Jerome in SoCal

My friends Bob and Jamie went back to the their home state of California over 2 months ago and I am just getting around to documenting their fun with Jerome. What can I say? Jerome attracts fun!

I should have known these two would make him play tennis. I bet Jerome was good competition. ;)

Train ride!

Grapes! Lots and lots of grapes!

Ah, the Pacific.

Jerome makes friends wherever he goes, but it's not every day that he gets to be with his gnomies. :)

Ew. Gross. No surprise as to why Jerome is looking a bit pale. Gum wall. I would never be that close.

Beautiful! Thanks guys for being such great friends and for showing Jerome (and me!) a little more of the world.

My Journey: Part 1

I have decided to share some of my story and the journey the Lord has been taking me on this year. I call it my journey, because I needed some sort of label to put on what God was doing in my life. It felt so contradictory and confusing at it's beginning, but I am slowly becoming able to see glimpses of the work that He is doing in my life.

Everything started to unravel one rainy night last November. In my mind, it happened like a movie. I slept through both morning services and though I didn't want to attend the evening service at the church I had been attending for a year and a half, I made up my mind to go. I was looking for answers and demanding God to speak to me that very day. I was finished with the lack of clarity, the frustration, the longing, and the discouragement.

As evening set in, the rain started coming, and my spirit was stirred more towards anger and resolution. I was going to that service, and God was going to speak to me. End of discussion.

I was late, and so I walked the 2 blocks from parking to the church in the rain by myself. As I stood across the street staring at the church waiting for the light to change, I could feel the pressure building, the creaks in the wood before the dam breaks. I think I even hated the sight of that building, and all it meant to me. All the struggles, all the trying and doing and wishing and tears.

As I stood there on the corner, the thought actually occurred to me that I shouldn't stand too close to the road, but my mind was fixated on my demands, my hopes, my hurt. Right before the light turned, a car flew by driving in the ditch between the road and the curb. Yeah. Right where all the water collects when it rains. 

Standing there drenched, I threw up my arms, and yelled to the night, "Are you kidding me?" I look across the street to see the greeters, anxiously looking away, pretending not to see. I'm not sure when my spirit broke. Was it standing on the curb rain soaked and humiliated? Was it walking past the greeters unseen and disconnected? Or was it walking into the 1000 seat dark and crowded auditorium and hearing people sing about how much Jesus loves me, when the irony of my situation made me feel very differently?

If you hear one thing from my story, hear this. I never left God, and God never left me. But if you looked at my life over the months following that night, it sure looked like I did. There were people in my life who probably were worried I was leaving God, but there were also people who could see I was finding God in unexpected places, through unexpected ways....

Stay tuned for part 2

Jerome in NC

Happy Memorial Day! This has been a crazy weekend for me, so I hope that your holiday weekend has been much more relaxing and fun. Friday, I moved from my one bedroom apartment into a 2 bedroom apartment with my new roommate Hillary. I decided to choose the cheapest option of moving out and moving in on the same day which meant moving everything out of my old apartment, into my new, and cleaning my old apartment between the hours of 10am and 6pm. I barely made it. I never knew I had so much stuff!!

Saturday, from 9am to 6pm, I sat in class. While the class material was not in itself boring, I was exhausted and my brain felt like it was going to explode by the time I got home.

This left the rest of my weekend for unpacking and organizing and decorating. Now, it's break time. And Jerome has been a busy little gnome. My friend Kayla works for some summer camps up around Asheville and Black Mountain, NC. You may remember she took Jerome to her home state of Florida when she passed through ATL, and it was her boyfriend who took him to Mississippi. Needless to say, Jerome has done a lot of travelling because of this girl.

Jerome has a thing for the animals, if you hadn't noticed.

Ridgecrest Chapel

Doesn't Jerome look a little pale? It may have been because he just survived a tornado. Yikes! Look at that tree!

Apparently, whoever named these mountains was either cruel or confused. Look at those names. Should it have been the Seven Brothers? I would cry every day if my mom named me Graybeard.

The seven sisters in person.

Beautiful view! Thanks to Kayla and friends! Next stop, SoCal!

Counseling Week 3

These past three weeks have been unreal. I was driving home today and thought, "Did you just counsel someone? Are you sure?" I am actually doing this. And it is fitting. My greatest fear was that I would learn everything about counseling and then actually hate it. But I don't. It just feels right. (Halellujah! I haven't been wasting years of my life!)

I have the normal anxiety that anyone would have their first few weeks doing something new, but I have in no way been overcome by my anxiety. When I enter that room with my clients, a peace comes over me. Time slows down. Not painfully, but just enough to be able to think and pray and listen all at the same time. And I am not a multi-tasker!

My prayer daily is that the Holy Spirit would be able to work through me. This is His work, and I have known that since day one. I need your continued prayers and support in the weeks and years ahead to stay focused on Him and continue to grow as a person and in my relationship with the Lord. This is just the beginning.

Boating Adventures

This whole past week the temps have been soaring into the high nineties. Since I had gotten 2 river tubes for my birthday and the spa was booked until July for us girls to get our discount massages, we decided Saturday was tubing day. I was so excited for the first chance of the year to "shoot the Hooch." But the weather did not look good and temps had dropped back into the low seventies. Also, they were releasing water from the dam, and the Chattahoochee was really high and moving fast. Really? Had to be this weekend, huh?

Determined to make the most of our day, we decided to brave Bob and Jamie's river raft "boat."
I told my friends that if I didn't have friends like them, I would never do this kind of stuff. :) I took the front seat in the splash zone (thanks, girls!) and squealed like a little girl every time the freezing cold water splashed up onto me. :) We had a great time, and finished the trip in less than an hour. The day before Bob and Stan had taken the same trip and it took an hour and a half. On a regular summer day it would take two and half hours in a tube. That is how fast the water was moving. We really did not paddle much.

Kelly left us before food, but we ended the trip with a stop at Mulberry St., where the pizza slices hang off both sides of the place. Yum!

Overdue birthday update

I know. I know. This post should have been weeks ago, but better late than never right?? I know I whined for an entire post about how my birthday was going to be lame and nothing fun was going to happen, but I have awesome friends and should have known better. The day before my birthday, I finally had some plans. Then I came home to a creepy note on my door (see picture) that said at 8:30 I would be woken up, fed breakfast, and kidnapped. Yikes! Sounds like fun to me...except maybe for the the 8:30 wake up call on my bday. :)

My sweet friends Andrea and Jamie came over, cooked me breakfast, and took me on a hike on a beautiful trail that Jamie had discovered. It amazes me that just outside of the heart of Atlanta lives miles and miles of gorgeous trails, the kind that make you feel as though you were in a different place entirely. I felt a bit like I was inside a book or a movie.

The afternoon was free for me to relax and spend some time reading and reflecting.

The evening of my birthday, I went to Moe's with my friend Laurel for a free birthday burrito. She bought some queso, and I stuffed my face. :) Don't judge me. It was my birthday. She got me 2 Jackie Chan movies, which made me very happy and gave us an excuse to have a movie night. Afterwards, we went to her church for a Good Friday service. By the time I was home, I was spent and went to bed.

I was not eating sweets on my birthday, but my mom had arranged for me to buy a dozen cupcakes from one of my favorite cupcake shops, Miss Mamie's on the square in Marietta, to have on Easter. My friends and I had gotten together for an Easter meal and time together, but we had to split the cupcake eating over the whole afternoon. It was a neat way to get to try all of the flavors, instead of just having a whole one or two. They were all so beautiful, but we were too distracted by their yumminess to remember to stop and take pictures of all of them. :) At least we got a few.

New Beginnings

Ok troops. My stats have been slowly dwindling to zero views a day. And my 3 followers, well, I don't think they are following me anymore. Tomorrow is it. The day I become a counselor. The day I see my first real client. Until now, I have just been a student.

And I need you. I need you supporting me and showing interest in what I am doing and who I am becoming. I need your prayers. This work is God's work. It is so much bigger than me. I am scared, but in my work, you can't show it. Because when I enter that room, it is not about me. No one wants to go to a counselor who wonders whether they will have what it takes to help them.

I bought a little ceramic owl on my birthday. On the box was an old nursery rhyme called the Wise Old Owl. It reads:

A wise old owl
lived in an oak.

The more he saw
the less he spoke.

The less he spoke
the more he heard.

Why can't we all
be like that wise
old bird?

What a great reminder to use our ears more than our mouths.