It's a pretty good day...

So today is my mom and dad's 39th wedding anniversary. Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad! I completlely forgot about it till yesterday, being the fabulous daughter that I am.
The best thing about today is not that it is their anniversary, but that my mom received a call from the cancer doctor saying the mri showed that the tumor on her sciatic nerve is gone. Hopefully, this means she is cancer free. She will have pet scan on Monday to determine if there is cancer anywhere else. Stay tuned for part 2.

Today is also Friday and the first Friday in a long time that I don't have school work. I'm so thankful for that. I have some plans with my small group girls and a little relaxing at my best friend's pool. Life is grand.

My r on my laptop is sticking! More later!

A recap

In the last few weeks, life has consumed my life. Here's some randoms:

• My mom started another round of scans yesterday. She will have an MRI, X-rays, and PETScan before the doctors give her some information. It makes me more nervous than aything having to wait, but I believe the prognosis should be good. Expect the best, right?
• I finished my Communicating Biblical Truth class. What an experience! I "preached" a sermon and I pray I never have to do that again. It was quite interesting and lot of work. I am thankful for the experience, but most thankful for Pastors who put in the time and effort every week.
• Today is Kimbo's birthday! I will blog about that later.
• I'm preparing for Missions Camp and a Mission Trip to Brazil in July. I'm guessing that it will be a busy month.
• My old roomie Teri came home from Mexico for about a month. I'm trying to spend as much time with her as possible. I'm so thankful that she is home. You can't help but have fun when she is around.

That's life for now! No complaints here! More later!

up to my eyeballs or something like that...

I like to run at warp speed... yep... definitely.

I have started typing this blog a good 5 or 6 times and always get distracted by something else. If I may, let me share a list of the something elses.

• Summer Class - Communicating Biblical Truth (essentially a preaching class) for 4 hours Tuesday and Thursday Evenings. 3 books to read on preaching, 2 papers to write, plus a complete sermon manuscript
• Bible Study with Kimbo. We just started new book on Servant Leadership. It's incredible, but I desire to give her more so she can learn and grow.
• VBS Lessons for Middle School Students - I'm teaching on my series in 1 John that I put together for my New Testament class. Obviously, I didn't put enough in it to make it "teachable," so I'm tweaking them. I'm learning a lot, but it is time consuming.

That's my list. It makes me tired just reading it! So many incredible opportunities and I wish that I had time to dive into each one and make it great!!! I'm giving my best effort though. This is only for a short time. Obviously, God has a lot to teach me, so I'm getting it shoveled in all at once!

That's my story for now... Peace out!

the benediction...

These words are the last "song" on Jimmy Needham's cd. I never get tired of hearing them, because they always make me think... tonight I cannot get them out of my head.

No one is good – there is not even one.
The front pages of papers of children raped by rapists, Iraqi torture chambers
And we the blamed claim we’re blameless.
WRONG. ALL.

And swelling up inside of us, there’s this pride in us, this arrogance.
And our only line of defense is the sense that I’m not half as bad as this friend of mine
So I must be fine. We mean well, don’t we?
Yet I’ve never seen good intentions set a man free from
HURT. ALL.

This poor unfortunate soul, filling a single void with toy after toy, girl after boy…
How boring! This wasn’t meant to be humanity’s life story,
Warring with God, saying, “What have YOU done for ME?”
BOUGHT. ALL.

Hanging out for six hours, marred beyond recognition
In complete submission to the Father’s will,
Still, a proclamation was made, louder than the loudest temptation
With more beauty than all His creation
More eternal than eternity
More angelic than the heavenlies:
“IT IS DONE.”

You are bought with blood.
Accept.
Rejoice.
For freedom has come.

giving

It absolutely blows my mind when I try to do something nice for someone and they end up "repaying" me far greater than I could ever expect or imagine. I don't do nice things to get something in return, sometimes it just happens. God has blessed my life with some special people. That's all I have to say...

Confessions of a campaholic

My name is Shawna and I'm a recovering campaholic. Actually, I survived camp. It was the most beautiful week on the beach in Panama City Beach, FL. I learned a few things about camp... the main one being: No matter how prepared you are for camp, you are still not prepared for camp. I feel like when we plan we try to cover all the bases and think of every last detail, sometimes ya just forget. I felt like I forgot a ton of things. I'm thankful for Wal-Mart.

The students were so much fun on this camp, every year the dynamics of the students are different. I would say that these seemed to be younger and little more immature than groups in the past, but they are middle school students and that's just how most of them are. Middle school students are always funny, so there was a lot of laughs. One thing I did appreciate was not a lot of drama... that seemed to be a first for camp in a long time.

The leaders and student leaders were incredible. God seemed to put a group of us together that bonded and enjoyed working together. I had a lot of laughs with them as well as being able to share burdens for specific students. My heart continues to go out to one particular girl. I pray God gives me more opportunities to show His love to her.

So many good stories about a great camp. A few students accepted Christ and others were challenged in their walk with Christ. Very exciting stuff! One thing camp always does for me is increases my burden for students. What an opportunity I have to show Jesus each and every week to these kids! It's a scary responsibility, but I'm ready for the challenge!

Oh and one more thing... this one guy from another church looked exactly like Brandon Heath.

That was way too funny! I should have taken a picture of him!