movies i want to see...

just a few of the movies i want to see in the near future...

27 Dresses

Enchanted

Juno

National Treasure: Book of Secrets

P.S. I Love You

The Kite Runner

Alvin and the Chipmunks

The Great Debators

awake at 4 a.m?

so it's 4 a.m. and i am awake....and this seems to be for several reasons 1 being my knee hurts like hell and the 2 pain pills i took have yet to kick in...another reason is there is a storm and it thundered really big and woke my entire family up-including the dogs...my mother keeps bugging me about if i want pain pills and i keep telling her i've taken the 2 i can take until "4 hours later" and then the 2 dogs are going crazy, i tried to get gracie to lay down with me and she wouldn't and i couldn't pick kirby up so...

yesterday was a whirl wind...thank God for nerve blocks cause if i had been in this much pain i would not have been able to ride all the way back to memphis but with the pain block it was a perfectly nice ride back...but right now i just wish the nerve block would come back or that these pain pills would kick in.

im going to try to go back to sleep it seems like the storm has passed and hopefully these pain pills will kick in very soon...hopefully is the key word!

my next few days...

so tomorrow is christmas eve!! yay! tomorrow entails cleaning the house, cooking, going to church, seeing drew....and stealing a present! then tuesday is obviously christmas!!! then wednesday possibly some early morning shopping...possibly, but then i have to be in paris by 2ish for my pre-op appointments and then probably going to visit with my mom's cousin for a while. then thursday...surgery day, not sure what time it's going to be but i hope sometime in the morning...then after surgery riding back to memphis and hopefully sleeping a lot...so that is my next few days in a wrap up--keep me in your prayers please!

going to wal-mart with my mom because she forgot to get stocking stuff for drew...ahhh

love.
<3

prayer...

so my mom reads when she is in the bathtub...so as i was brushing my teeth one of her books cought my eye, it's called Talking in the Dark by Steve Harper. i picked it up and brought it back to my room and started to read it and within the first 5 pages i found so many quotes and phrases that felt that they were written for me...so here are some of them when some of my thoughts with them, hopefully i will be able to finish it and the list will only get longer...

*the first sentence of the whole book...life doesn't make sense. no matter how hard we try to make it so, it doesn't. no matter how much we want everything to turn out okay, it doesn't always. bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people. that's the way it is. if we are religious, prayer gets mixed into the mystery and the frustration of that reality. sometimes we can't tell what difference prayer is making. even though we pray, life fails short of our sense of justice and cry for mercy. this quote is almost like a slap in the face to wake up to reality. it's completly true, life really doesn't make sense and it never will until we are up in heaven where, hopefully, everything makes complete sense! as christians, we have to understand that life sucks, it's not always easy and pretty, as the phrase goes-shit happens-and it happens to anyone and everyone. good things will always happen to bad people and vice versa it's just a fact of life and it's what makes the good times even better, without the rain there would be no rainbow!

*4 questions he says to ask about a prayer-specifically one that has been written down...1. what picture of God comes throught in the prayer? 2. what picture of yourself do you see in this prayer? 3. how does the church show up in this prayer? 4. what are the main emotions expressed? these 4 questions confused me a little when i first read them, however when i began to reread them and attempt to place them along with a prayer they become understandable and easily placed into a daily prayer life and they can really focus a prayer on what prayer really is all about, it's about having that relationship with God and putting all the trust in Him and that He will do what is right for each of us...

*let's face it: the number one problem we have with prayer is God. this quote as much as i hate to admit it is absolutly true. in the following paragraphs he talks about how we are too quick to just blam God with things don't happen the way we want them to. we ask for things and they don't happen then an dthere, or if something happens, they don't happen the way we want them to. when things get rough we act like "good christians" and run to God and pray to Him, but when things don't happen the way we want them to we are quick to blame and get angry when all we should continue to do is pray and trust that things happen for a reason...

*because we are praying and trusting an invisible God we must learn to accept that not everythign will have the answers that we want...we must accept that there are certain mysteries and there will always be those mysteries...he gives 4 questions that will never be answered fully...1. why are some people healed while others aren't? 2. why do soldiers get killed the day before they are supposed to return home? (or at all?) 3. why does a young person die in an accident during a mission trip? (or at all?) 4. why does one person run late and miss boarding a plane that crashes, killing everyone else on board? these are just 4 questions...if i sat here i could come up with a huge list and it would be a very emotional and detailed list of why this and why that...and the only response to all of them is the same that i said before...everything happens for a reason. there can't be rainbows without the rain...there can't be good times without the bad and as christians we just have to learn to let go and let god. this phrase is one of my favorites and i have used it before and will continue to use it.

*we practice imperfect prayer in a fallen world~our world sucks, things happen, we struggle each day to try to be the best possible christian as possible and some days it just doesn't happen, we are not perfect in anything, even talking with God, we pray in a way that we think is best, we pray for th wrong reasons sometimes, we pray for the wrong things sometime...and because we live in the world that we live in we will always practice imperfect prayer...it will only become perfect when we get to heaven and sit next to God will our prayer become perfect along with everything else...perfection is only then.

the book goes on and on and i haven't gotten to read it yet i hope to be able to read it and possibly post some more quotes and parts of it...

cold, wet, and grumpy...

so a few days ago troy sent out one of his emails asking for help to do high ropes today...and like i usually do i emailed him back and told him that if he still needed someone i could help. and he promptly emailed me back saying that he did need someone...so on my calendar it went...ropes @ camp 2-5 and this morning i got up, rolled over heard the rain and felt the cold window and thought i guess i dont have to get up and drive to camp....i even looked at weather.com and there was rain in literally the entire southeast part of the country so i thought i could just go get breakfast with drew and not worry about going. just to make sure i wasn't still needed and his response is that as far as he knows they still want to do ropes...so i round up my layers of warm clothes and head off to camp. i was going up early so i could get lunch and made it to camp about 12:30...still raining, still very cold, still very depressing...after the group has to push back the time and the number of kids drops we go and set up. the group leader tells us only like 10 kids and that they would be out there by 3...and 10 kids in about an hour and a half isn't bad, it's do-able. however when 3 comes around there are more than 15 kids...and they want to get them through basic in an hour and a half to two hours...horrible idea!!! so it's raining, freezing cold and of course the kids are complaining...i love doing ropes, don't get me wrong, i absolutly love it however on days like today it's really tough to love it as well as loving the kids...today was long, tomorrow will be a little tougher im sure because we are having our youth christmas party and it's the second to last event ill get to do with them and its just a little scary...
i think im going to put a movie in and goto sleep, or atleast try to...
good night all
love.

my new hat...

so i was out shopping with drew and i wanted a hat to wear on saturday when im-hopefully-doing ropes and its supposed to be really cold, so we went to gander mountain and i found this really cute shades of blue hat with ear covers, you know the kind that cover up your ears and have the little tassels haging down...and it has a giant tassel on the top that hangs down and i absolutly love it. until i saw the price tag...then my mouth dropped open and i put it back on the rack...but then i saw a sign, a sign that made my day, the hat was on sale so i bought it and wore it the whole way home...

and i tried to find a picture of it...and that didn't work so use your imagination

semester's end...

it's december something and i've...turned 21, had an amazing job, made amazing grades, found out i have to have surgery again, had to quit my amazing job, realized i have too much stuff, learned more about myself, gotten a jackson-madison county library card, gotten a daughter that has stayed at lambuth-not gotten married-and been amazing, missed my family, been stressed to the max, gotten a work-study, wrapped presents, printed and cut out pictures for a new picture mug, lived-laughed-loved, been forced to grow up a little more, painted something, missed camp, done ropes, wasted time, been productive, re-organized things, gone to tunica and wasted money at a casino, been loved, felt like crap, realized i can't graduate on time, registered for 21 hours, stayed up to 3 am with katie laughing and recording things about the gilded age, missed my ginger friend, met some pretty cool youth, wished i could grow up a little faster, figured out what i want to do with the rest of my life, been crafty, been irresponsible, learned to cook some pretty good meals, made a mess, stopped to smell the roses, enjoyed life, hated stupid drunk people, enjoyed the no smoking ban, played rock band, been to wal-mart too much, not worked out like i said i would, yelled, cried, laughed, wished, hoped, prayed...