Psalm 108:1-6

My heart is steadfast, O God; I will sing and make music with all my soul.

Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn.

I will praise you, O LORD, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples.

For great is your love, highter than the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens, and let your glory be over all the earth.

Save us and help us with your right hand, that those you love may be delivered.

Animal Sculpture

This year I am taking an art class with my good friend Amanda. Our teacher is a quirky, middle-aged mom who always finds fun projects for us to do. Over the past few weeks, we have been creating animal sculptures out of wire, newspaper, and clay. When the sculptures are complete they will be painted and then taken home to show our families. I was intrigued by the techniques that we used; I decided to write a short "how to.." to share them with all of you!

1. My animal choice was originally a fox, but when i finished this step it looked more like a pig. The body I made didn't have too much shape other than a large oval.Take thick wire and try to make a shape that somewhat resembls the shape of the animal's body.

2. Use the same technique for the head and all of the limbs. Try to show movement by putting one front and one back leg forward and the other two legs back as if the animal were walking. Also, create some sort of hip structure for the legs to attatch to so that they are more 3-dimensional than the body itself. If the legs are attatched diretly to the body, the creature will not be able to stand up because the space between each pair of legs will be too small. For the head, you can just tirn it to the side or face us to make the creature a little more interesting.

3. Next, fill the big wire shapes with newspaper pieces to give yourself a surface to put the clay on. Be careful of the amount of newspaper because if you put too much on, you won't have much room to add a lot of clay. When you have put your desired amount of newspaper throughout the large wire, wrap a smaller wire around the whole thing to keep the newspaper from falling out. You can use tape to keep the small wire from poking out if you need to.

4. Now it's time to add the clay! Technique depends on the type of clay, and in this case I would recommend using a soft, self-hardening clay. When using this you will want to wet your fingers because it makes fashioning the clay much easier. Once the clay is on you can wet it again and gently stroke it to make any changes.

5. Be careful to keep your eye on the bottom of the legs and the underneath of your animal; clay tends to not want to stick around those areas. If this happens, wet your fingers and gently caress the clay back together.

6. When you are satisfied with your animal, leave it out to dry for about a day, and then it is time to paint.

7. My class used oil paints. We did not paint realistically, but painted colorful patterns in stead. This is all a matter of your own creative tastes, painting is really up to you.

8. Enjoy!

With A Little Help From My Friends

If there is one thing that I have learned in my years of high school so far, it is the importance of friendship. The Bible talks about this beautiful relationship on many different occasions. Friends need to sharpen each other as iron sharpens iron, and a true friend will stick closer than a brother. This important relationship seems to be harder to find these days, because people are so concerned with their own wishes and well being that they do not know how to really care about someone else's. Once a friendship is formed, however, it is one of the hardst bonds to break. I have been blessed enough to find one of these almost impenetrable bonds during my first year of highschool.
About three years ago, I started my freshman year at a small private scohol in my hometown. I sat behind a girl named Sabrina in English class and every once in a while we would have a short conversation. On October 29th of that year, I invited her to my birthday party. I did not think she would actually show up since we were hardly friends, but she did! To this day I have not been able to figure out how we became such good friends after that time, but here we are three years later and she is one of the closest friends I have ever had. She is with me just about everywhere and almost all the time.
I have seen how important friendship is over the years as we have struggled and grown together, comforted and prayed for each other, and watched and learned from mistakes that we each have made over time. Sabrina has been and continues to be a beautiful addition to my life as she proves her thoughtfulness to me daily. I enjoy her company more than just about anything.
There are so many things Sabrina has done to make her all of thse things in my life. For instance, she "proves her thoughtfulness" by doing things like bringing soup to my house whenever I am sick and coming over at ten thirty p.m. just because I need somebody to talk to. We went to the beach together two years ago and I got a pair of sunglasses that I absolutely loved, but I lost them in the ocean! Six months later, Sabrina gave me the same glasses for my birhtday. She had to send the store pictures of me with the old ones on just to find what kind they were. She is always a phone call away when I need her and I am so thankful for that.
I have also realized that friendship can help prepare us for marriage. In our culture today, it seems like everybody believes that dating is the only way to train for this, but I disagree. In friendships you learn to be around another person a lot, and you learn to be patient when you would really rather be somewhere else. It teaches you to put another's desires before your own, and selflessly expect nothing in return. In order to be close friends with somebody, you must realize that nobody is pperfect. The other person will let you down and the will hurt you, time and time again; but when you love somebody, you do not love them despite their failures, you embrace their failures and love even more because of them.
God has blessed me with a wonderful friend that can sharpen me just like iron sharpens iron, and a girl that sticks closer than a sister. Since it is almost her birthday, I wanted to write about her to let her know just how much she means to me, and how much I have grown to love her.
Yes, I have learned the importance of friendship--and Sabrina is the one who taught me.