the joy of teenagers and the importance of placing your doubts & fears before the Lord

last night was our youth christmas party. everyone brought food and the 'coolest thing you can find for $1'

it was FANTASTIC. i've been so stressed lately with all the deadlines for school that i almost rushed past the simplicity of fun.
my worries started to ease after i got to hang out with my area group from seminary...for dinner and a light show, then we had the youth christmas party, where we exchanged gifts and i got to play cards, which was absolutely delightful. (card playing was def my favorite part of missing my plane to orlando)
<-the guys from seminary

after i got home that evening gifts in tow (the youth got me coffee and house warming stuff...i was in utter shock) i started to make soup and was thinking...wow, that was wonderful, thank you God.

The past 4-6 weeks we have been studying about sacred space, but truthfully I have been so stressed out trying to complete all the readings, lectures, papers, and meditations that the sacredness was lost. i feel the warmth of Christmas...finally. because of this...i just couldn't help but laugh and love.

cookies with santa

you would think i would be more excited about this than i am.
it's an annual thing they do here at the church.

however, the youth will be discussing the importance of Christmas and what it means to them. via photo scavenger hunt.
i will post the results. maybe i'll bake them cookies anyway...fresh ones that have not been frozen (who freezes cookies...really?, santa might have some bowl trouble later tonight)

holiday happenings

well we had thanksgiving and my birthday w/ my family this year. it went well. as i was about to go to bed the evening of my birthday i found out my dog has died. please be in prayer for my parents for he was their company and he was such a good and very well loved dog.
r.i.p. bear

on another note this guy that used to participate in the men's basketball league's that i was a part of as rec. dir. shot his ex. gf and himself thursday evening. so pray for those families as well.

childhood photos

(just for reference scott made the title)

so scott's home and tall enough to reach the family photos box on the top shelf of his closet. so guess who's looking through boy-hood photos of her fiance...

i hope our babies turn out equally as cute and that i can restrain myself from coo'ing excessively so over them.

on another note, my birthday is saturday...i'm getting old. i'm well on my way to 30 now. (all of you who read my blog that are over 30 i'm sorry.) it's not that i'm old but at least when you're like 21 or 22 you're still considered 'young', now i'm considered an 'adult'.

i love my kids

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i'm blessed. i just finished a weekend retreat w/ my senior high youth. granted i know they are not my biological children i love them so dearly.
they finally got to meet adam and adam got to meet them. on the way home adam told me 'you know you have some good kids'...i tilted my very drowsy head towards him, smiled and said 'i know'.

i love my job.

sex in the city

so i went to visit my friend taylor saturday, who is now an army wife and is going to be deployed to korea in january. i met taylor my freshman year of college. we lived on the same floor in the community bathroom in our dorm.
i liked her slippers and we've been friends ever since. anyway i borrowed her complete series of sex in the city. we used to watch it together. apparently i've changed quite a bit since then b/c the more and more i watch this show the more and more i get upset at carrie and well the show in general.

i just finished watching the episode where Charlotte discovers that carrie is the other woman and is in fact sleeping w/ big still. here is carrie, with a man that loves her and treats her well and wants the best for and she's torn!!!!
torn?!! i feel like i've waited my entire life to not only find a man like adam, but to find a man that wonderful that would return the affection.

carrie likes to think of herself as a independent woman of power, but in reality she seems to just be a pathetic woman who feels like all she has to offer a man is sex and isn't content unless sex is all a man wants from her.

dumb woman.

so, now then i present a separate question all together. what exactly qualifies as love, longing and devotion?
how does this differ from independence or obsession with your significant other?

a special breed

not to say we're anything special...but i really think grad school people are of a special breed. not to be biased and say us seminary students are but it's insane.

here i am procrastinating on my paper, planning a retreat, planning an agape feast/celebration/ending to our 'to save a life' bible study...and i'm talking to my fellow class mates.
most of us are wrapping up one of the 3 papers...but not both. mind you they are due 10 a.m. on friday. we have a formation practicum that was sent to us this morning that's due w/ reflection on thursday which is 2 days from now and one of my buddies preached sunday on top of all of us (memphis ppl) taking our kids to a concert....

we're all insane. and why do we do it?.....love. b/c we love it. we love our jobs, we love our kids, we love our creator.
sure we complain about it all the time...but we love it.
....maybe