God of Heaven.

God of heaven. God of all the earth and sky.
Great creator. Master of all nature.
Who gives birth to snow from heaven. holds the waves at ocean's edge
gives the orders to the morning, shows each dawn it's place to shine.
God of heaven. God of all the earth and sky.


God of ages. God who wrote the book of time.
Sovereign ruler. Alpha and Omega.
saints before He's guided safely
histry's pages signed by Him 
Author of our days and hours
things to come are held secure
God of ages. Alpha and Omega.


God of power. God who breaks the darkness
Righteous warrior. Champion of his children
goes before us into battle
good and evil bow to him
those is bondage freed forever
victry's won at his command


God who heals us. God who gives us peace and hope.
God who listens. Carries all our fragile dreams and heartaches,
wins and failures. binds the broken, hides the weak.
new beginnings freely offered. who can make us whole again.
God who heals us.
God of power.
God of ages. 
God of heaven.
God of all the earth and sky.


words and music by Heather Sorenson

(picture from the Arizona mission trip 2 years ago. i want to go back)

thankful thursday. thankful for boston :)

well hello blog! i'm sorry i have been neglecting you recently. i've been meaning to write...really i have! well today i decided to do thankful thursday before, well the middle of the night! i usually have a ton of homework on thursdays and i play volleyball with friends at night so thankful thursday has been neglected recently :/ well today and i bringing it back! and today i am thankful for boston! if you know me you know i absolutely LOVE boston! any chance i can get to be there, i take it up! recently, my dad retired and he got a job in boston! ya i was pretty much bouncing off the walls when i found out. i love going down to boston but we never did it that much. so now that my dad is working down there, we end up down there a lot ;) and that makes me one very happy girl. :) so, our most recent trip down was last friday. i had the brilliant idea of meeting dad down in boston for dinner, so we ended up driving down and having dinner in faneuil hall, and walked around, and went shopping! boston is amazing. the food, the shopping, the sports (yes i am a die hard boston fan...except for college, then i'm a UNC [university of north carolina] fan), everything about the city! if you have never been there before, i highly recommend going! :)

here are a few photos from our last trip down *warning: there's a lot* :)

i got a new pair of aviators before we went down there. happiness :)

our trusty new GPS

we got stuck in traffic...

and if you follow me on twitter and facebook you will know that i got a HUGE frappachino at starbucks in boston. it was delicious. :)

the next photo was my dad's idea! 

yup and there's my wonderful drink from starbucks :)

it was such a beautiful night!

hello there :)

happy thursday!

competition and coke bottles.

it's that time of year again! spring is coming, the pianos are constantly being played, speeches can be heard from all areas of the school building, art is being brought in, music is being memorized...it's competition is coming! thursday! needless to say, i'm nervous beyond belief! this year they switched up the photography categories to still life, people and animals, and landscape and architecture. i choose to be in still life and i had this idea in my head that i really wanted to do. and this is how it came out :)

i wanted it to look like the progress of someone drinking coke. so after trial and errors we did water with brown food coloring into diet coke bottles at different heights and froze it. we then pealed off the the bottles. that was the very condensed version of the process :) and the last straw...my mom held it on the top, and when i counted to 3, she let go of it.

so there's my picture. i really like how it came out! i will find out on thursday how i did!

happy tuesday!

{please do not copy this picture or take credit for it...if you would like to share it...please contact me first at elizabethcharlenephotography@gmail.com. thank you}

cupcakes and mondays.

happy monday! i don't usually like mondays. it's just hard to get back into the swing of things after the weekend. this monday started of with a headache at school. but nothing a little diet coke can't help ;) after school i took my competition picture (which i will be hopefully blogging about later...i can't wait to show everyone!) and got it printed! later we went to a friends house and i got to play with some pretty adorable kids :) dinner tonight=breakfast!!! i loooove breakfast for dinner. then, while i was working on some stuff for competition, my sister came into the kitchen and started to bake. she made cupcakes for her class and now the house smells like yummy cupcakes. oh how i wish i was in 7th grade...just for that one class...so i could get a cupcake. :)

happy monday :)

His way. not mine.

when my way seems dark and drear and the future I don't know,

my heart feels so empty, as the tears unending flow.

when my heart breaks with sorrow and a tempest fills my soul,

this one thing I know for sure: my God is in control.

His way is perfect, His way is perfect.

though I don't understand His wise and loving plan,

His way is perfect. His way is perfect.

take my life and make a vessel purified.

God makes no mistakes; His way is best.

when the toils of life are come and my heart is worn with care,

I faint 'neath the burden of a cross I cannot bear.

when the joy has departed from my sorrow stricken soul,

this one thing I know for sure; my God is in control.

His way is perfect, His way is perfect.

though I don't understand His wise and loving plan,

His way is perfect. His way is perfect.

take my life and make a vessel purified.

God makes no mistakes; His way is best.

                                          

words and music by Betsy Kistler

can't wait.

i can't wait for it. i can't wait to be on the plane heading south. i can't wait for the 4 hour drive from charlotte. i can't wait for the first time we drive through the gate and i squeal from excitement just thinking about everything that's coming up. i can't wait to see all the people. i can't wait to reconnect with old friends and make new ones. i can't wait to learn. i can't wait to share what i've learned. i can't wait for that first monday, when the excitement will be so great, from the staff and the campers. i can't wait to see the excitement on the campers faces and how the excitement will grow from monday to friday. i can't wait to watch the campers grow in the Lord. i can't wait to pray for them. i can't wait to spend time at the lake. i can't wait to go out to the waterfalls and gaze in amazement at how great our God is. i can't wait til the friday night excitement, when you can't hear yourself think while every single camper and counselor in the dinning hall is cheering their heads off for their amazing teams. i can't wait for the fireside services. i can't wait til the weekends to hang out with friends and make memories. i can't wait to grow closer to God. i can't wait for camp.

quick hello.

i just wanted to say a quick hello to all my blog readers out there. hello. :) i can't believe that vacation is almost over. i mean, really , this is crazy! at least i was able to end it well. if you follow me on facebook and twitter you'll know that i have been down in massachusetts these past 2 days. my dad just recently retired and he has a new job down in boston (!!!) so on friday we went down to visit him, see his office, meet his boss, go out to lunch, and go shopping! we then went to my grandmother's house down in plymouth, mass, went shopping (again), and then went to my aunt's 50th birthday party tonight (i will give a more in-depth blog post later, but i am too tired too right now :P) i hope everyone had a fabulous saturday and i will leave you with a picture of my wonderful canoli that i got fromMike's Pastry :D

happy saturday!

ps-i don't know why all of a sudden the writing on my blog is so small... i will get that fixed asap!

back on the blog. update on my life.

well hello there blogging world! i am sorry that i have been neglecting the blog recently. i am now taking a college course along with all my high school classes and everything else that goes on in my life! :) thankfully right now i am on february break! (even though it's march...) i love vacations. they give you time to just relax. which is definitely what i needed! God gives little blessings just when we need them! it's wonderful how God shows Himself through everything.

so for an update on my life! well, a lot of change has been happening at my house. (which is good) my dad retired from the fire service (yayyyy) and he is now working down in boston!!! it was sad to think that he wasn't going to be a firefighter just for the fact that he's been doing that since before my parents were married. i've always loved going to the fire station and visiting him, and going in the fire trucks (don't judge....it's a lot of fun...now if they would just let me drive one...) and just for the fact of saying my dad's a firefighter. (it just sounds cool to me :P) i'm so proud of him though, and he loves his new job which is awesome and i love his new job!

recently God has really been teaching me about trust. i've had a hard time with this. i am the type of person who likes to have everything in control and when i say everything i mean EVERYTHING! i love to plan things out, have a schedule, etc. but God has really been teaching me that i don't know what's best for my life, HE does. i don't know what's coming up in the future for my life. HE does! He's been teaching me that i just need to totally and completely trust in Him! while i was down working at camp this past summer, our boss for the waitresses had us write a "note" to ourselves about decisions we had made and about things we had learned while at camp. she then told us that she would be sending them to us later on in the year, to see if we had kept up with the decisions we had made. well, mine came in the mail the other day. and what's at the top of the list??? trust God for everything. yup, there's that whole trust thing again. it's just a comfort to know that He does know what's best for me, and He will give it to me. another thing that i had written down was nothing is too big for God. wow. what a powerful statement. i remember the morning at camp when the preacher was talking about that. he said something like think of what you think of is the biggest trial in your life...ok, now think of something bigger...now something bigger...what you just thought of, is not too big for God. because NOTHING is too big for God. i don't know about you, but that is SUCH a comforting thought to me. i can trust in HIM for anything because nothing is to big for God. wow.


well, i am going to be trying to blog more. and i am hoping to blog more about what God is teaching me. i love being able to share with others what He is teaching me.


happy wednesday!