Wednesday, March 31, 2010

garden

i've only listened to this song 20 times, but every time i've listened to it, this song has left my heart broken and really wanting to live this out.  when did i get so dense and selfish, singing songs that only i find pleasing? God, i pray that you would come and change this heart and attitude that i have gotten so used to. help me make it less about me and more about you.


won't you take this cup from me?
because fear has stolen all my sleep.

if tomorrow means my death
pray you'll save their souls with it.

let the songs I sing bring joy to you.
let the words I say confess my love.
let the notes I choose be your favorite tune.
father let my heart be after you.

in this hour of doubt I see
who I am is not just me
so give me strength to die myself
so love can live to tell the tale.


let the songs I sing bring joy to you.
let the words I say confess my love.
let the notes I choose be your favorite tune.
father let my heart be after you.

father let my heart be for you
for you
for you
for you

let the songs I sing bring joy to you.
let the words I say confess my love.
let the notes I choose be your favorite tune.
father let my heart be after you.
 "Garden" by Needtobreathe

Monday, December 7, 2009

as quickly as it arrived; it left.

This retreat was different, I'm not really sure how, or why, or even what makes me say that; but I can feel it.  
 

 3 Who may ascend the hill of the LORD ?
       Who may stand in his holy place?
 4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
       who does not lift up his soul to an idol
       or swear by what is false.
 5 He will receive blessing from the LORD
       and vindication from God his Savior.
 6 Such is the generation of those who seek him,
       who seek your face, O God of Jacob.
       Selah

 Those verses have been in my head and on my heart all weekend.  Is this the generation?  Will we finally learn that there is none like you.  No other idol that we lift our praises to will do the trick.  Will we be the generation that wholly and completely seeks your face? Oh Lord I hope and pray that it is.


Monday, November 30, 2009

“My greatest disappointments in life are when I ask anyone or anything other than Jesus Christ to be my savior.”
-Jon Acuff from SCL Blog 

yeah, this busted me.  
big time.  
it does every day actually.
will I ever learn?
i'm guessing, probably not at this rate.

Monday, October 19, 2009

48 hours

Friday, October 16, 2009

4:00 am - Alarm goes off.

4:30 am - Actually get out of bed

5:30 am - Walk out the door, for those of you who don't know, the sun is NOT up yet.

6:00 am - Arrive at Starbucks to meet Roman for our weekly, Friday morning coffee.  We catch up and talk about what we're going to talk about at Bible study later.

8:00 am - Arrive at work.

8:45 am - Fix and eat my oatmeal.

9:00 am - What should be a five minute meeting with my boss turns into an hour long talk session.  This week we've been talking a lot about Tim and death and what it means.  My boss keeps saying how fragile life is.

10:00 am - Run around to get my morning orders in

1:00 pm - Talk to my boss about the afternoon orders.

1:30 pm - Pat calls.  Late last night Mark and Wills were in an accident.  Mark is looking alright, but Wills may not make it.

1:40 - 2:10 pm - I have no idea what happened in this time period really.  Everything was like a movie, but in the mix of all of it, I got my orders complete, completely broke down in my boss's office, and ran around the building at least 50 times, because as I'm finding, shock doesn't really fare well on me.

2:25 pm - Finally calmed down a little.  My boss gave me some busy work and that helped distract me.

3:30-3:50 pm - Left work and went  to the church.  I have never cried/prayed/yelled/freaked out the way I did on the way to the church. 

4:00 pm - 5:00 pm - Wait at the church for David.  He was making an emergency trip home and once he got home we would go to the hospital.

5:00 pm - Roman and I went to Panera and Wal-Mart.  (He did a great job of dealing with me, even in a zombie state)

6:15 pm - Got to David's and we leave for the hospital

6:45 pm -7:30 pm- Sit at the hospital with the Mayo's.  Find out that Wills has made improvement since the morning but, still not "out of the woods."  Machines are doing all of the work for him.  Visiting hours don't start up again until 8:30.  We decide to head home, and come back tomorrow.

8:00 pm - Walked into the Watts and was handed a beer and dinner.  Thank God for this.

9:00 pm - We decide to head over to Mark's.  He was having trouble walking, and getting around.  Super sore.  We talked about the accident and the Deer Hunter show. 

9:30 pm - Dave and I go rent a movie to take back to Mark's. 

10:00 pm - Help Mark get down the steps to the living room.  It was painful to watch Mark in so much pain.  I've never been so grateful, happy, excited, elated, and every other emotion, to see Mark.  I would have lost it if something happened. 

11:00 pm - Mark is settled on the couch and we watch the movie.


Saturday, October 17, 2009


1:30 am - Get home, sit down, its been crazy.

2:30 am - Still awake.  Mind is reeling, exhausted, worried, happy, freaked out.  I've never felt so many different things at once.

3:30 am - Almost awake for 24 hours and somewhere between crying and praying, I fall asleep.

9:30 am -  Wake up, try to go back to sleep but remember all that has gone on, and my mind is ready for the next day.

11:00 am - Jaime comes over for a lunch that we had planned.  The normalcy of lunch and shopping at Target, keeps me distracted until the 3pm visiting hours start up.

1:30 pm - Redbox and Five Guys with Dave.

2:45 pm - Get to hospital just in time for 3 pm visiting hours.  Hang with the family some.  Wills is doing alright today.  Stable, but still has machines and it's still an minute by minute kind of deal. We got to see him today.  It was hard.  At my work, my job is to deal with respiratory supplies.  I send out/order/deliver all the things you need to breathe through a machine.  Never did I think I would see all of that supplies on a friend, on a healthy 21 year old.

3:30 pm - Head home. 

4:30 pm - Start making an awesome Dirt Cake for Mark.  I know how much Mark loves it, and I could use a little Dirt Cake myself, so it was a win/win.

6:00 pm - Go to my mom's and pick up a classic, Game Boy Color and a couple games for Mark.

7:30 pm - Arrive at Mark's, show his mom some China pictures as he gets to talk to Duncan (yay!).

8:00 pm - Pat comes over and somehow I was forced to watch Independence Day...UGH.  That movie is so ridiculous.  No wonder I haven't seen it up until this point.  But it was great to see that Mark and Pat are still the Mark and Pat they probably were when they were like, 5.  It was the first time I laughed genuinely and really hard in the last 36 hours...and it felt great.

10:30 pm - Pat had to leave, but Mark and I watch Dan in Real Life.


Sunday, October 18, 2009


12:30 am - Get home and go straight to bed.  Two nights in a row I've gone to bed after 12, and that is a huge deal.  My body is tired and hurts.  My emotions are the same way.

9:30 am - With no alarm set, I wake up just in time to make it to church.  After a long debate in my mind, I decide that it would be better to go, and not sit around all day, worrying and thinking.

12:30 pm - I get to hang out with Addi and Keagan and even little Judah for a while, and of course, they make everything feel a little bit better.

1:30 pm -  Hang with my brother and my mom.  Decide that I want to go to hospital again.

2:30 pm - Find http://twitpic.com/m2f6c < on twitter.  Makes me happy to see that Mark is enjoying the Game Boy. haha, especially the Pokemon game.

3:30 pm - Arrive at hospital.  A lot less people there today. 

4:00 pm - Wills is aggitated today.  They cut down on smoe of the sedatives and hes pulling at stuff and very frustrated.  Nurses have to fight to hold him down.

4:30 pm - Vitals aren't looking great.  All they can do is give him more sedatives so he can calm down a bit.

5:30 pm - Wills breaks free of retraints and takes out his breathing tube.  Not sure what these means, could be good or bad.

6:15 pm - Things are looking up for Wills.  They think that he might be able to keep the breathing tube out.  He was talking a bit, really worried about Mark and kept saying sorry.

6:20 pm - I get to go "peek" in.  They don't really want him to see me, because he might get wound up if he's over stimulated, so I just look in the window.  He has gotten himself almost to the point of falling off the bed.  He looked like he was making a fast break.  But the nurses came in and had to literally, wrestle him, back down in bed.  He kind of looks like a zombie and it's hard to watch him struggle.  I wanted everything just to go int he room and talk to him, but the nurses rush us away.

6:25 pm - Because of all the chaos, his vitals are crazy.  They'll be running tests on him later at night to see if him pulling the tubes out did any damage.  If he can start breathing well on his own without the tube, there is a LOT of hope.

6:50 pm - I head the Potis' to see Taylor and the family.

8:30 pm - Get home.  The earliest I've been home in two nights.  I cook some dinner/lunch for the next day, to keep my mind going.

10:30 pm - Head to bed.  



The past 48 hours were absolutely crazy.  I couldn't help but think about something that Roman always says.  Today is today, there is no day like it in history and there will be no day like it in the future.  I would have to say, that I don't want anymore 48 hours like this one.  What we think starts off as a normal day/weekend turns into a rollercoaster ride that is completely unexpected.  Exhuasting.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Savior I come, I quiet my soul, remember
Redemption's hill where Your blood was spilled
For my ransom

Everything I once held dear
I count it all as lost

Lead me to the cross where Your love poured out
Bring me to my knees, Lord, I lay me down
And rid me of myself, I belong to You
Oh, lead me, lead me to the cross

You were as, I tempted and trialed, human
Word became flesh, bore my sin and death
Now You're risen

Everything I once held dear
I count it all as lost

Lead me to the cross where Your love poured out
And bring me to my knees, Lord, I lay me down
And rid me of myself, I belong to You
Oh lead me, oh, lead me, lead me to Your heart

Lead me to Your heart
Lead me to Your heart
Lead me to Your heart

Lead me to the cross where Your love poured out
Bring me to my knees, Lord, I lay me down
Rid me of myself, I belong to You
Oh lead me, lead me, lead me, lead me
Lead me to the cross, lead me to the cross

Friday, October 2, 2009


I'm so glad i stumbled across there in Wegman's. A little China in America is alright by me.

A list; revisisted.

So, I was going through some of my old blogs, and came across this one.  I wrote it almost two yaers ago and as I was reading it, I realized that I did not make the list long enough, or really challenging enough because in two years, I've done most of them.  It was kind of cool to realize that though.

Things I will do before I die. Not, things I hope to do, or things that would be cool, but things that, God-willing, if I live the average 77 years, will be completed.







-Get through nursing school in one piece ...well, uh, we're still working on this one.


-Spend a little time being a travel nurse..see above.


-Spend at the least a year in another country doing missionary work...ok, so, not a year, but at this point when I wrote this, I never thought that China was anywhere in my future.  This gets a check, not a check plus though, not yet at least.


-Get married we'll get there, we'll get there


-Have at least 3 kids.  well this certainly isn't happening without the one above it.


-Go to every continent (maybe not Antarctica or The North Pole) asia- check


-Be a woman of God. To the best of my ability.  there is plenty more that I need to learn in this, but I can honestly say that I've spent the last two eyars continuing on towards this. check


-Learn to play piano, guitar and violin/cello (I'll accept either of the last two)


-Keep my integrity intact, and never let someone compromise that. (Mrs. Euker would be very proud) I've done this too.  I've gotten better at saying no to certain things and finding out what I really believe in, and sticking to it.


-Drive across the USA at least 2 more times. Interstate 10 being the next route.  name the week/time/place to meet, i'll bring all 100 lbs of luggage I always seem to travel with, and we'll go.


-Go to all 50 states only 21 more to go.  I'd say thats pretty good.


-Forgive  whoa, its been tough, but in a few parts of my life, I've been able to do this.


-Live in the city uh, Shanghai anyone?  If cities were ranked in manliness, or toughness, Shanghai would be an Arnold Schwartzineger (I butchered his name, I'm okay with it). post terminator. so uh, check.


-Live in the middle of nowhere looking back, i'm not really sure what my standards for this were, but judging by the fact I grew up in Hereford, I'm guessing I have yet to acheive what I really meant by this.


-Make a difference I'm finding that I'm doing this everyday.  Sometimes its in apositive way, sometimes...not.  But after leaving China and coming back home, its evident that God has used me to make differences all around.


-Keep good company I'm now way better at setting boundaries and being with people that I not only enjoy being around, but that fill me up too.


-Sit around at a 24 hour laundry mat all night. okay Kristen, define all night? not long after this, Pat and I sat in a laundry mat for HOURS, and I even witnessed pat crawl into a dryer, and no be able to get out, so this one? complete.


-Stay up for 48 hours straight, for no reason at all I think I would seriously die if I let myself do this.


-Be a role model I'm learning that this goes along with "making a difference."  I am a role model to a ton of people, as are you, now, what I do with that isn't always positive, but there are always people/students watching to see what I do...I just hope I can use that in a positive way, not a negative one.


-Go backstage at a concert.  storm the beaches? or maybe that doesn't count (no offense boys) so i'm ognna throw out the ole apathy eulogy.  yeah, backstage at hamilton, what what.


Next time I make a list, I will have to be sure to make it more difficult/exciting.  Because who wants to make a list that you ca complete in two years?  I might as well put a stamp on me and say, "Well I did my 'List of Things to Do Before I Die,' this must be it." No.