I seriously can’t stop laughing when I think about how I must have looked yesterday as I took one of the hardest falls I can remember taking in the past two decades…I wish so badly I could have been a bystander and witnessed it (and not just because then I wouldn’t have throbbing, scraped, bruised and swollen knees today). If you know me at all, you know that I DIE laughing when I see someone fall. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the near death look on their face that encompasses a level of fear that is just simply, and sickeningly I’ll admit, hilarious to me! As my ever so sympathetic mother told me today on the phone…”you had it comin’” Thanks mom ;) 

But she’s so right. And to my joy I found that I could laugh at myself just as hard as I’ve laughed at everyone else. Well…maybe not as hard as I laughed at Drew Oswald in the eighth grade. To this day that was hands down the best fall I’ve ever witnessed…

The thing I’m actually the most bummed about was the fact that I ripped holes in the knees of my nicest pair of jeans I owned. In fact the real irony of the situation (which if you know me at all you also know I’m a HUGE fan of irony) is that just the night before I fell I was telling Liz that the jeans I was wearing that night were my last pair without holes in them. Needless to say, it’s been a while since I put down some cash for a pair of jeans. Well…I can no longer say I have ANY jeans without holes in them now save the pair I’ve dug up from 1990 something that are awful and completely out of style. If you see me walking around today don’t judge my fashion…

All I can say is thank God for tax returns, because I had already penciled in a jean shopping trip for the near future. But what if I hadn’t? What if I didn’t have the tax return, would I still be able to laugh at the situation? And this is where my pink thing for the day comes in to play. I am thankful for a God who shows me how to laugh at myself and pick myself up when I fall. Literally and metaphorically. I love to laugh and I think that it is one of my gifts! I can genuinely find something exciting in almost anything and be honestly stoked for whatever may be happening. I’ve found myself laughing less lately and that is changing right away! I refuse to be stuck in a laugh-less state of mind any longer. And as I ever so gently washed my knees this morning in the shower I burst into tear inducing laughter once again and it struck me…through the pain (and I may be a bit of a baby but they REALLY hurt!) I can still laugh! 

And that’s what Joy is :) Joy can overcome anything. Maybe that’ll my first book title? I’ll be writing more about that later however (stay tuned because I’m SUPER excited for what God’s going to be doing with my writing, but one blog at a time for now…) I think that Joy is the ability to maybe not crack up in laughter over everything, but to find a light in every dark circumstance or situation. I’m convinced that Joy is the very heart and presence of God Himself infiltrating any situation. My scraped and scabbed knees (which do reflect shades of pink mind you) are a wonderful reminder for me today that I’m still covered by His joy, and that as long as I can keep laughing I think I’ll be just fine. 

Today I want to share a little bit about the friendship that I have with Jeff Jacob. I am very thankful for my bff’s husband who has become one of my closest friends and someone I respect more than almost anyone else. Not a lot of people understand my relationship with Liz and Jeff. Most people think that it’s just Liz and I who are close and then Jeff comes along with all of it :) And that’s definitely how it started, but I believe that one of God’s greatest gifts to me has been my friendship with Jeff.

On his birthday today I thought this was a great time to write about what a gift he’s been in my life and the things that make him so great! Some people don’t know, but Jeff is the son of one my dad’s old best friends. His dad, Kip, and mine were youth pastors together back in Eugene in the 70’s and had a close friendship. I’ll never forget when Liz came back to Spokane from a visit to Portland to see her new boyfriend all excited to tell me that she thought our families might know each other! I am so thankful for this family tie with Jeff and his family because I truly feel that God has brought a little bit of my dad back into my life through Jeff. Many people have told him and myself that he reminds them of my dad a lot which I just think is pretty cool :)

Although Jeff isn’t TOO much older than I am, I feel like God has given me the example of what it looks like to be an incredible husband and father that I’ve been missing by losing my dad. I can not begin to express how much I respect Jeff as one of the most devoted and loving husband’s and father’s I’ve ever seen to his wife Liz and their four beautiful children. Over the past year especially as well I feel like I have been able to learn from Jeff on a whole new level on what it means to stay true to who God has called me to be and how to balance life and ministry and to never stop moving forward. In the past year there have been a few moments when he has actually been the single thing causing me to hold onto the calling. I respect his opinion and his wisdom from God in huge ways and can’t believe I’ve been so blessed not just by one of my best friends Liz, but that God would use her amazing husband to be such an inspiration and example to me in my life. 

Because of Jeff in my life I feel like I have become a better person. Jeff, you’ve taught me how to not take life too seriously, (and yes that’s me admitting that all of the jokes you’ve played on me have helped shape me into a better and less stressed out person haha) and yet at the same time you’ve caused me to be more grounded and serious about pursuing the heart of God like never before. You’ve put up with a lot of my crap and at the same time NEVER let me get away with being an idiot when I was making stupid decisions :) You’ve taught me a lot about the kind of standards I will always keep for my future husband and family and have set the standard high as my friend and brother, and for that I will always be deeply thankful to you and to God. Thank you for showing me what it means to never back down on who you know God has called you to be. The way you bring all of who you are, even when people question that, and never defend yourself, simply show people God in a new way, is incredible to me! I don’t only look up to you for the type of husband and father I want in my life someday, but I also see crazy similarities between us that is very encouraging to me :) Thank you for showing me what it means to be in this crazy ministry world and for constantly encouraging and challenging me to be better and to be true to God first and foremost. Thank you for your advice when I’ve been facing huge challenges in my life and when I’ve been facing new opportunities in speaking and leading. 

Like I said before, I don’t know if anyone will ever understand the relationship that Jeff and Liz and I have haha :) And that’s ok. But on his birthday, I had to acknowledge the gift that Jeff has been in my life and how he continues to shape and lead the world around him in HUGE ways. He’s one of the few people in my life I would trust with absolutely anything and would follow his leading no matter where he goes next. So where are we going next?? :) No matter where it is I know that your character and love for God will lead you in the right directions when leading your family and the church that you love so much. I celebrate you today Jeff! May you be EXTREMELY blessed the way you’ve blessed so many others! 

I feel as if I have lost the vision a little bit about why I felt compelled to start this blog. I started it so I would search out and find the GIFTS that God is giving me every single day in the midst of the tough stuff. I was blessed beyond belief to be able to pray with some incredible women for hours last night in our women’s group, and while being prayed for I realized that God is wanting to turn my attention back to His immense love for me. :) So today I have decided to write about the gift of Pinterest :) 

Pinterest, as a friend so eloquently put the other night, is amazing because I am not creative but I can re-create other people’s amazing ideas :) But WHY I’m thankful for Pinterest tonight is because it was used to bring me and my best friends together for an impromptu girls night as we searched and meandered through Michael’s looking for supplies for our Pinterest party we’re having tomorrow night with our small group ladies. We are just going to get together and be crafty together and have a fun night in. And because of this, we all at the very last minute after extremely hectic and somewhat heavy days, met up for a date at Michael’s (the craft store) and decided to follow that up with a night-cap of dessert and drinks. I love my friends more than life and I am so incredibly thankful for them. 

And tonight I am thankful for everything that Pinterest is and for bringing my friends and I together to just enjoy each other in the midst of a crazy season of life right now :) And yes, everything I’m making tomorrow night will involve the color pink. In fact I bought an entire ball of pink and SPARKLY yarn tonight. Does it get any better? :) Pictures soon to follow…;) 

In an effort to lighten the mood here’s a photo that made me laugh today :) 

Don’t stop believing friends! ;) 

This is very exciting for me :) My best friends and I went on our annual girls getaway a couple of weeks ago. We each bring something with us to share with the others when we go away together, it can be anything. A hair styling trick, a skill we can share, a Word from God for each other or the movie Bridesmaids…and we’ve done all of these. As I was thinking about what I could bring to share with the girls I realized how special it would be to all “blog” together :) So we went to a coffee shop in Sun River, snow falling outside, cozy chairs to sink into, and one of my favorite times with my closest friends playing out before my eyes :) The assignment was to find something in that coffee shop and relate it to something God was teaching us in our lives during this time. I can honestly say I have the most incredible friends ever and what they wrote spoke to me so deeply. I’m honored to share (with their hesitant permission) they’re glimpses into their hearts and what God is doing in their lives. Read on and enjoy my friends hearts as much as I do :) Love you ladies!! THP foreva! ;) 

Audrey: (Item of choice: snowboarding magazine)

The snowboarder…on the edge of an avalanche, in the ride of his life. To anyone sane, his position seems suicide, how could he possible avoid the folds of snow threatening to consume him? Yet the scene is breath-taking and deep down we all wish we had the balls to be there. He lives for this adventure. One man’s paralyzing is his coming alive. I find myself at a crossroads of choice. Life feels to me like this mountain looks at a glance – an avalanche of “how’s” that are threatening to consume me. But I’m not any given stranger, truth is, I’ve progressed to this place much like the snowboarder will have had enough practice to give him the skills to cope. Now on the edge of what seems like the biggest challenge yet, I have the choice to either shrink back in fear of my surroundings or embrace the gnarly ride that’s been laid out for me. Is this a task I must endure or is this an adventure that holds excitement and the joy God knows I’ve been wanting? I don’t have the comfortability of a safe journey ahead of me. God knows I’ve been wired differently and would rebel against the boring in some way if He didn’t intervene. He loves me enough to keep my life a rush and I’m a fool to doubt that He’s already given me what I need. This snowboarder embraces a chance for adrenaline. It’s my choice to embrace the adventure ahead. There’s joy hidden in this, heights of victory and excitement if I only stay focused. Life is only going to get bigger. There are always going to be new heights to conquer and new challenges to soar. When the avalanche comes, I want to be that crazy someone who straps themselves in and embraces the ride.

Liz: (Item of choice: Latte)

Milk, syrup, cinnamon, whipped cream; all simple ingredients used in every day life. Most of us have these things in our cupboards and don’t think twice about using them. However, when you mix these ingredients together, add heat, sprinkle on top of each other and put into a fun container it becomes a masterpiece. The creator of this drink is very intentional about what they put in/add/mix to make an incredible drink that sometimes changes lives, brings families and friends together and ignites love for the 1^st time. All from simple ingredients. I think God does this with us. He takes a container (our bodies) and adds ingredients such as compassion, strength, creativity, and ives the world a gift called you! (and me). He has given us all different gifts, some that are like other peoples but when the creator mixes our gifts together and puts them in us they become uniquely ours. We become a gift to the world that can change lives, bring family and friends together and ignite love for the 1^st time. Enjoy every sip of your drink!

Heather: (Item of choice: glass of water and chipped mug)

Filled

When you look at a glass of water is is filled to the middle, the debate is open to it being either half empty or half full.  It’s all a matter of perspective.  I feel like we are all born with our glasses full, to the top, overflowing.  Through life and different circumstances that was level fluctuates.  Different people take small sips, big gulps,drain us, knock us over spilling out all the water we have left.  Maybe in that spill our glasses crack and our water slowly leaks out or leaves a chip that needs fixing.  And then you have those people and circumstances that add water to your cup whether it be big amounts or small drops.  I usually find myself either thanking God or blaming God, depending on the level of water in my cup.  Blaming him when he lets bad things happen or when I am disappointed and hurt by people around me, or when he doesn’t listen to how I want something to go.  Causing me to deplete my water supply just to keep hydrated and alive.  It’s then, after the blaming God part is over and I fully trust, believe and rely on God that he fills my cup and it is not longer empty and dry, but now full.  But it usually only stays full for a season and then my annoying humanness kicks in and I allow life to start depleting my cup again, instead of allowing God to keep it full.  I’m working on it, He is working on me on it.  Right now my cup is half full, on it’s way to being overflowed.  God is slowly but surly trickling water in and helping me learn to sustain a constant flow of water.  He has helped me keep it half full and now is calling me into finding out exactly who I am, who he has created me to be.  Finding out who I am in him and him alone will be the only way to make sure my glass is never depleted.  Call on him and life is always full, a refreshing tall drink of water.

Brooke: (Item of choice: coke bottles) 

I was standing in line in a café today and noticed the cutest little coke bottles in the refrigerator section. My friend Audrey and I started commenting on how cute they were and an older man in front of us joined in the conversation as well. We started commenting on how it’s like half the amount of coke in them but how they were probably more expensive because of the packaging. I then commented that I’m a sucker for that though, and probably the reason they can get away with stuff like that because of people like me who will spend money on that. This got me thinking about how much worth we put on “packaging”…and if this is even all wrong…Is it wrong that I get excited over how things are presented if they look cute and fun? How do I know if it’s right or wrong about how much I care about my packaging? How do I present myself to others, and most importantly how do I present myself to my God? And come to think of it…how do I present God to others? Many times I’m worried that I’m presenting something fake, but I’m realizing that’s not the case. See, the coke is still the same inside even if it is being presented in a different package. Sometimes I think I need to stay the same in order for people to think that I’m not changing for others, but maybe it’s ok to have fun and present new sides of myself with the confidence that I am still who God has made me to be on the inside. So I want to embrace the fact that God sees my heart and that’s truly what matters, but that I also have “permission”, if you want to call it that, to have fun with my “packaging” and acknowledge that there is worth to a certain degree in how I present myself to the world. Part of my packaging is that I got so excited about the coke bottles. I am a whole package, inside and out and even if people think it’s silly for me to care about how I’m presented, there’s still a few of them that will buy into that presentation whether they want to or not J. I believe God uses that to allow me to relate with multiple kinds of people, and as long as my heart stays the same and true to Him, that He will give me space to change it up once in a while J. You never know who will be able to relate with me then possibly see a side to God through that that they’ve never seen before! Sometimes people can be judgmental, like the guy scoffing at the fact that the coke bottles cost more, but I think it can be very strategic and you never know what lives can be changed and touched forever! I can not relate with everyone, but I can relate with some that others will never be able to because of how I present myself.

Lord, keep my heart pure and true, while still using the way I present myself to the world to bring certain people more comfort in finding YOU! 

Working into the night is made so much better when one of my roommates brings me tea in a mug with my initial on it 

First post of the new year! It’s absolutely insane to me that it’s 2012…I wonder if I’ll ever have a new year where I’ll say, “This totally feels like it’s been a whole year and the timing of this new year coming didn’t sneak up on me at all.” Oh! I know!…I will NEVER say that… Which is why I find it funny that I repeat myself every year in a state of disbelief at how fast time goes like this is a new thing. But this is documented for all to see forever (people can always find things no matter how hard you try and delete them once they’re in cyber land) so that in January of 2013 I will prove that I repeat myself endlessly. Regardless I’m going to gawk at this in dramatic fashion because every year it really does feel like it goes insanely fast! 

Well, in my last post I talked about praying about a word for my year. This word is something I ask God to give me as a sort of token or reminder that I can carry with me to remind me of something new He’s trying to teach me. For about the whole last week of December I thought He was telling me the word “love”. I long to love Him deeper and learn how to experience love better and love others better and that’s been a theme for me recently. But “love” just didn’t feel like it was the one for lack of a better term. So I just kept praying about it and I woke up on New Year’s Eve and there was a new, yet similar, word floating around in my mind even before I could open my eyes. That word was “Joy”. I started praying about it, got up, made some coffee, started writing in my blog and let it mull around a little bit. What does that even mean God? I long to be joyful in every circumstance, to be WAY more content than I ever can seem to be no matter how many good things are in my life, to have a confidence that comes from seeing God in every situation, etc…I know all of these things stem from a deep sense of joy that can only come from God. As I was praying about this I got up from where I was sitting and walked to a table next to me where we had started a pile of all of the Christmas decorations that we had slowly started taking off the tree. A little hidden was this ornament that I show in the picture above. It was the only ornament of a word in the crazy pile of colors, shapes and sparkles and I couldn’t help but smile. God gave me my word :) It was all the confirmation I needed. 

So now what to do with that? It takes a lot more than just reciting a word over and over in my heart, even out loud, to really make it impact my life. Joy means a lot more than happiness. I have a lot of energy and enthusiasm a lot of the time, but in my heart of hearts I don’t know if I can really say that I embrace and live out the joy that comes from the Lord. The world doesn’t even really understand joy. I looked it up in the dictionary and it only give definitions relating to extreme happiness. But I don’t think that’s what God intended with the word He gave me. Happiness is conditional, I just recently wrote about that in a post in fact. Joy is unconditional. I see it as something to base decisions off of, something to help me connect with the heart of God when nothing seems to be going right or when I’m utterly confused about something that my life is revealing to me. 

I was excited to share my word with some of my closest friends New Years Eve as we sat around playing games. One of my best friends, Liz, had a verse pop into her head when I was sharing about this that confirmed the word for me, but also confirmed the fact that I knew there was more to it than simply being happy. That verse was James 1:2-4 which goes a little something like this: “Consider it pure JOY, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

Hahaha…love ya Liz. Thank you SO much! ;) But really, I am thankful for this because I knew in my soul that this was exactly what God is wanting to do in me. I’ve been joking recently, but really quite serious, about the fact that this is my year of MAJOR self-improvement. I feel like God is revealing some very deep stuff to me about myself that I need to work on now, and it’s now because I’m ready now. Whether I feel like it or not…ready or not, here it comes. And I want to walk through it joyfully, knowing that God is with me and that He will be glorified in me more and more the closer I get to His perfect version of me. And that really is my ultimate goal in this life, to glorify Him.

So work away God! Transform the transformable, destroy the stuff that has no place in me and bring to life in a new way the stuff that has been given to me by You and You alone. Give me a joyful heart that praises you every step of the way so I can be “mature and complete, not lacking in anything”. Now more than ever I need to look for the pink things, but I’m excited because I know now more than ever they’re going to be surrounding me!