Me: I need to go to CVS to get that sale on Revlon.
Lexi (overhearing my comment): I don’t want the red one I want the blue one.
Extraordinary Faith for Everyday Life
Me: I need to go to CVS to get that sale on Revlon.
Lexi (overhearing my comment): I don’t want the red one I want the blue one.
Let me tell you the story about our leather recliner. When I was in college, I had earned enough scholarship money that we had some left over. Scott and I married in between my junior and senior year so it was our money to do with what we wanted. Well, seeing that we both moved from home, we had very little furniture so we bought a $600 leather recliner with our money. I graduated college over seven years ago and we still have that same black leather recliner in our living room.
I’m sitting here looking at it now and it still doesn’t really match anything and it’s big and bulky but it’s comfortable. But what memories I have from it. I remember lying with Scott in it, snuggled as newlyweds. I remember being pregnant for the first time and sleeping in it because my heart burn and huge belly just wouldn’t let me do otherwise. I remember sitting in it nursing Emma with my blue boppy pillow with bees on it. I remember Scott holding Emma right in the crook of his arm and somehow always rocking her to sleep. I remember my two girls sitting side by side in it watching tv. I remember Emma sitting up and eating her lunch after school with a tv tray watching cartoons. And most recently, I remember Lexi sitting in Emma’s lap while she pretended to read story to her from a book.
The recliner is dirty and torn and has holes in spots that we’ve tried to patch and really we should replace it. Maybe one day we will but for now, we’re busy making memories.
I was able to spend a few minutes before and after our meeting tonight with my family in town and I don’t know, I seem to be on a sentimental streak with my posts tonight but it just felt really good to be around family I love. Mom was cooking and we were laughing about something that happened last week. They were talking about seeing Mom’s house for the first time and we were planning out our day tomorrow. Probably one of very few we’ll have together even this year. And it just felt good. To be loved. To be liked. Just to enjoy my time and my company. I’m hoping the rest of the weekend is just as good.
Can I just say that tonight was nothing short of miraculous? I mean, really. We had our youth council meeting tonight that I was literally crying over Wednesday because I was so nervous about it. Phone calls and emails and conversations were flying everywhere all week about it. But let me tell you, God was all over tonight and there was such a sweet spirit among us that I would have never guessed could happen.
Last night as I was praying about this, I just felt God calling us to be compassionate. I started looking up verses about compassion and I found this verse in Nehemiah 9:17 But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. and just felt it was what we needed….being gracious towards them, compassionate and slow to anger. And it happened tonight. All of our anger was gone. We were gracious and compassionate towards one another. We didn’t point fingers and slam each other for past wrongs. Yes, we did admit and talk about that things had gone wrong. We didn’t gloss over the fact we had issues. And I wouldn’t even say we started with a clean slate and forgot about the past. I think we built on the past. We realized where we had gotten and how but because we all looked to God to heal this, I think he changed our own hearts and not each other to see each other in a different light. I think we all just wanted to not put our differences aside but bring them to the front and deal with them.
I can honestly say I feel free walking out of that meeting. No sideward glances. No rolling eyes. No beating heart. No anger. No hurt. No distrust. Will it always be this way? Not if we work together long enough. But I really think we have realized if we get knocked down, we can get back up again. Just like Toby Mac talked about in that video I posted a few days ago. We’re going to disagree. Over and over and over again. But the true test of a friendship or team is can it make it past that? Somehow tonight we did.
Everyone could sense the tension was gone and we had a great time. We talked about the youth and laughed about who was dating who and shared who was struggling and then all of the sudden, we had something in common. The youth. That’s what we’re there for. To lead young people towards Christ and help them live that out. We all have a part and we need everyone.
I was dreading tonight but I know God worked a miracle in our hearts tonight. We do have a rocky past and that will never, ever change now but I can say for right now, we are united.
Alright, it’s been a little over 2 weeks since I joined PayPerPost.com after being turned onto it by Allison. Thank you once again Allison!! This has been THE quickest money maker I’ve ever seen outside of actually leaving my house and getting a job. From PayPerPost.com alone, I have made $268.64 since my first post only two weeks ago.
Seriously.
Most days I try to post my max of 3 posts and it can be cumbersome to weed through on my site if you don’t like reading paid posts but really, I’ve enjoyed trying to insert a little story or fact about myself in each and every post. I was a little naive when I first started that I would only blog about products that I would "normally" post about. And I know I haven’t. But. I do feel like in 98% of the posts I’ve done, I’ve been able to find something about me to talk about. Sometimes I’ve even blogged about things I wouldn’t normally think to blog about and no one would ever know about me had it not been for the paid posts. So to me, that’s a plus. And people, I’ve made $258.64 in two weeks!!
If you join and get paid to blog, a few things I’ve learned from PayPerPost.com are:
I really can’t recommend them enough. Happy blogging!
Here’s today’s Friday’s Feast
Appetizer
Name a great website you would recommend to others.
Anyone want to guess what I have to say? moneysavingmom.com!
Soup
On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 as highest), how often do you dream at night?
9. I dream vividly almost every night.
Salad
Did you have a pet as a child? If so, what kind and what was its name?
Yes, but I know I don’t recall them all. We had a cat named Cinderella we called Cindy. A german shepherd named Bruno. A golden retriever named Tiffany. A bird I don’t think we ever named as we gave it away because it was too annoying.
Main Course
If you had the chance to star in a commercial, what would you choose to advertise?
Oh boy, not sure on this one. In one way, if I was in a commercial, I’d like to be the hot girl, you know in a beer commercial or something. But really, I don’t endorse beer, so I’m thinking that’s no good.
I think the Apple commercials are hilarious and I wouldn’t mind being associated with a commercial that’s funny and respected like that. But I’ve never owned anything by Apple except for my iPod so that goes out the window.
But it seems I’m leaning towards answering the wrong question. I guess if I’m going to personally advertise anything, I would want it to be something positive. Maybe for a church, or Billy Graham type event or Operation Christmas Child. Something like that.
Dessert
What is your favorite kind of hard candy?
I don’t like hard candy much at all but I do like the Butterscotch thingies shaped like mints.
Really, I’m so glad it’s Friday and we have a busy weekend ahead of us. Scott gets home from training early this afternoon. My aunt, uncle, two cousins and grandmother are coming into town tonight. We have our meeting with the youth council tonight (please pray, I’m so nervous about it). Tomorrow we are spending all day with my family. I think we’re going to some festival in the morning assuming it’s not pouring down rain and we also have our church’s Fall Festival tomorrow night. I suspect we’ll be shopping and eating out and actually I can’t wait.
In the words of Alex, "Happy Freakin’ Halloween". Wasn’t that great? Wow, I thought last week was good but this week was REALLY, REALLY good. I think the less interns we see, the better. Unless it’s George of course. So yeah, let’s start with George.
Maybe it’s not George I want to start with as much as Callie about George. Callie’s announcement to the entire room that George and Izzie had slept together was FANTASTIC. Leave your mouth wide open kind of fantastic. I can’t believe she did that but it made for some fanstastic tv. In fact this week had some great scenes and lines…so here we go.
Christina’s comment about Meredith’s "mommy bag" right after Callie’s big announcement had me laughing.
Meredith and Derek meet in the hallway with her mother’s ashes and talk about whether to put them in the cubby or car. The little boy interrupts and Meredith says, "Can you take care of him?" And I love when Derek says, "Can you take care of…her."
Alex and Ava!! Honestly I really want Alex and Izzie together but this really was a great reunion for Alex. Nice to see Alex on the prowl again.
The man with the chainsaw and the foot. He was crazy. Period. However, did anyone see loose ends tied up with that? Last I saw the guy was in surgery.
Dr. Hahn’s comment about Christina…I was saying "What?!" with Christina but it was still great to see her put in her place.
I really liked Lexie’s dead cat story and liked Lexie and Meredith getting along. They have good chemistry with one another.
So my friend and I were watching this show and we were just saying how NO marriage can survive on this show. The only exception we could think of was Bailey’s. And then hers seems to be going downhill all the sudden. Nice to see some personal stuff with Bailey. Last I remember she was wiping breast milk off her scrubs.
Christina telling off Hahn right before she finds out she’s the new head of Cardio-Thurasic (sp?) Surgery was just..nice. Love how she takes it out on the chief.
So the kid with the new ears is telling Meredith he flushed his goldfish down the toilet so they could "go back to the sea". Please don’t tell me Mer is going to flush her mother down the toilet. But no, in all of Grey’s beauty, Meredith pours her down the sink at the scrub station and it was just beautiful. Perfectly beautiful.
I started with George and I may as well end with him. Izzie and his declaration "We made it through this day." was almost poetic. And honestly, it didn’t produce any aw-ing from me because I’m still not into the Gizzie of it all but it was a nice moment.
So next week’s previews seem a little crazy, a little confused I think. The only thing I clearly remember was Izzie claiming that Gizzie would be be having hot s-e-x. Nice, can’t wait to blog about that.