He leads me.

All the way my Savior leads me

Who have I to ask beside

How could I doubt his tender mercy

Who through life has been my guide

All the way my Savior leads me

Cheers each winding road I tread

Gives me grace for every trial

Feeds me with the living bread

You lead me and keep me from falling

You carry me close to your heart

And surely Your goodness

And mercy will follow me.

All the way my Savior leads me

Oh, the fullness of His love

Oh, the sureness of his promise

In the triumph of His Blood

And when my spirit clothed immortal

Wings its flight to realms of day

This my song through endless ages

Jesus lead me all the way

You lead me and keep me from falling

You carry me close to your heart

And surely Your goodness

And mercy will follow me, will follow me

All the way my Savior leads me.

~Chris Tomlin

ZoobalieZoo.

First of all, anyone remember this TV show from when we were little? ZoobalieZoo?
Looking back on it it was a creepy show involving people dressed up like animals and they went on futuristic adventures. I loved it at the time.

Anywho. That's not the real topic at hand here.

I had the pleasure of joining a friend and her son to the zoo a couple weeks ago. I had this random Tuesday off work, and it was a beautiful day, so it sounded like a marvelous idea.

I've had mixed emotions about this whole zoo thing for a couple years now. It basically came after spending some time in other areas of the world where the animals I typically loved at the zoo, ran free. Ergo, the zoo made me sad for the animals caged up in it; especially thinking that people were spending money on it. The whole system there was just backward to me.

But I mean, its a fun day with friends, so I went.

And it was a fabulous day, but it didn't leave me thinking any differently about the whole caged animal thing.

In fact, as I drove home that day I thought about the animals caged up, forever looking at the same walls and it made me think of us, as Americans in the daily grind. Working 9-5 at a seemingly endless job, staring at the same 4 walls, day in and day out. Bleh.

I looked at these animals caged up, lethargic to life. All their animal instincts stripped down. Everything they ever really "need" handed to them on a silver platter. I am no animal rights activist but I couldn't help that a little part of me wanted to let them free. To let them run free for miles and miles. To run and explore and to hunt their own prey.

To be all that God had created them to be.

I wonder what would happen if all those stuck in this American way of days full of cubicle sitting and aimless conversation would break free, and let their hearts run wild; their passions pour out.
What would it be like then?

memory lane.

There's this old box on the top shelf in my closet that I keep all my old journals.
A few days ago a friend asked me a question which lead me into this box, but it wasn't too long before I found myself in the middle of my bedroom floor with journals surrounding me.

I love flipping through the pages of old journals and looking back on where I came from and who I was in comparison to who I am now. In many ways I am a complete reflection of who I was several years ago, and yet in others I am unrecognizable.

The pages of these journals are packed full of emotion and and angst. There are tear stained pages, and dirt stained pages. Pages pleading with God about the longings of my heart, and frustrations of growing up in the house I did.

For a while I tried to change journals with every new chapter in my life, and looking back over them this was helpful as I read my life transition from high school, to college, to several missions trips and an internship, and back home again.

It was disappointing to read that some of the same things I struggled with years ago, I am still struggling with, and yet encouraging to see some other mountains I have overcome.

While reading some of the more tumultuous events I even began to cry, seriously remembering how I felt in that moment, and then I laughed....because I was crying.

It was a good night in.

Stupendous Day

Day's off work are always enjoyable things, but it isnt too often that I get a day off without something already planned for the day.
Today was one of those.
It was Stupendous :)

Here are the things that went into making today a Stupendous day:

*Sleeping in
*Waking up to my dog wanting to climb in bed with me, helping him up in bed, and then sleeping some more
*Dad made breakfast, it was waiting when I actually did get up.
*Late church (generally more relaxed then early church)
*Skirts = Summertime!
*Lunch with friends
*Wandering around Target, just cuz its fun, with great company.
*Pedicure
*Reading a good book, outside.
*Planted and re-potted some plants (Hubert had babies!)
*Chocolate covered strawberries for dinner
*Endless NCIS reruns to watch with my dad
*Cleaning out the inbox.

hm. yeap. that's a good chunk of them. And the day's not even over :)

Smack.

I think one of my favorite, yet most loathed moments in growing in my faith would be the parental smack on the back of my head that I figuratively get every now and again from my creator. I basically hate to love it.

Last week was pretty crazy, mother's day and all had work pretty crazy, and I so I was working a lot at top speed. Needless to say once I got home, I basically sat in a vegetative state and stared blankly at all that went on around me. This goes to say that when I couldn't fall asleep last Wednesday night, I was pretty frustrated, because I knew I was going to need all the quality sleep I could get.

So I was up wrestling with my thoughts, and started to pray...this is an old trick i do..it tends to calm my spirit, and more often then not there's a good reason why I'm not able to sleep...God is up to something.

So I was praying and wrestling over some happenings going on, and decided to read for a bit. I'm still working my way through this book Spiritual Leadership by J. Oswald Chambers. Its VERY good, and recommend it to anybody.

Needless to say, I came across this:
"The person who is impatient with weakness will be ineffective in his leadership. The evidence of our strength lies not in the distance that separates us from other runners but in our closure with them, our slower pace for their sakes, our helping them pick it up and cross the line."

I couldn't even finish the rest of the chapter, I just kept rereading this section of the chapter and letting my mind mull it over, letting it sink in.

So let me tell you the other half of the story.

There's this older woman at work who drives me absolutely out of my mind. She basically had my job, until I came back and quickly learned all there was to know about the job...and more. She is not happy about this, and sometimes struggles with what her roll is. Instead of trying to figure this out and being flexible, she tends to just not do anything. This is the part where she drives me out of my mind. I can literally work circles around her, and she continues to move at turtle speed and on completely off the wall projects. She's not one to take initiative nor really offer to do anything remotely physically challenging. All this is enough to handle on a normal day, but amidst mothers day mayham....it was just a little over the top.

In the end, I was being a bit short tonged, and instead of confronting rationally, I was lashing out. Of this, I am not proud of. But its the truth.

So I jotted this quote down, and stuck it in my shirt pocket (yes I'm one of those nerdy people who run around work with at least 5 papers in my pocket at any given time). Throughout the rest of the week I pulled it out from time to time, and re-read it. It really helped and through this I also realized what God was asking me to do.


All i can say is. I'm working on it.

I will walk five hundred miles.

Ok, so maybe not a hundred.

This is a little past due, but its on my mind.
A couple weeks ago was the official March of Dimes walk that I took part in.
Many of you supported me, and donated. Thanks a million.

The walk for me wasn't so much about raising the most money, or finishing first; it was about healing. Last July a friend of mine had a son who was born at 27 weeks. SUPER premature. He was a fighter, and fought for 7 months, until his little heart just couldn't withstand this life any longer. It was truly devastating. Especially to this couple in particular, since they had tried for so long to get pregnant, were told it wasn't possible...and then this little miracle happened.

I think when things like this happen its fairly normal to ask the question why. Why after so much struggle and heartache was this little boy born premature. And then after so long and fighting so hard, why was his life taken from here?

No one has the answers, only God does. He was a precious little boy, and not soon to be forgotten. In the wake of this horrible event, his parents began putting together this walk. The March of Dimes had helped them out tremendously as they do with many families dealing with premature infants, and so they decided to put this together in memory of their little boy. And it was truly special.

I think people deal with grief in different ways. And I cant imagine ever completely "getting over" a loss such as this. However things like memory walks and such are sure good ways of putting your grief to good use. So on April 26, my 24th birthday, about 50 of us gathered in bright orange "team Tommy" t-shirts around this couple mourning their son's death. And walked. We walked despite ourselves to merely be there for a friend in need.

It was a precious moment as I stood at the final marker (after already finishing my walk) and watched as these friends approached the finish line together, hand in hand. Smiling.


Our team was the largest family team the March of Dimes has seen in the Bourbonnais area, and also raised the most money for a family team in the county. In the words of my friend who had lost her son.."thank you for turning something horrible, into something good."


this was truly beautiful