Week of Thanksgiving (Part 4)

I’ve said plenty of times before how thankful I am of my church here in Nashville. Cross Point has been exactly what I’ve needed and wanted without even realizing it since I started going a year and a half ago. I haven’t, however, mentioned how thankful I am for my small groups! Robin was our first leader and she introduced both Lindsey and I to so many people we now call friends in our singles community group. Next we were in Ashley’s women’s group. Ashley is an incredible leader and really pushes me to think. I’m not the most outspoken person in small groups (I know that fact may be hard to believe by some), but I’m getting there! Both Ashley and Robin have been 2 people that are very important to me, especially in the past several months. I’m so thankful for their friendships and the impact they’ve made on me.

Here are Brandy (who has been in both Robin's and Ashley's groups with us), Lindsey, Ashley & I on Lindsey's birthday

This fall, I was so privileged to be in a Beth Moore Bible study with Angie. I had read her blog and was moved by her from quite a while back (and I blogged about her when she and her husband, Todd, came to Cross Point to speak), and jumped on the opportunity to do a study with her. I knew then that I was supposed to take something from their story, but I had no idea that Angie would become such an incredible role model and friend, and “other,” :) but she definitely did! I’m also very thankful for another “other” that I got to become closer to in this Bible study – Brandi! She is the best encourager I know and I look up to her greatly. I’m so very thankful to be surrounded by such amazing, Godly women. They’ve each been an inspiration to me and were perfectly placed in my life.

Here are Lindsey, Angie, Robin and I (it was the Colts/Titans game that night...hence the outfit and minus Brandi!). Brandi - this means you and I need to take a pic ASAP! :)

Week of Thanksgiving (Part 1)

I have a tremendous amount to be thankful for. I'm fully aware of that. However, sometimes the little negative things can bog me down and make me lose focus on what all I have in my life. What better time to focus on those things than the week of Thanksgiving?

I love this town. I love that it’s obviously a great deal bigger than my hometown, but it doesn’t completely lose the small town feel. Every time we drive by the skyline, I always say “I love Nashville.” Just ask Lindsey. ;) But I really do! I love all the different things you can do on any given day, like go to a dog park, pumpkin patch, downtown, to see a play, hear the symphony (which I did last week for the first time and it was amazing!). Today I’m going to do one of my favorite things in Nashville…go to the Titans game! And what better time to see them than when they have an incredible record that will continue after today’s game hopefully!

I am incredibly thankful to be in a place that I love. Somewhere I can call “home,” but isn’t too far from my roots. Somewhere I have an abundance of great new friends, the greatest cousin, friends that become family, and even “back home” friends. I always knew that I wanted to live in Nashville, and I’m ever so grateful to have that part of a dream come true.

Wonderful Weekend!

This weekend has absolutely flown by, and I'm oh-so-glad that it's a 3 1/2 day week this week. Long weekend in S-Town!!

One day earlier last week, I had a last-minute babysitting job with my little man! As I've said many times before, he's my little sweetheart, my baby. But this day, he saw Lindsey first and her Fruitista Freeze drink (the new slushy-things from Taco Bell) and flew to her first and absolutely wouldn't come to me. He's so in love with her, it's precious. But he'll always be my baby! :)

Friday night, I made my way after work to the Wilson household! I haven't kept Pete and Brandi's 3 sweet boys before and I was really looking forward to it! We had a great time playing Mario Kart (of course!) and baseball (Jett had 3 homeruns!) and building forts in the living room! Here are Brewer and Gage in the fort, and the that adorable Brewer just getting waked up from his nap!

After Brewer went to bed, I had a special experiment ready for the older boys. They were so excited! Who am I kidding? I was so excited! We were going to make the Glowing Mountain Dew experiment that I'm sure most of you have gotten in emails. Well, after waiting all night and building up the anticipation, it was a total let down...or rip off, according to Jett. We were all really bummed, and I was convinced that I had done something wrong. I went to youtube to show the boys what was supposed to happen, and in the "related videos" field, there were about 5 videos showing how the original was a fake and used a broken glow stick. Boo! I promised Jett that if he'd let me come play with him again, I'd bring a really cool experiment that I tested first!

Saturday, Lindsey and I spent some much needed BFF time together and got in some retail therapy! Oh, how I love my best friend... someone's got to! ;)

That night, we went with some friends to see Wall-E. It was really cute! But I'm a sucker for all Disney movies (shocker there, right?) and enjoyed it even though I fell asleep in it!

Belief is a Beautiful Armor...

Help me to live like I really believe You are trustworthy. Help me to abandon my
mythology where I believe I am more trustworthy than You, and so I live like I
believe in myself instead of like I believe in You.

“I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” Mark 9:24 (NIV)

I believe, help me trust like I believe.

“Living a life of faith means never knowing where you are being led. But it does mean loving and knowing the One who is leading. It is literally a life of faith, not of understanding and reason – a life of knowing Him who calls us to go.”

This is what I read today, at the end of the day, just when I needed it the most. I do believe. I do. I know the plan is right there. I'm just in the hurrying stages to want to hurry and see that it's working the way I want it to. And that not happening is a scary thing. But I do have faith. And I do believe. It's just really hard to do fully sometimes.

Grand Cayman

Grand Cayman was our first port of call and shore excursion on Monday. We woke up really early that morning and went through security and got on our tender boat. The Cayman Islands are surrounded by a huge coral reef, and since coral is an endangered species, cruise ships have to stay further out and smaller boats carry us in groups to the island. Here we are on our tender boat, and then here's our ship with the tender boat beside it....look at that size difference!!

Here is the coast line of Grand Cayman as we got there. Oh I LOVE that beautiful, blue water! Isn't the land so flat though?

When we got to shore, we went directly to our shore excursion. Lindsey was the only one of the 3 of us who had ever been snorkeling, so we decided to try a "beginner level" snorkel...so we chose the Grand Cayman Shore Snorkel. (**We used our waterproof cameras for that, and not many of the pictures turned out very great, but hopefully I'll be able to scan a few and add them in later.**) We got our locker and our gear and everything, and listened closely to what the people were telling us. The woman said, "When you get in, you'll see some big fish, but they don't have teeth. They're my babies and won't hurt you. You can go out as far as that marker and can stay as long as you like. The water will only be about 6-7 feet deep."

Ok, so clearly this woman isn't aware of the fear of 2 young girls who have never been swimming with "big fish." Nor did she have any concept of the depth. First of all, I'm not really afraid of much...especially in the water...and I'm pretty much willing to try anything. I was one of the first to waddle (and I do mean waddle...walking in flippers isn't an easy task) out to the little pier we were supposed to jump off and into the water. Well, I get there with all this get up and nothing but this little guy grinning from ear to ear and Caley and Lindsey behind me to hear me shriek when those "big fish with no teeth" came straight to where I was going to go in. There was a line already forming behind us, so I just had to lunge. These "big fish" were gigantic and the ugliest, meanest things I've ever seen in my life. That was not what I wanted to see first off, let me tell ya. I must have gotten them scared off or something, because they were nowhere to be seen when Caley and Lindsey bailed in after me. I didn't even look down...I just closed my eyes and swam as fast as my gigantic flippers could carry me. Fortunately this was the only run in with the big fish (no pictures to vouch for how big or ugly they were...although they were as long as I am...we were to scared to stay around long enough to take a picture), with the exception of having to get back through them to get out of the water. Dumb smiling boy kept throwing them fish food...I'm sure we were the highlight of his day.

Anyway, so we swim around and see lots of coral and several pretty fish and we decide that the 'good' coral is deeper out in the "6-7 feet deep" water. When we got all the way to the marker, that water was no less than 30 feet. No biggie...it was actually really cool...but she could have accurately warned us. There were these cute little black and white fish that would swim all the way up to us (until we shot out of the water because we were scared again...) and would surround us in their schools. It was really cool! What I thought was even more weird was the fact that these fish would come so close, and we'd go above water and talk about it, and we'd look back below and there would be tons around us, and we didn't even realize it. Makes me wonder how much else I miss that I'm not aware of...

And I must say that I was apprehensive about snorkeling, because I tend to inhale the water when I've used one in the pool, but I think I only got about 3 mouth fulls of sea water. Not too shabby! After snorkeling for about an hour or so, we were pretty worn out and decided to go dry off and have lunch. Here is where we were snorkeling (look closely for the little specks of yellow...those are the other snorklers in their life jackets).

We were going to eat there, but the owner was a little on the rude side (we seemed to have that running trend in Grand Cayman...the locals weren't exactly friendly...), so we went to Margaritaville instead! That was an excellent choice, because we had a great time and incredible food (3 cheeseburgers in paradise - - my favorite!!!)...so much fun!!!

We did a little bit of shopping the rest of the day, and it was incredibly hot there...no breeze, so we took a few more pictures and then went back on the boat early to get some ice cream and cool off by the pool!

I Surrender All

Last week I was looking through the Cross Point blog roll on Jenni Catron’s blog, to see who I knew, who I recognized, etc. I came across one and added it to my favorites because it was a pregnant woman from church (and everyone knows how much I love babies! And let’s face it…blogs that include baby stories are so much cuter!), but didn’t read anything just yet. We’re at a very slow period at work (for multiple reasons), so when things are quiet and I have everything done up to that point, I start to scroll through the blogs I’m reading. I finally came back to Jessica's and the most current was titled “Remembering Audrey.” The post linked to what quickly had me paralyzed, absorbed into the words on the screen. I sat as long as I could reading her story that afternoon, and had to finish the following day when I was a little more prepared with waterproof mascara, a box of Kleenex and my office door closed as long as possible.

After reading through to the most recent post of “Bring the Rain,” I felt like I knew this family. I told my friends about their story. I had it on my mind all weekend long. Then Sunday came… After keeping the nursery, and in high anticipation for what the next part of Plan B series was going to present (Pete had definitely built this one up!), all the mommies came in saying “oh, you had better take tissues!” Immediately I thought of Audrey and her family, but I didn’t say anything (although come to find out, Lindsey thought the very same thing also!). We got into the café to eat with Lori, Barry and Bailey, and Lori said “There’s a guy and he sings in…” and I knew.

“Selah?” Lindsey and I both asked, and the tears already welling up in Lori’s eyes gave us the answer.

Let me just tell you…I am not an emotional person. I rarely ever cry…I just don’t like to. But my heart absolutely aches for this family. Just thinking about them and the struggle to find a balance in their lives and dealing with the heartbreak of losing a child makes me well up instantly.

The message was astounding. There was no sermon, but just the video interview with Angie and Todd Smith, Audrey’s parents. Then Todd sang “I Surrender All” and it was beautiful, intense, moving. In the 11:00 service (not sure of the others), he never opened his eyes as he sang, and when he was done there wasn’t a sound in the entire room. The silence and his evident heartfelt sincerity spoke volumes, more than any amount of applause could. The video that was shown is below, and I encourage you to watch it when you have some time (it’s about 25ish minutes, I think) and you have tissues (or a mop) handy.

I am absolutely amazed at the strength and faith and trust Angie and Todd have. But they also approach it from such a human perspective, too. In the blog, Angie writes about times she couldn’t get out of bed or screamed out in anger and frustration with God. I also love how she talks about the lessons she learns and how God speaks to her in everyday life occurrences, like her daughter telling her that she’ll see a rainbow. It’s powerful beyond words.

I can’t begin to tell you their story or Audrey’s in particular, but I can say that in just the week’s time since I “stumbled” upon the blog, it has made such an impact in my life. When I told my mom about the “irony” of having just found and read the blog and then them being a part of our series at church she said “you didn’t just stumble upon this. You’re supposed to take something from this.” I 100% agree. What it is, I’m not totally sure yet, but I know that Audrey’s story is one that I won’t be forgetting anytime soon.

I...Am...Number 1

I heard a quote yesterday that totally hit me. I don't know the exact wording of it, but the general message was "God made one of you. You are unique as you are, so don't give up just because you're outnumbered."

I'm surrounded by a number of different people and personalities on a daily basis. And to be totally honest, it's a constant struggle to not...conform, I guess is the word. This business is a Catch-22, especially as a female, in that you need to show that you're your own person (which I definitely am), but also that you can "hang with the big dogs." Some times are more difficult than others, but there's a very fine line between the two. Don't get me wrong, I clearly love my job and the business I'm in. I think within every profession or industry there are always these types of struggles. Regardless, that quote completely struck a chord with me at just the right time, and gave me just the right motivation to know that just because I don't do or say or act the same way as everyone else all the time, it's ok. I know that I'm great at what I do and that God put me in these positions for a reason, and I have to make the choice to learn from them. So there's my soap box for the day. :)

Sleeping in on Sundays!

No, Mom & Dad, I didn't skip church today. My church just started the first week of 6pm services! I must say, it was incredible. We already have two morning services, one at 9 and one at 11. Due to the major increase of visitors and the major lack of parking spaces and seating for the 11, an additional service was needed.

First of all, who can say no to an extra day to sleep in? It just so happens I was babysitting until really late last night, so I would have either missed and listened to the new series (more on that later) online, or gone with major exhaustion and risk lack of focus. However, neither had to happen today, or any other Sunday!

Second, I was a little apprehensive about there being a difference in the services. One of the things I love about Cross Point is the praise and worship and the special music at the end (go figure, being a music person, right?). I was nervous that it just wouldn't be the same. I'm happy to say that I had nothing to worry about whatsoever. Jarrod and the worship team, as always, were incredible. They even sang one of my favorites, "Lead Me To The Cross." You can listen to it here. There was also a different sense of comfort, I think. Another thing I've loved about Cross Point since the very first time I visited over a year ago, was the relaxed atmosphere that gave me the undeniable ability to focus on God without thinking about anybody or anything else. The level of comfort was multiplied tonight. Pete is a very funny guy all the time, but we laughed even more...and harder! I didn't know it was possible, but I'd venture to even say it was more FUN than the morning services. And even with all the fun, there was the irrefutable presense in the room and definitely in the message that absolutely captivates me and makes me so much more attentive to Pete's words.I know this doesn't really have anything to do with the time of the service exactly, but I already love the new series Pete started tonight. It deals with the ideas and perceptions non-Christians have of Christianity. A lot of research has been done for a book called unChristian (which I've bought but haven't started reading yet), and was referenced tonight. Pete talked about how Christianity shouldn't be "Faith in Christ +" anything, meaning it shouldn't be the type of service, type of music, number of times to take communion, or anything else that makes Christianity. The faith in Christ is all we need. The rest comes with that faith. "Don't complicate what God made simple," he said. I love that. And finally, what I love most about my church...more than the music, more than the friendships I've made there, more than keeping the sweet babies every other week, more than getting to sleep in now, and even more than Pete's messages that ALWAYS hit home with me...is that the combination of all those things evokes thought and emotion from me that I haven't ever had before. And that is what makes me know, I'm exactly where God wants me to be right now, to "lead me to the cross."