East to West

I'm so tired, but yet I find myself sitting here...mulling over my feelings and life.  I am feeling emotionally and spiritually spent. I used to come back from retreats feeling so encouraged and on fire, and while parts of me still do, more often than not I end up coming back feeling frustrated, defeated and beat down.  Satan is winning and I know that full well, I know he has me right where he wants me, he knows my every weakness and he knows what he needs to do in order to make me stumble.  I'm almost hesitant to say this, only because this is real, this is pure and it's raw... but, it's the truth and here it is. I can not say no to my greatest struggles, it's a test that I fail EVERY SINGLE TIME. Now while I have made great strides to becoming the person who Christ has called me to be, I am still struggling to launch myself over some major hurdles, but instead of hurdles, picture brick walls wrapped in razor wire and reinforced with steel beams.

I know that I won't be completely free in Christ until I can conquer these walls, and in order to conquer these walls I must be completely surrendered. Until tonight, I thought I was wholly surrendered, I thought that I trusted him with every facet of my life, but most importantly I thought that I trusted in the fact that he wants the best for me because he loves me.  Apparently not, because if I did truly believe everything that I just said with 100% of my heart, I would break down those razor wire wrapped walls with my bare hands, I wouldn't care about the pain it is going to cost me, and I wouldn't care what it takes because knowing and experiencing the freedom that is on the other side of those walls is a freedom so pure, so full of hope, and so full of love and peace, that I will never be able to fully understand...and the best part...it's free, all I need to do is break down those walls, take up my cross daily and follow him. So why can't I do this right now, how idiotic am I that I am completely unable to fully accept the greatest gift I have ever been given!?!?! I know what I need to do, but why can't I do it. If only it were that simple. 

Jesus, can You show me just how far the east is from the west
'cause I can't bear to see the man I've been come rising up in me again
In the arms of Your mercy I find rest
'cause You know just how far the east is from the west
From one scarred hand to the other

New Life Bible Camp

We spent the weekend at New Life Bible Camp, and after going to the same place year after year you're bound to have a few adventurous trips up, right?! So last year, we missed our exit on the PA Turnpike and it took us a few extra hours to make it there because the next exit is ya know, quite a few miles away!  This year, we barely made it to our rest stop, we emerged through the last tunnel on the turnpike and our fearless bus driver Mike noticed that this headlights weren't very bright, he attributed this to the rain/wet snow mess that we were driving through, but a few miles before our rest stop, we basically had no lights, we were losing our windshield wipers fast and there was really nothing we could do about it.  Praise the Lord we made it safely to our rest stop and Mike started making some calls, we were able to find an 24 hour emergency service to help replace our blown alternator and after 2 and a half hours we were back on the road again! We finally made it up to camp around 130am, unloaded the bus and immediately went to bed. Even though we were getting quite bored sitting in the Sideling Hill travel plaza for a few hours, I'm still praising God because we 1. made it safely and 2. weren't stuck on the bus with almost 30 teenagers along the side of the road!

Saturday we slept in a little later than normal because of our late night, still not quite enough sleep, but we got enough to function! Our "guest speaker" for the weekend was our very own Pastor Doug and he did a great job. Our theme was "Don't Waste Your Life", I love how Doug is able to bring home such important messages to our teens in such simple and effective ways.  We played some kickball (I am so out of shape, I'm struggling to walk today as a result of one hour of kickball...pathetic, I know) Some went hiking, fishing, went on a zip line, canoeing, and we played lots of basketball and floor hockey.  However, while playing basketball, I made a shot, my elbow popped, and now has a sharp pain and my pinky is numb...I'm not to concerned because it's not turning funny colors, so I'm just going to wait this one out and see if it gets better!

Last night, I had hopes for getting a better nights sleep since Friday night deemed a huge fail. We went to bed sometime a little after 1, which is fine except that sometime around 330 am I was woken up by one of my girls flailing around in her bed and screaming "How the heck do I get out of here?!?!" myself along with one of the other girls asked her if she was okay and at that point she had woken up, extremely confused hanging with a leg over the edge of her bed and said "yeah" in a pretty confused voice. Thankfully this added quite a few laughs to the morning.  I quickly fell back to sleep only to be woken up again because I kind of felt like my hair was moving, so without really thinking I put my hand through my hair and can only assume that I grabbed a stink bug....AAAAAAHHHH!!!! It was pitch black so I have no idea what I grabbed, but whatever it was got quickly thrown across the room and then I had a very hard time falling back to sleep.  With all that being said, I just woke up a little big ago after a glorious 2 hour nap, I could have probably just went to bed at 530 but I have one of the youth girls sleeping over tonight and then she is job shadowing me tomorrow. 

Sorry I don't have any pictures, I'll just have to wait for some of my girls to put pictures up so I can steal them from Facebook :)
 

Poltrona Frau

I love my job, I love that I get to wake up everyday and do something that I am passionate about. On August 11, 2010 Jaguar celebrated their 75th anniversary, and to commemorate their birthday they created 175 special edition XKR175's.  They are limited at 174MPH, have upgraded breaks and tires, a few body modifications and it only comes in one color. We beat out 6 other dealerships to get just 1, and not only did we sell that one, we sold 2!!! What an amazing feeling! Because of our success with the XKR175 we were fortunate enough to get one of these bad boys assigned to us...

It's another special edition XKR.  The designer for Jaguar, Ian Callum designed this car specifically for himself and created just 16 of them for the entire country, and we have one! Isn't she beautiful?!

1% Changes

After spending a few days with someone who is as dedicated to eating healthy and exercising as I am to eating ice cream and sleeping 9 hours a night I've decided that I need to make some changes in my life. I am now part of a little "get fit" thing, and I'm not quite sure what I have gotten myself into. I am totally aware that I am out of shape and have horrible eating habits, the frustrating part is that I am actually okay with that. My main goals are not to lose weight, or look better, but to get my resting heart rate down to at least 70bpm, lower my cholesterol(yeah yeah, make the old people jokes...) and gain some muscle!

Now, how in the world do you get a person who lacks motivation and has a hard time with dedication and commitment to actually get up early to exercise and eat healthy?! I normally only get in one meal a day, and if I am able to actually squeeze dinner in, it's usually late at night and it's not even a meal, I more or less resemble a cow, grazing through my fridge picking at whatever I can find that doesn't involve any preparation at all. Normally I find myself eating things like cheese, wheat thins, peppers, cake, frozen waffles, corn dogs, chips and salsa...blah blah blah...you get the picture.

So, while looking at a blog today I was encouraged to start One Percent Changes. This seems simple, I love it. Make small changes, nothing too huge, and eventually these small changes will make a difference. So here we go... I can totally do this! However, I'm not going to lie, this is going to have to wait until tomorrow. The Butler Vs UConn game is on tonight so I'm picking up a couple pizzas on my way home from work and Keeping it Kingdom with a few friends tonight.

throwing up deuces (I've always wanted to say that!)

day one of many

My coffee addiction is an interesting one.  I'll go a few months, drinking a few cups of coffee a day and then eventually my heart rate skyrockets, my heart palpitates, and I can't handle the caffeine anymore.  So I quit drinking coffee, suck up a week worth of headaches, and try to get on with life. Then in a few more months I am back onto my coffee kick, only to continue the binge until my heart says stop. So, today is day 1 of no coffee.. boo. I hate this part of the process.I will see you again in a few months my little flamingo.

Snow? In April?

Happy April! My Mom bought me a calendar at Christmas and I look forward to flipping each month and I thought that with the dusting of white that we had this morning and my general frustration with this colder weather it couldn't have been more perfect!





So I woke up to this. I know it's not a lot but I am totally sick of this weather and ready for warmer weather!





And then I flipped to this. Perfect timing. So for now I will find warmth in my coffee and happiness in knowing that though this season is proving a hard one for me, it too will end soon and I will again be reminded of Gods unfailing love.


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