it is calm

i have had a much needed evening tonight which consisted of this: working out, playing wii fit, eating leftover minestrone soup my wonderful friend jess made, watched 2 movies, and have lounged in comfy clothes ever since i got out of school. To top it off i got to leave early from school today! woo hoo!

so my heart is just happy to have had a night that i had to stop and do nothing...because really nothing was going on tonight. next on my plate is to finish a book and drink a classs of wine :)

i'm just thankful for a slow evening all to myself.

Christmas

This is my absolute favorite time of the year...i LOVE being able to celebrate the holidays with friends and family! And I'm excited to start having a big thanksgiving feast with friends here in eugene. I am inspired by the Mitchell household. Cj and i mentioned how we just loved going over to their open house festivities on christmas day. it was a wonderful mix of great company. i would love that to be like that here during thanksgiving. Our good friends Dan and Jess are going to enjoy our feast this year with us (the eugene team)! So yay for new friends to share bread with. :)

I have been thinking a lot about poverty during the past few months and it made me realize more and more how I have more then enough stuff for myself. So I want to come up with something that i can do for the holiday season. i like gifties and appreciate them and my materialist side of me wants things, but does not need them. I want to do something to help others instead of getting things. Ending poverty starts with me. It means that I am not going to become legalistic about things, but it does mean that i am going to reevaluate myself to see how I can help. I can take steps to help fight the battle.

I'm not the most educated about what all i can do to help the problems that have enslaved so many people not only in eugene, but also around the world. So my next step is start to research what I can do, how i can be an advocate, and walk along the battle that millions of people fight every second of the day. That includes so many of my students at my school. These beautiful children may only get breakfast and lunch at school. That may be their only source of food for the day. I love Jesus who loves the least of these. I pray I can learn how to love well everyday.

Off I go with a passion to see the world be changed...one step at a time.

I want to be ready

"I want to be ready" are some beautiful lyrics that Shawn McDonald has written. If you don't know who he is check him out. I am a huge fan of what he does and his music ministers to my soul. :) This song was brought to me today via Pandora, which I am also a huge fan of...check it out, pandora.com

I have been having moments this week where I have cried. And i am someone who cries, but honestly i haven't cried in awhile. now i find myself to be crying at random times.

i wrote last night in my journal that i want to dream dreams and follow the calling God has placed on my heart. I will share one. I feel like i am supposed to walk the streets of eugene like i did when i was volunteering at outreach, inc. (which is an AWESOME thing to get involved with if you are in Indy - outreachindiana.org). And then I thought shoot i should pack up some pbj sandwiches and hand them out to people that i meet. Sarah mentioned socks, so hey socks too! And i thought well this is where I start. Go among the people, talk with people, see Jesus in them and live the church out on the streets of eugene. i do believe we all have gifts to use in this kingdom, that makes us come alive and it should breathe life into us. mine is to be out with people, hearing stories, rejoicing with people, crying with people, and just plain living life. i have learned over a period of time that i am not one that will normally discuss deep theological topics (though i spent a year doing it and it stretched me more then i have ever been stretched) but i am one who will be among people. so i pray that i will continue to dream dreams that are much bigger then me.

and i ask that you pray for me. i'm really good at getting beautiful ideas in my head but don't actually do them. it's quite frankly my personality and it sure gets the best of me. i've always been one who reads multiple books at a time to spice it up a little and mostly so that i won't get bored with what i am doing. it's just who God created me to be, but i ask you pray that God doesn't let this dream of His leave my heart and that I act on it.

i pray God love will overwhelm you today, tomorrow, and forever and that you will not stop to dream dreams. :)

Money?

I battle money a lot. It's a huge thing God has worked on me over the past year more by taking most of everything that I was comfortable with away from me. I didn't have a comfortable salary every two weeks, but had just enough to pay my bills and yet still manage to get some debt canceled out. My first year teaching I would end up getting down to close to 0 dollars from every pay check...i'd be waiting for that money to come in so i could breath again. sadly, i rewarded myself on paydays by going out to eat, shopping, coffee, etc. I would then begin my cycle of destruction. i met with some financial advisers and had a plan in mind. i was pretty convicted of my spending and lack of planning with a budget, etc. So during the training school it was a neat experience to see how God constantly provided for me with people just randomly blessing me during that year. I learned that giving was at the bottom of my list of things to do and my heart ached from that. i knew that everything i have is God's and not mine, yet i still treated it like everything was mine and only mine. so now i have a decent job and get paid decently, yet still battle the money thing.

here's a quick story. I have wanted to get a north face jacket for awhile now and if you know how much they cost you will also know that it's pretty expensive. I was thinking it would be around 150 to get a jacket. Great, i thought. i have a job and could go get one of those after i get paid. i was all set to do that, until this past week. I feel like it was a wakeup call from God. Don't we all love those moments? my last post talked about homelessness and how my heart just crys everytime i see someone on the street. well, i felt like God was saying how can you go buy a jacket that you really don't need right now when you see so many people on the streets that have nothing. i'm not going to buy the jacket.

i'm not saying this so you can think i am all amazing and great with my money. it's a pretty huge struggle for me and God keeps teaching me things along the way. I want to challenge myself everyday on how i can be more of a giver then keep everything for myself.

homelessness

well i have to say today is one of those days where i just got overwhelmed by homelessness. first, i really believe God has given me a heart for people who are homeless. so sometimes it just breaks my heart over and over to see people on the street. you see homeless people in downtown indy and i think it has become more acceptable or noticeable to see people down there. maybe it's neither or both. i don't know. all i know is that i grew up going to chicago a lot and remember people being on the street there all the time begging so once i got to indy in 2001 i didn't notice it as much. then a few years later either i was becoming more aware of it or more people where there...i have no idea. anyway, it's more apparent here in eugene. i can't even count on my hand how many people i saw today driving to and from work...seriously, there were a lot. so my mind just drifts with sadness, anger, and hopelessness as i look at these people. they are just that, people. like you and me. yet, so many people don't think that which is another story and a whole lot of tears from me. i get pretty passionate about this.

then today a lady at this workshop i was in told me something like my school that i teach at is pretty rough. and i was like, you mean the kids? cuz uh they really aren't that bad. and she said no it's more the area. seriously? i mean, my kids are pretty poor and all that, but they are still kids. just because there was a meth house near my school awhile back does not mean anything. yet we label. and we label homelessness people. but i pray we can still use that title, but not label the people as just homeless.

i heard from a dude in training school that some org. was promoting this thing saying "my name is not homeless"

so i go to work with helpless kids who really can't control what mommy and daddy do. but i refuse to label them anything other then who they are, susan, brad, jimmy, etc. and the people i pass on the street i will acknowledge who they are, a person.

we all have names, dreams, stories that will enrich each others lives if we just pause long enough to listen. and i'm learning that isn't always that simple, but i'm willing to keep giving it as try.

just a thought

i was thinking yesterday how much do i really love people? i realized something about me, well at least i think is true about me. i love very well in the moment, not all the time, but most of the time. i engage in peoples lives because it is something that i am passionate about. i love talking, asking people questions, and just digging deeper into who they are. but the question that stuck my mind yesterday was how well do i continue to love those people who i engage with? i also think this is a situational question for i can engage with people in downtown eugene or in the grocery store and never run into them again. so i don't want to focus on the people that just come and pass through my life. i want to process my friends that are here and far away. once i started to think about that i found out that i don't do the best job. i don't continue to ask people about what is going on. some friendships are more natural to talk about life and the things going on and some people just want to talk about anything but themselves. so i pray for discernment with the conversations that i have. i pray that i am open to ask people hard questions and also easy questions.

so this has been my current struggle and God is showing me a lot from it. i don't think i'm alone in this struggle. i have mentioned this to a roommate and she agreed. so i find this will be a learning process for me my entire life. :)

needles and ink

last night i went and got a tattoo. crazy, huh? well, maybe if you have never heard me talk about it you would think it is crazy, haha. a long time ago i wanted to get a cross with the word hope in it somehow and put that on my foot. well, i am so ticklish on my foot that it just would not work. so i nixed that idea completely and went for something new. i still want to get that one someday, just don't really know where i would want to put it. it holds special meaning to me for it would be in memory of my dad. i love it, just don't know where i would want it. :)

that made me start to ponder something else i could get done. i really like celtic designs, but not really the muddiness and boldness of them. then i start to think about how much i like the celtic knot, but not with the unity circle around it. i just absolutely love the idea and meaning behind it and that it resembles the trinity. i love it. so i went on a search to try to find something that i would like. i decided that i didn't want it all to be black mostly because i'm girly and wanted it to be pretty. :) sad, but true! i found a design, took that into the tattoo place yesterday and the lady who did my tattoo, who was flippin AWESOME, came up with some colors and i fell in love with it. the colors are orange, magenta, and blue. very fun and girly. :)

that's my big news for now. other then that things are calm in eugene. the weather has been beautiful so i've been enjoying the sunshine. november starts our rainy season so i'm trying to enjoy the weather while i can. :)

much love, friends :)