Oh Joy!

So in this blog here I decided to write a Joy for each day because I was having trouble finding joy in each day and I said, "I refuse to go through a day without stopping to see where God has worked and I don't want to take for granted any more the time I have." So I thought I would share some of the things I've found joy in the last month or so:

Monday, January 24th:  "Today I had the funniest conversation in my car with four of the most precious angels that I work with. We were driving from the gym back to Harvest Hands and one told me she only likes Jesus and God music so I turned off the radio and we sang "Who's the King of the Jungle". Except when they get to the part where you say "His name is J-E-S-U-S YES!" They all came to a dead stop at the same time and said, "Miss Abby we don't know how to spell Jesus!" So funny!

Tuesday, January 25th: Mandy and I went to the Adventure Science Center for their adults only after hours event and it was so fun! It was my first time going and an early birthday present for her! My favorite part: The Germ Game. Our team won every time!

Sunday, January 30th: My pastor and his wife, Jim and Jessica, came over for lunch and had a good time getting to know them better and spend time with their sweet baby Justus.

Wednesday, February 2nd: Civil Wars Concert with Amanda Lian. One word: Magical.

Tuesday, February 8th: Found out I could go to Florida with my family in April!!! 

Thursday, February 10th: Found out Jake got into PT school!

Monday, February 14th: Valentine's Day spent with these crazy boys, my 2/42 group and then finished the night at The Saucer.

Wednesday, February 16th: Saw Committed in concert! They're amazing and I was so glad I got to see them with Mandy, Tricia, and Jen.

Today, Sunday, February 27th: A wonderful time at church and a reminder of God's love for me and the blessing of a church family. Good time with friends, conversations in parking lots, Sunday afternoon naps, cereal for your 10:00 snack and a night to yourself.

I'm discovering sometimes it's the events, sometimes it's the people, and sometimes it's the little things that bring joy to my days. I'm excited to see what the rest of the year holds.

Celebrate.

If you were inside of my head at the beginning of January this is what you would have heard:

"Well...there goes another Christmas break and here I am back in Nashville. I guess life just resumes as normal, now that I'm in real life I guess there's not as much to look forward to. I have nothing exciting coming up, no big trips, no celebrations, no events and I don't have the consistent breaks to look forward to like I did through all my school years. Why can't my life be more exciting?"

Debbie Downer I know. I knew these thoughts weren't the most productive or positive, but I wasn't sure what to make of this phase of my life. 

I feel like I've learned a lot and grown from that moment in January. I've been on a journey to celebration. It started with intentionally finding joy in each day and was helped along by reading the book Cold Tangerines and pushed over the edge by some divine nudges. I realized each day is a reason to celebrate. Can you imagine how your life would be different if you woke up every morning excited to be where you are? I couldn't...not at first. I'm learning and it is a journey because it's so much easier to look to the next best thing and choose to be miserable in the normalcy of life. 

It's funny the timing of things. All these thoughts were going through my head and then I just happen to read a book that puts my thoughts into words way better than I ever could. 

"It's rebellious, in a way, to choose joy, to choose to dance, to choose to love your life. It's much easier and much more common to be miserable. But I choose to do what I can do to create hope, to celebrate life, and the act of celebrating connects me back to that life I love. We could just live our normal, day-to-day lives, saving all the good living up for someday, but I think today, just plain today, is worth it. I think it's our job, each of us, to live each day like it's a special occasion, because we've been given a gift. We get to live in this beautiful world. When I live purposefully and well, when I dance instead of sitting it out, when I let myself laugh hard, when I wear my favorite shoes on a regular Tuesday, that regular Tuesday is better."

This is from Cold Tangerines, a book that if you haven't read you should. It's one of the best books I've read in awhile!

Friendship

It's funny the timing of things. Last night my dear friend sent me a text that said something to the effect of, "Thanks for being a good friend and caring about peoples lives." I responded with, "You're too kind, but thank you." (And then she scolded me for not taking a compliment)

Anyway...this got me thinking about friendship and love and relationships. I truly believe that I have a lot of love to give. And I truly believe it's because God bestows His love on me so that I can give it away. Well I was reading my new book, Cold Tangerines (so good so far btw) and she put my thoughts in words, way better than I could!

"Friendship is acting out God's love for people in tangible ways. We were made to represent the love of God in each others lives, so that each person we walk through life with has a more profound sense of God's love for them. Friendship is an opportunity to act on God's behalf in the lives of the people that we're close to, reminding each other who God is. When we do the hard, intimate work of friendship, we bring a little more of the divine into daily life. We get to remind one another about the bigger, more beautiful picture that we can't always see from where we are."

I love this. I wish people truly realized how much of an opportunity and how life giving friendship and relationships can be. I know part of my calling and existance on this earth is to "act on God's behalf in the lives of the people that we're close to, reminding each other who God is." And my prayer is that I will continually do this day in and day out. 

Since this is about friendship and blogs are just better with pictures..here are just a few with friends:

Valentines Day + 4th grade boys

So today is Valentines Day...well technically not since it's after midnight, but anyway. Quite honestly I don't care one way or another about Valentine's Day, I just get angry about how much money people spend on it when that money could be going to so many other beneficial things, but I could go on and on about that.

I realized after today that Valentines Day is a lot more fun spent with kids. It was fun getting their little Valentines, candy conversation hearts, hear about their Valentines at school, and hear one boy say he prays for a girlfriend every night before he goes to sleep. On Mondays in my group it's me and all the boys because the girls have other after-school activities.

I got the low down on their crushes and who they wanted to have as their Valentine. Of course, the next question was, "Ms. Abby who is your Valentine?!?" And here was the conversation:

Me: "It's a secret"

The boys: "No fair we told you who ours were!" ... "Is it Mr. Luke?"

Me: "No, actually I don't have one"

One boy: "You need to go on eharmony!"

Another boy: "You need to go on wouldyoudateme.com"

Another boy: "Ms. Abby what you need to do is walk down the street with books in your hand and run into a man. Then you drop all your books and he helps you pick them up and you're in love. That's how it happens in the movies"

If only it was that simple. I would have walked down the street with books way sooner! :) The whole afternoon was full of their theories on love, what they do to win over the girls they like, and more advice about how I can as they said it "finally get married". But they brought joy to my day today and I'm thankful for these crazy boys:

Taylor

So a lot of shitty (sorry Mom for cussing) things have been going on lately. Just feeling burdened by a lot of things going on in people's lives. Some of these people are very close to me, while others I don't know that well, but still God has laid them all on my heart.

I truly think we are called to share in each others burdens while lifting one another up in prayer. I hate that all these things are happening and all I know to do is pray and trust that God knows what the heck is going on. One person I've prayed for a lot the last few weeks is Taylor.

Taylor started volunteering with us at Harvest Hands (HH) in January and I've never had a volunteer so enthused to get started! Her first email to me was full of exclamation points (which I love!) and a desire to serve that I could sense even over an email. She came, jumped right in, and the kids loved her! And I was so excited to have a volunteer that was so passionate and ready to help!

About a week and a half ago she sent me an email letting me know she was in the hospital and thought she would make it to HH, but the doctors wouldn't let her leave yet so she would see us next week. Her friend came by later that day to check out HH and sent Brian an email after she left saying she wrote about us in her blog. Brian sent her blog on to me and it rocked my world.

Taylor is 22 years old, just graduated college, and has cancer. The reason she was in the hospital was because she had just had surgery where she was given a 15% chance to survive and she did. What?!? I had no idea. I don't know Taylor well, but I've been faithfully following her friend's blog and praying for her constantly. I feel like i know her better now and I know this cancer doesn't define her. She was choosing in between chemo treatments to come serve at Harvest Hands. That alone should tell you how great she is. Here's a link to the blog if you want to check it out:
http://team15percent.blogspot.com/

Taylor needs our prayers. Even if it's a short prayer after you read this or you remember her daily it would be great for a miracle to happen. I can tell God is working in and through her life and I think he's got more things for her to do here and we need her back to HH! :)

She apparently loves Garth Brooks and was able to meet him and Trisha Yearwood recently when he was in Nashville doing his concerts for flood relief:

Family

I've always loved my family. We've always been close and I really hate living so far away from all of them. I think people have different definitions of "being close with your family", but I would seriously consider my family my best friends. We keep in touch regularly and know what's going on in each others lives. My dream would be that we would all live in the same city some day, however, with our track record of places we live and lifestyles I'm thinking within a day's drive may be more realistic!

I just really can't express how much I love them and wish I could see them every day. I've been blessed with a new sister, who fits right in and who we loved even before we knew she would be an official part of the family!

We haven't been all together since May for my brother's wedding and I hate that. BUT...we're all going to Florida in April! How excited am I? Maybe too excited...I can't think about it for more than a couple seconds or I will totally forget about present time and just wish life away until April.

We'll go from being together during the wedding fun and craziness to laying in the sun and relaxing our time away! Like my dad would say (with a little tweaking from me), "The family that tans together stays together!"(His usually goes something like, "The family that does chores together, stays together")

ps. Jake just got into the Physical Therapy program at the University of Washington (like we doubted he would...he's so stinkin smart!) but so so proud of him!! Excited for this next step in his journey!

Dillon.

Dillon is one of the students in our After-school Program. He's five and so stinkin cute! Some things you learn about Dillon pretty quickly are that he can't sit still, he likes to sing, dance, and drum and he loves his baby sister. He is always moving. He broke his arm earlier this year, but that didn't stop him from playing or jumping off the stage regardless of the cast covering half his arm. I'm trying to intentionally find joy in each day and he brought me joy yesterday. Here is why (the end is the best):

If you can't understand him he's singing the song Boogie Fever from his favorite movie "Despicable Me". When you ask him what it's called he'll say, "The Cookie Robot Song"! Check out more pictures of him and all the other little blessings in my life at the Harvest Hands Facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Harvest-Hands-Community-Development-Corp/156150057760320

Notes like this bring joy to my life too. They help me keep going when I don't always have the energy.

Fog.

So I just really wanted to write a blog, but when I sat down to type nothing would come out. Probably because my brain feels like this:

It's like there's a fog over me and my thoughts or any intelligent thoughts for that matter are struggling to break through. Probably because I'm sick and it feels like my head is going to explode, but also I've been feeling burdened by a lot lately. It seems like there's a lot going on around me in both people's lives who I know well and even those I don't know well.  So even though I have this haze over my brain, I think it's also a little nudge saying...why not stop writing about it and trying to think about it and analyze it (which I take way too much time doing) and take some time to lift these people who are going through so much up. So that's what I'll be doing...

But for a lighter note I'll leave you with this, that picture above is from my trip to Costa Rica this summer at the Volcano Poas and I also found this video. I didn't take it because I was too scared to let go of the rope to hold the camera but I did do down that exact zip line right before him...so scary yet so fun!

I guess this turned into writing a blog...

Doing nothing?

Tonight for the first time in awhile I just sat. I had the TV on and my computer out, but I wasn't quite paying attention. I actually did nothing and I felt bad about it. I kept having the urge to work or to call someone to go somewhere, but I didn't.  I talked on the phone with a few people which was great, but other than I can't say I did much.

When did I lose my ability to do nothing and enjoy it? I used to be able to just sit at home at night and watch tv and be completely content...maybe even borderline lazy by some standards...but now when I actually do that for the first time in weeks I feel bad about it and have to force myself to just sit. Where is the balance between being productive and being lazy? Why was it so hard for me to just make my mind, body, and soul stop?

I feel like the energizer bunny these days...I just keep going and going and going...

**on a completely random note, I'm seeing The Civil Wars in concert tomorrow...so excited! If you haven't heard them before (the 3 of you that read this) you should listen to them! They're pretty great**