Life got in the way

I love Fall with a passion. It is without a doubt my favorite time of year. Everything about it makes me smile. The colors, the crispness of the night air, the smell of burning leaves, the hints of Christmas, night time football games..... everything! The other seasons all have great things to offer as well, but in my book, Fall will always be number one! But since summer is slowly taking a bow, I will pay tribute to it with a top 5 list of things I did this summer.

1. Spend quality time with friends I don't see on a day to day basis.
2. Make cupcakes with my neice.
3. Look through old family photos of my sisters and I growing up.
4. Go for a walk at night in the mountains while it was raining.
5. Watch a 2 year old boy chase his bowling ball down the alley with his dad chasing after him only to watch both of them fall flat on their backs.

There you go. I know that's only 5 but that's good for now. I've really enjoyed my summer and have learned a great deal about how to be content where I am. I'm still learning and it's not always the easiest lessons when there are so many things I want out of life, but patience is a dear virtue and I am only 24. The best, my friends, is yet to come.

Grace like rain

It should be said that I LOVE thunderstorms. And tonight, my friends, we had a doozy. I was out with a friend for dinner and when we were getting ready to leave the restaurant, the rain was so thick you could barely see across the street. Being the gentleman that he is, he offered to go get the car to pick me up. I just looked at him and said, "Are you crazy? I live for this! I love walking in the rain!!" Some of my favorite memories from college are when Ali and I would drop whatever we were doing and go for a walk in the rain. Oftentimes when it is raining here, I long for Ali to be close by so we can go for a walk. There is absolutely nothing sweeter than going for a walk in the rain with a dear friend. (Or a bike ride as the case may be, right Courts?) :)

Just looking around on the Internet for pictures to post, I found some amazing ones. And you would think, being an IP Paralegal and all, that I would know the copyright rules about posting someone else's picture on your sight, but I don't. But for a really cool collection of lightning photos, check out this website. My personal favorite is in the bottom row in the middle. Quite possibly the best photo of lightning I've ever seen.

Why do I love thunderstorms so much, you may be asking? The bold and awesome display of God's amazing power and the reality of His ability to smite us without a given notice. I remember one night, before Mikki got married, we were both staying the night at my parent's house. They live up on a hill with very few trees around and there was a MASSIVE thunderstorm going on. I crept into Mikki's room at about 2 or 3 am to see if she was awake and I found her sitting in her window seat watching the storm. I went over and sat next to her and we just sat there in silence for maybe an hour or so....In awesome amazement of God's strength and power displayed through such glory that still makes me weak. It is so amazing to me that the most damaging and powerful storms we face in the Midwest are also the storms that nourish the ground and enable life to grow more abundantly.

And you know what I love most about huge thunderstorms or even tornadoes? The morning after. What's the first thing you hear when you step outside? The songs of the birds. Even though the birds arguably have the most vulnerable position in which to weather the storm and are undoubtedly having to face damaged homes and injuries, the greet the morning with a song. The air is fresh, the grass is green, and brightness of the sun makes you forget just how dark the night was.

"Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you." Psalm 84:4

My Only Hope

OK, so I know that isn't the best picture ever known to man. But, I like it. It was taken in Colorado and we were hiking to a place called Sundance Mountain. As the name would suggest, it's a great place to see the sunset from. It faces the west and provides an excellent viewpoint as the sun "dances" behind the other side of the continental divide. On this particular night, however, it was cloudy (which amplified the sunset in my opinion as the sun rays beamed down through the holes in the clouds) and rainy. It didn't start raining right away, but by the time we got down, my legs were frozen ice sticks. It was a good time, though. I made the mistake of running up part of it. Not the best idea at 10,000 feet. Oh well. Live and learn, friends. Live and learn.

I just returned from an amazing weekend at a conference designed to better equip women interested in speaking and writing in the ministry. It was held by Proverbs 31 Ministries and far exceeded my expectations. Pretty easy feat, I suppose, since I didn't really have any expectations to begin with. But it was really such a blessing.

For a while, I have felt nudged to kind of check out the whole "writing" aspect of ministry, but have felt many hesitancies in doing so. The main reason being that I just figured everyone struggled with the same issues I do and that thousands of woman have the exact same thing to say, they can just say it better. How arrogant to think that my problems are the only problems women have. SO not true! The walks of life represented there just made my head spin. The Lord is revealing His faithfulness in so many ways throughout hundreds of different trials faced by women today. I was completely clueless. It was a packed weekend that I am still absorbing. It felt odd getting into the shuttle today to ride back to the airport......I wasn't ready to leave. I wanted to learn more and hear more about God's work. It truly was such a blessing. The number one thing I will take away was the humbling reminder of how sweet and how gentle the love of our Father is. It blows me away.

Aside from the amazing spiritual blessings the weekend offered, it was also very insightful / helpful into the world of Christian publishing. For example, any given publisher will receive between 10,000 and 20,000 book proposals in a year. On average, only between 15-100 of those are published. I realize the rather broad gap between those statistics, but at its best, that means that on average, only 1% of submitted manuscripts are published per publisher, per year. Yikes! It's good, though, because through the reality of it all, it was so encouraging. I know that sounds odd, but above all, God is faithful.

I definitely have more to say on the issue, but it's probably one of those things where if you want to know more, you'll have to ask. Because I'm tired of blogging right now and I probably won't get around to it again. ;) In the mean time, I leave you with this story.....

All of my sisters are married. They all have kids. I am often teased about it....even more so because there's not even a boy in the picture for me right now. No big deal, I get over it, I move on. However, sometimes it is more obvious at events, such as family vacations, where all my sisters pose for pretty pictures with their husbands infront of a serene background. Last week in Colorado, all in all, there were 9 individual pictures of couples taken at one point in the trip. Let me just say my dad is amazing. I didn't even really care about the pictures.....I'm used to it. But he went above and beyond the call of duty, much like he has been doing all year whenever I have house / living issues I need a man's help with. It was so simple but so sweet. His gesture meant the world to me and it made my day. I love my dad. :)