Celebrate.

If you were inside of my head at the beginning of January this is what you would have heard:

"Well...there goes another Christmas break and here I am back in Nashville. I guess life just resumes as normal, now that I'm in real life I guess there's not as much to look forward to. I have nothing exciting coming up, no big trips, no celebrations, no events and I don't have the consistent breaks to look forward to like I did through all my school years. Why can't my life be more exciting?"

Debbie Downer I know. I knew these thoughts weren't the most productive or positive, but I wasn't sure what to make of this phase of my life. 

I feel like I've learned a lot and grown from that moment in January. I've been on a journey to celebration. It started with intentionally finding joy in each day and was helped along by reading the book Cold Tangerines and pushed over the edge by some divine nudges. I realized each day is a reason to celebrate. Can you imagine how your life would be different if you woke up every morning excited to be where you are? I couldn't...not at first. I'm learning and it is a journey because it's so much easier to look to the next best thing and choose to be miserable in the normalcy of life. 

It's funny the timing of things. All these thoughts were going through my head and then I just happen to read a book that puts my thoughts into words way better than I ever could. 

"It's rebellious, in a way, to choose joy, to choose to dance, to choose to love your life. It's much easier and much more common to be miserable. But I choose to do what I can do to create hope, to celebrate life, and the act of celebrating connects me back to that life I love. We could just live our normal, day-to-day lives, saving all the good living up for someday, but I think today, just plain today, is worth it. I think it's our job, each of us, to live each day like it's a special occasion, because we've been given a gift. We get to live in this beautiful world. When I live purposefully and well, when I dance instead of sitting it out, when I let myself laugh hard, when I wear my favorite shoes on a regular Tuesday, that regular Tuesday is better."

This is from Cold Tangerines, a book that if you haven't read you should. It's one of the best books I've read in awhile!

Friendship

It's funny the timing of things. Last night my dear friend sent me a text that said something to the effect of, "Thanks for being a good friend and caring about peoples lives." I responded with, "You're too kind, but thank you." (And then she scolded me for not taking a compliment)

Anyway...this got me thinking about friendship and love and relationships. I truly believe that I have a lot of love to give. And I truly believe it's because God bestows His love on me so that I can give it away. Well I was reading my new book, Cold Tangerines (so good so far btw) and she put my thoughts in words, way better than I could!

"Friendship is acting out God's love for people in tangible ways. We were made to represent the love of God in each others lives, so that each person we walk through life with has a more profound sense of God's love for them. Friendship is an opportunity to act on God's behalf in the lives of the people that we're close to, reminding each other who God is. When we do the hard, intimate work of friendship, we bring a little more of the divine into daily life. We get to remind one another about the bigger, more beautiful picture that we can't always see from where we are."

I love this. I wish people truly realized how much of an opportunity and how life giving friendship and relationships can be. I know part of my calling and existance on this earth is to "act on God's behalf in the lives of the people that we're close to, reminding each other who God is." And my prayer is that I will continually do this day in and day out. 

Since this is about friendship and blogs are just better with pictures..here are just a few with friends:

Valentines Day + 4th grade boys

So today is Valentines Day...well technically not since it's after midnight, but anyway. Quite honestly I don't care one way or another about Valentine's Day, I just get angry about how much money people spend on it when that money could be going to so many other beneficial things, but I could go on and on about that.

I realized after today that Valentines Day is a lot more fun spent with kids. It was fun getting their little Valentines, candy conversation hearts, hear about their Valentines at school, and hear one boy say he prays for a girlfriend every night before he goes to sleep. On Mondays in my group it's me and all the boys because the girls have other after-school activities.

I got the low down on their crushes and who they wanted to have as their Valentine. Of course, the next question was, "Ms. Abby who is your Valentine?!?" And here was the conversation:

Me: "It's a secret"

The boys: "No fair we told you who ours were!" ... "Is it Mr. Luke?"

Me: "No, actually I don't have one"

One boy: "You need to go on eharmony!"

Another boy: "You need to go on wouldyoudateme.com"

Another boy: "Ms. Abby what you need to do is walk down the street with books in your hand and run into a man. Then you drop all your books and he helps you pick them up and you're in love. That's how it happens in the movies"

If only it was that simple. I would have walked down the street with books way sooner! :) The whole afternoon was full of their theories on love, what they do to win over the girls they like, and more advice about how I can as they said it "finally get married". But they brought joy to my day today and I'm thankful for these crazy boys:

Taylor

So a lot of shitty (sorry Mom for cussing) things have been going on lately. Just feeling burdened by a lot of things going on in people's lives. Some of these people are very close to me, while others I don't know that well, but still God has laid them all on my heart.

I truly think we are called to share in each others burdens while lifting one another up in prayer. I hate that all these things are happening and all I know to do is pray and trust that God knows what the heck is going on. One person I've prayed for a lot the last few weeks is Taylor.

Taylor started volunteering with us at Harvest Hands (HH) in January and I've never had a volunteer so enthused to get started! Her first email to me was full of exclamation points (which I love!) and a desire to serve that I could sense even over an email. She came, jumped right in, and the kids loved her! And I was so excited to have a volunteer that was so passionate and ready to help!

About a week and a half ago she sent me an email letting me know she was in the hospital and thought she would make it to HH, but the doctors wouldn't let her leave yet so she would see us next week. Her friend came by later that day to check out HH and sent Brian an email after she left saying she wrote about us in her blog. Brian sent her blog on to me and it rocked my world.

Taylor is 22 years old, just graduated college, and has cancer. The reason she was in the hospital was because she had just had surgery where she was given a 15% chance to survive and she did. What?!? I had no idea. I don't know Taylor well, but I've been faithfully following her friend's blog and praying for her constantly. I feel like i know her better now and I know this cancer doesn't define her. She was choosing in between chemo treatments to come serve at Harvest Hands. That alone should tell you how great she is. Here's a link to the blog if you want to check it out:
http://team15percent.blogspot.com/

Taylor needs our prayers. Even if it's a short prayer after you read this or you remember her daily it would be great for a miracle to happen. I can tell God is working in and through her life and I think he's got more things for her to do here and we need her back to HH! :)

She apparently loves Garth Brooks and was able to meet him and Trisha Yearwood recently when he was in Nashville doing his concerts for flood relief:

Family

I've always loved my family. We've always been close and I really hate living so far away from all of them. I think people have different definitions of "being close with your family", but I would seriously consider my family my best friends. We keep in touch regularly and know what's going on in each others lives. My dream would be that we would all live in the same city some day, however, with our track record of places we live and lifestyles I'm thinking within a day's drive may be more realistic!

I just really can't express how much I love them and wish I could see them every day. I've been blessed with a new sister, who fits right in and who we loved even before we knew she would be an official part of the family!

We haven't been all together since May for my brother's wedding and I hate that. BUT...we're all going to Florida in April! How excited am I? Maybe too excited...I can't think about it for more than a couple seconds or I will totally forget about present time and just wish life away until April.

We'll go from being together during the wedding fun and craziness to laying in the sun and relaxing our time away! Like my dad would say (with a little tweaking from me), "The family that tans together stays together!"(His usually goes something like, "The family that does chores together, stays together")

ps. Jake just got into the Physical Therapy program at the University of Washington (like we doubted he would...he's so stinkin smart!) but so so proud of him!! Excited for this next step in his journey!