the pearl

I returned today from spending the weekend with the parental units in Dallas, and attending Savie's PSIA competition at Texas Christian University, and I was soooo excited that she got FIRST PLACE in Ready Writing!!!! She had placed 3rd in State last year but this was the highest she's gotten in any event and I was so excited and proud of her. She was actually in another event when they were giving out medals for the writing so I got her medal and later showed her and she was so shocked and excited! (I took this picture right as I told her!) I am so proud of both my kids. They are just incredible, awesome, bright shining stars. Really good solid kids, responsible, loving, smart... (if I do say so myself!). I love them!

My mom and stepdad live in Frisco, which is a suburb of Dallas, so we stayed with them Friday and Saturday. On Friday the kids played hooky from school and we went to the Aquarium at Fair Park. They had stone fish and scorpionfish, and black-tipped reef sharks and a lot of Australian coral reef fish so that was cool to show the kids, and remind them what they'd seen a couple years back.

On Saturday, after Savie finished all 3 events, we went to the Fort Worth Zoo with some friends, which was really cool - especially the nose-picking (and bugar-eating) orangutan. It was having a great time picking its nose, looking at the bugars on its finger, and then eating them!!! LOL. However walking around the Zoo was NOT good on the old "broken toe" which I keep thinking is pretty much better but then when I over-exert myself it hurts. I haven't been able to run since I got back from Australia and it's killing me!!

I also feel very blessed and am so happy lately. I have a sense of peace, that no matter what happens, I'm ok. Things that used to bother me really just roll off me, and I am fine if things don't go the way I want. I think part of the peace is learning what is and what isn't in my control, and not worrying and letting go about about those things beyond my control (which is really the way I got over my previous massive fear of flying. I do still worry sometimes too much about those things that are in my control...never want to make stupid decisions and have a hard time deciding sometimes!) But I'm blessed with so many amazing friends and the career is going well and though finances are still a struggle, I just feel a peace that everything is going to be fine. Normally when I'm about to travel I get a lot of anxiety. I think this is because I went back and forth between mom and dad so much as a young child, and that caused me a lot of anxiety. But not this trip - or the previous one to Australia - I left almost exactly one month ago.

No anxiety, I just feel pure excitement to go have fun and just play. It's been an incredibly long time (maybe never?!) where I had the freedom to just go and "fall in love" or to just go and have fun hanging out, running around, being passionate together, getting to know one another as I know these next 10 days will be. It is a blessing to have this chance to just go have fun, to just go explore life, love, and each other, and the natural world there in Australia.

Life is good! And yet I talked to one friend today who is doing maybe the worst ever in her life and she reads my blog and is both so happy for me, and she says kind of jealous. I appreciate that she feels close enough that she can say that to me, and it doesn’t bother me in the least that she says that or feels that. I may not have experienced exactly what she is experiencing because each life is unique, but I have absolutely been through some tragic times, and been in tragic states of mind. I've been in fear of my life before. I've been terrified. I've been so depressed I could barely get out of bed, or peel myself off the floor. I've screamed out loud until I was hoarse and wanted to check myself into a loony bin to escape from myself and that I thought I was becoming schizophrenic. I have thrown a squash across the kitchen and it burst into a big splatted mess. I've laid in a heap on my floor, absolutely depressed to the point where I could not move. I've cried rivers of tears. I've lost myself.

But through many years of hard work, prayer, trying to figure out who I am and what I want in life, accepting God's grace and forgiving myself, and more prayer, I have found me, and I'm happy. Not perfectly so, but with a real inner peace about where I'm at. I know that days of sadness will come again. I know that I will lose people I love. I know that tragedy could fall. I know that I could lose my health, or my limbs, or even my sanity. But all the more reason why I need to enjoy these days of peace and contentment to the absolute fullest while I can! And I absolutely wish that for every person who reads this, whether you know me or not, that you also may find this pearl in the oyster in your own life. There is a time, and a reason, for every season under the Sun.

This song by Watermark (one of my all-time favorite bands - Christy Nockels is amazing!!) speaks powerfully about how I feel, far more poetically than I ever could. I have been through the fire and I can say that when you focus your eyes, your heart, your mind, your soul on God, on Jesus there is healing from the inside out. It's anything but instant. I look at the scars inside my wrist that I carved when I was a teenager, so many sad scary lonely years ago and know that that my life today, that I am even here today, is a living miracle. And I hope to live each day to the full, and I know that each day I am here as God's servant. I tell Him that every morning and turn my day over to Him - ie what can I do to show God's love to the people in my life and how can I bring glory to Him to show the world His amazing love! (OK to be honest, most every morning... sometimes when I'm I'm out of my routine I forget! But I do still pray every day, many times a day!!) :)

Captivate Us By Watermark

Your face is beautiful
And Your eyes are like the stars
Your gentle hands have healing
There inside the scars
Your loving arms they draw me near
And Your smile it brings me peace
Draw me closer
oh my Lord
Draw me closer Lord to Thee

(chorus)Captivate us, Lord Jesus
Set our eyes on You
Devastate us with Your presence
Falling down
And rushing river, draw us nearer
Holy fountain consume us with You
Captivate us Lord Jesus, with You

Your voice is powerful
And Your words are radiant bright
In Your breath and shadow
I will come close and abide
You whisper love and life divine
And Your fellowship is free
Draw me closer O my Lord
Draw me closer Lord to Thee

(chorus)
Let everything be lost in the shadows
Of the light of Your face
Let every chain be broken from me
As I'm bound in Your grace
For Your yoke is easy, Your burden is light
You're full of wisdom, power and might
And every eye will see You

(chorus)

Here is the song set to a Jesus movie that I found on Youtube. It's hard to describe the emotions to someone who isn't a Christian but I am just absolutely in love with Jesus, and that love rules my life and gives me peace. The message He brought is so intense, crazy, beautiful, radical and inspiring.




And here is another of my favorite songs by Watermark, "Who Am I"!