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!