End of the Night

It’s the end of the night and the end of yet another pretty journal filled with my life.

I always feel like the start of a new journal marks some sort of significance in my life. What will it be this time? What year and a half worth of life will I capture within its pages, within my heart? My journals are my prayer journals. They hold cries of my heart, longings, prayers answered, prayers unanswered; they hold all of my foibles and all of my fears. They hold the triumphs when there is no one else to share them with, the little inconsequential battles won. They hold all of this so I can remember. So I can see later. Indeed, there was an answered prayer. Thank goodness God didn’t answer that prayer! See how He was preparing me for that?

He is always preparing us, molding us. He is always refining us, defining us again with His love {this song}. Shaking the dust off us and saying, “Now try again, my child.”

At the end of the night, I run to my Heavenly Father. I run to Him and I say, “Daddy! Daddy! Did you hear about today?! Did you see that? Did you know?” and He says, “My daughter, my dear, I was there with you. I ordered your steps today, and it gave me great delight to sing over you.”

And tonight, I run to Him and I am all smiles. You know how a happy little girl runs to her daddy and says, “Daddy, I LOVE you!”? That’s what I do tonight. I lavish my love and praise on Him. I raise my hands and I sing Him a new song. My heart loves to bring Him praises.

I have a feeling good things will be in this new journal. Very good things, indeed.

Apricot Sunshine

 {Udi’s multi-grain GF bread, my favorite jam that’s so expensive I can only buy it once a year when it’s on sale at the Co-Op, and my favorite tea to drink every morning}

There is no real sunshine in the skies. There hasn’t been for days….weeks….But I found some sunshine! Pure, apricot sweet tartness in a jar! On my toast!

Toast? Actually good gluten-free bread!!! Good enough to eat straight out of the bag! Or use for sandwiches! It’s true love! I canNOT get enough of this combination. I’ve been eating it night and day. Literally. For breakfast and a late night snack. Sometimes I even add a swath of natural peanut butter. Gooey deliciousness.

Monday Mid Day

Monday Mid-Day (my fun font in the title doesn’t have a dash, sorry it looks weird) pick-me-ups!!

A beautiful song even more beautiful played live:

Princess Kate’s most gorgeous dress from June 9 (she looks so beautiful, but a bit too thin. Eat something at the next gala, Kate!):

{more pics of her outfit here, found on a google search}

A scene from a pretty picnic that I had with the boy yesterday:

{Lucy’s gluten-free cookies in the late-afternoon sunlight)


Also check out Jen’s adorably-adorable outfit today. I love it so much!!

Friday Everything

This, my friends, is Friday Everything. Everything and nothing all at once.

 I’ve been pretty busy the past few weekends between travel and work, so I haven’t been able to pick up farmer’s market flowers. I pulled out these three pretty pink straw flowers from my last bouquet. Love that they stay perfect! And they are soooooo my colors.
Late-night snack gone awry that made me laugh out loud last night.
I’ve been eating my weight in grapes lately. 
That box I tweeted about yesterday? Awesome goodies from Bath & Bodyworks. My favorite soaps ever! And I love their shampoo, too. Notice how they are all pink and green? Lol. 
New (to me) scent to try…I know the boy will like the smell of this one 😛
Sigh. I thought I was done with textbooks when I got my Master’s. Guess not. Getting ready for teaching my second class of summer term. Good thing I have a tall glass of grape & cranberry juice mixed with mandarin seltzer. Yes!
Have a good weekend! I’ll try to post an outfit or two this weekend. I’ve got quite the backlog (that keeps getting sniped by Kendi! Grr!).

Banana Bread Crumbs

Banana bread ain’t nothing too special, but it sure is good to have around….

Until it’s gone…then it’s just sad.
Goodbye, banana bread with mini chocolate chips. Until next time…

Chihuly.

 {all images from http://www.chihuly.com/home.aspx}

Random post: You are probably already familiar with Dale Chihuly’s work, even if you don’t know it. His work has just been everywhere for the past 30 years. While glasswork (even his) is not my favorite medium, I stumbled across this amazing video for his new exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Very cool. I’m tempted to go see this just for the sheer scale of it all.

The overhead, aquarium-like (well, rather, looking glass) ceiling intrigues me, as does his Navajo Blankets series, where he painted traditional Navajo patterns on glass. Find out more here and here.

Free Music Download!

Now I love free, and I love music, and I love Jesus. So, Good Girls, what’s better than a free 10-song Christian music download from the Creation Christian music festival?

Well, having this cold go away before the weekend would be better. And that rhubarb-white-chocolate ice cream sundae I have plans to make soon might also trump. But other than that, this is such an awesome thing!! The songs rock!!! Brandon Heath, Tenth Avenue North, Francesca Bastitelli (why is her name so darn hard to spell? I tried three times!), The Museum, KJ-52, and Chris August, and more!

Download it to your iTunes NOW!!!! Click HERE!

Pain and Scars

I was at a church conference a week or two back, and man, was it awesome! So inspiring, uplifting, humbling, convicting, tear-inducing, worshipful—yeah, awesome!I’m speaking at church soon about what I learned, and I thought I’d share with you, too. This is just one of the things that tugged at me that week…

A gynecologist learned how many babies were dying each year from poor prenatal care in {some country, sorry, forgot}, and decided to move there with his family and start a medical care center. They hoped to be able to practice even 1950’s-era medicine in this remote area, which would greatly improve the infant and mother survival rate. They were blessed with 1980’s-era medicine and equipment. This doctor went from 21st-century gynecology to a 1980s-style practice in a remote area of a third-world country.

The particular story he chose to share was incredibly powerful. The wife of one of his clinic workers, who lived in a village outside of town, came in to see the doctor. She was quite ill. A quick examination proved the doctor’s worst fears: stage 4 cervical cancer. Indeed, he even called the new doctor from Sweden, who was there working with him, to show her exactly what Stage 4 cervical cancer looked like in textbook form. There was nothing to be done, he knew, aside from comfort measures. He sent her back to the village with medicines and told her to come back in a month, if she made it until then. He prayed for her, that God would reveal Himself to her before she died, that he might see her in Heaven.

She came back in a month, and the doctor did his check-up. But there must have been some mistake! This must not be the same patient! There was no more cancer… only a small lesion that is typical of how cervical cancer starts. This doctor was so amazed that he called the Swedish doctor over for a look…she agreed, we must have the wrong patient. The cancer had regressed to how it started. There was only scarring and this lesion left to indicate that this was, indeed, the right patient. The doctor still didn’t believe it, and gave her more pain medication and told her to come back in another month.

Another month later, she came back again, and there was not even the small lesion. The patient was one hundred percent back to normal health and vitality. Nothing remained of the stage 4 cancer but scarring.

This is astonishing to me for a number of reasons:
1.) The doctor didn’t even think of a miracle. It didn’t even cross his mind. He prayed for her heart to be right with God. How many times do we not even think of a miracle being an option?
2.) I find it very interesting to think of God making sure to show that one little lesion before he completely cured the woman. It just shows that God was letting them know, “This is the same patient. This isn’t because I’m not big enough to cure her cancer at once. This is just to help you believe.”
3.) Most importantly, and most humbling, God allowed the scars to remain. He kept those scars as a testimony to His work. 

God allows the scars to remain, sometimes, as a testimony to His work. Sure, absolutely, had He chosen to, He could have healed her without any scars. But the testimony is so much more valid in our proof-demanding society. Stage 4 cancer and 1980s-era medicine in a third-world country? There’s no way this woman could be healed. But she has the scars, and now the faith, to prove it. She has the mark of God’s hand on her.

We all have our scars. Be they emotional scars or physical ones, as long as the Great Physician has attended us, we can rest assured that our scars add to our testimony. Our scars show the depths God pursues us, into those terrifyingly dark corners and times in our lives. But we do not boast about the scars, or the pain that left them; we boast about the testimony they bring to our lives: that our God saves, redeems, cleans, heals, makes whole, and yes, performs miracles.

Heard You Were Up All Night

LOVE this song, Stronger, from Mandisa. Girl is on K-Love all the time, and she rocks it. What a beautiful girl, inside and out! Thank you, God, for letting her share her gifts with us 🙂

“Hey, heard you were up all night, thinkin’ ’bout your world ain’t right, and you wonder if things will never get better….hold on, just a little bit longer, He knows that this is going to make you stronger, stronger! The pain won’t last forever, things will only get better..‎Try, and do the best you can. Hold on and let Him hold your hand. Go on and fall into the arms of Jesus!
Also, everything I bought at the Co-op last night coordinated:
 That beautiful jacquard dishtowel? $5, fair-trade and all that jazz. Score.
And those Guacamole chips? Addicting-ly awesome. I may or may not have eaten most of that bag already. 
And lastly…only really super important letters and cards get the last of my beloved Eames stamps. I love using pretty stamps. Love it. Fave right now? I am hounding my local post office for this Forever Garden of Love stamp. And doesn’t that font remind you of my blog font? Since these are forever stamps, I will load up! Love it so much!!
Anyway, goodnight. Hope you can sleep well 🙂

Sunday Sweetie Pie

How to Make A Good Sunday Afternoon:

  1.) Mix up some pie dough. 

2.) Throw it in a pie pan, and crimp it as prettily as you can.

3.) Put some really yummy stuff in the pie crust (strawberries and rhubarb highly suggested)
4.) Cut lots of pretty little hearts on the top crust.
5.) Bring your sweetheart this pie and wait for the “sweetie pie” sweet nothings to come!
P.S. If he really likes you, he’ll take the piece with the little heart to work the next day 😛