CHEERS!

Last night my whole family met in Dallas with tons of my mom's co-workers to celebrate her retirement. It was so amazing to listen to people that I don't even know stand up and talk about my mom. Some things I knew, but others I had never heard. One thing is certain; we all agree... She is a remarkable woman, full of compassion, loyalty, diligence, ambition, and love. The whole idea of celebrating my mom's accomplishments in front of her- WITH HER was brilliant. Why do we sometimes wait for a funeral to say nice affirming things about a person? Last night we got to praise my mom for being the awesome lady she is, and hopefully spurred her on for the next phase of her life. She is hardly slowing down and like always, has a hundred things going on. She is redecorating the house, working at her new job (I like to refer to her as Madam President), has quite a full social calendar, and still finds time to be my best friend and loyal mom. I love her. (Mom, If you are reading this... I LOVE YOU!) We should all speak kinder. I wonder if everyone in my life knows how much I care for them and how obvious it is that the Lord created them just so, and how he loves them the same as he loves me- PERFECTLY. I should like to make an intentional point and the attempt to verbalize my love for the people that the Lord has placed in my path. Todd and Brennen took their test yesterday and Todd thinks it went well (I am not sure how Todd's friend Brennen feels?) Please pray for Todd and I as we finish up the semester. I have FOUR test and a paper due next week. It will surely be one of those weeks that when it's over you just kind of look around confused as to how you got through it and even more sure that their is a really big GOD. Not only do I have to take the test but I need to do well on them but no pressure! Scott survived his first tax season!!! Things are still crazy, extentions and normal monthly work but all is well on its way. I want you all to know that your prayers are heard, felt, and working. The very fact that my family is coping while working, studying, loving and just being is a testament to God's grace, patience, and his very real strength. Also please continue to pray for my grandmother (Jerrie), I talked to her for about an hour this week and she sounds okay. I know she still is deeply stricken with grief and sadness but is trying her hardest to continue in all her duties at home, as well as at her shop. She is so precious. What a wonderful hopeful life that we get to stumble through together. I can't imagine better brothers and sisters to walk with than you all. I love you and thank you for being the greatness you are!!!

***I have a new friend named David Gilbert (twenty year old from Texas A&M) and he was diagnosed with cancer this summer. After rigorous chemo the cancer seemingly left his body. It was rediscovered in his body about a month ago. He is at M.D. Anderson in Houston now and is fighting the good fight again. I will let you all know more as I receive news. He has amazing faith in His Jesus and hope pours from him.
***Amanda Cox, a girl I graduated from high-school with, just learned of her cancer too. She underwent surgery and will be starting treatment soon. She is so precious and I can only imagine scared to death.

I ASK AGAIN YOU ALL TO RISE UP AND PRAY!!! PRAY FOR HEALING, PRAY FOR STRENGTH, PRAY FOR THE REMOVAL OF FEAR! PRAY FOR THESE TWO TO BE COMFORTED BY THE ONE WHO MADE THEM.

I will keep you posted, BLESSINGS...

Paint by Number

Tori, my next door neighbor and dear friend, and I have something in common. We are both living with the absence of our earthly fathers. She popped over this evening just to have a little chat, and inquired about how I am doing. She looked at me with piercing eyes and said, "It's real." She knows. She knows that grieving is this actual thing that you have to do, and that she still does. She knows that it hurts. She knows that when all those around you have forgotten you still remember. It all becomes so vivid in my brain and vivid in my heart. The colors of love and pain and sorrow and joy all run together making the most unique sight on this once desolate canvas. The painter is painting a picture and right now it kind of feels like a big messy swirl, but I anticipate the finished framed masterpiece. For I rest assure that each color and stroke used are intentional and not by accident. I also acknowledge that sometimes I don't have eyes to see true art. I would rather look at a paint by number with all the spaces filled in just so, than something I don't understand. Abstract art is so interesting to me because I have to confess I don't always "get it" and if I am going to paint something I want it to be universally understood and to convey such obvious emotions. However some emotions are not all that obvious and too are complicated by a number of reasons and circumstances. I also get a kick out of Rothko... His work kind of reminds me of when I was little at restaraunts. I would get markers and make a big dot and then dispense a small drop of water onto the spot so it would bleed into the color next to it. And he is making money off of my napkin design from my childhood. Bottom line we all have a story, we all have a "blue period" (some have lots), we all change textures and shapes, and we mature as the Skilled one pushes the boundaries of what has been done, what isn't understood, and the expected as well as the unexpected. His work is better than mine. I would rather be remembered for His work than my fingerpainting. I find comfort in his craft and his perfection.

*Todd has a test today at 4:00pm (A BIG ONE) pray pray pray
*My family is doing well... you all are AMAZING!
all my love...

so life goes...

Home this weekend was wonderful. Playing in the pool, cooking out, and laughing a whole lot. I love these people that I did not chose, the institution that God so nicely placed me in. I loved them as well as home so much that coming back to College Station proved to be a bit tougher than usual. I was sad. My living arrangements for next year fell through, and I had two test this week. I just wanted to kick something. So I had myself a good cry, a good sandwich, and a good prayer time. God is real and provides real comfort that sustains me. It is all settling in a bit more, and it still is sad to think about my precious daddy not a phone call, e-mail, or three hour drive away. People tell me that in time, the really bad hurt doesn't ever go away but will subside in taking up residency in my heart near as often. I am tired however can I just tell you that I got the best sleep last night that I have gotten in over two months. It was eight and a half hours long, non-stop, no jaw hurting, deep sleep with dreams, and I woke up feeling like a new person. Please praise our Jesus for this, I feel like what I would imagine, a new mom feels like when her newborn sleeps his/her first night the whole way through. I hope this is one many good sleeps to come. I miss Todd. I haven't seen him in three weeks. I have spoken with him often but phones never have done it for me. I have one more test tomorrow, a make-up exam on Monday and then I am all caught up other than a paper that I can turn in whenvever. You are such a loyal and faithful family. Your compassion and willingness to walk with me and my family moment by moment through this thing called love, grief, and life blesses me more than you know and more than I could ever convey. Sweetest dreams and all my love...

a love story today

"O God, grant me a faith to be healed, and a faith to be delivered but above all a FAITH TO TRUST. You are not only good but you know nothing else but goodness. I will never taste death because of the life you have given me, hidden in the cross and saturated with your blood. I will only know ABUNDANT life, here and now and later in heaven with you."

This is an excerpt from my prayer journal from about a week ago. Can you believe my dad has already been with Jesus for over a month? It is crazy how quickly sand in this glass timer seeps out while we are living this life, that is but a breath. I am so tired. I mean so tired. I wasn't having serious trouble sleepling until this week. I can't go to sleep at night and I wake up after about three hours. My jaw hurts, abnormally and I feel like I am biting a stick when I sleep and I catch myself clenching my teeth throughout the day. I started praying about all of these things thinking maybe they were symptoms to a greater problem stirring in my heart, and well I just don't know. I think this is just hard. Nothing fancy or poetic, but certainly real...Real pain and sleepless nights that are ever before me. The Lord has been so gentle and caring with my heart. I was thinking about great love stories like Romeo and Juliet and how he would deny everything just to be with his Juliet, for her to really know his affection and loyalty to her. Jesus has been courting me for some time now, pursuing me, not pushing me. He doesn't want my love or tenderness to be demanded and taken captive, or out of obligation in the context of a relationship or contract. I am kind of funny in that I like to do things on my own, submitting to the love of my life, when I am walking in my pride, proves to be a difficult task. The Lord lets me wallow in my sick pride long enough for me to realize that I don't want me and I really just want him. All this to say in a very roundabout way, my heart has become so tender to Christ's sweet love and longing for me to feel safe, comforted, renewed and a strong sense of hope. When I think about all of the complilcated things going on in my life I get overwhelmed, I do not and cannot look at the cover of the box of the puzzle that is my life AND he is putting one small piece in front of me at a time. He has spaced my test out, giving my teacher's patient hearts, and is comforting me in the most specific and subtle ways throughout my day. He is speaking to me through his word, and it is more than just keeping me alive but giving me energy that I know biologically I do not have and my body cannot create. He has been so patient with me... waiting for me, loving me more than his own life, and he believes in me. He believes that I can make it and will be better for it, for that is my sanctification. I love my Jesus and He loves me. I want to share with you the word he gave me this morning, a familiiar verse that blessed me this morning in a whole new way...

Philippians 3: 12-14 "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. (13) Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, (14) I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

I pray that we would just LOVE our God and let him deal with the details, submitting to his craft as he writes the details of our life. I pray for an authentic sense of freedom, joy, hope, protection, and peace today that can only come from a pure unadulterous love, the love of our heavenly Father.

I love you all and can't wait until we are all seated at the same banqueting table, I miss you all... blessings

good water

John 4: 13-14 "Jesus replied, 'People soon become thirsty again after drinking this water. But the water I give them takes away thirst altogether. It become a perpetual spirit within them, giving them eternal life."

I write you with great conviction about this water that takes away thirst and how as a child of God I still am thirsty at times. I love imagery, word pictures if you will. I was thinking about my dad and how he doesn't "want" anymore. He doesn't want anything because he has EVERYTHING in Christ, in heaven. As I was envying my dad's completeness and intimacy with his maker, Christ interrupted my thoughts reminding me of the blood he shed and the Holy Spirit that LITERALLY dwells in me, as I type this HIS spirit is actually and truly INSIDE OF ME making my earthly shell it's temporary home, FOR THAT VERY REASON: I shall WANT No more. The pursuit of holiness and a relationship with Christ is one of this nature. Christ didn't want us to have to wait, that is why he gave his son and His inhabiting spirit. This is the water that takes away thirst altogether. I have really been thinking about our community in the faith and why some people loathe our family...I have decided that what an unbelieving world finds unbelievable about our God is not that we make mistakes sometimes but that if our God is really who we say he is, Sovereign, Perfect, and good and stuff, then why do we worry like the rest of the world. Why do I panic, why do we "stress out" why do we fear anything? If our family was one that exuded peace that transcended all understanding because we were in love with a God that surpassed understanding, One that we truly relied on and trusted in, then that is something that would make us believable, when the overflow of our hearts confessed the truth about Christ control and his prevailing will oppose to our cute bible verses that we tape up and yet continue to freak out, stress out, and try to take control because God just isn't really "doing the job". I stand before you, actually hiding behind my computer, and confessing guilty. Lord give me a heart that truly trust you. If I can trust you with my eternal destination and my heart then perhaps I can trust you with my busy schedule and the test I have on Tuesday. Increase my faith, be big because I am so small and be strong because I am very weak.

Thank you for your continued prayers...
1) Scott, Carrie, and Linda are working away... pray for their sanity and for Linda and Carrie's families. Work is taxing, long, and stressful right now for them all and pray especially for Scott's diligence and that he wouldn't be discouraged. He jumped into the deep end upon starting work. I LOVE YOU BUBBY!
2) My mom is a super star- she is seemingly doing well, just pray for her sweet heart that the Lord would continue to sustain her and comfort her... I think she starts at the Chamber this week!
3) Todd is finishing up his school, and is doing well. Pray for him as he still feels so far away. Pray also for his friends... Breenen Teel is one of Todd's dearest friends and is (and has) portraying the kind of friend I think Jesus wants us to be...unconditional, compassionate, and provides a lot of laughs for our whole family! The Lord is blessing Todd I am certain... LOVE YOU TOO BUBBY!

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH AND PRAY FOR YOU AS I REMEMBER YOU THROUGHOUT MY DAY! blessings family...