Little Nuggets

First off I need to apologize to those of you who have been faithfully following my blog. I did not realize how many of you actually were (because apparently ya'll aren't big on leaving comments) and so I haven't been doing a very good job of updating it often enough-- as I found out this past week after talking with a few of you who said "UPDATE YOUR BLOG MORE!!!" So... my apologies and consider this a fresh start to doing a better job with this.

I just got back this afternoon from being in Iowa for 6 days. I flew home for my Grandma Grant's funeral and its been one blurr of a week. I was fortunate enough to grow up living near both of my Grandma's so I have SO many memories with them and the older I got the more I developed personal relationships with them. I'm going to miss a lot about my Grandma: she was such a happy woman who genuinely cared so much about other people. It was SO nice being home spending time with all of my dads siblings (one of whom I havent seen in ten years!) and meeting people they grew up with--hearing stories of their crazy days running from the cops and also hearing people talk about my Grandpa who passed away before I was born. My dad enjoyed introducing his WHOLE family to everyone there (including his old high school coach and some best friends from high school who we've all heard so much about). It was particularly difficult to watch my dad say goodbye to his mom, and see my brothers load their grandmothers casket up-- life is just CRAZY. My church also paid for my flight and allowed me to be gone the entire week so I was able to be there for my family and also visit some close friends-- I can't even begin to tell you how much that meant to me and my family!! Being plugged into a church has been unreal.... Needless to say it has been a roller coaster of a week: mentally and emotionally.

I also met my dads cousin Danny who is also in full-time ministry and was able to talk with him about his organization he works for. It's called e3 Partners Ministry and they are based in Dallas, San Diego, and Nashville (he lives in San Diego) and they plant thousands of churches and plan hundreds of short term mission trips all around the world. His company also developed the website: IAMSECOND.COM which is SO cool-- you'll have to check it out! I always am trying to look for Gods hand at work in my life and it's interesting how the two MAIN places I have the urge to go to (Dallas and Nashville) are where his companies are... So I now have a tangible organization to look up and get plugged in with if God decides to lead me in more of that route. Danny has encouraged me to go to Ethiopia with him May 23rd-June 3rd of this year on a mission trip he is leading (I only have to come up with 3400 more dollars..!) but I'm not so sure that is going to work out. I already turned down a trip to Nairobi in June because of the timing and then the price... but God works in crazy ways so who knows :) At this point in my life I am not sure of where I am going to go once my internship is up at CCV... I don't know if I'll have a job here or feel led elsewhere... but Dallas, TX is definitely an option now:) I'll be planning a trip to San Diego, Dallas, and Nashville within the year and hopefully stay with someone Danny knows in each of those cities and check out their organizations there. Pretty excited about it-- but nothing is in stone by any means.

Kurt Warner and his wife Brenda are here this weekend speaking at CCV on our series "Revolutionary Parenting"! WOOP WOOP! I flew home today (saturday afternoon) just to be back for it.

Right now at CCV I'm transitioning from the First Impressions team to teaming up with the Youth Department and their mentoring ministry... it's a bit more complicated than that but we are at the very beginning stages of it so I'll have to give more of an explanation once I know more.

I'm reading a book right now by Brennan Manning called "Abba's Child" and I'm only like 10 pages in and it is PHENOMENAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It talks about the struggle with Christians is accepting their sinfulness and overcoming that self-hate we develop as we strive to be more like Christ-- basically overcoming your worst enemy which is yourself. Love it.

I've learned so much the past few months it would take me forever to regurgitate it all for you. A few of the little nuggets are:

*I've learned how difficult it is to deal with blank stares from people once they find out you are in ministry. They think you are part of a cult and judgmental and get uncomfortable around you. There honestly isn't much worse than that-- especially since I've always been a person people have felt comfortable opening up to me around. So I've been trying to either break that stereotype or just get used to it..! I can talk lightly about it now but it's honestly something that crushes me. But I love Christ more than what others think so at the end of the day, I still choose to follow him. "Cult" title or not.

*I'm a coward when it comes to sharing Jesus with other people.

*I'm still trying to find a balance when it comes to drinking. I've grown up drinking and not ever really feeling convicted about it-- and since being in ministry I haven't been sure of how to handle it. Especially since when I used to drink I followed the saying "drink to get drunk, otherwise what's the point?" Now I'm in the process of weeding myself of this behavior that I've conditioned into myself. It sounds SO ridiculous but when that was a major outlet and social aspect of my life for the past 6 years... it's been difficult finding something to do on a Friday and Saturday night that allowed me to cut-loose.

*The dynamics of your family change SO MUCH the older you get-- especially the relationship you have with your siblings. That's been one of the more difficult eye-opening realizations I've had in the past two years or so... seeing my siblings grow up into their own individuals and develop their own lives has been bittersweet.

*Dont second guess yourself based on another persons comments. I've been trying to sharpen my ability to hear and be led by the Holy Spirit more and more so I can remain unshaken by the world that tells me such a different story.

*I'm a processor of information times a billion. I take information in and sit and grind it and process it until I develop some sort of little golden nugget that is a life realization or observation. That grinding process can be an hour, weeks, months, or even a year and I would label those times as the times when I am "in the valley" or the low moments... where things just dont seem to make much sense. Finally when that little nugget is produced is when the "life just makes sense and is clear" moments occur and I find myself on a mountain top. The fact that I am able to even articulate that, to me, is a little nugget in and of itself :)

Lastly... DALLAS/NASHVILLE HERE I COME! ;)

Thank you ALL for your prayers and support-- you mean SO much to me!!!!!