Saturday 1/8/11 changed Tucson forever, and I was studying for a test while it all happened. Amidst the chaos of events, that Saturday I passed the AEPA (Arizona Educator Proficiency Assessment) with flying colors. Is it some miracle that I have suddenly become a great standardized test taker? I think so. I still won't tell you what I got on my SAT's.
So, "Thank You GOD!"All praise goes to you sir.
However, this leads to another question - Will God use me in Arizona for another year?
Stick with us (Me and God) in the next couple of months as we unravel that answer through prayers and heartfelt reflection. Influences always welcomed.
All I know today, and I am certain you can tell by the number of times I texted you this weekend, is that I miss you all. Yes, I mean the 11 of you that read this!
Last week was filled with the welcoming of Ruby Sue, two Wedding save-the-dates, heartfelt e-mails and lots of GREAT phone/skype conversations with my beautiful friends and family. God used all of you.
I have high hopes for the ways God will work through and in my life this week.
Cheers from a rosy-cheeked and tired chica who feels abundantly blessed today and everyday. I'm heading home with the hopes of reading some realities about Jesus and snuggling until the alarm beeps tomorrow.
Arizona kisses and hugs (watch out they are PRICKLY!),
- - -
Lauren
What God Does.
God brings death and God brings life, brings down to the grave and raises up. God brings poverty and God brings wealth; he lowers, he also lifts up. He puts poor people on their feet again; he rekindles burned-out lives with fresh hope, Restoring dignity and respect to their lives— a place in the sun! For the very structures of earth are God's; he has laid out his operations on a firm foundation. He protectively cares for his faithful friends, step by step, but leaves the wicked to stumble in the dark. No one makes it in this life by sheer muscle! God's enemies will be blasted out of the sky, crashed in a heap and burned. God will set things right all over the earth, he'll give strength to his king, he'll set his anointed on top of the world!
SAMUEL 2:6
[Thank you for the reminder dear friend.]
I needed that.
I was reminded.
Battered and bruised, scared and lost, full or adventure but tired of not having direction - I remembered where home was. We were about as far back as we could be in Peppersauce Cave and I realized that all I had been doing for the past 20 minutes was praying.
Maybe it was the fact that I was crawling through spaces smaller then a pillow, or the awareness that there was currently thousands of tons of the earth pressing down on me from all sides. It could have been the low quality of oxygen or the bruised and battered knees and hands I felt under the inches of mud on my clothes.
Whatever it was, I needed that reminder.
"Home" is in my heart, that is where Jesus lives and He is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer.
"Jesus answered, 'I am the way, the truth, and the light.
No one comes to the Father except through me.'"
John 14:6
I miss home.
I think this is the first time I really say those words and that creeping choking feeling comes up in the back of my throat - but right now home is so many different things to me.
Home is Jesus.
Home is family.
Home is knowing I could be there in a heartbeat for my friends.
Home is Michigan.
Home is stability.
Home is comfort.
Instead, tonight I wrap up another week in the Starbucks parking lot, googling the MSU game while hitting "refresh" endlessly, and I head "home" to a place that currently holds new beginnings and uncertainty, a place that dares me to take risks and asks me hard questions.
I'll start with Peppersauce Cave this weekend - this seems like a good dare to take.
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