Another Week Has Come and Gone

Last Saturday, we lost an hour. This Sunday, I gained an hour! Somehow amidst hitting my snooze about 4 times, I set the time up an hour. As I was frantically getting ready for church this morning, Mom mozies (sp?!) out of her room and says, "Honey it's only 7:30!" And sure enough, it was. So my stressed morning has now become deliciously relaxed. :) And I have time to update my blog.

Let's start with last Saturday. I judged at the ACSI Speech Meet. I got to see my cooperating teacher from my student teaching, several teacher friends, and a couple former students. It was simply great being back at that school. The judging was fun and painless, and all of my 2nd graders received Superior! I was proud. Even though the day before, I had forgotten to have them do a run-through earlier in the day, so they had to do it at dismissal time. Dismissal time in my classroom is akin to absolute chaos. The poor dears. But it must not have damaged them too much, because they all got Superior.

Then I was off to the other side of town to attend my best friend in high school's baby shower. We picked up right where we'd left up which entails her laughing at my silly remarks. :) It was great to see her and her family again. I also got to catch up with a couple other classmates who I hadn't seen since graduation. One's having a baby and one's working on her master's degree. It was neat talking about the past and future and acknowledging that God's been working in it all.

After the shower, I went home, took a nap, and then got ready to head to Music Hall with the fam. The Chieftains were playing with the Pops, and we were so excited to go. It was a really, really neat night of music! It was such a fun time of being together.

On Sunday, we experienced God in such a powerful way. I love seeing God work, and He used various people Sunday morning to be His hands and feet. I don't think I'll ever forget seeing Kevin, addicted to drugs, make his way to the altar, and pray and cry. After receiving Christ, seeing him hug his mom and sister and step dad, clinging to them as if he was apologizing with all he had in him. And then seeing him stand and mutter, "I don't know what to say...," and looking to the ceiling, his 6-foot frame stretched tall, then looking back at his uncle, our pastor, "but thank you." Wow. It will forever be etched in my memory. Say a prayer for Kevin, please? I'm sure the road ahead will not be easy, but God is powerful.

Tuesday, we had a forty minute lock-down at school. Selfish or not, I was glad my kids were in music, and I happened to be observing in 4th grade, so I got to see how a master teacher handled the situation. Long story short, a suspicious character had left his car and was walking through the neighborhood. The police came and arrested him because of other charges on his record. And the rest of the day carried on as normal.

Thursday night, I got to be with my sweet boyfriend, who took time out of his spring break to come see me (and his sister :). Since we live hours apart, those times together are very special. Unfortunately, there are no pictures, because my camera's battery became "exhausted." That's really what it says. Haha! Pictures or not, the memories remain. I'm very thankful to be dating such an amazing, godly guy. So blessed.

Friday was Picture Day and Walk-a-thon Kick off. That evening, I met up with Rochelle and we ate Chipotle and then went to a nearby Christian school's high school musical. It was a new musical that the director had written. It was based on the story of Ruth set in Kansas during the "Dustbowl" years. It was really well done, and I nearly cried a couple of times. :) At intermission, I ran into the Simmons, parents of my grade school friends. It was so good to see them and talk with them! I had to run Rochelle back to her car during intermission, because she was dog-sitting. I went back and enjoyed the rest of the play. Then Rachelle, who had been playing in the orchestra, and I drove over to IHOP, drank hot tea and ate a crepe, and had a good chat. She's such a neat girl. Funny that we were bitter enemies in grade school, but now she's a dear friend and kindred spirit.

Saturday was the normal cleaning and school work. And now we're back to Sunday. One day last week, it had been especially dreary and rainy, but that evening the sun had broken through and was streaming through the window. The quiet moment reminded me of the verse in Lamentations 3:22-26:  


Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,

Because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I hope in Him!”

The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
To the soul who seeks Him.
It is good that one should hope and wait quietly
For the salvation of the Lord.

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I'm back from church and doing some final edits. Pastor and his family are out of town so Bro. Miles was our speaker today. As always, I thoroughly enjoy hearing him preach. Today he spoke about Jesus stepping into our world. One point he made really made me think. We often fight against the ordinary, the common place. We strive to make ourselves unique, special...to stand out in some way. But Jesus specifically chose the ordinary. He was so ordinary and human and homely that even His own brothers scoffed at His claims to be the Messiah. So when we choose to serve others in those small, ordinary ways, we are being like Christ. Also, when someone studies the life of Jesus and his encounters with other people, every person who acknowledges their need and comes to Jesus, always received help and their need was met. Jesus didn't come to condemn, but to seek and save.

Thankful for Jesus today.

Couple more things...we had as snow day a week and a half ago. I wanted to share some of those pictures...it was gorgeous. And a couple weeks ago, my student T.J. came carrying in this HUGE wrapped card with a bow on it. He had made this gigantic card for me...I think it was a peace offering for an incident we had the week before. ;-) I just loved it. Sweet boy. ;)