Amazing Wonders 1-8-12

Last night, I just got back from two days away at Ridgecrest in Black Mountain, NC. Two of God's precious servants from our church and I attended Lifeway's VBS training event for Amazing Wonders Aviation. It was so much fun, and it really gets you excited about Vacation Bible School. Yes, it is six months away, but a successful VBS takes a ton of prayer and preparation! As I get older, I become more and more convinced that God loves it when we covenant with him in prayer and when we listen to Him for His part in the plans we are making, especially if we're working on something for His glory! If you are part of the VBS planning team for your church and you can get to one of these training events, I highly recommend it.

I've already popped in the Music DVD and shown Spouse and the kids some of the music and moves for this year's VBS. There is just something about VBS that just gets me all choked up with emotion. It touches my soul to see so many men and women from churches across the nation coming together to reach out to children in their communities with the message of Christ. It truly is an amazing wonder, and only something that could be orchestrated by God. Yes, it means that my children look at me a bit funny when we are first learning the music because I get all teary-eyed while doing goofy dance-moves. It just breaks my heart-- but in a good way. I realize that not everyone feels this way about VBS, but as I told my oldest child, I hope one day that God impresses every Christian heart with a passion for reaching out to His children- whether they be old, young or anywhere in between!

In other news.... Today, I get to celebrate my twentieth anniversary with this guy. At the tender age of nineteen, we pledged our eternal love to each other, and against the odds, we've managed to stay married for two decades. This is not because of any great feat on our part-- we almost broke it to pieces a little over a decade ago, but our continued relationship is a testimony to the fact that God can heal hurts and can mend the broken places in our lives. I am so thankful that we fell back in love again and that we both were brought to a place of humility before God. He is such an amazing God. I am so blessed to be able to wake up to see my partner and best friend's face every morning. Besides, who else would put up with my teary eyes over things like VBS? That little bit of crazy is all mine, but so is Greg, and I am thankful.

New year, new beginnings 1-1-12

I thought today I'd talk about what I'd like to see manifested in my life over the next year, things that I am actively working toward, things that I am willing to actually accomplish, not just dream and plan.

On one of the blogs I read, the writer had established a word for the New Year- something to hold fast to. Something to give her direction. I really liked her word for 2012, so I'm adopting it as well. That word is "GO".

For a long time, I've been preparing for some things that I feel called to. Preparation is important, but I think sometimes we can get stuck in our preparation phase- so stuck, in fact, that we ONLY prepare. We ONLY plan. We ONLY dream, but we never take the steps needed to move out of that comfortable place of writing things down in a journal. We get so busy packing our bags so that we'll have everything we need that we never actually open the door and step out into the big, wide world. I'm tired of preparing. I'm ready to GO and get on with what God has ahead.

I will be finally graduating in May of 2012 with my bachelor's in Religious Studies. I had thought that after this, I would continue on with my education to get a master's. I'd thought that by this point I would be looking at seminaries, and I have, but I haven't applied at any because I'm tired of being in school. I am ready to get on with my speaking ministry- ready to help other women- ready to start fulfilling my calling. Is seminary in the future? Maybe, but not for now. For now, I need to open that door and step out of school and into what God has for me.

Specifically, I will be pursuing speaking opportunities and writing articles for magazines and web content and building my web presence. Speaking and writing. Writing and speaking. This is my plan. I do have specific steps laid out for myself, but I won't bore you with all the details. I just needed to put my plans out there- for someone other than me to see.

It's a scary thing- this stepping out. It's so much more comfortable to just keep on preparing for the path ahead. It's a lot more comforting to keep on packing those bags with everything I might need. It feels better to be protected, to be safe, to not have any expectations of myself other than to do well in school- preparing. But am I just called to be comfortable? Surely not. Instead, I am called to GO, to do God's will, not just sit around planning for some nebulous future that may never come to pass if I never tied my shoes and opened the door.

Another driver and a graduate 8/3/11

I thought I'd share with you a few of the things you've missed this summer, since I've been bloggily silent, for the most part. First of all, my oldest kid (Emily) graduated from high school. I have no idea how this happened, since we all know I am still only 23. /sarcasm You see that rather short on right on the end of the standing row? That's my baby. :) We were so proud. She doesn't see the big deal about graduating, but it's a right of passage, and we're proud of her.

Man! It was hot that day! They'd been calling for storms, but not a single cloud was in the sky by the time graduation started.

In other Emily news, just today, we finally went to court to get her non-provisional driver's license. Just in time for her to move to my mother-in-law's for college.

This summer, we also went on vacation to the beach, went to Kings Dominion, sent two kids off to camp and generally did a bunch of stuff. According to my kids, who go back to school next Tuesday (yes, you read that right), we did nothing. And their summer was boring. I'm shocked they survived the terribly boredom.

And just a week ago, my second child, Aaron, got his learner's permit. Doesn't he look proud? If you could see me in the pic (rather than being the one behind the camera), you might see a frightened expression on my face. My goodness. Two of them driving now???? How does this even happen? Seriously, though, I'm proud of him. I know he'll be a good driver (fingers and toes crossed on that one), and hopefully won't add any more silver to my hair.

7-21-11

Holy hand grenades, Batman! I deleted my blog in a moment of digital clean-up and regretted it almost immediately. I was just feeling overwhelmed by too much stuff going on in my life. BUT I realized that there is quite a bit of my life tied up in my blog, and that's really not a place I need to clear out. I've been blogging since 2008, and wow- that's a long time. Fortunately, Blogger allows for just such an emergency of regret by not really deleting your blog until 90 days after you tell them to delete it.

So please forgive me, sweet followers of my little blog.

So what have I been up to? To be honest- Mostly just glistening. My grandmother always said that ladies don't sweat, they glisten. Well, I sure have been doing an awful lot of glistening lately, since here in Virginia, the heat index is around 112. Not kidding. It is horribly hot. The temperature at this precise moment is about 99, but with the humidity, it's just plain hard to breathe out there and it feels about as hot as Satan's armpit! For those of you who live in hotter places, please accept my apologies for whining, and why DO you live in such a hot place, anyway? I'm serious when I tell y'all that I just melt when it's like this. My brain turns to tapioca, and all I want to do is lay around in the air conditioning. God knew what He was doing when he put me in this time period, because heaven knows I wouldn't have made it through the years past without this beautiful invention. I ♥ air conditioning, indeed!

Meanwhile, what else would I do when it's so horrifyingly hot that you could literally fry an egg on the sidewalk? I'd paint my kitchen. Yep. All that lovely 60's era teal is making way for a bright sunshiny (though cool because it's in the AC of course) yellow. My kitchen is terribly drab and dark, so I'm painting it a color called "Only Yesterday". It's the same color as my living room, which we just painted a few months ago. This would be why Spouse is so unwilling to help me on this project. The boy hates painting, and I can't say I blame him too much, but there is something absolutely beautiful about a freshly-painted wall, isn't there? I may post pics later, if I manage to actually finish the project all by myself.

We're also getting our oldest child ready to head to college in a few weeks. How does that happen? She was just a little thing, just yesterday. She'll be attending VCU (like her Mommy!), but she won't be living at home. The hour and a half (one-way) commute is a bit much for her, so she'll be living with my mother-in-law, who only lives 10 minutes from VCU. Of course, we have all the usual trepidations about her starting VCU, but I'm so happy for her! She'll be an art major at the #1 public art university in the US. How awesome is that? I knew she'd get in, even though she wasn't sure. Her father and I couldn't be prouder! I have made her a solemn promise that I won't crowd her, and I will do my best to pretend I don't know her unless she acknowledges me first. (Kidding, of course, but there was some worry on her part that I would act all goofy and expect her to always hang out with me on campus. She doesn't realize that would crimp MY style, not just hers.)

I'm anxious for my last semester at VCU to start so that I can be done done DONE with my Bachelor's degree. Spouse and I agreed that I'll take a little bit of time off before working on my Master's degree, and I am SO excited by the prospect of no longer having that long commute and finally having finished this first part of my journey.

Seeing stars 6-29-11

All of my fretting and panicking in the last post was, of course, pointless. Everything worked out fine with financial aid, and we are go for fall semester! On some level, I knew it would be fine. I also knew that if I didn't get the financial aid I needed, then maybe God had something else planned for the fall. Either way, I was in good hands. I admit that I am terribly impatient. It's a flaw that I'm working on.

So today, as I was wandering the streets of Scottsville, in search of paper towels and a new hammer at the Family Dollar, I ran into Dave Matthews. As in Dave Matthews of the Dave Matthews Band. I knew he owned a farm just a few miles away, but for some strange reason, I didn't expect to see him outside of Twist- the new frozen yogurt place in Scottsville- hanging out with his adorable little girls and getting his fro-yo on. I had the briefest of conversations with one of his little girls about her duct-tape purse that she made herself and made a comment to Dave Matthews, which he acknowledged. Kindof a micro-conversation. My daughter also waited on him at Slice of Heaven (which is next door to Twist), but she was unaware of it until I told her. LOL.

Here's the weirdest thing about that whole exchange. I learned once and for all that I truly am not star-struck. I can recognize that he is a celebrity, but he's just another person. He still gets pizza and frozen yumminess with his kids on a hot summer day, and wears bummy clothes, and talks to random strangers on the street about nothing, just like the rest of us. It's just that he also makes boucoup bucks with his music and has been in a few movies. *shrug* I just wish I'd invited his daughters to VBS, because I'm sure his daughters get bored doing the same old stuff, just like my kids do. And I know for certain that just like everyone else, they need to hear about Jesus. Too bad I didn't think of it til afterwards.

Feeling Adrift 6-17-2011

First off, let me offer the obligatory "Sorry I have neglected my blog." It's been more than six months, primarily because last semester was insanely busy. Then once I was out for the semester, I'd just been feeling odd and disconnected. I've just felt totally adrift for the past month or so.

There is nothing I need to do for school. I'm in between semesters. There are a million projects to do on the house, but I don't feel like doing any of them. My kids are growing up, and it would almost seem that they have outgrown the need to have a mom around. (That last one is making me a bit sad.) They DO need me, but they are all crazy-busy with her own agendas of things to do, particularly the 18-year-old who just graduated. Spouse has also been incredibly busy, leaving me feeling a bit turned around. Suddenly I have almost nothing to do (except for the projects that I mentioned that I work very hard at avoiding, apparently). I just feel like I've somehow lost my place in my own home, and I don't know what to do about it.

Add to that the fact that (again) VCU has left me hanging when it comes to financial aid, and you have a very mixed-up lady on your hands! What I mean is that it's now mid-June, and I've heard NOTHING from VCU about whether or not I get any kind of financial aid for the upcoming year. NOTHING. If I don't receive financial aid, I can't go this fall. It's as simple as that. We just don't have the money to pay for school, so if I don't get what I need in terms of financial aid, then I'll have to take a semester off and work so that I can go back and finish my final semester of my Bachelor's degree and graduate in the Spring, instead of in December. This has me completely agitated, and while I could call the school up and fuss at them, it will do no good whatsoever. They will get to it when they get to it-- even if that's not until November.

AND because I decided to take a semester off between Bachelor's and Master's degrees, Spouse decided that maybe HE should go back to school during that break. The thing is, he'd need to go for more than a semester, so seminary is temporarily on-hold for me.... if I can even finish my bachelor's to begin with. There just is no way we can both be in school at the same time, from a time and a money standpoint.

The long and the short of it is that things are not going like I expected, and it's left me feeling utterly confused. I feel like I'm floating out to sea, un-anchored and out of my comfort zone. There are entirely too many question marks on my life right now, and I don't like it one bit! Fortunately, those question marks are not question marks to the one who has a greater perspective than I have. God stands back, and He knows what's going on. I simply need to trust Him to lead. If I have to take a semester off before getting my Bachelor's, God is not surprised. I just wish He'd let ME know so that I can make plans and do what needs to be done.

Holiday Hangovers 12-31-2010

Many people will awake tomorrow and greet 2011 with a hangover from indulging too much in reverie the night before. Still more of us will greet 2011 with what I like to call a holiday hangover. A holiday hangover can be just plain regret from indulging too much financially or indulging too much around the table with friends and family. Some of us may even have indulged too much in the comings and goings of the season, resulting in a suffocating depression as the holidays come to a screeching halt.

My family indulged a bit too much financially, including today when we took Daniel (our youngest) to an indoor water park at Massanutten- a ski resort in the mountains about an hour and a half from us. We did this because the older three are on a youth group trip and I didn't want Daniel to feel left out. Unfortunately, that fun came at a price, and while I think it was well worth it, it left us with empty wallets until the next payday. The 'fun money' is all gone, and we are left with good memories, an aching back (as I really shouldn't have gone down one slide in particular) and a lingering exhaustion from quite a bit of fun!

In a few short minutes, 2010 will end and 2011 will begin. Like so many other families, we will be revisiting our budget, making sure everything is as it should be, and probably revising it a bit. We'll be asking hard questions, thinking about where we're spending too much in both time and money and tweaking. We'll also be organizing and trying to put things back in order around here. Even as I type this, Spouse is busy taking down decorations and tomorrow will be spent (at least part of the day) cleaning and sweeping out the old to make room for the new. We're even sorting through things to donate to the local Goodwill, to bless others as we bless ourselves with a tidy home.

Though I have made no real New Year's resolutions since those are typically broken by the third day of the year, there are places that I'm working on. Things that God is working out IN me. Places that need straightening out and things that generally need to be cut back on. The new year is a great time to think back at the year that's past and think about what has worked well, and what needs more tweaking. For me, I plan to grow closer to God, closer to my family, and to get rid of my clutter and keep my home and life clutter-free to make room for new ideas and blessings in my life. So what are you planning to work on in 2011?

Wishing you and yours a wonderful New Year, full of blessing and beauty!