Prayer week Day ONE

Thursday, May 3 is the National Day of Prayer. That is this Thursday for those of you not in front of a calendar or those of you just waking up from a coma. My church put a flyer out with 3 days of prayer, and I decided to make it a whole week.

Monday, today, will be simple. Today I will pray for a prayerful attitude. To come from a position of humility to my Creator so that my prayer will be powerful to me, not just so I can speak to God, but so that I can listen to Him. I will try to resume my journal, its a great way to pray for me.

Today I will pray that all of my barriers to God be brought into the light, so that God can heal them. I will also pray that work is not a barrier, as sometimes it can stress me out and separate me from my focus.

Keeping it simple, today I just pray for openness to God. I pray for him to bring me into a position for prayer. It has been on my mind for some powerful praying, so this is my focus for the week, powerful prayer to build up my relationship with God.

That is why Jesus died for us on the cross, so we can be close to God.

I challenge you this week to pray every day. Spend some time with God. Tell me how it goes. Today, just pray to be open to Him.

Just a little doe

Work can be so tiring. And what for? Just a little dough...

I had a long day.

I long for a vacation. Not like I have any money to go. No dough, no go.

I guess I will just have to settle for sleep

Mixed signals

Communication is really important. We may think we know something but we don't. Many times we ask for something to get done and it doesn't. Sometimes we think we may know a person, but we are not even close. People talk in tones, and have expressions on their face that help you understand the meaning, right? I guess it depends on how you grow up and where you are from. On certain days, I wish I could wear a t-shirt that read "Hello! I am not a psychic!"

Lots of things are communicated by not communicating.

What do I mean? Well, lets say you ask me to call you to tell you something and I email you instead. Only I knew you weren't going to have computer access until it was too late. This says how much I care about you getting this information... I don't. Same thing like you not having your cell phone and I call you on the cell, not the number you gave me! How rude.

What does it mean when a friend doesn't call you back? Depends on the friend. I have lost several friendships because of lack of that phone call. In my mind, I think that they would call me if they cared. Maybe they really didn't value me, but it wasn't like I went out of my way to find out. I did not want to get hurt.

My personal favorite is the person that is annoyed with you. You know this person, the one who doesn't say anything, just keeps it bottled up inside. One day the person snaps and you are totally blindsided. Gee, I wish you would have told me six months ago when you started to get mad.

These are just a few examples of cars driving around with cats for blinkers. Do you have any? Get 'em off your chest, quick, before you explode or the cat scratches out your eyes and you cannot see!

The Lion inside

Who are you inside? What do you have the potential to become? What if everything in the world seemed to go against you?

Growing up, Dave and I both absolutely loved reading. Both of us could often be found reading constantly when not outside playing. We chose to read, and our parents encouraged us to do so. Last year, when we decided to help contribute to the community, we were drawn to Community 4:12 and the Brady Book Club.

Brady Elementary is in East Aurora, an impoverished area where families value getting a job instead of finishing school, or taking care of your siblings instead of doing homework. Every Tuesday, we get a chance to make a difference by sharing our love of reading with these kids.

Grade school kids have a lot of energy, and it is hard to get the kids to sit down for an hour to read. Dave and I would sometimes get frustrated with some kids acting up, but when we left, we always left with a smile. We saw kids making leaps and bounds with their reading. There are kids who really wanted to get better at reading, and they were really trying hard. Every once and a while, we could catch a glimmer of who we were as kids. I personally love being called "teacher" and being asked a question. I love helping kids learn how to pronounce words and understand what they are reading.

But it is more than that, we are helping little kittens become lions. We are helping them overcome shyness by reading aloud. We try to build up their confidence in reading as much as possible. The kids are learning to love learning, and every little bit helps when the whole world is against them. The truth is we don't know who is getting more out of our little book club, us or the kids.

We need help. There is not enough people to sit down with the kids to give them the attention we want to give, and that they deserve. The school year is almost up, but come fall, a bunch of kids are really going to appreciate being told they can be more than just kittens, they can be lions.

I love hearing my lions roar.

Crazy life updates

For those of you wondering what crazy things have changed, I thought I would update you.

1. We got a "new to us" car. Its actually pretty nice. Dave likes it. Comfy ride that we both like to drive. This means less craziness in Dave having to drive less because he does not have to drop me off, and we can do things separately again. Don't get us wrong, we love being together, but having to get driven to work is hard, on both of us.

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Death and taxes, the two things certain in this life, or so they say. Good thing I did my taxes two months ago. Dave and I spent the tax money on the car down payment and...

7. New glasses for Dave and Shelley. Mine are just readers, but Dave needs to wear his all the time. His are special order because he got the lenses that change into sunglasses outside, so he will get them in two weeks.

8. Megan (my sister) is still dealing with kidney pain. She ended up in the ER and the catscan showed no stones in her ureter and no obstructions. She either passed a stone, or something that doesn't want to show up on CT. I keep praying for her improved health and comfort.

9. Yola got approval for her Green Card. This means that she can travel back to Poland with Dad to visit her family and then come home to Wheaton again. Dad and Yola are happy. I am happy for them. I would love to see Poland (especially the concentration camps and other historical stuff, I am the history buff) but I will not be going overseas anytime soon. I guess I will just have to rely on Dad taking tons of photos.

10. I can't write a list of just nine things, so I needed to have ten. Oh, yeah, Alpha got started again. Dave and I are apprentice leaders now. Pretty neat. This means we can start coming to Leadership Community at CCC. We get to have our names on the big screen and have a new song sung to us. Thats all I know other than its really early in the morning for us.

Well, hope you enjoyed my little updates. Love to all!

Eight years gone by... now this

Eight years ago, my life was so different. I was going to stop being a waitress and start going to school to be an x-ray tech. I was going to work at the hospital starting in July. But in April 1999, Columbine happened. My heart broke. So many stories came out of the woodwork of the people who were killed, and the heroism of those inside the school. So much was brought up about the perpetrators, and a trenchcoat took on a whole new meaning to the world. I was distraught. High school was still fresh on my mind, and I had relatives in school still.

Now, Virginia Tech experiences a massacre almost eight years to the date. So much goes through my mind. When I first heard the news that morning, I ignored it. I wanted it not to be real, to be like a bad dream. It didn't go away. Now I have to look at his face on TV. He is trying to tell me, to tell the world that it is not his fault. Do all the blaming you want dipwad, IT IS YOUR FAULT!!!! What is it with people? How come they want to blame everything on everyone else but them?!?!?! You are hurting? GET HELP! People are mean? Grow some balls! Seriously.

I will be the first to admit that I suffer from depression. I started to hurt, I realized the problem, I got help. Life does get better! I grew up, took responsibility for myself, and changed my life. I did not go out and kill all the people who pissed me off. Despite a high school yearbook entry from an "anonymous" Julie Woods saying I hate you and hope you die. I realized that life is what I make of it, not what others tell me it is. (Julie is forgiven by the way, and I pray she has found happiness in her life.)

Am I angry? Yes. I burn with righteous anger. This jerk took lives of innocent people because he couldn't control himself. How dare he say "I die like Jesus Christ" because he felt persecuted!?! Jesus did nothing but good things, like heal and feed people. He did not bring guns to the Temple and shoot the Pharisees! Jesus's defense was not to punch out the people and kill them. Jesus died to set us free, and this sicko twisted it to his own defense. Weak.

Its all be done before, nothing is new. Sad, sick and twisted, but true. In the scheme of things, this guy will not be remembered for doing anything different.

I pray for the people at VT and all the friends and families affected by this. I pray for everyone involved. May God meet you in this tragedy and show you his real face, one of grace and love. I pray for the public that is affected by this. I pray for the people reporting the news.

Something good will come from this, God will make sure of that. Genesis 50:20 "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good..."

My weekend "off"

This hideous picture of me and 3 other beautiful ladies was taken this past weekend in Aurora. I am the crazy looking one in pink on the left side of the photo. Saturday, Dave and I woke up at 8:30 am (seriously, I am not lying, and AM is not a typo, we can get up before noon) and headed off to Brady Elementary for Spring Family Fun Day (or whatever it was called.) We volunteered through Community 4:12 and ended up having a blast! We did not know what we were doing until we got there. I was assigned to the karaoke room, and Dave to the bingo room. We got to meet some great new people, have fun, and also help kids (and some adults) to have fun too!

Yes, I did karaoke. No, I am no Carrie Underwood or J-Lo. However, I did attempt to sing their songs, and tried to encourage kids to do so. The ones that did, had fun. My favorite was the one that sang "Since U Been Gone" because she screamed it at the top of her lungs! I also actually enjoyed the song by Gwen Stefani about candy. No, I will not be going out for American Idol anytime soon. Dave had fun at bingo, ask him about it.

Then I went to church. I brought all the left over food from Brady, and since I do hospitality it came in really handy. I cannot explain it, but I really really love to help set up. I also love passing communion and collection. I get this really great feeling inside, and its so awesome. I cannot describe it other than saying that God really meets me there. I was getting addicted, looking for other things to do to help out. Dave went home to take care of our dog and my dad's dogs.

Church itself was awesome. You should check out the message. It talks about how church is not a department store centered on you. You should really check it out. Also I love when we sing the updated song "On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand" it rocks.

Then Dave and I met some friends for bowling. It was probably some of the most fun I have had bowling in a long time. Everyone was really encouraging each other, and I could tell it was sincere, not just being nice. I found out that one of the guys started going to AA (16 days sober today! Thank you Jesus!) which is actually really good news.

When we got home, we actually got some housework done. It was a really good, full day.

The next day we took Dave's buddy Steve fishing for the very first time. (Sorry the fish weren't biting Steve.) They met up with a couple of Dave's other friends at the lake by his parents. I hung out with his sister and our nieces. Dave's sister did our catering at the wedding. She rocks. Well, Sunday, she made homemade fried chicken and mashed potatoes, with carrots (best I ever had), salad and fruit salad. Then some brownies!!!! I loved everything. We all had a great time visiting, then we took Steve home.

I had an action packed weekend. This weekend coming up.... I work....