I found this wonderful website a couple months ago called “I Am Second“. It’s a movement that brings together people of all walks of life and bonds them over the fact that each one of them puts Christ first in their life. With Christ being first, they are second. Iamsecond.com allows people to realize their purpose for their life and allows them to find answers to some of life’s most challenging questions. I watched all of the videos on this website and was extremely encouraged by each one of them. I’m the type of person that grows closer to God by seeing other people grow closer to Him. I love stories and testimonies and I love when people sacrifice their life and become second.

Here are some encouraging quotes from the testimonies that I think should be shared:

“Whether you know Him, love Him, or hate Him, He will always love you.” -Lee Lucas

“The times I have felt God the most present in my life is those times when I’m just in desperate, desperate need of Him. I just need to know that I’m loved and that I’m cared about.” -Shannon Culpepper

“I’m still in a job where I work too long, not getting the pay I think I deserve. I still have this car, thank God it’s still running, that has over 257,000 miles and I would love a new car but it’s so not in the budget. I’m one living paycheck to paycheck but I’m so happy. If you have Him first in your life, everything will be okay. Everything. Your heart, your soul, your family.” - Shawna

“It’s exhausting, having to succeed. What I didn’t realize is that was my focus and my drive for so long was that I just wore myself out…. Christ is first in my life because He is magnificently first in my everything. He is first because He is better than me at anything. He is first because He is passionately crazy about me, whether I’m doing well or not, whether I’m performing well or not. How can someone like that not be first?” -Pete Briscoe

-After looking around this website, I am led to think about my own life. I became Second on August 19, 2003 when I gave my life to Christ. When I became a Christian, I had no idea what God had in store for me. I didn’t realize that I could be so free of the burdens of this world because of what He did for me. I didn’t know that I could wake up every day with a hope that God loves me and wants good for my life. I had no idea that He would lead me to so many wonderful opportunities to spread His love and get to know His children. All I knew on that day was that there was a God who desperately loved me and wanted an intimate relationship with me. Fortunately, our eternal God doesn’t change and He continues to love me with that same passionate love He had for me on Day One.

My name is Mich Bilyeu and I am Second because
God gives me hope, purpose, meaning, and has
never, nor will He ever, let me down.

I saw a new thing going around Facebook and thought this would be a nice addition to the blog.

Rules:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search (http://www.flickr.com/).
b. Using ONLY the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Mosaic Maker. Change rows to 3 and columns to 3 (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/mosaic.php).
d. Save the image and post it on this note!

The Questions:
1. What is your first name? - Michelle
2. What is your favorite food? - Grilled Chicken
3. What is your favorite color? - Orange
4. Favorite drink? - Iced Tea Lemonade (”Arnold Palmer”)
5. Dream vacation? Greece
6. Favorite hobby? Laughing
7. What you want to be when you grow up? School Teacher
8. What do you love most in life? Jesus
9. One word to describe you? Free

Happy Easter! Hope you all had a joyous day. If you put aside the bunnies, candy, and egg hunts, you are left with the real meaning of Easter: the resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ! This day has given my life hope and meaning. His perfect life has shown me the path to a satisfying and God glorifying life. His painful death has given me a new life where I am free of my sin. His resurrection gives me hope of an eternal life with my Father and his holy Son.  I can boast in my life with Jesus because his wounds have paid my ransom. My thoughts on Easter can be summed up in this powerful, amazing song called “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us” by Stuart Townend.

How deep the Father’s love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure

How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One,
Bring many sons to glory

Behold the Man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice,
Call out among the scoffers

It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished

I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection

Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom

I love at the end of some magazines when they have cute kid quotes or funny conversations with a toddler. Well, I had a funny one the other day while I was babysitting a 7 year old girl named Gretchen. She wanted to make a valentine’s day card for her friend who loves horses. So, we did google image searches for horses. We found a really pretty picture and printed it. The picture printed out to be nearly half of the computer paper and Gretchen thought it was way too big, so she wanted to find a different picture. I told her that we need to find a smaller image. She paused, thought for a second, and then her face lit up and she started typing. She typed into the search engine, “baby horses”!

I couldn’t help but laugh while she found a picture she liked. She printed it and realized it was the same size as the first picture. She was confused until I told her how pictures work and they all have different sizes that isn’t related to the object in the picture. She didn’t feel like looking for another picture and resulted in just using this cute “smaller” picture of the baby horse.

One of my all time favorite movies is A Walk to Remember with Mandy Moore and Shane West. I have seen the movie many, many times and it still makes me cry at the end. I just finished reading the novel by Nicholas Sparks and it was equally as great as the movie. If you haven’t heard of this movie (or book), you are pretty much living under a rock. Here is the plot summary on the back of the book if you are feeling out of the loop, “Every April, when the wind smells of both the sea and lilacs, Landon Carter remembers 1958, his last year at Beaufort high. Landon had dated a girl or two, and even once sworn he’d been in love. Certainly the last person he thought he’d fall for was Jamie, the shy, almost ethereal daughter of the town’s Baptist minister…Jamie, who was destined to show him the depths of the human heart—and the joy and pain of living.”

Ever since I heard of this movie, I thought the title just meant the walk of Jamie and Landon together and the path that their lives led them. This was completely altered today when I finished the book. It clearly told me what “A Walk to Remember” meant. *Spoiler Alert* If you don’t want to know the ending of the movie, don’t read on (which kinda sucks for you because now you don’t know what the title really means…so, go watch the movie, then come back!). So, at the end of the movie we know that Jamie is dying of leukemia and Landon fulfills her biggest wish, he marries her in the church where her parents married. In the movie, Jamie looks healthy and stable during the wedding and is able to walk down the aisle with ease. But in the book, she is pushed into the church on a wheelchair and leaned onto her dad for support and stability. In the book, she is extremely weak and has to pause in the middle of the aisle to take a breath and gain some strength. It’s this moment that the book is named after. It is written, “Then Jamie and Hegbert slowly made their way down the aisle, while everyone in the church sat silently in wonder. Halfway down the aisle, Jamie suddenly seemed to tire, and they stopped while she caught her breath. Her eyes closed, and for a moment I didn’t think she could go on. I know that no more than ten or twelve seconds elapsed, but it seemed much longer, and finally she nodded slightly. With that, Jamie and Hegbert started moving again, and I felt my heart surge with pride. It was, I remembered thinking, the most difficult walk anyone ever had to make. In every way, a walk to remember.”

Sweetest thing ever.

If you’re on Facebook, you have probably seen the rapid notes spreading around with 25 random things you never knew about your friends. Whether it be that your best friend loves rocky road ice cream but hates marshmallows, your brother has a secret desire to learn how to salsa dance, or your classmate is ready to quit school and start having some babies. These lists are meant to be random and inform the reader of 25 things that you never knew about the author. So, after being tagged by many friends, I decided to make a list about myself. Since I didn’t want to completely conform to the trend and copy everyone else, I decided to be different. I made a list of 24 random things about me. Hope you enjoy!

1. I’ve been called Mich or Michie since I was a little girl..the only people that still call me Michelle are my sister and my professors.
2. David and I found a stray hamster on his driveway on New Years, we kept him, named him Percy (after UF footballer Percy Harvin), and now he lives with David in Gville!
3. I am a cheap lady..I will find the best deals and make the most of each dollar. I definitely make the most of my resources.
4. I went to six Gator football games in the fall and I don’t even go to UF.  The only home game I couldn’t make it to, David got tickets in the FIRST row!
5. I cut my hair way too short in the summer and it’s finally grown out to the perfect length.
6. I think Estela Falcon is one of the most loving and selfless women I know. We have been APFL’s (accountability partners for life) for almost 6 years and I couldn’t ask for a better one!
7. I’m obsessed with looking at wedding photography and looking at the different styles (Studio 222 is one of my absolute favorites!) I seriously lust after the thought of becoming a professional photographer…one day it will happen!
8. I’ll admit that I was one of those girls who squealed when Edward Cullen (and Bella and Alice and Jasper and Emmett and Charlie and Jacob, etc) first appeared on the movie screen for the midnight showing of Twlight and I’m not ashamed
9. I was blessed with one of the best Bible studies all through out high school with the best leader and the most wonderful Godly women. I learned so much from them through out the 4 years.
10. Joining Phi Lamb was one of the best decisions I made at UCF. It’s amazing to see how God has blessed the sorority and I can not wait to see how we grow! All of the girls are unique and so sweet and my Big Sis is amazing!
11. I plan on taking many, many trips in the future, just my husband and I.
12. I’m going to learn how to write calligraphy and then offer my services for wedding invitations sometime in my life.
13. I absolutely love watching my niece grow up and being an active part of her life. I can’t wait to have long conversations with her in the future.
14. I’m going to be an elementary school teacher in a couple years and the thought of setting up my classroom, meeting my students, and creating lesson plans is exciting!
15. Being friends with Staci Stephens taught me so much about life and loving the Lord. Her unique ministry changed so many people and it was amazing to see it help transform lives. I miss her more everyday. (http://www.stacistephens.com)
16. I worked at Wycliffe Bible Translators full time over the summer. Wycliffe translates the Bible into all of the world’s languages and allows all people to have the Word in their mother tongue. It’s an amazing ministry and I loved being a part of it.
17. I love my family! and my Mom’s cooking! and when Faith opens my door and yells “Chelle!!” each morning! (She created the name chelle for me) love
18. I’m starting to learn to enjoy running. Right now, it’s no fun at all but I’m going through a Couch-to-5k training program and I hope to enjoy it after the 8 weeks.
19. I really hope that in the future, me and my high school lady friends (Kara, Jenna, Julie, Jiff) will have reunions and chat about our kids and husbands and careers and our lives.
20. I just learned what the word ‘edification’ meant earlier this year..now I’m on the Phi Lamb edification committee with two encouraging girls and love it!
21. I stalk a lot of blogs and can tell you some life stories about people I have never met. hmm, I wonder if I have any stalkers on my blog.
22. Ever since I was a safety patrol in 5th grade stationed at the car loop, I’ve become infatuated with car handles and now appreciate some handles over others. Mini-vans have the best handles…weird, I know.
23. I taught Junior Achievement for Elementary students for the first time last semester and am doing it again this semester and I love it! One of my favorite memories was when I was teaching the 2nd graders about taxes and I asked “Can anyone tell me who pays taxes?” and a cute little boy answered “uhh..taxi drivers!”
24. My favorite ice cream is Publix’s Black Jack Cherry frozen yogurt..it is so yum!

What’s something random about you?

I’ve never been an avid calendar user through out my life but I bought a new month-by-month UCF calendar in August and it has been such a great organizational tool. I’m able to write down when I babysit, when classes are cancelled, when I have tests, when Phi Lamb is having a events, birthdays, appointments, etc. Ever since I started using this calendar, I realized that I used to keep track of a lot of information in my head! Each month is the same: I usually start off fresh and clean with just a few words marking important dates. But by the end of the month, the page is full of color, words, times, events and best of all, memories. I’m definitely going to keep this calendar long after the 2008/2009 school year just so I can reflect on everything I did. We just entered a new month, so February is looking fairly clean:

And after 28 days, it will probably look a little cluttered, just like January did at the end of the month:

The funny thing is that I’m like a calendar freak now… I also keep an up-to-date version on my phone, Google Calendar and on my iPod Touch, just in case I need to know my schedule and don’t have my handy-dandy UCF calendar in front of me. oh, and aren’t my orange walls awesommmee?

Hello! It’s been a while since I have written on here. What can I say, life got busy! But life is good! I started my fourth (!!) semester at UCF and I’m officially in the College of Education and I’m taking all elementary education classes now. It is awesome! I’m taking Math for Educators, Child & Adolescent Development for Educators, Basic Foundation of Reading, Ethical, Legal & Safe Issues in Schools, and a LEAD course on teaching Junior Achievement. I’m learning about all different aspects of education and children. I’m hearing things I never would have thought about. I love it and I can’t wait to get deeper into these (and future) classes! The semester is already a forth over…crazy!

David came home this weekend and we enjoyed a quick couple days together. He is cute. We found a hamster on his driveway on New Years Day! I thought it was a mouse but it ended up being a stray hamster. So, we kept him, put him in an old cage, named him Percy, and now he lives with David in Gainesville!

I’m hoping to write more and talk about more fun things in my life. I stalk a bunch of blogs and love when the writer talks about their personal life and funny, random, unique things that happen. So, if you are a michbilyeu.com stalker (which I doubt there are many), I welcome you to my life!

I just read the secrets from this week’s PostSecret* post..This particular picture secret was probably my favorite because I can definitely relate. There are so many things I wish I could do…but I just don’t want to put the energy into pursuing it and developing a talent. I would love to learn calligraphy, run miles and miles, sing, fully understand my canon rebel, and develop a functional iPhone application (just so I can have smart conversations with David ;-). I’m working on learning to enjoy running by going through a Couch-to-5K training program. It is meant to take you from a couch potato to a 5K runner in 8 weeks..we’ll see how that goes! I’m definitely going to keep up with it but I don’t know if it will change my attitude about running. Also, one day I’m going to buy awesome calligraphy pens and learn to write in many different styles..I just have to get myself some pens and motivation to learn!

*For anyone who doesn’t know, PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people
mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard. They release a new blog post with new secrets every Sunday morning.

My third semester in college is officially OVER!! I took my last final this morning and do not have to worry about school again until January 7th! It’s a wonderful feeling! This semester really has been pretty easy for me, which I’m very thankful for but that also means that next semester will inevitably be more difficult. Therefore, I’m thankful for a great, easy, successful 3rd semester and am (kinda) looking forward to a challenging, rewarding, and interesting 4th semester!