sadness turns to hope

Went to a meeting this morning that just absolutely broke my heart. it was about the fact that people are going to be losing their jobs and take some cuts. this is in education. really? yes, really. so my heart sort of hurts a little. i'm not stressed out about this, but i am a little sad. The verses below are my fighting words, comfort, and breath of fresh air in the midst of some sadness.

Praise our God, O peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard; he has preserved our lives and kept our feet from slipping. For you, O God, tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.
~psalm 66:8-12

sadness turns into hope. i have hope.

Happy Easter!

Easter brings me so much hope for such a broken world. Today was a good reminder for me about how much I need Jesus. I mean, really, really need Jesus. My heart breaks every day when I drive by people on the street holding signs or looking into the eyes of some of my students who are basically homeless and their parents just got their food stamps so they can actually get food that evening. I mean really, Jesus, I need you. You give me so much hope for my heart that breaks, and it hurts. But you have come to redeem them, me, the world and I will never truly understand what that means. But that's why I live in eugene. To share the love that you have shown to me to other people. And I hope during Easter today you will shower people in your neighborhood and city the love of Jesus. I'm hopeful because of love.

Time flies

it's been quite awhile since i've written anything in here. life has been pretty full and busy for me lately, but seems to be slowing down a tad bit. here are some clips of what i have been up to since my last post. i have had 3 kid performances which consist of 2 choir performances and a 2nd/3rd grade program. all of those went off well. i had 2 of my own choral concerts and a recital is coming up in a week and a half. spring break came and went by way too quickly! i went to mexico on a cruise and was extremely blessed to just relax and hang out. it was so much fun! i came home, had some teeth issues, and found out i need to extract one of my teeth and then do a bridge. and i just did buildup work on 2 of my teeth which are now blue (which cracks me up!). once my tooth is extracted i'll get the bridge. i'm not gonna lie, i get extremely emotional and sad when i deal with teeth stuff. so that news was so hard for me to handle. i cried a lot after the first initial dentist appointment. i feel that God has brought me some peace, answered my prayer in not having to do root canals in the teeth i had buildup work on, and i know it will be ok.

john 10:10 has been on my heart lately. i know that there is a thief out there that wants to steal and destroy me, but i will not let that happen! i am constantly praying for that and it is bringing me some strength during some pyscho times. i've had some hard struggles where i started to feel defeated and realized that is exactly what i need to fight against.

on top of that education is forced to make major buget cuts and there is always a chance that my job will be cut. so please pray that my job will still be there for next year. don't pray just because it pays for my bills, which is a huge blessing, but pray that i have a job for my students case. taking music away takes away childrens chance to be able to succeed at something when they feel they aren't succeeding somewhere else. they need music in their lives and my heart breaks thinking that down the road they may not have it. so i'm hopeful that my job will be ok for next year and i'm not going to freak out about right now. i haven't heard anything about the possibility of not having a job, but everything is so unclear at this moment.

in other news, i'll be in indy during the first weekend of june for colby and jenny's wedding! yippee! it won't be a long trip at all, but it will be nice to be there. :)

prayer

prayer is good.

i have been uber stressed out this past week. like "please-don't-talk-to-me-or-i'll-snap" stressed out. i just kept thinking crap i have a whole bunch of stuff to do next week. just thinking about it stressed me out. then teaching wasn't going well because well i was flippin stressed out. and it showed in every aspect of my like. no joke. it was bad.

so wednesday night i just prayed. prayed that God would get me through this and that there would be some calm in the midst of this storm i was causing for myself. it's true, i think i caused most of this stress myself. so yesterday i felt extremely blessed to have a GREAT teaching day and was starting to feel confident of my two performances my kids are having next week. i really needed that yesterday and my prayer was answered. same thing happened today. i got all my stuff ready for the performance next week and the kids were stinkin' GREAT. so i am blessed.

i'm so thankful that God listens to pains and my burdens and frees me. i'm glad my eyes were opened up to the fact that i don't need to prove anything during these programs. i mean really, if my kids mess up well it won't be the end of the world. but i struggle making it perfect. and i'm a controller so that messes with me as well when i am getting ready for a performance. i know that my identity is not my job. i am valued as an individual by God and by my community of friends. I am grateful to have learned that i can't live without God and that i will always be a flawed person. so this will keep coming up and God will keep revealing himself. :)

funny side note: some 4th grade girls come up to me before class and this is the convo that went down. it flippin cracked me up!
girl: miss kapciak, are you married?
me: no, i am not. my name is miss so that means i am not married. if my name was mrs. then i would be married.
girls: oh i thought mrs. meant you were not married and miss meant you are married
me: (i'm laughing at this point) no, no. you've got that backwards.
girl: are you going to get married?
me: hopefully, one day i will.
girl: do you have a boyfriend?
me: (laughing is all i could do)
girl: (she said this to the other girl who asked that question) that's a really personal question! she's not going to answer that!
me: so i have some instruments to move...(i couldn't keep going with that convo or else i would have not stopped laughing, hahaha)

Through a childs eyes

I have two 3rd grade students that are in the foster system that stood out to me today. well, actually just one of the students did. She's a really sweet, well behaved girl who is so flippin precious. I sit on the floor with my students and today I sat next to her. All I can think of right now is what is her story? How did she end up in foster care? I'm a pro of good foster families...but my heart aches for I want Morgan to have a family of her own. I believe she is with 5-6 other foster kids currently. I want her to feel truly part of something. I ache for my students to feel loved, to experience life as a kid, rather then having to grow up at such young ages. There are so many kids out there in the world that need love, a home, food, someone to care, etc. And those kids are in my school too. I'm praying for the kids that are in my school and for the kids who I'm not in contact.

Oh God, please protect and love the kids who really need that love right now.

One year ago

i visited eugene a year ago to see if this would be my future home. we all know the outcome of that process. :) i can hardly believe how flippin fast a year goes by. things change. a lot of things change. i am a person that enjoys change or else i'd be pretty bored and tired of the plainness of life. it's just my personality. i had some friends move far away, left some really close friends to go far away, and was involved in some weddings, etc. it was a busy year. i just find myself not wanting to get comfortable lately. i get that way when i start to get used to my surroundings and in a routine. i am a risk-taker who needs some crazy adventures, but i also need some times to read, journal, and be still.

so i wonder, will i ever understand who i am?

so we are created in the image of God. i believe we all display Gods beauty. but do we really understand all of who God is? i mean every single little detail? i highly doubt it. now understand i am using this in all literalness. so will we ever truly understand who we are? what we were created for? i think we get close, but i won't know everything about myself. that's good news for me. it means i get to continue learning about who i am. and it makes me get excited to see the change that will continue to happen as the years go by.

i've changed since coming out here to eugene and will continue to change as i live here. but i don't want to be comfortable with myself where i am. my soul aches to learn more about who i am.

i love being a small part of the story God created and continues to create daily.

shopping

well this weekend i went on a little shopping spree.

rachel, staci, and i went vintage store shopping on saturday afternoon. it was my first time doing that here in eugene. we had a great time, talked to some really cool people, and came home with a couple extra items we didn't have before. i bought a skirt for $9.00 that happens to have duck colors in it so that made it extra fun (though i didn't think about that when i bought it, haha) and a fun, chunky long necklace with fun big beads on it. that was only $6.00! Sweet deals!!

Today I went out to DSW and found a pair of shoes that i absolutely loved, but i absolutely didn't love the price...$70.00! YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME was what was going on in my head. i browsed, spent a lot of time just trying on shoes i just could justify buying at the cost they were asking for, and then finally made my way to the back clearance room. YES, i love clearances and everything about them. I spent a lot of time there and found 2 pairs of shoes. a pair of pumas and a pair of fun brown shoes. both are pratical b/c i can wear them teaching and can wear them for fun too! wearing heels at school just doesn't fly too well for me. :) so with my great discounts of those shoes and the $10 coupon i had, i ended up walking out the door spending less on those two shoes then i would have spent for the puma's themselves. YES!!!! i was flippin pumped by those deals. i've needed some new shoes and finally decided to go and check out what kind of deals i could find. thank goodness for the sweet deals!

but this leads me to what's next. i ended up chatting with my friend kelly who told me everytime she buys something so gets rid of 2 things that she already has at home. so that's what's next for me. i brought in 5 things this weekend and need to get rid of 10 things that i already own. it's to maintain simplicity, something that i am really trying to do. it's not to be legalistic and set rules that i need to follow...it's just that i find that i continue to just own a bunch of stuff that i don't use anymore. so i'm excited to give this a go and try out this new idea. the other good thing about this is that it really does make you think about what you buy, if you need it, and if you are willing to get rid of some other stuff that you already own to get the new things. it also will help me evaluate what i own because half the time i forget what i even have. :)