Thoughts on Jesus and Life

My kids performed today at a PTO meeting. Well, they actually did the 5 positions in ballet. We have just begun to learn our new dance and I hope they can absorb it in time for our show in February. These are such trivial things. My real reason in writing this was to let everyone know my best friend in the whole wide world passed her pharmacy exam and I am so immensely proud of her!!!!!!! I think I am kind of lame.

I want to find your spirit that has been inside all along. You poured your love into my heart when I suffered. At the worst, you were there. The suffering is cultivating an endurance to keep seeking after you. The endurance is producing a character that is forming into your image. The character is requiring a hope in everything that is life. And my life is you. In the suffering I died. It was a death for Christ's sake. For he lives in me so his life can be known. "So death is at work in [me], but life in you." So I will rejoice in suffering because it is the Holy Spirit working in me. And I will shout for joy in death. *I humbly come before God and thank Him for all He has done.

I am teaching my kids again!!!! They have grown from fifteen to forty!!! And that is just my younger class!!! YAY!!!!

Of course numero uno passion is God. I don't know how He puts up with me...oh wait, He's God. I don't deserve Him and I don't deserve this world He created. I had to write that because I have to remind myself who really is the only thing that matters in life, all else is just vanity. Now that is said. I found Ireland again!!! YAY!!!! I have had a renewed love for my country. And I think I may be able to study it in Grad School. Nathan has agreed to let me study abroad during summers(in Boston and Ireland) so I can get REAL classes in Irish History as well as classes at Memphis! Do I have an amazing future husband or what?!? I just wanted to give that update! Love you guys! Please pray that I keep my focus on things above.

So I found a great song to go with life right now. And yes...it is totally CAMP ROCK! For culturally impaired people (or grownups), that means Disney. :) I am so not an adult sometimes. I want to preface by saying God is the ultimate healer, life giver and protector. This Is Me I've always been the kind of girl That hid my face So afraid to tell the world What I've got to say But I have this dream Right inside of me I'm going to let it show It's time To let you know To let you know This is the real, this is me I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be now Gonna let the light Shine on me Now I found Who I am There's no way to hold it in No more hiding who I want to be This is me Do you know what it's like to feel so in the dark To dream about a life where you're the shining star Even though it seems Like it's to far away I have to believe in myself It's the only way This is the real, this is me I'm exactly wher...

"My dad once said at the table that he had to put his cat to sleep and I wanted to scream, because how dare he take that decision away from me. It was my burden." I wrote that in my last blog and it reminded me of Christ. How dare we claim the absolution of our sins, when Christ died for them. When we do something right, for once in our wretched lives, it is Christ, not us, who does it. My sin, my screwups, my "Fall" is Christ's burden, and how dare I take credit for it? How dare I? I can imagine him turning over tables at my sadness and pride. "I know why the lowest pit of Hell Is ice: Life is in motion; If you are frozen, what good are you? You are dead, and good for nothing; Good only to be cast out, And trodden under the feet of men." - Jon How dare I remain an iceberg? My greatness is there for the world to see. It is God! It is there in blood stained hands and feet, organs falling in a limp body and a last cry of help. O God, let me be on...

In response to my last post a dear friend (who I have failed to talk to in awhile), said my true greatness is hidden from view. As sweet as that was, maybe he sees something I do not. When I began this summer I thought my life was going great (That should have been my first clue that things were going wrong. Our lives are not meant to be great). I had gotten a promotion from work, and I thought I was trusting God. I felt Him helping me deal with the moral issues I was having at work. Everything was going well. Within the last semester I noticed that when I was away from Salem (my beloved cat and first child), I missed him dearly almost to the point of desperation. I would need to rush home and see him every time I was away for an extended period of time. At this point I could not even fathom him leaving me without bursting into tears. Through all this I am trying to get to the point that I thought I could not live without him. My engagement to Nathan would have been fine and ...

So I revamped the page. After I realized I know absolutely nothing about myself. I wanted to think of myself as an iceberg. I have so much underneath the surface that no one ever sees, not even myself. I have cracks and flaws...ships have run into me. I have pieces missing...from the parts I have lost. I am harsh and cold to touch. I will leave you with a burn. Some venture close but few can handle it. I have hurt many through the guarding of ice around me. I am a mass of coldness just waiting in the still quite water. A mask of tranquility for the quite beast from underneath. Icebergs do not have dreams. They do not think of fairy tales and green fields. In fact, they do not think at all. They are a mindless slab of ice. I do not have dreams. I do not think of fairy tales and green fields. When I think, I am wrong. And this is the abysmal part of me, the evil that lurks beneath the surface. Like a glacier I have drifted away from the one I love.

So I have not written in 5 years! Ok not that long, but no really, it's been about 3 months. I am actually in the midst of writing my final paper for undergrad. It is going to be 20 pages long and I have 4 pages left!! YAY!! I am most happy that I will never have to be apart of Crichton again, although I will miss Dr. Jenkins classes. My favorite teacher has now left and I am thinking of going to Texas just so I can sit in on a few of his classes. I am in the process of trying to take prep courses for my GRE and then I will be applying for Grad school for next Fall! WHOO HOO!! Super Excited about that, I miss history classes already. I found out an interesting thing about myself, I am a Historical Sociologist. I am pretty sure I made up that term. It means that I like learning about people and cultures more than dates. My paper really helped bring it out as well. SUBJECT CHANGE! Sooo....Nathan is in South America and I had a terrifying experience in the car yesterd...

Here you go Surrogate Mother. I know you have been waiting for a post. This is not the one from Shiloh. I'm still working on that one. Broken glass on the ground so easily swept up and discarded. But instead could it be restored and become new? A new window to see life through? You see through the pain. It is your understanding. Your new perspective. There may be cracks and fractures but they are remembrances. But it is not easily forgotten. You will carry the scar for the rest of your life. It is hard to move on. To pick up where you left off. The shattered glass has afflicted you. And the repairing of the window does not make it whole. Your world will never be the same. It cannot go back to the way it was. But you can change. You can carry evidence of your pain. But you can also look through that splintered glass. You have grown and learned. Now you can start a new journey. One that hopefully takes you home. Yours, Just Jess

My heart is aching right now. One of the children who survived the Lester killings was found with "a knife protruding from his head". Another child's fingertips were cut off. The police think this was done to the children in order to torture the father.....what did they ever do? Five children who had a future. Five children who someone could have loved, who were loved. I can't breathe. I'm light headed. I am at school and as I was walking to the library I saw the scene from The Butterfly Effect, where the father is exploiting the children sexually. WHY!?! They hurt everyday!!!! With no regard to thier own lives adults make decisions everyday that effect them for the rest of their lives, or terminate their lives completely. Whether or not it's a physical death, children die everyday from our words and our actions. It's at times like these that I believe our father will rescue them and bring them to Him. Into The West Lay down, your sweet and ...

Ok...so I have had an emotional, wonderful day. First Nathan's mom is recovering wonderfully from her surgery. I love to see God work out of hardship. She was able to walk (with the nurse's help) on the very night after her surgery! She is now being put on liquids. The second thing that happened today is that I had my last official basketball game and I was presented as a senior. As much as I have despised this year of dancing, I teared up. After a year of wanting this dance season to be over, I was sad to leave it. This was three years of my life and now it is soon to be over (depending on the tournament). The third thing was when I was saying a prayer with my kids. We were about to go back in the gym before our performance at half-time. I was really impatient with them today and I hated myself for it. They forgave me thankfully. Anyway, as I was saying the prayer I teared up and almost cried again! And then I said, "dangit", which probably wasn't t...

I just realized today that a female shepherd is called a shepherdess....DUH! Anyway. I first have a prayer request because my little sheep (a.k.a. my Lil' Stars) are performing on Saturday at our school's Basketball game. I just hope they all can attend and have fun! I just learned recently about all the things that were going on in Denmark. I did not realize it was so bad, thank you American News for informing us. I was upset and I didn't know how to handle finding out about everything. If you don't know, Denmark as been having problems with the local population of Muslims. I felt close to being racist, but the evidence was in front of me that this people group had done awful things to the Danish people. I know that is a very general statement. The point is I didn't know how to face this as a Christian. But luckily I listened to God when he chose to speak through Jon's writing. Jon wrote a devotion on his Jesu Juva site about distractions and God. I...

I know I wrote alot on the past one and I apologize for that. I find, also, that I still need to work on my coherency. Thank you guys for reading. Yours, The Shepherd

As I began writing for this blog, I realized I do not write coherently. It seems my imaginary ADD as infiltrated my writing. I guess I am writing this to tell all of you a little bit of who I am. I am not the best writer. I have friends who will always write better than me and I am ok with that. Two in particular have inspired me to write more. Jon showed me just how important stories are and how God can be found in the ordinary. He has taught me to look beyond what is right in front of me and to look so much farther than my own eyes can see. He shares a love of Lewis with me and in that has helped me find what I value the most in my life. Katie, on the other hand, has opened my eyes into the world of the imagination. She has taught me to look into the deepest inner most parts of my soul to find my own world there. She helps me sift through the person that I am (and Jon helps with that as well). I adore and cherish these friends. Without them my life would be a little le...

I will be the first person to say that we need to have faith in our government. I solely believe that a country will crumble if we don't believe in our government, but I learned something in class today that infuriated me. All of you probably already know this, but since I have only recently come home from my Ireland cloud this year, I don't really know prior American news, especially if it happened anytime during the 21st century. When Katrina hit all of our governments, being Federal, State and Local, argued about jurisdiction. The bad thing was all this was going on while people died. PEOPLE WERE DYING, AND ALL OUR COUNTRY CARED ABOUT WAS JURISDICTION!! Where do we live? This is the country of the free and the brave! This is the country that people have died defending and others have died for loyalty to our government in wars that should have never been started. Something was also said about how some of the responsibility of the clean-up belonged to churches and vol...

While I was reading this afternoon, War in Heaven by Charles Williams - an Inkling, I fell asleep. This was very unfortunate because I need to read this book and I also was beginning to enjoy it. As I slept I dreamed of Taco Bell, literally. My boyfriend, a friend from school and a former teacher of mine, went to Taco Bell. Needless to say, I woke up before I received my order. When I had woken up I was hungry and that is what I was craving. Well, I left my room and realized my Mom had cooked so I resigned to eating that. What was I thinking?!?! I RESIGNED to eat my mother's food, which she cooks for her family, and solely for her family because she eats cereal every night. She has this crazy idea that she is fat, O God that you would save her soul! I won't go into to what she fixed but it is delicious. I next started to watch Lord of the Rings, because of course Dr. Jenkins had to talk about Frodo in class. I next decided to look at some blogs and Dr. Jenkins had ...

What happens when you loose a sheep? What happens when it was your fault? The bad thing about being a shepherd is the pride issue. Thank goodness I have God to keep that in check. I yelled at one of my sheep. And I lost a friend. He is now being the bigger person as well and speaking to me first. I was in so much pain when I lost him. I remember wanting him to not rely on me, so I tried to push him away and it went to far. When he went away, a piece of my heart was broken. I didn't even realize until my mentor mentioned it. I have just apologized and I hope he accepts it. I have faith that he will be the person that I know he is in Christ. Lord show him you, because I am completely inadequate. Yours, The Shepherd

So I was looking at all of my friends blogs and this seemed like fun. I would love to have someplace to put my musings on life, slavery and the pursuit of God. I also hope I don't become one of those slacker people who never write. Well that is all for now, seeing as I can't think of anything to write right now. Yours, The Shepherd