Things I am thankful for this Thanksgiving (in no particular order):
My family (parents, sisters, the brother, brother-in-laws, Meelo, Isaiah, Andrew)
green tea
tradition
nice weather
my car
Daniel
education
Mo
Pine Cove
pictures
good health
my laptop
peanut butter m&ms
music
my church
books
The Ralls, Houghs, and Gires.
Emily Poteet
international travel
my passport
granny smith apples
target
my converse shoes
dogs
karaoke
cherry pie
lower gas prices
my overseas friends (Beate, Aylen)
Jessie
my small group (the one i'm in and the one i led)
straws
Nintendo 64
youtube
my job
my students
good conversations
Gods unconditional love
my ipod
Apple products
Ouachita
grandparents
God has blessed me greatly indeed.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
holla!
So my lack of blogs is due to the fact that I don't have a ton of time to sit and blog, but today I have discovered that blogger is not blocked at my school! Hooray! I now have a new way to misuse my planning period! Haha.
Life has been pretty crazy these last few days. School is in full swing, just finished our 2nd 6-weeks. I can't believe I only have this group of students for 6 more weeks! I'm excited about getting all new students next semester, but not looking forward to learning 120 new names! I've been making lists of things I want to do differently in class next semester, so hopefully that will help with the management of the class.
This past weekend we had a super fun party at Tammi's. There was a great turn out, tons of food, and lots of laughter. Rock Band was a hit and I lost at (big time) at Nertz. All in all it was a wonderful evening. God has blessed me with some great friends.
In exactly 5 days I will be home! For a whole week! Hooray!!! I can't wait. I haven't been home since August! Crazy! I'm looking forward to spending time with the fam and especially with Isaiah and Meelo. OH and I haven't seen Sarah since shortly after she found out she was pregnant so I'm looking forward to seeing her. She will be having another boy. They're naming him Joshua James (Josh after my brother!), but Isaiah has called the baby "Alligator" since the day she found out she was pregnant, so I feel some nicknames coming. She'll be due right around... May? Yea that sounds about right. I'm so homesick! This will be great.
Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite holiday. I love going over to my Aunt Karen's with my moms whole family and just enjoying the fellowship. Playing with my cousins kids, beating everyone at UNO, watching Travis out eat everyone, enjoying the pie, and listening to my dad and Dustin compare cell phones (I can already hear them now... "Oh yea but can your's do this?" Anna you know what I'm talkin about!). The absolute best part though comes at just a few minutes before 11:30 PM when Josh starts taking orders for Whataburger breakfast burritos. That has been a tradition in my family for as long as I can remember. Every Thanksgiving we all go eat a late-night breakfast burrito from Whataburger. When we were younger we all piled in the car and went together. Now we just take orders and send someone. It is a great tradition. Yes it will truly be a wonderful day. To make it even better, Aunt Judy and Aunt Paula will be there this year! I can't wait. I'm trying to come up with a list of things I want to do and people I want to see while I'm home. I figure if I can't get it all in over Thanksgiving break, I can finish the list when I come home for Christmas.
Well I figure that's enough for now. The rest of this week will be great. Today I have a party with my debate team, then a basketball game. Wednesday is another basketball game and Thanksgiving dinner with the church college+ group. Friday I have a debate tournament and Saturday is Daniels senior recital (hoooray!!!). AND SUNDAY I'M FLYING HOME!!! 5 days... 5 days to home...
Life has been pretty crazy these last few days. School is in full swing, just finished our 2nd 6-weeks. I can't believe I only have this group of students for 6 more weeks! I'm excited about getting all new students next semester, but not looking forward to learning 120 new names! I've been making lists of things I want to do differently in class next semester, so hopefully that will help with the management of the class.
This past weekend we had a super fun party at Tammi's. There was a great turn out, tons of food, and lots of laughter. Rock Band was a hit and I lost at (big time) at Nertz. All in all it was a wonderful evening. God has blessed me with some great friends.
In exactly 5 days I will be home! For a whole week! Hooray!!! I can't wait. I haven't been home since August! Crazy! I'm looking forward to spending time with the fam and especially with Isaiah and Meelo. OH and I haven't seen Sarah since shortly after she found out she was pregnant so I'm looking forward to seeing her. She will be having another boy. They're naming him Joshua James (Josh after my brother!), but Isaiah has called the baby "Alligator" since the day she found out she was pregnant, so I feel some nicknames coming. She'll be due right around... May? Yea that sounds about right. I'm so homesick! This will be great.
Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite holiday. I love going over to my Aunt Karen's with my moms whole family and just enjoying the fellowship. Playing with my cousins kids, beating everyone at UNO, watching Travis out eat everyone, enjoying the pie, and listening to my dad and Dustin compare cell phones (I can already hear them now... "Oh yea but can your's do this?" Anna you know what I'm talkin about!). The absolute best part though comes at just a few minutes before 11:30 PM when Josh starts taking orders for Whataburger breakfast burritos. That has been a tradition in my family for as long as I can remember. Every Thanksgiving we all go eat a late-night breakfast burrito from Whataburger. When we were younger we all piled in the car and went together. Now we just take orders and send someone. It is a great tradition. Yes it will truly be a wonderful day. To make it even better, Aunt Judy and Aunt Paula will be there this year! I can't wait. I'm trying to come up with a list of things I want to do and people I want to see while I'm home. I figure if I can't get it all in over Thanksgiving break, I can finish the list when I come home for Christmas.
Well I figure that's enough for now. The rest of this week will be great. Today I have a party with my debate team, then a basketball game. Wednesday is another basketball game and Thanksgiving dinner with the church college+ group. Friday I have a debate tournament and Saturday is Daniels senior recital (hoooray!!!). AND SUNDAY I'M FLYING HOME!!! 5 days... 5 days to home...
Monday, November 10, 2008
thoughts on Heaven
Well, it's only been... 10 days since my last post? Yeah 10 days. Not too bad. Life has been pretty busy. School is going good, although I will admit there are a few students giving me some gray hairs. But that is expected, right? Debate team did MUCH better this past weekend with a few students moving on to the semi-finals. Very proud of them. They are currently working on their 3rd speech- a group speech. They love the fact that it's group work... because then they have an excuse to talk all class long. Haha! Speaking of school... here's a picture of MY classroom!!
So before I start blogging about what I actually wanted to blog about, here's a run down of my super-fun weekend:
Friday: Debate vs. Clear Lake. I got to drive the party bus (also known as a 15 passenger van). Takes me back to my Rock On days at PC (shout out to Tim Holms!).
Saturday: I GOT TO SLEEP IN! Holla! Then I went to U of H to take a test... but afterwards Daniel took me ice skating! Hooray! Is it possible to get worse at something? I do not remember being extremely bad at ice skating when I went soph year. Katie Holt- do you remember? Anyway. I was pretty much awful at ice skating but I blame the extremely wet ice. Seriously, it was a total melt down.
Sunday: church (have I mentioned how much I love my church?), then guess who came to visit?!? KATIE BUCHER!!
Love her. She drove down from C-Stat just to hang out with me. So blessed. We had a great time catching up. She's pretty much thebomb.com. Then I went to small groups where we planned the most ballin' party ever. And we took pictures (see below).
So that was my super-fun weekend. Now onto the original motivation for updating this blog....
So this book Crazy Love that I've blogged a few times about is still one of the best books I've read. If you haven't gotten a copy of it yet, GO NOW! It will change your life. Anyway, here is a portion of the book that we talked about for a while last night at small groups and has continued to be on my mind. It's from the book, but was actually taken from God is the Gospel by John Piper:
"The critical question for our generation- and for every generation- is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disaters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ were not there?"
AH! So tough, right? I'll be honest with you. My immediate reaction was "yeah, I just might be ok with that" and there is still a little part of me that could be. I've been letting this thought "marinate" in my mind. I think about all the good things it named, friends, food, activities I enjoy, etc. and think about how good those things are. Truly enjoyable because they are good. I've known a lot of good in my life, and rarely do I experience something good and think "wow God, thank you." Good is an everyday part of my life. I see good and become... desenitized? to it. I expect a day with at least a few good things. How can I so easily forget that every good thing in my life is because of God? It could not exist with out Him. Therefore a heaven with all the good things in my life could not possibly exists with out Him, right? But what if it could? What if a heaven could exisit with good but not with God? Would I be satisfied? I know my answer to this is no, but I'll be honest. It's easy to say yes. Good things in life are easy. We know how to enjoy. Living a life for the Almighty is hardwork, and I guess for me when I think of an eternity of worshiping God it could sound like work, or at least not as pleasurable as the good things I have come to expect in life. But heaven is going to be so much more than just worshiping God! I mean we will be in the presence of our Creator! We wont want to do anything but worship Him. Singing praises to Him will give us more pleasure than any good thing we could ever experience here on this earth. It will be so much better than a heaven with all our friends, no sickness, no conflict. It will surpass any good we could ever imagine. It will be... uh I don't even have the words. That's just how truly awesome it will be. So, could I be truly satisfied in a heaven like John Piper described? No. I certainly could not be satisfied.
So before I start blogging about what I actually wanted to blog about, here's a run down of my super-fun weekend:
Friday: Debate vs. Clear Lake. I got to drive the party bus (also known as a 15 passenger van). Takes me back to my Rock On days at PC (shout out to Tim Holms!).
Saturday: I GOT TO SLEEP IN! Holla! Then I went to U of H to take a test... but afterwards Daniel took me ice skating! Hooray! Is it possible to get worse at something? I do not remember being extremely bad at ice skating when I went soph year. Katie Holt- do you remember? Anyway. I was pretty much awful at ice skating but I blame the extremely wet ice. Seriously, it was a total melt down.
Sunday: church (have I mentioned how much I love my church?), then guess who came to visit?!? KATIE BUCHER!!
Love her. She drove down from C-Stat just to hang out with me. So blessed. We had a great time catching up. She's pretty much thebomb.com. Then I went to small groups where we planned the most ballin' party ever. And we took pictures (see below).
So that was my super-fun weekend. Now onto the original motivation for updating this blog....So this book Crazy Love that I've blogged a few times about is still one of the best books I've read. If you haven't gotten a copy of it yet, GO NOW! It will change your life. Anyway, here is a portion of the book that we talked about for a while last night at small groups and has continued to be on my mind. It's from the book, but was actually taken from God is the Gospel by John Piper:
"The critical question for our generation- and for every generation- is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disaters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ were not there?"
AH! So tough, right? I'll be honest with you. My immediate reaction was "yeah, I just might be ok with that" and there is still a little part of me that could be. I've been letting this thought "marinate" in my mind. I think about all the good things it named, friends, food, activities I enjoy, etc. and think about how good those things are. Truly enjoyable because they are good. I've known a lot of good in my life, and rarely do I experience something good and think "wow God, thank you." Good is an everyday part of my life. I see good and become... desenitized? to it. I expect a day with at least a few good things. How can I so easily forget that every good thing in my life is because of God? It could not exist with out Him. Therefore a heaven with all the good things in my life could not possibly exists with out Him, right? But what if it could? What if a heaven could exisit with good but not with God? Would I be satisfied? I know my answer to this is no, but I'll be honest. It's easy to say yes. Good things in life are easy. We know how to enjoy. Living a life for the Almighty is hardwork, and I guess for me when I think of an eternity of worshiping God it could sound like work, or at least not as pleasurable as the good things I have come to expect in life. But heaven is going to be so much more than just worshiping God! I mean we will be in the presence of our Creator! We wont want to do anything but worship Him. Singing praises to Him will give us more pleasure than any good thing we could ever experience here on this earth. It will be so much better than a heaven with all our friends, no sickness, no conflict. It will surpass any good we could ever imagine. It will be... uh I don't even have the words. That's just how truly awesome it will be. So, could I be truly satisfied in a heaven like John Piper described? No. I certainly could not be satisfied.
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