Hope

What does that word really mean to me?

I just got off the phone with my dear friend, Steph, and now my brain is racing. She always makes me think in the best sort of ways.

Lots of things have been happening at the Dale House recently and I still love to hear about them and talk about them. Its sort of an addiction. I just love to hear what’s going on there and learn from my friends still there. I truly feel like God has created me to work with kids similar to those that live at the Dale House, and while my schooling is preparing me to do that, I am not currently in direct contact with those kids and it is hard. We are often put in places we don’t want to be, but God uses those times. Moses probably didn’t want to be in the desert. Paul probably didn’t want to be in prison. And Jonah probably didn’t want to be in the belly of a whale, but God used those times for his glory. He will use this time in my life as well.

Steph and I talked about all sorts of things. The weather, the Tar Heels, family, trips, the kids at the DHP, my school, and we talked about hope. We were talking about the kids at the Dale House and other kids like them. How do we share the hope of Jesus Christ with them in this hopeless world? In their hopeless situations? They literally have nothing. No family. No home. No good friends. No money. Nothing. Maybe one cardboard box of clothes and shampoo that they can call their own. The life looks pretty hopeless. They carry guns for protection or so they won’t be the “bitch” in their gang. They do meth everyday because it’s the only way the pain of being raped every weekend goes away.  They sell their bodies for sex so they have a place to sleep at night. Hope? It seems hard to tell these kids to have hope in Christ when they have nothing. But that’s just it…our hope shouldn’t be in those things and we shouldn’t equate Jesus with things.

Which brings me to my point. Where is MY hope? I have a home. I have a great family. I have lots of cardboard boxes of clothes. I have good friends. Where is MY hope? Is my hope in my home? Is my hope in my family? in my clothes? in my friends? It is easy for me to have hope in “Christ” when my life looks so promising, so is my hope really in Christ, or in those things? What if I lost all of my things/family/friends? What if my life switched places with these kids? Where would my hope be? Would I even have hope?

Do I truly believe Jesus is all-powerful and all good, all majestic? Or do I believe that because I have a nice life? What if my life all of a sudden turned awful?  Would I believe in that same Jesus? I hope I would. I really hope I would. Jesus is not the things he has given me. He is so much more than that.

I so badly want for these kids to have hope and to know Jesus. I want them to know the hope past a “feel good” life. But I want to know that hope too. I know it is there, but I want to trust it and REALLY know it. I want to have hope, not in things, not in the fact that my life is pretty middle class, not in the fact that I have people who love me, but in the fact that I have JESUS who loves me. I want that to be enough. I hope for a hope where Jesus is all I really need. 

One song says “My hope IS built on nothing else than Jesus my Emmanuel.” That is my hope that I could sing that honestly.

“It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living!”

Ephesians 1:11

De-spectacular-ber

December was fannnntastic. By far my favorite month in this semester (maybe because I didn’t have school work for about 3 weeks of it? Could be a good reason)

I’m not going to lie, and I want to write a good long blog on it, but these first few months in Charleston have been tough. Marriage has been great, the town is beautiful, I am so blessed with my job and I like what I am learning in school, and people have been so nice in including me in things. I forget to look at the good side of things sometimes so I wanted to recognize all those blessings on here. But, I miss the DHP. More than words can explain and it has been a tough transition from there to here. (again, more on that later) Luckily, my husband realized how hard of a time I was having and was supportive of me in wanting to spend money and take a trip to visit those beautiful Rocky Mountains.

I had about 7 days in between two of my exams, and the weekend just happened to line up with the weekend that Stephy was not on duty (thanks, God!) so I bought a ticket and hopped on a jet plane to Colorado. I’m pretty sure I cried when I looked out my plane window at the majestic mountains. I mean, geeeez Louise.

My time in Colorado was incredible. Just incredible. Not only was I WAY excited to see Steph and Kallie and spend time with them, I was also excited to go line dancing at the Grizzly Rose, eat fro-yo at ITopIt, and play nerts in Agia Sophia. I couldn’t stop squealing when I got there. I went to a 2:30 meeting and giggled the whole time out of excitement.It really felt like a weekend back in heaven for me.

My whole team (minus Travy and Sam) still works at the DHP. Steph is a team leader, Kallie is still day-time supervisor, Jesse is the other team leader, and Niko works with Phase 3 residents. Isn’t that crazy? PLUS while I was there, Sam was visiting for a funeral of one of his primaries. It was a sad reason to be visiting, but I was just so happy that we could all be together again. I got to see Geordan (my first primary), his awesome girlfriend Deborah, the Comiskeys, George and Jane, Kim!, Matt and Kate and Grafton!, the Woodards! ahhhh. My time there was so rich and full.

One thing I love about the DHP is the amount of comfort and acceptance that is immediately offered by every person there. I felt like I had never left. It was completely...well, just right. I think its because the presence of God is so in that place. More on that in the post that is coming later : ) this is just a catch up blog, not a sappy one : )

Anyway, I had a blast and was sad to leave but happy to get back to Allan. I just feel sooooooo blessed by my friendships with Steph and Kallie. They are rare friends and I am incredibly blessed just being in their presence. They truly get my heart and love me despite my craziness. (They are pretty crazy themselves)

After I got back from Colorado, I had my last and final exam on a Wednesday and Allan had his exam on that Thursday. After that... ...WE WERE FREEEEEEE! For 21 days!!!!!!!!!!! It was bliss!! No studying. No library. No not seeing each other for long extended periods of time. We got to do all sorts of fun things together! It really was awesome. We walked around downtown, rode bikes, went on a carriage tour, out to dinner, Christmas shopping, did house work, watched movies, etc. etc. etc. and only went to the Library to print Groupons. Awesome.

After a small stay-cation in Charleston, we headed to NC!

We headed to NC for Christmas with my family on the Wednesday before Christmas and just had a jolly time hanging out. The time always go by so quickly, but I just love it so much. I really do love watching my niece and nephew for hours on end and laughing at and commenting on everything they do.

 

My family has a tradition of eating lots of yummy, terrible (for you) foods on Christmas morning. One of those being country ham. Every year, my dad and mamaw make a trip to Ronnie’s Country Store in downtown Winston-Salem to buy the ham. This year, Allan and I went along and man, it is an old-timey store with really small aisle, meat hanging from the ceiling, and real bottled cokes from Mexico….yum.

 

We started a new tradition this year, and a funny one considering I am the youngest child, but we started the pajama tradition! My mom bought us matching PJ pants and then made us matching shirts! Even the babies had coordinating PJs. It was fun and cute : ) I’m really thankful for our silliness.

Grandkids at Meemaw’s house!

We drove back home on Christmas day to spend some time with Allan’s parents! It was fun to drive back to our home together knowing that we would celebrate our first Christmas together in our own little apartment! It was a strange feeling too, but a good strange feeling. : )

We did our Christmas together on Christmas Adam (the day after Christmas). It was fun to wake up and go into the living room and unwrap presents together! Sorry the raw-ness of these next pictures : ) We aren’t our normal hot selfs.

I opened my gift from Allan to find this book (one that my cousin actually had been talking about at Meemaws. He said it was a good read). Now, I don’t mind reading, but this isn’t really my type of book. I was pretty shocked to think Allan bought me this book that my cousin had recommended. I tried to act excited and happy (as any honest wife would do), but I think Allan saw through my disappointment and encouraged me to look through the book. It was a trick. He found the book at Goodwill and bought it because it had the word conversation in it (all before he heard it was a good read from  my cousin). Pretty good hiding place if you ask me! I was excited, and still am : )

That evening, we had Christmas with Allan’s family. It was great to be with them and open presents, eat yummy food, and play games! I am thankful for the families we have.

Over break, we were also able to finish some projects! Wahoooo! We finally got pictures printed and in frames! YAY! and finished the end table for the living room! YAY! and the coat rack! YAY! I felt pretty accomplished!

Wow. This is a long post. Props if you made it through the whole thing! It really was a spectacular December with lots of relaxation and time together. Made me really grateful for times of rest that renew and refresh our souls. My soul was for sure refreshed and filled with joy.

 

Catch Up Blog

It has been so long since I last blogged, and since I want this to be like a scrapbook of my life, I feel as if I should get moving and try to catch up! (I’m still on my junior year of high school in my real, non-digital scrapbooks…I don’t have much hope there.) So without further ado, I present to you November 2011.

The first highlight (or should I say darklight) of November were these two furry creatures that Allan and I babysat while his parents were in Budapest. I must admit, I do love these funny, funny dogs (seriously, I wish everyone could experience the ridiculousness that happens with these 2 pups) but do I love them at 4am when they want to pee? Certainly not. Do I love them when they, normally weighing about 8 pounds, all of a sudden weigh about 40 lbs when I am trying to move them from my spot in the bed so I can get in it? Not really. Do I love them when they want to sit with me during a movie and cuddle all sweet? Yes! They were actually fun to have around, although they are majorly obsessed with Allan (meaning, waited for him IN the bathroom while he was in the shower) and I had to compete with that. : ) P.S. Yes, those are sweaters on the dogs.

The second highlight of November belongs to Thanksgiving! I really do love Thanksgiving (not only because of the yummy food) but because it gives me an excuse to go home and see my babies! This year, Allan’s parents were in Budapest, so we spent most of the holiday in Winston-Salem with my family. Lots of baby talk and casserole was had.

This is my brother Blake’s plate. He’s a big fan of the color yellow. His son Kessler kept wanting more Macaroni and Blake kept making him eat his other food. Then Blake walked in with this plate. I don’t really think that was fair : ) Love you Blake!

My mom was also really cute and decorate the black chargers to say “We are thankful for ______ (fill in appropriate name).” It was sweet and special.

I took this picture in case you didn’t know what ADORABLE meant.

Lolli (my mom) made some delicious pilgrim hats and chocolate turkeys for HC and Kessler. Watching them eat them was maybe my favorite part of the whole weekend. Honey proclaimed that it was the best turkey she had ever had (mainly because she had only had the meat kind of turkey) and Kessler took a huge bite out of the reese, closed his eyes, and so genuinely said “so yummy” in the sweetest voice ever. Needless to say, they won my hearts yet again.

The above picture is weird, I know. But it is just meant to show you what the back of my dad’s truck looked like as we all piled in there to go to the Festival of Lights at Tanglewood. 7 adults. 2 toddlers. A queen sized mattress. Lots of blankets. and my dad and mamaw in the cabin of the truck with 2 empty car seats. It looked pretty crazy. But it was fun. Until the kids stepped on you really hard and we got stuck in traffic and my brother Drew kept falling asleep. : ) Just kidding. It was pretty fun the whole time!

I became even more of an official South Carolina resident by finally putting on the SC license plate that had been sitting in my car for over a month. It was a big moment!

After Thanksgiving with my fam, Allan and I made a pit-stop in Raleightown to meet this beautiful little girl! I still cannot believe that Annie is a MOM! A MOM! whhhhat? Sophie is awesome and was so chill (i.e. sleeping) the whole time! I loved getting to hold her and I cannot wait to watch her grow! YAY!

Another highlight of November was when we broke a Guinness World Record. You read that right. We broke a Guinness World Record. One of Allan’s professor’s daughters was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma last November. Her name is Ansley and she is 6 years old. Ansley drew a picture which became the inspiration for this world record breaking experience. It was quite crazy actually. You see, someone figured out how to divide Ansley’s small picture in 500 + ways, then get children from all over Charleston to draw 1 of those 500 sections onto a large white poster, then get those posters in order, then organize 500+ people to come to a soccer field, line up in a certain order, then hold their certain poster board in the air for 10 minutes straight so that the picture could be seen from above. So that is how we broke the world record for the largest mosaic picture held by people (specific, I know, but hey, it’s a record!). It was actually really, really cool and you should read more about it here. Ansley took her last bit of chemo the morning of the record but was there to cheer us on! It was awesome! Below is a picture of the friends who went with us and our pieces of the record!

Since Allan and I just got married, I thought, what better time than now to start our own family traditions? First one: Cut down our own tree! Believe it or not, we were able to do this, not in the mountains, but along the coast realllly close to the beach at this cute little farm called Toogoodoo. Say it outloud. It’s fun.

We went the day after Thanksgiving and I just really loved it! I wasn’t used to the kind of trees that grow along the coast (they are not Fraser firs, which took me some adjusting!) but our tree turned out to be awesome and perfect for our mini-sized apartment! It was quite a search however, we walked allllll over the farm, from corner to corner, taking pictures of different ones to help us chose the best one. And we did choose the best one. Enjoy the photos!

Allan measuring the tree (it was too tall) and then a little photo-op, props to the tree for taking it.

We found THE ONE. and the cutting began. We actually chopped a tree in half, but it’s okay. We had permission.

And we got it home and decoratedddddd with our 10 ornaments! Yes!

Well, I think that sums up November. Next up, December!