The Babies

So over Christmas break, I had lunch with my friends. As mentioned earlier, we've been friends since we were 10, so this was the 17 year anniversary of our friendship! And they brought the babies. They were ADORABLE!

just me and the babies.

the girls with the babies.

standing up this time.

The End of a Year

2010.

This year has been full of so many good things, blessings from the Lord, and also of hard lessons and big decisions.

I'm not too sentimental about the end of a year, but it is nice to take a look back. See what God has taught you. See what He has done in your life. See what a different person you have become (a better one, hopefully). Reminisce all the fun times and experiences. We are so undeserving.

We are so thankful to God for allowing us to see the end of a year and the beginning of a new one. He is far too good to us!

Christmas

This year I have kind of been a scrooge about Christmas. I seem overly irritated by spending money on things that people don't need, by the over the top decorations, and by the frantic need to please everyone. This feeling comes over me about every three years or so and it has made it's rotation in 2010. And it's not just Christmas specifically, but December as a whole.

I hate that December has become a time for us to be so busy and focused on so many other things than celebrating Jesus. We run around shopping in large crowds being grumpy at the bad drivers, the woman that grabbed the last item off the shelf as you were reaching for it, the long lines at Target, the sassy employees. But do we spend enough time meditating on the fact that God came in human form to earth in the effort to save us from sin, death.

I don't want to be one of those people who is in a bad mood for the whole month of December. I love being with family. I adore getting to see my friends that I don't see often. I like the break from school and from work for a little bit. It's not all bad! And I'm not saying that if you LOVE shopping and wrapping presents and decorating every square inch of your house that you are a bad person and don't enjoy celebrating Jesus. I think we can do both. The only catch is, we have to make sure we actually do both. And not just split the time up evenly, but you can worship Jesus in the decorating, in the cooking, in the gift-giving, in the spending time with family and friends.

This year, let's be focused on Jesus in all things. I need to remind myself to to do this all the time. It's a daily task.

Happy Christmas, everyone. I hope you find time to worship Jesus today!

Purple Hippos

So, back in junior high, me and my best friends formed a group called the Purple Hippos. If you know any of us, you've probably heard us mention this at least once! I can't even remember the exact circumstance that warranted the naming of our friend group, but let me tell you, once we did...it stuck. So we were 10 years old when this happened and the group was this: me, Kimmie, Liss, and Heather. We are all grown up now and a lot has changed in our lives, but one thing that remains the same is that we are all still good friends.

We are all spread out. Heather lives in Florida. I live in Texas. Elissa lives in Tennessee. Kimmie lives in Mississippi. Heather's family also lives in Florida, but the the other three of us have family in Jackson, MS. At Christmas, when we are all home, we have begun this tradition of the Purple Hippo reunion. We miss Heather, but we have a great time.

A lot has changed too. We've grown and a lot has happened to all of us. We love getting together and enjoying some time catching up and being silly. Here's some pictures from the past 2 reunions.

2008

2009

I can't WAIT to see these girls next week for round 3 of the reunion. We'll be at our 17th year has friends. And this time, both Kimmie and Liss have BABIES to bring. Last time they were both pregnant. I can't wait to meet Lydia and see Willow again! I love them so much and they are all such a blessing in my life. I am thankful that God brought them into my life at 10 and we have managed to span the awkward years and the high school drama and physical distance to remain friends for so long.

PS I also think it's funny that in both pictures, we are all wearing brown, gray, or black. What a neutral bunch. I'm going to wear a color this year! :)

End of Another Semester

Each semester we always celebrate being done with 4 more months of graduate school. Lately I've been hard on myself for continually pushing back my graduation date back. I'm working on a 64 hour degree program that will take me 9 semesters to finish, which is how long it took me to finish my undergraduate degree that was more than double my masters.

I have been dreaming of the day where I can read for fun. When I don't have to write a paper. When I can come home from work, prop my feet up, and watch TV without guilt that I should be writing a paper. Without the stress of midterms and finals. Without having homework.

While my pride has taken a hit because of this, I am deciding not to worry about it anymore. I am so thankful that God has given Ethan and I the opportunity to be in school. I'm glad he called us here. So looking back, there are some pretty huge perks to taking school a little slower than normal. We have really soaked up all of our classes. I mean, we have really learned what we are supposed to be learning because we are not in class overload every semester. We have gotten to know some of professors really well. We will have lasting relationships with these brilliant people that we can fall back on throughout life. We have made so many friends. Although we've seen people come, graduate, and go, since we are still here we are meeting the new students. We have had lots of ministry opportunities. We have been able to take the summers off of school. I could probably go on and on.

So, although some of our friends who graduated at MC with us are already finished with med school and are currently signing their names as "Doctor," we are thankful for our time in Fort Worth so far and are looking ahead to many new things to learn and much more ministry to do!

Fall Update?

So, it appears as though I only update my blog once a season...so here's the fall update. :)

What has happened since July when I wrote about our adventure to Puerto Rico, you ask? A lot!

1. I got a new job! I now work full time for the seminary in the Office of Admissions. I am the Administrative Assistant to the office which I love. It allows me to be very organized, do paperwork (which I love), take care of people, talk to prospective students, and be bossy and let's be honest, you know I love to do all those things.

2. Ethan got a new job! Ethan is now the college director at Wedgwood Baptist Church. We are loving it! It's funny, we didn't think we were very old until we started hanging out with college students. But we are having so much fun loving on them, ministering to them, hanging out with them. And we love Wedgwood. What a great place to worship and hear God's word preached!

3. My sister got married! We all converged upon New Orleans for a beautiful wedding weekend. It is kind of a blur, it went by so quickly. The wedding was gorgeous and we had such a great time.

4. Both of my childhood best friends had babies! They are both girls. Beautiful, perfect, baby girls. I cannot believe we are old enough to be mommies already, but we are. They are great moms and I can't wait til Christmas break when I get to see them!

5. I hosted my first family Thanksgiving. The food was ready on time and it wasn't burned so I consider it a success! I have so much to be thankful for!

6. Ethan and I are ALMOST done with one more semester of seminary. We've both pushed our graduation dates back to next December, which I cannot lie, kind of made me sad for a while, but we won't be so stressed and we'll be learning so much and actually taking it all in.

So, that's a recap. We have really enjoyed this fall, it has just flown by!

Not what I expected...

Ethan and I had the privilege of working with World Changers again this summer. We were transferred to Puerto Rico, which I happen to love! I was the Project Coordinator and Ethan was the Worship Speaker. I was so thrilled to be able to go to this place that I love and run a mission project that would help the people out immensely. We had such an amazing time last year in New Orleans with World Changers that I was expecting a similar experience.

However, it was nothing like I thought it would be. I was dealing with a lot of anxiety about the upcoming trip that by the time we arrived in San Juan, I was almost overwhelmed with worry and anxiety. It was hard to really enjoy our "time off" because I was still having to work on the project and deal with the random things that had come up. When we got to the project city, I was not feeling well. I kept feeling worse and worse, until I was sick enough to need to go to the doctor. That was very difficult. Being sick and trying to run a 200+ mission project is not easy. I had great people around me that worked so hard. It is because of them that the project even happened!

But me being sick was really the least of the problems that we had. We did not have supplies for most of the week at most of the houses. We were supposed to complete 9 houses and we did not even come close to finishing 1. We had no electricity for a whole day on registration day so that made checking people in difficult. We had a group cancel and two groups miss flights and arrive late. Our worship leader was not feeling well at the end of the week. We had issues with credit cards, so buying food for camp was difficult. And we had two of the participants have family members die while we were there. It was one of those weeks where I sat back and asked God why he had even brought me there!

Now sitting back and looking at the week, I can see that God was moving all throughout. The gospel was presented many many times and people were loved on by the youth that came. This is the most important thing. When they did not have building supplies, they were meeting neighbors, praying over the community and sharing their faith with people. I learned a lot personally about relying on other people and not taking so much on myself. I also learned a lot about faith and trust in the Lord. I really deal with anxiety a lot, to the point that it is really a problem sometimes. This week really tested that in my life and in my faith. I wish I could snap my fingers and be calm and not worry, but this is not the case. I'm not quite sure what all God is teaching me through what happened last week in Puerto Rico. I may never see what all God was and is doing in Juana Diaz, however I am sure he is working. However, I will see what God is doing in my life and in our marriage, although I may not understand why. I will say this, I am much more open now about my life and my struggles than I have ever been before. I'm not sure whether this is good or bad, but it certainly helps to not keep it bottled up.

I have a doctor's appointment next week to follow up from the one in Puerto Rico/annual check up. I'm a bit nervous, but I know the Lord is in control. Maybe this blog is turning into an anxiety blog...you may learn more of my struggles that you ever wanted to know!