Emily's Highschool Graduation

{1 Corinthians 10:31b}
Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

{Romans 11:36}
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

The Lord has blessed me abundantly through my family and church family. I am grateful to my parents for more things than I can name-- their patience, their guidance and their commitment to God’s Word have all shaped me into the woman I am today. They instilled in me a love of learning from an early age and raised me to view education as a lifestyle that doesn’t stop at high school graduation. Much of what I will be doing “after I graduate” will look the same as before I “graduated”.

I enjoy gardening, photography, crocheting, reading and analyzing literature, collecting glass jars, trying out new crafts, writing theological articles, making wooden beads on my Daddy’s lathe, discussing theology and philosophy with my Daddy, journaling, singing and playing the Mandolin.

I make it my ambition to search out and find the “little” ways to bless those around me and proclaim the beauty of Christ’s gospel. I love teaching my younger siblings piano, reading aloud to them and watching their eager faces as they hold a newly hatched Monarch from my butterfly garden. 

I help my mom with cooking, cleaning and babysitting my four youngest siblings as needed, at the same time learning firsthand how to manage a home. In my church family this means helping a family with their adoption fundraiser, taking pictures of kiddos for busy mamas, photographing church events, preparing food for our church’s weekly fellowship meal and maintaining a small home library to loan out to the young readers at church.

My 15 year old brother, J.Michael, happens also to be my best friend. 

We love to make music together and will talk for hours on end about anything from theology, to the political state of Iran, to the latest superhero film!

I’m also learning Biblical Greek, auditing classes at Reformed Theological Seminary and launching a jewelry business (DesignCraftJewelry). 

With the help of some church friends I started a small forum six months ago, dedicated to cultivating godly and edifying discussion and debate. I now serve as one of the five board members.

I would appreciate your prayers as I strive to faithfully live out the life God has called me to, seeking to glorify Him through seemingly ordinary, every-day things, knowing that God often advances His kingdom by ordinary means that the world does not see or value.

For it is by a little bit of leaven that the whole loaf is leavened.

...God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. 
{1 Corinthians 1:27-31}

Soli Deo Gloria (to God be the Glory),