Looking ahead

A New Year always brings things into perspective...why? Because one always reviews the past year and pulls out old photos which spark memories. Good memories are a blessing to revisit at times. There were many high points...

• spring break adventures to Destination Deserted Island
• graduating college/winning conference all in one day
• making new lifelong friends one week in Oklahoma
• playing sports with brothers and sisters in Brasil, leaving with until we meet again.
• traversing the countryside with Velma to visit our dear friend Flash in true Texas fashion
• starting the next three years of my life...not sure if that's a true high point, but a big point
• celebrating the completion of finals with my forty new family members, now that is a high point!
• finding out your R4L is engaged and sharing in her exciting accomplishments and future plans
• spending time rejuvenating and dancing with friends at home and in foreign places
• a friend's dad in an orange jump suit...and a blue one, with a gun...and warm apple crisp:)
  

I'd venture to say there were even a few low points...

• most of which revolve around having to say "so long" to living in close proximity to the majority of the people that I gave part of myself to...that I had the privilege of allowing God to let our paths to cross and learn continually from
  
• the rest would be times I was wrestling at God's feet with those very emotions, feelings, questions that arise when this body is tired and longing for...home...a home that is found with believers, a home that exists only b/c of His spirit alive in others...a home that ultimately we will share and that is being prepared for us.

But enough of that...on to the next. The exciting future awaits! The year 2008 is upon us...the new year's resolutions are, or should be, in action right now; there is no time like the present. I am excited...I am excited b/c when we can give it all to God, let Him lead us instead of trying to plan the next step and the next thing...well, pretty much its always an adventure. He has so many little blessings awaiting and people and places and situations that will occur that if we are seeking Him, we will be a part of His grand design, we will get to help out Papa out...b/c after all as I read in a good book recently...
"We are the body of Christ, not in some figurative sense, but we are the flesh and blood of Jesus alive in the world through the Holy Spirit-God's hands, feet, ears." -Shane Clairborne, Irresistible Revolution.

Even better than that we are called, commanded by the Greatest Commandment of All...
"The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy." -Jesus, The Message (Mark 14)

Wow! That's makes me excited, passion, prayer, intelligence, energy
so this year as I expand my body of knowledge, increase my intellectual capacities, exercise my heart and body, play intramural basketball with all my energy, pray for others, pray before meals, tests, in the morning, at night, while on the pot (hey, not gonna say it's not happened before), when I am jumping around crazy, teaching friends a new dance move, high fivin, low fivin, poundin the fist, visiting friends, coaching kids, sharing resources, discovering new things...as I do all these things and more, oh yes, there is more...I will be loving God, the Lord God! Woohooo! It can't get much better than that! A relationship based on love...He loves me, I love Him, He sacrificed it all (and I mean all) I sacrifice so little in comparison, actually, I get to do what I enjoy and am gifted at and be stretched a bit on the way and we call it good??....hhmmm...okay.

Sweet, so I'm looking ahead, I'm excited, even ready to get back to school b/c so many great things happen there, God is so alive and working and needed and that's where He's put me for the time being...

I'm looking forward to...

• the day I find out what spanish speaking country he has us going to for one of our clinical sites b/c it's possible, hey, with him all things are possible (philippians I think)
• I'm equally excited to find out what state I'll be living in for the end of Oct, Nov, and beginning of Dec.
• Then there's always spring break...who knows
• Coaches training in Colorado
• You know I gotta get to Texas sometime soon
• a certain wedding
• a new place to lay my head
• two solid weeks of UW life
• neuro I - hey, gotta start with the positive self talk
• weekend gettaways to A-town or the Fort
• meeting more random country boys while boarding...b/c I am an avid snowboarder in case you didn't know
• getting involved at church, more like outside the church, but through their leading
• more endless possibilities that I'll let you know as they happen:)