Small Group

Sitting at my desk this morning at work I grabbed my camera and started clicking through pictures. Dancing in the parking lot of BJ's. Gangster poses in the lobby on our way out. Watching Hailey open gifts. I smiled and laughed as I recalled all the hilarious moments of Hailey's surprise birthday dinner. I thought to myself I have the most amazing friends.

As I sat at my desk my mind traveled back to my first week in Texas, almost 10 months ago. I had officially been in Texas for one day and already had a church I wanted to try out. As Amy and I sat in the back row of this new place, she leaned over and said "you need to look at this!" She handed me a book filled with all the different small groups that I could potentially sign up for. I remember flipping through the book thinking I would love to join a ladies small group, this could be fun! By the end of the service I dropped my communication card in the offering basket and had picked two small groups that I was interested in.

Almost a week after that first Sunday the enormity of my decision to follow God's prompting and move half way across the country had sunk in. I remember sinking down against the wall in my bedroom as tears streamed down my face. It had been one of those days that other then a few conversations with coworkers I had not talked to anyone else the entire day. I don't think I have ever felt so truly alone. I've always been the one surrounded by friends, making plans with people and here I was without a single person to go hang out with. I remember praying with a friend in California that God would bless me with friends that would be true sisters in Christ and that I would friends who would truly uplift me.

My eyes welled up with tears this morning as I remembered the fear and the heartache that came with not knowing anyone when I first got here and the realization that true friends are some of the most blessed gifts God can give us.

I continued to click through pictures as I thought of how far I've come in the last 10 months. How amazing my friends in Texas are, that they have always been there with a laugh or a smile or an awesome verse to help me through the tough times. Though this journey has been a tough one I wouldn't trade the tears or the fear for anything.

This adventure has taught me that God will carry us through the toughest points in our lives and that He will always, always put people in our path that will make this journey even more amazing. I am thankful everyday for his grace, his guidance, and his love. And for bringing me the most amazing friends and small group any girl could ask for.

One life....

One of my favorite songs is called One Life to Love by 33 mile.

Here is the chorus:

You only get just one time around
You only get one shot at this
One chance, to find out
The one thing that you don't wanna miss
One day when it's all said and done
I hope you see that it was enough, this
One ride, one try, one life...
To love....

I love this song. That God created us to be on this earth to love others as he loves us everyday. When you are able to see and hear the voices on the ones you love and care for on a regular basis this becomes habit, it becomes common place. You take them for granted and you know that whenever you need them they will be there.

When you move half way across the country, that habit is no longer common place. It's almost as if God wanted to remind me of all the amazing people in my life by putting me 1500 miles away. Appreciation for those in your life takes on a completely new meaning. I will be honest, and most of those close to me know, that I have struggled with this the most since I have left. Partially I think because being an only child I have always been so independent. Though I loved my friends and family dearly, part of me has always been able to be by myself, and I always felt like I could forge my own path. If my friends and family came with me, awesome, if not I could still do it on my own.

I've come to realize I can't do it all on my own. That most of all I have to lean on my faith and my understanding that God's plan is surely the best option, but not my first. And that family and friends were created to show the love and grace that God displays to us everyday.

The people closest to me love me despite my faults. Though I snap at my mother on occasion she loves me regardless. Though I can be difficult and sulky when I'm in a bad mood my friends love me dearly. Though I can be bossy and demanding and at times want things only my way, my friends extend grace.

Next week at this time I will be home. Everyday trip home a different piece of my heart feels something new. This trip though I'm not looking at it through the window of what am I missing out on? But instead I'm looking at as this: look at the amazing people in my life. That are excited to have me home, that are making time in their busy schedules to spend time with me. And I can only think of one feeling to describe how I feel.

BLESSED.

My 26th Birthday

I woke up this morning and I could describe my emotions in one work: GRATEFUL

I am grateful to be alive. I'm grateful that God has blessed me with another year on earth. I am grateful that it is not only my birthday but payday, and my day off. I am grateful that I have a job and roof over my head. I am grateful that tonight I get the chance to spend my birthday with my amazing small group.

I think back over the last year and I can't help but smile. For all the lessons, for all the tears, for all the memories. I have learned more about faith, grace, love, redemption, and the true meaning of life in this world in the last year than I think I've ever learned in my entire life.

I am so grateful for the love that the Lord has shown me, how he grabbed my attention last year, making me realize that this life is too short to hold onto worldly goods.

I think back to my 25th birthday, going to the coast with Denise. I remember waking up that morning and thinking wow! How can my life get anymore perfect? I've got a house, a job, friends, a car. All the things I've ever wanted. But I was missing the biggest piece: an intimate and loving relationship with our Creator.

Over the course of the last year I have lost my job, my house, put everything I own in storage, experienced God's goodness in Mexico, ministered to a crazy bunch of high school students, packed what I could into my car and moved my entire life to South Texas.

Here I am. 26 years old. Starting out again in South Texas. I've got a roof over my head, a job and a steady pay check, and an amazing group of friends, and a relationship with God that has become the only thing I can rely on. I feel blessed beyond measure for everything I've been given in the last year. God is good, life is good and all I can do is take each day for what it truly is: a gift.

Check out this video, it's my slogan for the year:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XZ12nrz47U&feature=related

The little things

The older I get, the more I have come to appreciate the little things in life. I got one of those "little things" in the mail today, and in the state of my life in recent times I busted into tears.

This little thing came in the form of an early birthday card and the inside of the card read this:

Marge!

I know that this is the first year I can't be next to you as you blow out your candles but I want you to know how much I love you, and thank God everyday that you are in my life! Have an amazing birthday! You rock!

Funny how a card can bring tears to your eyes and a smile to your face. This card was from my best friend - Amy Nicole Ballinger. And she's right, in the last 12 years she's been there for every birthday. I think back over the years, all the memories, all the laughs, all the moments that we share and I can't help but smile. I know growing up we needed each other and even through the chaos of college we stayed best friends. I wouldn't trade any of our memories because they have ultimately, at 26 shaped a lot of who I am today.

When I dropped her off at the Houston airport in January, I don't think I've ever cried so hard in my entire life. I felt like part of my life and former self were heading back home, and I was some little kid left here all by myself. But I know she is only a phone call away, day or night. I thank God everyday for putting her witty, talented and charming self in my life all those years ago.

Thanks for making my early birthday friend- love and miss you dearly.

Open Space

There is something to be said about open space. A place where you can come and enjoy being outside, the way God intended it to be. Where the grass is natural and hasn't been cut. Where the tree branches are not trimmed and grow which ever direction they would like. Where flowers pop out of the ground where ever they want. Where birds sing. And you cannot hear even the faintest reminder of the world outside.

I found that today. Every Wednesday I drive to my small group and pass by a park. Situated just on the outside of the city limits of Sugar Land, this park is owned by the City of Houston. Even from the entrance I knew it had to be something beautiful. It couldn't be tamed or manicured or cut with a mower.

Leaving the library this afternoon I knew that I couldn't just go back and sit in my apartment. 80 degrees and blue skies prevented me from doing anything but finding a beautiful place to enjoy outside.

I knew my destination as I turned onto Highway 6….Cullinan Park on the outskirts of Sugar Land. I think I would have loved to meet the woman that donated the park. On a plaque near the beginning of the park it says donated as "a place of beauty and peacefulness in this city" I'm not sure she knew how much that would mean as the everything around this park continues to grow into a complete and total metropolitan area.


The beginning of the park takes you out on a boardwalk over a beautiful pond, you can fish, you can sightsee, you can sit. You can watch the ducks and birds play. Though I loved this part of the park I wondered there had to be more to this gorgeous park than just the pond. And I found it, a path leading into this beautiful and untamed open space.


I wanted to kiss the ground. I seriously wondered if I had moved to a part of the world that had no open space, but then just like in everything else God provides. So I walked for probably about 15 minutes down this trail and I wished I had tennis shoes on and not flip flops but still I was taking it all in. The smells, the birds, the trees.

There is something about open space that makes me feel closer to God. I've always said I would love to live out in the middle of no where and everyday I spend in the Houston-Sugar Land area I realize that is so very true. I'm not made for the city. I wasn't designed to live where there are more people than trees. I was designed to live in places like this. Where trees grow where ever they would like, where you can hear the birds and not the bustle of traffic. I was made for a place that you can hear nothing but nature, that you can walk for hours on a dirt path and never see the same things twice.

While I have no idea if I will ever get the chance to live in my middle of no where again, I know that I have found a little bit of heaven out there all the way in South Texas.

Everyday

Everyday in Texas is an adventure. It's an adventure with the people, with places, with my emotions. I've been in Texas a little over a month ago and there are times when I find myself literally stopping to think, wait, How did I really end up here?

I feel like in the scheme of things my life has been a HUGE blur since the middle of January. Though I have been an active participant I feel as at times that I was watching someone else star in my life, I was watching someone else make decisions and then all of a sudden here I am in South Texas.

I don't want to this post to sound like a pity party and for everyone to wonder why I'm scared now when I was the one practically running out of California. I'm just trying to understand this journey myself. There are days when I am perfectly fine and can feel God speaking love and truth into my life and saying this is exactly where I am supposed to be. And then there are other days when I miss California with every being and every fiber of my body.

Today in church our pastor talked about how when opportunities are presented to you (and they may be amazing!) and then when you take that opportunity, other options are taken off the table. I realized that many options were taken off the table when I decided to walk through this door that God opened for me. It meant leaving people behind, not being able to drive home at the drop of the hat or see those that I love on monthly basis. But with closed doors in one place comes a new happiness in others.

And that happiness comes from the "God-hard" not from the "Human Easy". This journey to South Texas has been filled with every part of God-hard. The road trip out here was "human-easy". Making the decision after 7 months of unemployment was "human-easy". But staying here and realizing I made a promise to God and to those that hired me was "God-hard". I have come to realize over the last few weeks that I made this journey for God. That God opened this door for me and I had to have enough faith to step out of my "bubble" and come to a place that is completely different from everything I have ever known.

But that is the beauty in everyday in South Texas. I have had some amazing moments so far, here are just a few:

1. My small group

I joined a ladies 25-35 year old small group and haven't looked back. I've told them before that I would probably packed up my car and been back to California if I hadn't forged such a close bond with them in such a short time. They were inviting, loving, welcoming, and caring. An amazing, amazing group of women that I am proud to call my friends.

2. Drive

Ya'll know how much I loved Stretch at my church in Reedley and tonight I got the chance to check out high school ministry at my church here in Sugar Land. It's called Drive. And I loved it. The youth pastor said something that touched my heart: "We prayed for leadership, and look at this, you drop in from California" I remember when I left Reedley my fellow high school ministry leaders wrote in my good bye card: BE BOLD EXTEND HIS KINGDOM. I am trying so very hard and I pray that God can use me in any fashion of high school ministry here in Sugar Land.

3. My job

I never realized how much I truly have found my calling until I got the chance to do it again. When I wasn't working it was always in the back of my head that maybe I loved it so much because I wasn't doing it anymore. But I love it because it truly makes me feel alive. It truly makes me feel like I am giving back to people in amazing ways. It's different from Reedley but in a good way. I'm serving people in a different way and for that I am grateful.

Like I said everyday in Texas is an adventure :)

Enjoying my Sunday

There are some days when I relish in doing nothing, or doing everything, or doing something that I really want to do. This Sunday started out with Financial Peace University and a great worship service at the bridge. Then I went home and dug into the fridge for some lunch. I ate it standing at the kitchen counter, seeing as I have no furniture yet.

Then I decided to work on my budget (see Financial Peace University above) and then because it was my Sunday and my day to do what I wanted with it, I took a nap and enjoyed the whole 1.5 hours of drooling on my pillow.

I got up from my nap determined to read and work on my paper. This last semester of grad school is lingering in the background, and though I know I have to do it to graduate, I really have no desire to do any of it. But regardless of my mini-pity party, I sat down and started reading. Then I decided, needing internet that I would go grab some dinner at Panera and use their free WI-FI. Yes I know it is Super Bowl Sunday, but I'm not watching it. Crazy I know.

This weekend I also took cookies to my neighbors and introduced myself. I like to think of it has a reverse "welcome to the neighborhood". And I loved meeting them. At first I was panicking, like I can't do this! These people are going to think I'm nuts (or nosy) knocking on their door introducing myself. But I couldn't help it. And it's amazing to see what happens when you left your fears go and you do something out of the ordinary. People are nice, they offer you their husbands for household problems, or their sugar if you need some for baking. And where would I be if I hadn't introduced myself? Still sitting in my apartment thinking my neighbors were rude and selfish. But instead I know there is the cute couple next door with a newborn baby, the couple upstairs that just moved here from Georgia and Florida, and the old lady downstairs originally from Ohio. If I hadn't taken the time of out of my day to introduce myself I never would have met them.

So I'm writing this sitting in Panera, not much farther on my paper, but I'm happy and content. I'm taking in my surroundings one day at a time, and learning to love this new adventure that I find myself in. Grateful for the new adventure, the job, the apartment, church and my small group. All because I let God take the reins, because I stopped being fearful and just started living. Living for a God that loves me no matter what. But like I said, I'm just enjoying another Sunday in south Texas.