Northwest Arkansas

This weekend I made my way to Northwest Arkansas (Springdale, Fayetteville area) with my parents. On the way we stopped in Little Rock at Mardel (love that bookstore) to look at some books and then went on to Petit Jean State park so that I could show my parents where I have been spending a lot of time. It was again beautiful (as it always is). I don't think I will ever get tired of seeing it. I must admit though that this week when I went it looked a lot different because the trees don't have any leaves on them. Here are yet again, a few more pictures from the park.

I like it when the camera focus on something close but then you can also see something beautiful in the background.

I love the blue sky in this picture...

I just love this view. It's amazing to me though how different it looks this time of year.

I took this picture because I absolutely love red and orange leaves. There aren't a lot of trees I've seen this year with these colors but I absolutely love them. I don't know much about science and I know there is probably some good technical explanation for this but I'm just amazed that God created a process whereby green leaves can change into such beautiful colors. I thank God a lot that he allows me to enjoy looking at beautiful things he has created.

What is wrong with this picture? We were coming back from the Cedar Creek Falls and my dad immediately noticed that we had a very flat tire. This nice guy came along though and helped my dad by letting him borrow his heavy duty jack and then basically changing the tire for us. I know about the concept of changing a car tire but have never done so. I actually learned two important things from this: 1) You should put the emergency break on the car before starting to jack the car up. 2) You should loosen the lug nuts some before jacking the car up. Both of these things seem like good things to know that I didn't know before. :-) I am thankful that this guy came to help us as I'm 100% sure that this process went a lot smoother than it would have if he hadn't helped. I'm also thankful that I have roadside assistance and can call them if this ever happens to me so that I don't have to try to do this by myself.

My parents wanted to visit Bentonville which is where Walmart started. So, this is a picture of the first store that is now a museum. It was a little bit more interesting than I thought it would be. The thing I was most struck by is how down-to-earth Sam Walton was. This guy was filthy rich but it didn't seem to get to his head.

Today at church there was a good sermon on anxiety/stress and what you and God can do about it. There is a passage in Philippians 4 that addresses this issue. Sometimes I get stressed out when I think about all I have to do or the responsibilities I feel like I have and I think at those times it's when I forget that I don't have to do life on my own. I have God and I know that my God is big enough to handle whatever stressors I have in my life. I just need to let Him have those situations instead of trying to handle everything on my own. Another point that is in this passage that I actually mentioned on my last post is to give thanks to God in everything. I might not like what is going on or I might be in the midst of a terribly trying time but there are still things to be thankful for in those moments. Above all I can be thankful that I don't have to go through those times by myself. I have a God who loves me and will hold my hand through anything. I love that this passage says that if we give our worries to God the result is that we will have peace. Isn't that what we all want anyway? It makes me wonder though why sometimes I fight so hard to hold on to these stressors/worries instead of giving them to God in the first place. I believe in Jeremiah 29:11 that says God has a plan for my life and I trust His plan even if it doesn't match my plan. We sang this song in church today and it has been playing over and over in my head:

You are my strength when I am weak

You are the treasure that I seek

You are my all in all

Seeking You as a precious jewel

Lord, to give up I'd be a fool

You are my all in all

Jesus, Lamb of God

Worthy is Your name

Jesus, Lamb of God

Worthy is Your name

Taking my sin, my cross, my shame

Rising up again I bless Your name

You are my all in all

When I fall down You pick me up

When I am dry You fill my cup

You are my all in all

Jesus, Lamb of God

Worthy is Your name

Jesus, Lamb of God

Worthy is Your name

This song is so true...

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am so thankful for so many things this year. Most of all I'm thankful for God and what he has done for me and in my life. He is the ultimate source of love, joy, peace and hope. I'm thankful as I've said before that He loves me and persues a relationship with me (even though He knows me completely, He still thinks I'm worth having a relationship with). God is amanzing! I'm thankful for the Bible and the fact that I can read it whenever I want to and I can learn more about God. I love the Bible! I'm very thankful for other people who study the Bible and then write books to help me learn and understand different things about the Bible.

I'm thankful for so many other things. I'm thankful for my family. I'm thankful that my mom has so wonderfully come to visit me and helped with the cooking and cleaning. It's been wonderful to get a little break from that. As I mentioned in my last post I'm very thankful for Josh and the impact he has had on my life. I thank God everyday for him. I'm extremely thankful for the days that I get to spend time with him and I'm thankful for cell phones for the days in between.

I'm very thankful for my job. I don't think community mental health is a job I want to do forever and it can be very stressful at times but I think I currently work for a great company and have a good boss. That helps a lot with making my job bearable. I also am thankful for a great work schedule. Most days I don't have to be there until 9:00 and I usually leave any time between 5:00 and 5:30 plus I usually get an hour lunch. I also don't have to take my work home to finish it. This is a lot different than how things were in my last two jobs. I again am very thankful for my job.

I've been blessed with an apartment to live in, food to eat (plenty of it) and financial security at this point in my life. God has been good to me more than I deserve.

I'm thankful for beautiful weather and blue sky days. Lately, I've gotten to see some beautiful things that are part of God's creation and I am very thankful for that. I am thankful for my health and ability to exercise (if I ever chose to) :-). I'm thankful for my cats which might sound weird but they have been faithful companions especially over the last 1.5 years. They greet me at the door each night and are happy to see me. I'm glad I don't have to come home to an empty apartment.

There are so many other things that I could list here. In grad school I once had an assignment from a professor where we had to write down 10 things each week throughout the semester that we were thankful for and we couldn't repeat any. It was a good assignment (I'll admit that sometimes I thought it was somewhat challenging to think of new things) because it helped me to redirect my attention and to stop and notice some of the good things that I have in my life. I think sometimes everyone (including me) can get stuck in a rut and tends to dwell on the negative things going on in the world or their life and that in turns tends to reinforce the negative feelings people have. I would say I'm usually pretty thankful for the things I've been blessed with but I could work some at focusing more attention on these things and thanking God for them. I don't want to take things for granted ever. I completely understand that not everyone has the same blessings in life that I do and I completely understand that these blessings could be taken away at any time. If that were to happen you know what, it would be okay. The one thing that can never be taken away is God and His love for me and through whatever comes in my future I will chose to trust Him and cling to His love. He is what I need more than anything else from my list. I chose to be thankful for what I've been blessed with.

Happiness

I love it when I think about something and whatever I'm thinking about causes me to smile or laugh. I've been doing that a lot lately. I'm happier and more content now than I have been in a long time (if ever). I know I say this a lot but I'm amazed at how God has taken care of me and worked throughout my life. He has brought me so far on this journey called life. I am so thankful that He didn't leave me where I was.

I'm thankful for Josh. He is an amazing person who I can't imagine not having in my life. He is the source of most of my smiles lately. :-) I find myself thinking about something he said or something he did and it will just cause me to smile. One of the funny things that I've thought about recently that makes me smile (because I like them) are the noises he makes when he is telling a story to help illustrate the story. I think I'm more self-conscious about making noise illustrations like that because what if the noise I make sounds nothing like what the noise really is. It's kind of like singing in front of people. I know this makes me sound weird. I love to listen to the stories he tells. I love how considerate he is towards me and what I want. I have found someone who I absolutely love to spend time with. Tonight, after work, I was walking to my car and I thought to myself how much I would love it if Josh were there and I got to walk with him or spend time with him. Again, this thought made me smile. I love how different we are but so alike on certain things. I love all the little bits of random trivia that he knows. I love the way his brain works. Most times he can't see me when he is telling me this trivia but it usually puts a smile on my face when he says it because I'm just amazed. He's got a great sense of humor and I love his laugh. I love it when he holds my hand or puts his arm around me. I love his heart for God and how he wants to live his life in a way that would honor God. I admire Josh for so many reasons. I've really missed Josh these past two weeks (has it only been two weeks it seems like at least a month). He surprised me by calling tonight (I wasn't expecting him to call until tomorrow) which makes me happy. I can't wait until the next time I get to spend time with Josh. As I said before he is amazing! :-) Josh is definitely a blessing to me in so many ways. I'm so thankful that God allowed us to meet.

Good Day in Arkansas...

I have done a lot of traveling in the last 7 days and today was no different. It started with me and my mom driving to Pine Bluff so that I could go to a eye doctor's appointment. This was my first visit with an eye doctor in Arkansas. It was quite the experience. After waiting 45 minutes to get in to see the doctor, he didn't spend as much time examining my eyes as most eye doctors usually do. Then we head to this other room with a bunch of contact stuff (which is great because that's why I went to this appointment - - to get more contacts). He tells me that my eyes are not getting enough oxygen and that I need to do a few things about this. First, I need to not buy the cheap contact solution because I have such fair skin that most any chemical will just absorb into me and could cause problems for my eyes (I had no idea that my fair skin had anything to do with that). Then he said that I need to wear my contacts less (which I'm not a huge fan of this idea because I don't like wearing glasses). The last idea he said (which is about the craziest sounding thing I've heard lately) is that at least once a week I need to put my contacts in a small bowl of baking soda in order to get oil off them which will help get more oxygen to my eye. This doctor said a lot of things and at times he seemed to say contradictory things. At one point I kinda wished someone else were in the room with me so that they could hear what he was saying too. He said so much that I'm not even sure I remember it all... It ended with me saying that the new contacts he had me put in weren't working because things were blurry still. He told me that I should walk around the store for 15 minutes and he would check my eyes again. I walked around, he checked my eyes, I told him things were still blurry and he didn't change the prescription. I'm going to give these contacts a week and see how they turn out.

After this my mom and me were in a rush to Little Rock. The goal was to get there before the early bird sales got done. We went to JCPenney first and unfortunately only had about 20-25 minutes to shop before the big sale was over. I did manage to get a nice sweater so that made me happy.

At this point I was starving and my mom mentioned that she saw a certain, sit-down restaurant that she likes that has decent prices. Sounded good to me as I hadn't eaten in one of these restaurants in several years. All was good while we were looking at the menus and deciding what to eat. We ordered the food and then my mom went to the restroom. This left me by myself (which is not a huge deal in itself). The table behind me made a comment (I wasn't trying to eavesdrop but it was hard not to hear this) about a lizard on the wall. This of course caught my attention and I looked at the wall that was on the other side of this divider thing and sure enough there was a fairly large lizard on the wall (biggest one I've seen that was not in a zoo). My first thought was that is a poor choice of decorations to have in a restaurant. My second thought that I actually said out loud was, "It's real!!!" About that time my mom comes back and I immediately tell her that there is a lizard on the wall not more than 10 feet from us. The waitress was told about this in a timely fashion by the table behind me and then the manager. Next thing I know the manager is there saying out loud to a guy that the lizard has to go. He cannot stay (which is okay with me cause I didn't want him there). The guy worker says out loud that he knows these lizards are very fast and if he swats it to the floor that it will run fast. This immediately has me concerned because I don't want anything running towards me. After about a minute I've decided that maybe I don't want to sit here anymore and start scooting to the edge of my booth. Next thing I know there is a commotion and the guy has hit the lizard onto the floor. I immediately am thinking that this fast lizard is going to come get me now (and I start to panic a little). I could have sworn that someone said something about the guy beating the lizard with a broom to kill it (which is also not something I want to hear or see at a place where I'm going to be eating food). My mom said though that he was just standing on the broom to kill it. Either way at that point I had seen/heard enough and was literally getting ready to stand up and go somewhere else but the waitress brings the food at that exact moment. She makes a comment about not being able to handle lizards either and asks me if I was okay (which was nice of her). I did freak out a little but I'm just glad I didn't scream. Some might think this is extreme for just a lizard but I really don't like any kind of reptile, bug, amphibian or fish (if I have to touch it). I'm okay with being labeled a wimp.

After this we did manage to hit two more stores and I got some good deals on clothes. It was nice to go shopping with my mom as I haven't done this in a long time. We don't always like the same style of clothes but it's nice to have someones second opinion about how something looks sometimes.

On the way home I convinced my mom to drive some (as I was getting tired). We decided to stop at this little shopping village in Star City because I had decided to take my mom there to eat for her birthday. We went tonight just to see where it was, what was available and the hours of operation. It was a nice little shopping village. It really surprised me to find this type of a place in Star City. They had a bakery there and we picked up some goodies that I'm looking forward to eating. Plus we still get to go back and eat some yummy food next weekend for my mom's birthday.

All in all, it was a good day filled with some surprises. :-) I'm glad I got to spend the day with my mom.

Encouragement

Today was my first day at a counseling conference. The keynote speaker today was amazing. He spent a lot of time talking about how important encouragement is. He also emphasized something that I'm passionate about and that is how much potential kids/teens have. I love seeing the good in kids and trying my best to encourage them to make good choices for themselves and their future. With several of the sessions today I was reminded of how much I love working with kids. I'm not sure what the future holds but no matter what job I'm doing professionally I really would like to get involved with reaching out to teens in some way (maybe mentoring). The title of this conference is "Facing the Giants" which is my absolute favorite movie partly because of the faith messages throughout it but also because of the impact adults had in the lives of the teens. I know that I would not be where I am today without my friend Marti coming along beside me and helping me get through my teenage years. I'm so thankful for her.


Encouragement is something I want to work on. I know that I respond better to encouragement rather than other forms of communication. At the end the keynote speaker told a touching story of how he took the advice of a 92 year old man and applied the golden rule to his relationship with his wife. The 92 year old man pointed out that if we all treated others the way we want to be treated then there would be a lot less divorce or other problems. This 92 year old man walked the talk. He spent 20 years taking care of his wife (by himself) who had Alzheimer's. It was just a really touching story...

I'm looking forward to the next 1.5 days of my conference!

Gifts

This was taken from a scenic overlook at Petit Jean State Park. It was absolutely beautiful. This picture does not really do it justice.

These two pictures were taken at sunset and again the pictures don't completely capture what it really looked like. I love it when the sun casts a golden light on things.

I have really been blessed lately and I'm just amazed at it. God has allowed me to enjoy beautiful things lately like the sunset above, the changing leaves and shooting stars. I have been extremely blessed to have met someone who loves God, loves others, laughs a lot and has a kind heart. He makes me smile all the time and makes me happy. He truely is a gift from God. Again, I'm amazed at how God has blessed me. I truely don't deserve it.

I am blessed that I get to spend a few weeks with my mom, just the two of us. We have never spent so much time together by ourselves. My mom is an amazing mom. She has done so much for me. As we grew up she gave of herself unselfishly to take care of us. She attended all of my school functions, cleaned up after us and was the taxi cab driver all over town. Sometimes I'm amazed at how she managed to juggle it all. She did a lot for us without much gratitude at the time. I love my mom and think she's the best in the whole world. I thank God for her in my life.

I'm blessed to have God in my life. If I had nothing else except Him I would be good but for some reason He has given me so much more. God knows me completely, loves me and sent His only son to pay the price that I deserve to pay for my sins. There is no bigger blessing than that. I love God and I'm also thankful that I can have a relationship with Him. He is my hope and strength and source of peace and joy. I would be lost without Him.