Race for the Cure!

First experience running in the Race for the Cure! How have I not participated before?!! It was a BLAST!
Jogger/Walkers!









FDIC Representing!









The Starting Line!









We were all BIG fans of the firemen!!! BIG fans!










Little Rock's Race for the Cure is the 3rd largest in the Country!










Finished!











Yay friends!!

I wanna be a rockstar when I grow up.

Okay.. not really. I dont want to be a rockstar when I grow up. But it was fun trying to dress up like one for a party! Here's the result: home-dyed hair, skinny jeans [well, technically they werent denim, they were corduroy!], and big sunglasses!

Awake.

It's 5:58am. And I'm fully awake. Not in the sense that I am up and getting ready - because I've seen 5:58am almost every day since Sept. 26th, 2009. But this morning, I feel awake in a different way. I feel like I was asleep to life, but I've been woken up. The band MikesChair lyrics are streaming through my head: "I'm alive and I'm awake."

What's funny is that nothing really changed in the past 24 hours. I havent necessarily tried to alter anything in my life, but I woke this morning and something seemed different. My mom was encouraging me this past weekend to really be intentional while I'm on the road without Howie to use the exercise facilities at the hotels. I havent set out to exercise for months. So last night, I went and did 10 minutes on the eliptical machine (that hurt.) and 10 minutes of the "leg buster" course on the treadmill (thought that might permanently destroy my shins too.) When I finished exercising, I knew if I didnt go to the store to get food for the week, I'd eat crap like I have been. So I forced myself to run to Kroger, trying to have a plan in mind of what to get. I was pretty proud of my purchases! Healthy yogurt, granola & fruit for breakfast, healthy choice/lean cuisines for lunch, and slim buns & deli sandwhich stuff for dinners, with Boulder's plain gluten free chips on the side. I walked past ice cream, donuts, more donuts, doritos, donuts, and lots of candy on sale. It was almost humorous because I the last time I walked by the donuts, I thought, "Huh. That's right. There are other foods out there! I dont need to buy donuts!" So I went back to the hotel, ate a small meal, watched some TV and went to sleep.

And this morning, I woke up, alive and awake. I thought I'd just been lazy with the exercising and eating, but this morning I realized that it ran a bit deeper than that. These habits had built roots inside me, ramping up recently as the depression got so bad. In the same way that I've seen God free me from the depression, this morning I feel that same way - like I've been set free, awaken from these decisions I'd been making.

It's a crazy feeling to find freedom from things you didnt know were holding you down. I didnt know I'd drifted into that place, but this morning. 5:58am. I'm alive and I'm awake. Sing with me, How Great is our God.

What Should I Be When I Grow Up?

Someone told my mom today that I should go to http://www.mymajors.com and take their little "quiz" thing that tells you what you should major in during college. Curious to see what it would say, I hopped right on this little assignment and thought the results were very curious. Here are the 5 majors it suggested followed by a list of possible jobs someone with that major could pursue.

1) BIOLOGY / Animal Biologist, Inspector, Biomedical Technician, Research Associate, Botanist, Scientific Lab Director, Cell Biologist, Veterinary Surgeon, Developmental Biologist, Vision Scientist, Environmental Consultant, Zoologist
2) ANIMAL SCIENCE / Agribusiness, Horse Trainer, Animal Feed Industry, Farm and Animal Publications, Beef Cattle Ranching, Livestock Production, Breeding Farm, Meat Processing, Food Company
3) CHEMISTRY / Basic Research, Instrumentation, Drug Manufacturing, Petroleum Researcher, Environmental Protection, Science Journalist, Food Researcher, Teaching, Textiles Researcher, Forensic Chemistry
4) GEOLOGY / Professor of Geology, Data Manager, Coal Section Head, Project Ecologist, Geotechnical Engineer, Processing Geophysicist, Development Geologist, Petrophysicist
5) NUTRITION / Food Services Coordinator, Dietitian, Clinical Dietician, Nutrition Writer/Reporter, Institutional Food Services and Food Sales, Nutrition Educator, Catering Coordinator, Medical Food Service Director, Nutrition Coordinator, Dietary Supervisor

Pretty interesting, huh? Oh. It also suggested I check out the University of North Dakota Aviation School. So I started college as an Undeclared Engineering major, switched and got a degree in Accounting. Didnt want to do that so got another degree in Music Business. Worked at a record label, and now work for the FDIC. I feel like these results are in a totally different world than the one I've journeyed into. What happened?!!

His Banner Over Me is Love

Wow. Today was a pretty great day. Wasn't as productive as I'd have liked to be at work, took Howie on lots of walks trying to make up for the many other hours in the kennel, but had a great God-moment this afternoon. Not many people know that I started therapy 6 months ago or that I started going to a psychiatrist 3 months ago. My therapist has told me she thought we'd be meeting weekly for a solid year, if not longer. I was in a seriously frustrated state - quite hopeless in a sense.
Today was a good day because it was my first visit to the therapist in almost 2 months. In the past 6 months, I've seen God turn my life around in ways I literally never thought possible. And today we decided that I probably don't need to go back to therapy!! I say this not out of "thank goodness I dont have to do that anymore". I say this because God is Good and has done great things in me and in my life. Today I just smiled, because I knew without a shadow of a doubt that my life has been changed. I felt like I needed a flag to wave - like when someone waves the white flag of surrender, except mine would be a flag of victory. In my mind, it was cheering and celebrating, and as I drove tonight to a meeting and thought about wanting a flag to wave, God reminded me of the verse that says "His banner over me is Love." (that's Song of Solomon 2:4 - and no, I dont fully understand the book, but still!) - it just made me smile - as I reflect on all God's done in my life, His banner over me is Love. So if I'm looking for a flag to wave to shout VICTORY! to the world, I think extending God's love to others will do exactly that! What a joyful thought to me!

Love Much

well, it's entirely way past my bedtime considering the full day and tomorrow's early morning, but it was a great day, following a great week and i wanted to take a minute to remember - return, in a sense, to say thanks for what's been given me.
I simply cannot say thanks enough for the people around me and how grateful I am to know them, to have them in my life loving much on someone so in need of love, and in turn wanting to love much in return. For the past month, everyday bears a similar image in my mind - one of someone that's been deep below the water's surface finally breaking through and breathing, where every breath feels life-saving. Its a feeling of coming alive, and I'm daily amazed for this feeling. I'm starting to re-learn so many things I didnt realize I'd forgotten/stopped doing/un-learned - how to love, how to care for those around me, the yearn to pray because I do care. It's been many years since I've rejoiced at the end of each day - for so many days in a row. Its been years since I havent felt the stir-crazy undertones of discontent, feeling like life can and probably will pick me up and move me. And maybe its just today, maybe it's just this moment, but for once I feel like I'm not searching. I live in a place I love. I keep meeting more and more people that I love getting to meet! And I keep getting opportunities to really get to know these people - it truly feels like a cup overflowing. And for someone whose coworker used to make me signs saying "the cup's half full" because I wouldve sworn it was half empty, an overflowing cup is a testament to grace.

What's amazing is that right now I look at my life and see an abundance of things I didnt think were possible - things I've spent years searching for, things I spent years not finding. I know I'm still on the journey; I'm really eager to see where God is taking me and what is to come.

a hard question to ask

I just had a thought this morning that I wanted to write down so I wouldnt forget it... A friend of a friend recently adopted a little baby boy, but has just found out that the grandmother has come forward saying she wants the boy. One thing I prayed for was that God would ultimately place the boy wherever he needed to be so that he would one day come to know and love the Lord. This prayer led to me grappling with some ideas. First - that Christ died for the sins of all people, not just some. Not everyone chooses to believe in Christ and live in light of that belief, and I think God knows the hearts of everyone - He knows who will come to believe in Him. And I believe that God does not force people to believe. But even knowing that not everyone would come to believe, Christ still died for All, not some. I think it's in 1 Timothy that Paul encourages Timothy to preach the gospel that Some would come to believe. Paul didnt encourage Timothy with the idea that all would come to believe, just some. There's something about this that just sticks in my mind - Christ paid for all sins to be forgiven so that all could find forgiveness in Him even though He knows full well that many will never accept this forgiveness. I'm in awe of something like that...was there a way for Christ to die a lesser death to only take the penalty of the sins committed by those who would one day choose to believe in Him? With God, all things are possible, but I could never see God acting that way.
The question that I dont want to ask, though, is why God allows people to be born on this earth if He knows every choice they'll ever make, including whether or not they'll one day come to believe in Him? To allow someone to come onto this earth knowing that person will never accept Christ's forgiveness for the debt they owe... most Christians believe that if you dont believe in what Christ did, when you die you go to hell. But to me, when I think in that order, its like saying God allows people to be born knowing that their eternity is in hell and not with Him.
I'm not saying what I believe here... I've never thought about these questions, so I wanted to write them down so I could think about them in the future! Feel free to share your thoughts