Devotional

Today I woke up with a migrane and with that, nausea. I didn't feel like going to church but I always hate to miss it so I decided to go anyway. After feeling nauseous during the prayer time I slipped out and headed to the house. Darrell told me after church someone asked him where I was. He said that I had felt a little nauseous this morning and I went home. (You KNOW where I am going on this one???). The comment was made "is she pg?".You know, it bothers me that just because I am married it is automatically assumed that I am pg when I am sick to my stomach. Of course, being new here, the church does not know our history of infertility (IF) so people don't think about how these comments affect us.

Tie this into our movie last night, "Facing the Giants" and that comment was hard to hear. The subplot is about the coach and his wife going through IF. In the end they did get pregnant and went on to have children. I love the movie for the Christian aspect but for someone who has been through infertility, it does not always turn out that way. We struggled for 2 years to have a pregnancy. We spent countless hours in prayer begging for a child. I cried every time I found out I wasn't pg. I remember how I felt incomplete as I could not bear a child for my husband. I remember wondering if I was being punished for some reason for a sin that I had committed.
We were eventually blessed with Aimee and do you know why? I don't. It's not that God looked down on me and Darrell when we were in the midst of infertility and said "oh, there are bad past sins in their lives so I won't give them a child". God doesn't work like that. The God that I serve is a God of love and only wants the best for me.

Proverbs 3:5 states "Trust in the Lord with all your own heart and lean not on your own understanding.

Just because I believe in God does not mean that every single thing I desire is given to me. I don't understand why some teenagers have children when they are unmarried and why a married couple has to watch their first child pass away. I don't understand it at all. What I do hear God saying is to trust Him. What I have to do is to trust God for everything in my life. It means that I trust him for the good and the bad things that happen in my life. It means bottom line, I trust. Do you?

My day so far....

has been so boring.....I have 20 minutes before work is out and so I am just using that time to do nothing.....

Aimee's 5th birthday party was this past weekend and it was great! We had tons of kids come and they were not really kids that she knew. We have been away from WM for 6 years but I had invited all my old friends who have kids her age. I think I had just as much fun as she did.

Several of you have sent me a message about the pictures. Right now the camera is out of batteries and I have to go to Wal-Mart and get some. Since I hate going to Wal-Mart, I will post them later on this weekend when I can't put that task off any longer.

The Gym membership

Well, when we moved to El Dorado, we had to leave our old decrepit gym (that we really didn't like but were getting a dirt rate fee). I actually said that El Dorado (which will now be called Eldo in future blogs), being small and in Arkansas probally would not have a good gym.
Au contrair (is that how you spell it? I took French for 3 years and I still can't spell it but I can't spell in English actually), they had a NICE gym with an indoor pool and all the nice things that I like to spend money on if I actually HAVE to go to the gym.


They also have a.....................spin class. Now, about 2 weeks ago, I would have put that in all capital letters but I have decided something. I don't like spin. I mean, what sane person rides a bike up and down fake hills going no where when you could just get in a car and go on vacation. Nonetheless, I decided to give into my natural inclination to run....or not, and stick it out. Today though I left in the middle of the class. Tuesday was the 70's music (which I didn't like), Wednesday was more of the type of music that I liked including Will Smith, Nelly, etc.... Today was COUNTRY.....What kinda workout are you going to get on country music???? So, I pedaled no where for about 15 minutes and then went to run on the treadmill where I could listen to the Black Eyed Peas.

The old guy on the treadmill didnt' want to hear me humming "Let's get it started" and left. I guess I should have just stayed in the spin class rather than tryring to impress older members of the gym with my singing ability.

The sneaky one

We put Aimee to bed last night about 7:40 ish. She didn't get a nap at school and appeared to be tired. She went to bed without any arguments so we figured she would go to sleep quickly.

When we went to bed last night after Law and Order:SVU I opened her door as I go turn her night light off and give her one last kiss. She looked at me wide eyed with this look of shock on her face. I wasn't sure what was going on but then I saw it! She was playing with the Vtech pocket in her bed and had hid it under the sheet.

I had to turn away because I was so shocked and I didn't want her to see me smiling. She knew that she was not supposed to have that and so in order to not have it, she tried to hide it.

Made me think a lot about when I try to hide things from my heavenly father. You know, He always catches me too.

The joys of being a parent....I sure do love that child (although the Vsmile is not going to be left in her room at bedtime!)

I got a job today! That is impressive here in El Dorado because there are NO jobs (other than nursing or working for the oil companies). I am going to be working as a sexual assult educator. Basically, I get to go to the school and talk about domestic violence and sexual abuse along with teaching teenagers about healthy relationships. Since I eventually want to be a family and marriage counselor, this should really help give me some experience in this area.


I am really glad I went into social work as I am able to do so many different things with my degree. I have worked with infants, elderly, foster children and now families. So, I guess it's time to contact some schools to see about starting my master's. FUN!!!!!

(Now, I didn't expect to get a call at 7:00 on Thursday and be working at 7:00 on Friday. I'm just tired thinking about getting back to a normal work day.)

What youth ministry is about....

Last night someone IM'ed me when I was on yahoo. It was someone that I had added a while ago but never talked to. We started chatting only to realize that both of us thought we were talking to an entirely different person. We started trying to find out who each other were and it turns out it was one of our students from Broken Bow. Darrell and I had just been talking about her the other day and wondering what was going on. We had such a great chat.

Then today, we went to the High School to see one of our Juniors who made Homecoming court. She asked us about 3 weeks ago to share in this special day with her. The minute she saw us, she stopped what she was doing, ran over to us and gave me a hug. She thanked us for coming and asked my opinion on her dress (which was beautiful).

You know, these 2 seperate events gave me a new refreshed spirit for ministry. We missed that in our last place and it's neat to have God reconfirm that we are doing what HE wants us to do. It reconfirms that no matter how hard it was to move, that we definately need to be here right where we are.

Deep thoughts for a Friday night while Darrell is hanging out with the students at a soccer game!

Our Cruise!

We just got back from a 5 day cruise! It was WONDERFUL!!!! 5 days of no work and just play. Actually, we could not be reached. We turned the cell phones off and didn't have internet access. It was great!

Enjoy the pictures!