as i can remeber. it makes me think of do unto others as you want them to do to you. i would most definatly want them to forgive me if i had wronged them in any way and i should do the same for them. i have come up with something that helps me forgive others and i think can make me and the person have a closer relationship. you have to verbalize your feelings.i dont mean yell at them and disrespect them. but if you dont have an open and honest relationship with your friends then how can you even have a relationship with them at all? my roommate and i happened to be best friends in high school and contrary to what people say we dont hate each other and i think it is because we have such and open and honest relationship. we tell each other what we are thinking and feeling and we respect each other. i want to be able to have a relationship like that with everybody. i know that as a human being i will still feel like they shouldnt be forgiven but i will try my hardest not to dwell upon the past i think that if i can do this better i can be able to live a peaceful existance with these people that i will encounter. as i said in my blog before this one i do want to live in peace with others and i dont think it would be so hard for others if we learned to forgive and forget. we have to give up our humanly wants and we have to learn to treat others with the same respect that you would want if you were in their shoes. give love and peace to everyone and treat others with respect you will end up being alot happier than you were when you didnt care for other peoples feelings. i pray that you can use this advice and i will try my hardest to give you all of the respect that you deserve. i will treat you with love and respect. pray i work against my wants to dwell upon the past and that i can move forward with a new tomorrow. peace and love to all!!!

2.UNITY

my favorite verse out of the entire bible would have to be Psalms 133:1 which reads "how good and pleasent it is when brothers live together in unity." i absolutly love this verse because i think that it pretty much explains what i am all about. i love to help others and i just wish that everybody could be the same way. why cant this world live together in harmony. what is so wrong with the idea of peace on earth. i have joined many causes that do help humanity live easier and in a more peaceful environment.
i hate to see others discriminating others because they are different. maybe they have different skin, or a disability but that doesnt make them any less of a person than you are. i believe that if everyone was to read psalms 133:1 they would understand that the lord wants us to live in a peaceful existance. when there is peace in the air everybody is happy. peace brings many good advantages such love and fellowship with others that you may have never thought of being friends with.
i know that there will still be those who discriminate against others but i know that i wont be one of them. i will be following the word and living in unity with my neighbors. i wont discriminate even if they are black or white, disabled or crippled. i will treat them equally even if they dont have the same beliefs as me or they dont like the same stuff as me. equality and unity are important to keeping this a better place and i am willing to take a stand for it. ARE YOU???

1.the grand itro

Who exactly is Amanda Brown might be what you are asking well... i love to help others, i love to dance even though i am not the best. i am a freshman at mc and i love love love it. i am really into community service like i said before i love to help others. i am a ministers kid. i am a twin and no we do not have any freak powers where we can communicate with each other through thought. i love animals. i dont like to think inside the box. i dont conform to the ways of the world because being an individual is so much better than being like everybody else. i am an excellent listener and i may come off as a quiet person but if you could only see what is running through my head you would realize that i am only deep in thought. i love to watch movies they are the way that i can escape all from a stressful day. i love listening to music which does contribute to my random dancing haha! i think that if i wasnt an education major i would be an art major because i love to work with my hands and create things.
I hope that this blog can be a place where i can relay my everyday thoughts. i want to be able to express myself in a more successful way. i hope that this will become a place that will make the others think and want to create something that will inspire others as well.