Peace Peace and Some more Peace

Psalm 62:1-2,8 “My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken. TRUST IN HIM AT ALL TIMES, O PEOPLE; POUR OUT YOUR HEARTS TO HIM, FOR GOD IS OUR REFUGE.”

The sorority I am involved in here at Texas A&M is called Pi Beta Phi. We do an event every year to raise money for the Barbara Bush Parenting center. It is a home run derby called “Pi Phi Playoffs”. Last year Pi Phi play offs was held on March 5. This was the day of my dad’s funeral. There is a philanthropy day during recruitment and it was on Wednesday. Basically there is a slide show and all of my friends were not in it because they along with me were at the funeral. And there I was, inconveniently and unexpectedly in the middle of a breakdown. I had to sit that first party out. Sometimes these emotions seem like they are just too much. But the Lord met me in Julia Miller and Lauren Pyne’s room in the Pi Phi house. He met me there crying on the floor, curled up in the fetal position. And that’s what he does. He comes to us and he hurts with us and he heals us in time. He gave me amazing grace to get through the rest of the day and an amazing word yesterday morning… he gave me the scripture I listed above and I am in the middle of a Beth Moore study that coincidentally spoke of peace yesterday.

Christ experienced peace in the midst of tears. Why did Christ Jesus cry? Because He saw the tears of His loved ones. He demonstrated His own love with tears of anguish, yet all the while His peace remained. Please understand this vital point of peace: peace means the absence of fear and turmoil, not the absence of pain and grief. It greatly concerns me when I fail to see those who have lost loved ones shed tears in the name of “peace”. Christ, Himself, grieved over the separation of loved ones as shown here in John 11, in the garden of Gethsemane and, finally, on the cross as He saw His mother’s pain and suffered the separation from his Heavenly Father. We can be filled with sadness and still possess a wonderful sense of God’s peace. Perhaps it is at that moment beyond all others when the peace of God transcends all understanding. OUT GOAL IS NOT THE ABSENCE OF SORROW IN OUR GRIEVING, BUT RAHTER THAT WE REFUSE TO GRIEVE “AS THOSE WHO HAVE NO HOPE” (1 THESS. 4:13). –Beth Moore

WHAT AN AMAZING TRUTH. I am convinced of his presence and the sanity His peace brings into my life and especially into those seemingly unbearable moments, where my heart physically aches and hurts inside of me because I miss him so deeply and longingly wait to hear him say my name. There is love enough for the taking… and so I take- LOTS! He is so good to me. Thanks for letting me share and vent. It is so good to expose my heart with you all. It just feels right and good. How grateful can we be that we have a God who isn’t distant or unconcerned but rather, one who cries with us, hurts with us, and comforts even better than my mom (and she is pretty good at it ☺). Blessings to you all!

Pi Beta Phi to Thee....

Well it has been a whirlwind of a week! We just finished our first night of formal recruitment here at Texas A&M. The girls were precious and the Lord is proving to be as faithful as ever. I am needless to say - EXHAUSTED and it is almost four in the morning so I am going to try and sleep now. Know that you all are not forgotten and that my love, as well as my perspective, are being renewed DAILY! I will write soon and spill forth more details after this crazy week is over! XOXOXOXO...blessings to you all.

A Much needed Promise

“And the God of All grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while. Will himself RESTORE you and make you STRONG, FIRM, and STEADFAST.” 1Peter 5:10

I am so grateful for such a promise on this particularly low morning. With the fall approaching I cannot help but to think about how I usually love this season of the year. I have such happy memories from high school homecomings and football seasons. Our home and all of its elaborate decorations and the intoxicating smells that overflow from the kitchen, I think about Thanksgiving and how much my dad loved these feast and gatherings. He loved having all of t his little children under his roof once again. I hadn’t given much thought to my birthday this year, and still don’t want to. I know I am being dramatic but I almost don’t want to have a birthday, or a Thanksgiving, or a Christmas where the giant stockings my mom made are there, but he is not. My birthday is September 1, the opening day of dove season. I was reading this morning in Psalm 46 and tucked away in my old bible were a couple of e-mails that he had written me. I printed them off and put them there because I read them often. This is one he sent me the week before my birthday last year.

Hi There Young Lady:

Glad to hear you guys got back safely. Hope you are getting ready for
SCHOOL along with all of your sorority duties. It was nice to meet Paul. He seems like a fine young man and I look forward to getting to know him better. I just want you both to take your time in developing whatever this relationship is going to be. Time is one of the few things young people have in abundance. It is also something they seem to waste in the hurry of life and getting where they think they want to go. Be patient grasshopper,
and keep me posted.
My surgery currently looks to be scheduled on September 2. Bummer, as I had
planned on surprising you with my presence on the opening day of Dove season
for the first time ever. I don't know what Mom will do with her trip
planned for the first. I just know that I won't get to be there. For what
its worth, Scott and Todd won't get to have me with them on the first
either. I guess it will balance out. What I do not want is for everyone to
mess up their schedules trying to be with me for my surgery, or during the
weekend following for that matter. I want each of you doing the things you
need to be doing in your lives, not just mine. Be patient with Mom and love
her. She really needs everyone's support right now. I know you all will.

I've got to get gone, headed home you know. I'll get back to you soon.

Love You Bunches,
Dad

Paul and I ended up being friends for those of you who don’t know him or me… He has been a great support and source of encouragement to me over the last year and is a wonderful brother in the community of believers that the Lord has placed me in. Anyways I love this e-mail because it is so typical of my daddy to not want everyone to come home and worry over him, and more so to neglect our school studies. And here we go; a new school year is about to commence. I am a little scared but our Faithful Father will be there with me every step of the way, just as he always has been. What a hard time of year marked with wonderful memories and painful realizations of my new life physically separated from him for this short time that sometimes feels endless.
I went to Hale Center with my brothers over this last weekend and I believe it did my grandmother well to see us. Sometimes when she is talking to us she will just start crying. I know what she sees… she sees her son. I cannot imagine. I wore my hair curly and she just touched it and sobbed. No one else in my family has curly hair except my dad. It was emotionally pretty hard but so is life I am finding out… Please continue to pray for her. My brothers mean so much to me, the way they love me and take care of me. It felt good to fellowship with them. They will start studying for the CPA exam here in the next week or so. PRAY PRAY PRAY! They need to be diligent and to pass! They are brilliant and so precious and I know they can do it and with the Lord I know they will!
God is good and he sustains us. Mom and me will be joining Hallie and her mom, Bobbie in Florida on Wednesday for a final little summer vacation. I am extremely excited. I have a final that morning at ten (feel free to pray for that as well) and then off to the airport I go. I love you all and am humbled by the grace and new mercies that the Lord gives me extra portions of I am certain, and your many prayers. Thank you for being such wonderful hands and feet of our Savior. Blessings….

The Only Hope I've Got and the Only one I need

Psalm 51: 12 “Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. “

I have felt so robbed of the innocence that just might have been a mere illusion, but an illusion that had been a certainty and a staple in my life since the beginning. I just feel older. Along with my dad’s cancer and then physical death, I have had close friends experience divorce amongst their parents, seen adultery and affairs in marriages that I was praying and expecting to last forever, men I have grown up respecting in my church and out of my church act completely unethical in their businesses, how money has corrupted their once pure desires, how lust and small compromises have led to the demise and downfall of many around me and I cannot help but wonder where did it all begin? What were those first baby steps in the wrong direction that seemed virtually harmless? What small lies did Satan tell and little truths that were only slightly altered did these people believe way back in the beginning? I have honestly been so saddened. I came to some realizations in spending some much needed time with sweet Jesus this morning, my heart’s burdens for these people and their lives are only as good as I am willing to trust Christ’ redemptive work and healing blood in their story like I am willing to trust it in the story of redemption and restoration he is writing in me. The gospel is relevant and all people everywhere are in desperate need of Jesus, just as I have come to know that I am, in every single moment. I was distressed because how come my hope and joy was being altered by such life events? Is it sad, should I be sad over these things? YES! Of course it is sad. BUT my hope and joy come from something that has dominated this sadness and Satan. My hope and joy are incorruptible and should not waver with the ever- changing things of this world. My hope and joy are in our Precious Jesus, He is in the battle with me and has already won the war. I feel lighter this morning and not so tangled up in all of this mess. This living “in it and not of it” line gets so hard to find for me sometimes. We, as believers, certainly do have something to offer a world that is drowning in its insecurities, man built mansions, and its’ desire for more that will never be met apart from a relationship with their maker.

Mom, Scott, and Todd are doing GREAT! Me and the boys will be going to Hale Center this weekend. We are going to spend time with Granny (my dad’s mom)! Please pray for our time together. I pray that she would feel so loved and that we would be able to comfort her and bless her in our short trip. It will be five months tomorrow since my dad went to be with Jesus…hard to believe. I am so happy for him and his new home. Can you sit and dream with me for a while, what he might be doing in this moment? I love thinking about this. It has become one of my favorite past times. Praise Jesus for such a place of peace both in life and in my mind. I love you all and pray that you, too, would be restored to the joy of His salvation in your own life, that you would remember your first love and get excited about our King, His eternal plan, and His agenda for the entire world! Amazing! XOXOXO… blessings, Kimmy