Mother's Day

Mother's Day. Such a bittersweet holiday in my books. By no means was my childhood puppies and rainbows and saying my mom and I have a strained relationship is quite the understatement. But I've decided even though these things are true, she deserves to be celebrated. She deserves to be applauded for the things that she taught me growing up and for helping to mold and shape me into the person that I am today.

I've been asking Jesus all week to remind me of the really great things that I've learned from my mom over the years. When you only focus on and remember the bad stuff from growing up, it's really hard to remember the good stuff. But, Jesus is faithful and I think I've got some solid stuff.

1. There have been quite a few family friends that have recently told me how much I have grown up to look like my mom. I take that as a compliment because growing up I idolized her and wanted to be just like her. You can be the judge :)

2. She is a really passionate person. She did whatever was necessary to get where she wanted to be. When we lived in Colorado it was her dream to open up a shop since we lived in a touristy town and she did just that. It was hard, time consuming and costly but she loved it. It taught me not only to be passionate about the things that I loved but to do whatever it took to achieve those dreams.

3. I definitely get my feistiness from her and I'm by no means complaining about that ;)

4. She was the best cheerleader and always wanted us to do what we loved. After 8 years of gymnastics, I told her I wanted to quit so she let me and then when I told her I wanted to do it again, she encouraged me to get back into it. She took us to every sports event that we had and sat on the sidelines of teeball games, soccer matches, gymnastic meets, and basketball games. We weren't in sports because she was trying to vicariously live through us like some parents and their kids. We did sports because we loved them. I love this about my mom.

5. My mom taught us the importance of responsibility. Whatever lay ahead of us we were responsible for. No excuses.

6. Lastly, she taught us to fight. She taught us that the best things in life are worth fighting for. It sounds cliche but it is true. There are rarely things in life that are going to come easy, especially things that you really want. So, she taught us to roll up our sleeves, dig in and do whatever it takes to get to the end.

Despite all that we've been through, I really do love my mom. Today, I am choosing to believe that growing up she loved me the best way that she knew how and that is good enough for me.

Happy Mother's Day Mom!

Because He Asked Me To

It took me quite a while (2 months to be exact) to get all my thoughts on this subject together enough to even think about putting it on my blog but alas here I am finally blogging about it. It took me a really long time because I wasn't sure if it was ok that I felt the way I do and if it was ok, how in the world I navigate through it.

As most of you know, I've spent the last two summers ministering and loving on kids through camp. To date, it has by far been the two greatest summers of my life. God grew me, stretched me and taught me so much about myself, about the people that I was blessed to serve with and about who He is. These were summers that I would never change for the world. As I sit here watching over our end of the summer video from last summer I am reminded of these things.



I can't even describe my feelings other than I love camp! Love it in a way that I know a lot of people don't understand and that's ok. Since I love camp so much it was almost impossible for me to choose to do anything else for this summer coming up. I had a plan. That was until God spoke so clearly to me that camp was not his plan for me.

And oh boy, was I not happy! I had this aching in my heart, this deep longing to work camp but yet God had asked me to serve Him overseas in a country that I never thought in a million years I would go to. So, I wrestled for months over this. I couldn't understand why God would not allow me to do something that I was good at, that I loved so much, that He had allowed me to participate in for two summers and that clearly advanced His kingdom. Honestly, I don't think I'll know the answers to those questions until the summer is over and maybe not in my lifetime. But, I have to be ok with that.



Since then, I have done the best that I can to embrace what I feel like God is asking me to do. Some days are better than others. There are some days when the aching of my heart questions what in the world I am doing. But, it's in those moments that I have to remind myself that being obedient to Jesus is so much better than doing what I think is right. I am choosing to believe that it is ok that my heart aches because it only knows what it has experienced and for the last 11 summers in some capacity my heart has been filled because of camp.

But, please do not think that I am not excited for what is to come. I am a part of an amazing team that will spend 8 weeks overseas living and preaching the gospel to university students. I am looking forward to God renewing my passion for world missions and for whatever He sees fit to teach me as I rely on Him this summer.

I will definitely update more often as these next few weeks progress. I will introduce you to our team, present specific prayer requests for us and share some of what we have been experiencing in order to fully prepare us for what God has for us. Can't believe I will officially be a summer missionary in 25 days! Here's to all the preparation that will happen in the days leading up to our trip!

T.R.U.S.T.

I will be the first to admit that I have trust issues. Serious trust issues. I don't trust well or often but that is changing! Spring Break was such a great time of relaxing and digging deep with Jesus. I was determined to get to the root of these trust issues and that I did. What an amazing journey!

I have been so encouraged that God continues to show me just how trustworthy he is. That he has everything covered. That he will protect me, provide for me and guide me along the way. How has he shown me these things recently? My upcoming trip to M3.

I was worried about my housing situation, my job, the money that I need to raise to get there, among many many other things. As I have laid these things at his throne he has simply asked me to trust him and I have been trying to do just that.

Housing situation: our landlord is letting us out of our lease 2 months early so I don't have to pay rent over the summer.

My job: my boss is letting me have my job back as if I never even left.

The money: well, that journey isn't complete but I wake up each day and tell Jesus that I trust him for the $4000.

All the other things: He is ever so patient with me as I pray through those fears and concerns.

Before this mini-revelation that I had over Spring Break, I would try to overly plan in order to compensate for my mistrust. It's really a horrible and vicious cycle. But, as I have begun really trusting Jesus with my past, present and future there is less of a need to plan. I can simply approach circumstances with complete confidence that Jesus will see me through to the other side of it. Talk about freedom!

"Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you." - Psalm 9:10

TT (Week 5)

I am really struggling to find something to write for tonight. It's not because I lack things that I am thankful for but because I cannot narrow it down to just one thing. Hmm.

Today more than ever, I am thankful that God is trustworthy.

I've learned SO much about this in these past couple of weeks which I am going to try to condense into a blog post for a later date. Allowing my heart to experience this has literally changed my life.

Getting Things Done

The journey of raising my support to go to M3 this summer has been stretching, tiring, and exciting all at the same time and it just started!!

Yesterday, I may or may not have moved my computer and printer to our living room to work on my support letters. The Wildcats were playing in their first game of the NCAA tournament which I clearly could not miss but I had to work on my letters so I combined the two which you can see above.

Nothing like spending your Friday addressing, stuffing, stamping and licking over 70 envelopes!

Current Brain Condition

Most of the time, the condition of my brain can be observed through the condition of my bedroom. My room is usually a mess because my brain is always going, rarely having time to slow down and rest. So, I guess you can infer the condition of my brain based on this picture I took today.

Just going in my room stresses me out. I have SO much on my mind these days. M3, Personal Refinement, Homework, Class, Grades, Work, Babysitting, Second Mile, Volunteering, Kids Ministry. Man oh man, it's going to be a long two months. But, I know I will make it. I'm just going to have to give up going to bed at 9 pm and waking up at 8 am. Oh, the life of a college student!

Community

A couple months ago, I was hanging out with some kids at a Valentine’s Day party. I got to talk with one of the girl’s moms for a while. She works at a church in town and was sharing some of her experience with me. We were talking about babysitting and hanging out with families and she said, “Second Mile is different because you guys are a community.” In the moment, I thought, “well yeah we are.” But when I thought about it later that comment really struck me. We are living in such a way that people recognize that we do life together.

I think that’s the way Jesus intended for us to live. That the body of Christ would be filled with people who not only celebrate the good things in life but are willing to walk in the trenches with other people when things get really tough. See, community life is not all puppies and rainbows; it’s definitely one of the hardest things in my life. I have my own junk and brokenness and so does every other person around me so it causes conflict and heartache. But, when you get through that stuff, the most beautiful things are on the other side like trust, vulnerability and deep unconditional love for one another. I’ve tasted those things in my three years at Second Mile and there is no way I’d give that up for the world.

In my past posts, I’ve written how much love my community but words will never do it justice. I am blessed more than I even know. I am grateful for the people who came to this city to radically amplify the name of Jesus and for a friend who asked if I wanted to go to this church they heard about my second weekend living in Tucson. Without those two things, I’d have no idea what it means to live in community.