http://blog.compassion.com/infant-mortality-rescue-me-video/

watch this video. notice how many. and let God move you.

Halloween is fun to me. The scary stuff is super cute, although I never put it in my house. Mostly because it’s too expensive to have up for two weeks only. But, dressing up is fun! I am not about to pay $40 for some silly outfit, but I sure can go to Goodwill and come up with something for Brandon and me. “Cowboys and Indians” is our theme. Mostly, because my great, great grandfather was a full-blooded cherokee indian. And I love that fact about my family (shout out and raindance to Lindsey Wise!) And, Brandon will be anything and likes cowboys, so… a cowboy and an indian it is. We have THREE parties to go to Saturday night. Busyness doesn’t stop with Halloween, of course

We went to Savannah this weekend for our anniversary. It was so beautiful! The sun was shining and it wasn’t too hot or too cold. Perfect weather. Besides spending quality time with my man, here are my favorite parts:

• The candy shop that gave me 456,193,854 samples of pralines. I could barely eat lunch or dinner on Saturday because of being full on candy.
• The “Pirate’s House” restaurant. Brandon turns into a kid when there’s a place that has anything to do with pirates, no matter what. The last five minutes did unfortunately include getting a lame tour from a lame pirate about lame scary stories. But, it was a really cool place besides the last five minutes of lame-ness.
• The cobble stone streets. Enough said… so old and full of character.
• Antiques! Even Brandon likes antique shopping It was so much fun wishing I had hundreds of dollars to spend on beautiful pieces of furntiture then realizing I have free antiques in my house thanks to family hand-me-down furniture.

You should go to Savannah… there is so much history there and the city does a heck of a job preserving it and explaining it via monuments/statues/etc. Oh, and watching the game Saturday night was a WIN for Savannah, as well! Go Tigers!

The day I married “the man of my dreams.” I do love Brandon with all I am and continue to love him more and more. I’m not going to break out in my own rendition of Brad Paisley’s “I thought I loved you then” song… but I could. I continue to grow in my love towards him and our marriage and our family (we must include Pacey, of course.) And I can’t wait to see how that grows year after year and day by day. I wish this for everyone in marriage and am so blessed to call it mine. Last year for our anniversary, I made a list of a few reasons I love him. That’s pretty ridiculous to do two years in a row, so I’ll spare you the mushy gushy stuff

Happy Anniversary, B. I love you more than I can say and am so thankful that you’re him for me. Thank you for loving unconditionally, forgiving quickly, working your tail off, loving Jesus, pursuing me, teaching me about freedom in Christ, and daily showing me a tiny picture of the love that Christ has for His church. (oops, I made a list!)

I’ve been feeling pretty quiet lately. I think it’s mainly because of the rushing-around-24/7 of life that has me so tired. I feel like from work to weddings to traveling to bachelorette parties to throwing surprise anniversary parties to mud run to missions conference–I finally got the chance to look up and it was October. And as I finally realize that it’s October, it is mid-way through the month! It’s Christmas in like 2 months. (Yikes, that’s the first I’ve seen that written out. It made me count on my fingers to make sure that was correct, ha!)

Things I’m learning: I’m trying to capture every thought I have and speak Truth into those thoughts before letting lies that I tell myself reign. I want all of my thoughts to be pushed towards obedience in Christ. I’m (still) learning to “be all there.” I’m learning through Philippians 4 that it’s not about my location…or my circumstance, but when I really get it–when I really understand who Jesus is–I am content wherever I am, doing whatever I’m doing.

I am thankful for the fall weather, rainy Wednesday nights (my sabbath), pumpkin spice candles, college football, my man that loves me unconditionally and a weekend get-away coming up so soon that I get to take with him.

“Behold, congenial Autumn comes–the sabbath of the year.” -John Logan

describes my life right now. Not just “busyness” in activities or ministries… but busyness in my thoughts.

God is growing me a lot right now. That’s good news. I feel very tired, though. But, it’s worth it.

Go read Romans 8. Even if you have read it a bazillion times, go read it. And let it soak in to your life and don’t simply know it “by heart” and never live like you believe it. The Holy Spirit is powerful. Do you really believe that?

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans%208&version=ESV

• I just found out Toni has the swine flu. It’s crazy that so many people are getting it, now. The flu is bad enough… I’m sorry, Toni. Pray for this sweet girl to get well soon.
• I just heard about this awesome new show coming on called “Trauma”… some of you may not know that my life before the SCBC world was in the trauma bay @ Richland ED. I’ve got some crazy stories if you’d ever like to hear them
• I really like Monday’s. I mean, yeah, I hate that I have to get up and stop living in “weekend world.” But, Monday’s fly by! There’s so much to catch up on from the computer being MIA all weekend. Friday’s are what kill me!
• I want to make this:



• Call me old, but this is what I will be found doing tonight…

the mud run was awesome.
I wish I could do that every weekend.
can’t wait til next year!
see lots of pictures here.

Last night was our first night of Recovery @ Midtown. It’s much like “Celebrate Recovery” but tweaked a bit to better fit our church family. This program has been a huge need for a few months, so we are so happy to offer this to our family members that are hurting and are in need of recovery groups. It was an awesome night–only because of what God is already doing in their lives. It is so great to walk away from a group like that and be so excited because of how well it went and even more excited since there’s no way I had anything to do with how well it went. God is at work in these lives, people!

One thing I realized in myself last night that I definitely need to address: before I even knew names, I genuinely loved every single person that walked through those doors. As soon as I saw their faces, I had this genuine, deep affection for every person. I truly listened to their stories… my heart really broke with them as they shed tears… I prayed for them last night and have been praying this morning… I genuinely praised God for what He was going to do in their lives and begged for His mercy over their sin. And all along I’m realizing that this is supposed to be naturally what I do for any person I meet. I felt the pull on my heart last night as I was leaving Earlewood with the rain beating around me as theme music… “You’re supposed to feel this way about people you meet with regularly…your co-workers…people on the street…your neighbors…your family.” And my pride and selfishness was altered as I realized that I do not love people well. Every person I meet has some kind of weight they are pulling–whether I deem it “big” or “small.” And although many people aren’t experiencing sin/weighty issues like the ones last night, they are all experiencing something.

Above all else, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Peter 4.8

Court showed me this blog a while ago and sometimes I go to this one post and can’t help but laugh, cry a little bit, and thank God for how He loves us.

This blog is a journal of a mother that has two children and lost 5 children after the birth of her son, Sylas. She was pregnant with sextuplets and 5 passed away, but little Sylas lived. He’s got lots of different things that are going to “hold him back” as people may say… but man, he’s got a God that is taking care of him and growing him in ways they can’t believe!

Go here to watch this precious video. Then make sure to save it because you will want to watch it again