Last month was quite a crazy month for Tyler and I. Today I will focus on the best part of last month: my parents came to visit! We looked forward to family coming to visit ever since we moved. To get to show our family around California was SO much fun. It's so different from Oklahoma and it is nice for them to understand where we live a little better!
My parents arrived late on a Saturday night so we didn't do much the first night... just some talking and sleeping! I was so excited to bring my parents to church on Sunday and see how our Sunday mornings are spent. They got to sit in on the youth service with us and enjoy a morning spent talking about and doing worship. It was so fun just to introduce them to people that are a part of our every day lives. Church is obviously a huge part of all of our lives so it was so wonderful to get to attend with family. It was also great to let them see how great our church family is and how we are so well taken care of!
On Monday morning my mother and I pretty much just sat and talked. Dad slept in a bit so we had a very quiet morning full of chatting, chatting that I so greatly missed! There's nothing like sitting and talking with your mom face to face after months of being apart. So much wisdom and encouragement came from our conversations. That after noon Tyler and I had a meeting so my parents drove around a little and we did a little more exploring just around Tracy to show them the town. Riding in the car with them was fun to just hear their reactions to Tracy. They, like me, loved to comment on how cute and comfortable Tracy is. The comfort of Tracy is definitely one of the reasons why it was so easy to move here. It really feels like our home!
On Tuesday we took them to explore San Francisco! I was so excited to show them around because they, like Tyler and I, LOVE cities! It must be in the blood. We took them to the major sites, Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman's Wharf, Pier 39 (where we enjoyed the fish n chips for lunch!), through Chinatown, and from Union Square all the way down through downtown and the Ferry Building! We really got to see most everything we wanted to. I know they loved exploring with us.
The next day we had an opportunity to travel to a place I had not been yet, Sonoma (wine country). A family from FCC in Owasso was actually vacationing in Napa at the same time so my parents arranged for us to go have lunch with them in Sonoma. It was quite rainy and cloudy so we did not get to see a ton of the beautiful land, but what we did see was still so beautiful. I've never seen as much beautiful and diverse scenery as I have in since moving to California. We ate a cute little restaurant on the Square in Sonoma. Sonoma was such a quaint little town! I'd love to go there again and just spend the day there (and maybe on a non-rainy day!) Tyler was not able to join us on the Sonoma endeavor so I got to spend the day with my mom and dad by myself. Again, it was full of great conversations that only happen face to face.
I was super sad to see them go. The visit was no where near long enough, but I assume that's how it will be every time. Time with parents is SO precious. It's so hard to live this far from family so I'm super thankful they are willing to come visit us! Later this week Tyler's mom will be here, Elizabeth is coming later this month/early May, and we have some potential plans for other visitors this summer! Time is flying by with all of our family venturing out to see us, I'm so thankful for them coming out here!
Monday, April 8, 2013
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
How Life Changes
Lately I've been thinking about "where" we were a year ago. Not necessarily physically, but emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. Around this time last year we were visiting a church up in the Northeast. A beautiful town and a church that is doing great things in the Albany area. One thing we always say we are thankful for is that throughout our year of interviewing places, we got to see what God is doing in so many churches all over the country. This was one of those churches. While we would have gone anywhere God called us, I much prefer the California weather to what we'd have in Albany. A year ago, God was still working out his plan to move us to Tracy.
Then I can think about "where" we were two years ago around this time. I had recently come back from a trip to New York for a class called "Exegeting the City". This class changed and challenged my worldview. It was an awesome trip of exploring NYC, but even more so this class was one of the best ones of my college education. I knew after taking that class that God wanted me to open my mind so that he could move and use me and Tyler anywhere in the country, or anywhere in the world. I know that that class was a part of God's plan to form me in to the best version of myself. It's pretty cool to see how God used a class two years ago to help prepare me for the place I'd move to a year and half later. I needed to open my mind to how God views people in order to be willing to love people in different cultures.
I like to remember where I was seven years ago on this day. About this time seven years ago I was heading to work at Sonic. I'd probably be working the 4-10 shift, it was a Monday. I'm not sure what time my mom called me at work but I knew it was already dark out. The phone rang as I was running an order out, when I came back in I got the news that my dad was in the hospital because of a stroke. My boss made me go home but I didn't really want to do that because I'd be by myself. I went home, packed a bag and went to my 2nd family's house where I had to break the news to them what had happened and that I needed to stay with them. "Where" was I seven years ago?
I was lost. This was the first really bad thing that had happened in my life, I didn't know how to deal with tragedy or devastation. Thank goodness my father was okay, but I think more than anything it led me to a faith crisis. I had to learn what it really meant to trust God in good and bad. I hadn't ever really learned to trust him in the bad because I had never experienced the bad. It was hard. It took me months and months to realize that I didn't trust God. Then it took me years to build up that trust with him again. Sometimes I'd build it up just for something else to happen and that trust would be destroyed again. Something I didn't know when my father had a stroke was that it was okay to be upset with God and to ask questions and to have doubts because I'd never learn the truth about what it means to really have faith. Faith is not as much about how you handle the good times as it is about how you handle the bad times.
Seven years ago, God started this battle of trust and faith with me that is still a struggle today. I wouldn't ever say that he made my dad have a stroke so that I would learn the lessons but he decided to take that "bad" event in my life to teach and turn my life in to good. But like I said, every time something "bad" happens, it feels like I take a couple steps back. Sometimes more steps than others. I know that God knows what he's doing.
I can look back over the past seven years and see how God has prepared me for events that happen today, or happened recently. It doesn't make them easier. In fact, sometimes it makes them harder because I want to complain to God and say "Wait, you already taught me this lesson. Why are we going at this again?" only to realize that if I'm angry that he's "teaching" me this lesson again, I clearly didn't get it all the way the first time.
I love reflection. I love looking back and realizing how God worked. I love having lessons that God has taught me because I really need to look back and see how he has turned so many bad things into good. Every time something bad happens I can look at how he delivered me and trust that he will again. It's hard to believe at times. Today I'm not so sure I believe I can be delivered but I know deep in my heart that it's true.
Then I can think about "where" we were two years ago around this time. I had recently come back from a trip to New York for a class called "Exegeting the City". This class changed and challenged my worldview. It was an awesome trip of exploring NYC, but even more so this class was one of the best ones of my college education. I knew after taking that class that God wanted me to open my mind so that he could move and use me and Tyler anywhere in the country, or anywhere in the world. I know that that class was a part of God's plan to form me in to the best version of myself. It's pretty cool to see how God used a class two years ago to help prepare me for the place I'd move to a year and half later. I needed to open my mind to how God views people in order to be willing to love people in different cultures.
I like to remember where I was seven years ago on this day. About this time seven years ago I was heading to work at Sonic. I'd probably be working the 4-10 shift, it was a Monday. I'm not sure what time my mom called me at work but I knew it was already dark out. The phone rang as I was running an order out, when I came back in I got the news that my dad was in the hospital because of a stroke. My boss made me go home but I didn't really want to do that because I'd be by myself. I went home, packed a bag and went to my 2nd family's house where I had to break the news to them what had happened and that I needed to stay with them. "Where" was I seven years ago?
I was lost. This was the first really bad thing that had happened in my life, I didn't know how to deal with tragedy or devastation. Thank goodness my father was okay, but I think more than anything it led me to a faith crisis. I had to learn what it really meant to trust God in good and bad. I hadn't ever really learned to trust him in the bad because I had never experienced the bad. It was hard. It took me months and months to realize that I didn't trust God. Then it took me years to build up that trust with him again. Sometimes I'd build it up just for something else to happen and that trust would be destroyed again. Something I didn't know when my father had a stroke was that it was okay to be upset with God and to ask questions and to have doubts because I'd never learn the truth about what it means to really have faith. Faith is not as much about how you handle the good times as it is about how you handle the bad times.
Seven years ago, God started this battle of trust and faith with me that is still a struggle today. I wouldn't ever say that he made my dad have a stroke so that I would learn the lessons but he decided to take that "bad" event in my life to teach and turn my life in to good. But like I said, every time something "bad" happens, it feels like I take a couple steps back. Sometimes more steps than others. I know that God knows what he's doing.
I can look back over the past seven years and see how God has prepared me for events that happen today, or happened recently. It doesn't make them easier. In fact, sometimes it makes them harder because I want to complain to God and say "Wait, you already taught me this lesson. Why are we going at this again?" only to realize that if I'm angry that he's "teaching" me this lesson again, I clearly didn't get it all the way the first time.
I love reflection. I love looking back and realizing how God worked. I love having lessons that God has taught me because I really need to look back and see how he has turned so many bad things into good. Every time something bad happens I can look at how he delivered me and trust that he will again. It's hard to believe at times. Today I'm not so sure I believe I can be delivered but I know deep in my heart that it's true.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)