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!

Camp

I'm getting excited about camp! Only 1 more week of planning. I absolutely love my job and getting to put things together for trips and camps, but nothing is as much fun as actually participating in something that you have spent months preparing. I haven't done all of the work, not even close, but I love it when the event actually happens. I was thinking today that I'm ready for some change as well. Life has been quite the "normal" routine lately and I'm excited that camp is coming to mix things up a little bit.

I've been working on stuff for my small group. The Bible studies are on Joshua. It's gonna be great. I love learning and teaching about incredible characters in God's Word.

My new phone...

Thursday night, I got this phone, a Samsung Blackjack. It has got to be the coolest phone I have ever had, cause of all the really cool stuff that it can do. The problem is that my phone is cooler than me. Or at least it is smarter than me. I have done multiple things to mess it up and I'm still not really sure about all the features, but I'm trying to learn. I know one day I will be a pro with my phone, but until then I'm somewhat of a Blackjack Idiot. I'm also going to get some kind of cover for it, for the following reasons: 1. I have a tendency to drop my phone (a lot). 2. According to some of the students, PDA phones are manly. Because of these reasons, I'm going to make my phone a little girly. I'm somewhat excited about this!

Ok, so other things this week. I finished my current class New Testament 2. I have about 2 weeks off before my next class, Communicating Biblical Truth, begins. I'm excited and nervous about this class. More on that later.

Some of my extended family is coming next weekend for my cousin's High School Graduation. I'm excited about that, cause I have the greatest extended family ever. Pictures and information will follow sometime after next weekend! Also, we are getting ready for camp. I cannot believe that it has come so soon!! I'm excited about what God is going to do!!!

I'm starting to fall asleep. Until next time!

An ode to my cell phone

Dear Sweet Cell Phone,

Today, you let me down. We have been through so much together and last week, you experienced the horrible incident of being dropped and a little broken. Still, I continued to use you as I am addicted to you. Well, it's not really you, but the people you connect me with. Unfortunately, I dropped you in cup of water today and you no longer function. What will I do without you? Because of your untimely death, I will be forced to pay large amounts of money to replace you. And because I cannot live without you, I will pay.
I hope that you have enjoyed our time together. I certainly have. You will be missed, but will probably be soon forgotten as I plan to replace you with a newer model. Thank you for your service.

With love,
Shawna

No focus

As I type this, I'm aggrevated with myself. I have a set of lessons due tomorrow for my class and for the most part they are done, but I think they stink. I am so easily distracted and drawn away into other things, that I'm pretty much not able to give 100% focus to the things that need my complete and total attention. I hate it. It's like having ADD as a 25 year old... I'm off to go study for my exam.

My oldest friend...

I've been thinking a lot about people lately. I happen to have quite a few people in my life who make life a little sweeter, so I've decided to blog about them. Above is my dear friend, Misty. I have been friends with her longer than I can really remember. We met when I was in 2nd grade, she was in 1st (although she is only 3 months younger than me.) If you do all of the calculations, our friendship has perservered through almost 19 years. It absolutely blows my mind. There are a few times in our friendship that I'm not so proud of, but the great memories far outweigh anything bad. We have gotten into more trouble than any 2 people should be allowed. We have pulled numerous pranks and she is the person who always makes me laugh. In high school, we had about 1,000 inside jokes and enough nicknames to call each other something different every time we saw each other. Misty was famous for writing me poems, but not like a really nice poem... her poems always rhymed perfectly and made sure to let me know that she was the queen of poetry while at the same time cutting me down. They were so cheesy, and still make me laugh to this day. She will always be the one to understand that to have a good party, ya gotta have cheese dip! :)

Misty graduated from college on Saturday! I'm so proud of her. No, she hasn't been there forever, she worked for awhile before starting. Our lives are completely different. She is married with a fun 2 year-old boy and well, I finished college 3 years ago and haven't really gotten married yet. I'm so grateful for her friendship. It has been tried and tested in so many ways and I'm thankful that after all these years I can still call her a friend. Normally, I embrace change, but I'm glad that a few things have remained the same.

Mom & Me

On Friday, May 4 my mom finished her cancer radiation treatments! That evening, we went to a Mother/Daughter Banquet together at my parents' church in Jonesboro. This is just a snapshot of us before the banquet. I think my mom looks absolutely beautiful! God has been so good to me and my family. I had some great laughs with my mom, but my favorite part of the evening came at the very end. The lady in charge of the banquet asked Mom to pray. I have never heard a more beautiful prayer. Mom's prayer came out of the overflow of her thankful heart. I will never forget it as long as I live. I'm so thankful that blessings abound and grace has been sufficient to meet our needs! How amazing it is to serve a God who cares! He has proved Himself so faithful!

hmm...

So this week has been emotional... I think that I am the most emotional person I know. Pretty much everything makes me cry, whether good or bad. It has come to be a joke with my roommate and after saying anything she will respond with, "Does it make you want to cry?" My mom gave my family a pretty good scare on Thursday when Drs. ordered a cat scan on her head to see if she had a tumor there. After receiving a cancer diagnosis, it is scary to think of what could be next. Thankfully, she is ok and only has one more week of radiation.

This week I have had breakfast, lunch, or dinner with the following people: Amanda, Eric, Jessica, Nathan, David, Andy, Jessica (again), April, and Bettie. I enjoyed the company of all these different people almost every day this week. It was fabulous. I happen to enjoy my friends very much. I'm so thankful for each of them. If you were one of the people who happened to pay for my meal, my stomach and I thank you! I'm excited to see who I get to enjoy a meal with next week: plans so far, lunch with my prayer partner on Thursday, a mother/daughter banquet with my mom on Friday night and a breakfast date with my dad next Saturday, Graduation lunch with my best friend from high school on Saturday! Good times! I'm already excited!

Just another manic monday... not quite!

Time is not my friend, I have decided! There's just not enough to do all the things I want to do and the things that I get to do end up taking longer than I had originally planned. I'm like a time nazi, so this is not good for me. So, bullet points for today! I think I do everything in bullet points!

• I spent the weekend in Jonesboro with my mom and dad. They were pretty much the people that I saw all weekend, except for the people at Wal-Mart. In Arkansas, you can never miss the people at Wal-Mart. I have about a bazillion Wal-Mart stories... I should share sometime. My favorite part of the weekend: getting up early on Saturday morning and talking with my dad! And I did all of this without coffee (small miracle). It was great, he's one of my favorite people to have a conversation with and he always listens, even though we disagree on some stuff!!!
• My little brother is probably moving to Memphis to be my new roomie when my old roomie moves out to get married! Kinda crazy, yes. I'm excited for like 2 reasons: first of all, Jimbo cannot live without dvr (I want dvr, but I refuse to pay for it) and second... he's a cool kid, so I know it will be fun!
• My mom is doing good with her radiation treatments. A lot of fatigue and lack of appetite. She should be done by the weekend before Mother's Day! Yeah! Thing that I have learned from cancer lately: Nothing comes as a surprise to God! That's pretty comforting for me.
• And lastly, the lesson for my girls this week was on Isaiah 6:1-8. I got a whole new perspective on Isaiah's call to the ministry. It was so exciting! Sometimes, I wish the students were as excited about learning as I am about teaching!!! I absolutely love the opportunities I have to serve.

I had a lot of fun this past week and weekend with a bunch of random people and met some fun new ones as well. Life is dandy...

Highlights of my week and weekend!

Not a whole lot of time for blogging lately and some things I just didn't want to write for the whole world to read. Here goes:

• My sweet little "mentoree," Kimberly found out that her daddy has cancer in his colon. Surgery and chemo will probably be used to treat this. Life is forever changed for her and her family. Unfortunately, I know what they are going through. We've cried a lot, laughed some, and held on to promises from God's word. Some bad days are ahead, but I believe that God can use cancer for His glory.
• I had the opporunity to minister to a girl whose problems are bigger than any adult should have to handle, and she's not adult. Lesson learned: dependence on God for words to speak.
• I attended a Youth Specialties "CORE" seminar of handling hurting kids. I was already excited about what I would learn and am even more thankful for the opportunity to gain some extra knowledge in light of recent events.
• I had some of the most interesting conversations with some co-workers, friends, and students within the ministry here at my church. Sometimes the students say the most interesting things and I wonder why do they need leaders, they know more the me.
• My Small Group Lesson was on Hosea this week, my favorite though from the whole book of Hosea: Hosea 14:3, "...in you the fatherless find mercy." What an incredible promise! God has blown my mind as I thought about that the last few days. We can say that about no one else, except for the loving Heavenly Father we serve!!!

That's me for now... one small note, I ate lasagna off of a styrofoam plate for lunch. I think I also consumed some styrofoam that stuck to the food, I hope styrofoam is ok for your body... scary.

The best enchiladas...

My all-time favorite place to eat growing up was this Mexican restaurant in Jonesboro. I still think that they have better Mexican food than any Mexican restaurant in Memphis. They also have my favorite, Enchiladas Supremas, plus some wonderful cheese dip (what you really need to have a good time). So, any opportunity to eat there is good for me. On Friday, I had lunch with my best friend from high school, Misty. We had the best time. I know that the waiters thought we were crazy, because we laughed so hard. It was like being back in high school and everything was hilarious, especially when we talked about some of the crazy things we got into back in the day. I hope Misty and I always remain friends... we had a time where our worlds kinda grew apart, but over the past couple of months we have grown closer to each other. Thanks for the time Misty, it was fabulous... thanks to you, El Acapulco... you still make the best enchiladas.

Short and sweet

I'm back in my hometown for a few days to visit my family and get some rest. One of the few things that I like about this place, it is always quiet. That's good for me for a few minutes. I have more time to do things I enjoy like read! I'm having lunch today with my best friend from high school. More on that next time!

The real reason for this post. My friend/co-worker, Adam now has a blog. This guy leads worship for our youth ministry and always has some really great stuff to say... I'm sure he will have some great things posted. He is so passionate about worship and God just has a way of speaking through him!

Today is already a busy day! More from me later!

Mind blowing...

Sometimes God puts people in my life and I'm not really sure why. Normally, if the person is difficult to deal with, I have a one-sided conversation with God about how I feel about the situation... In my life, God has always won and I'm put in a somewhat interesting situation with no clue what I am supposed to do. This has been my life for the past 2 weeks.

God put this student in my life. I'm not sure why or what brought this about, she chose to share her life and stories with me. Often, I would listen and wonder why is she telling me this. Her story was not the norm, but what blew my mind the most was her lack of belief in God. How can you not believe in God?? I have never had to argue that God exists to a student before, but I believe so I presented my case. She listened, over and over again. It was like talking to brick wall. How delightful for me.

I offered Jesus as the solution, the answer to our problems. He's the only answer I have, cause I'm not a psychologist or phychiatrist. I don't understand how the mind works or the best medicines, so Jesus is what I have to offer people.

Imagine my surprise on Monday afternoon when she came into my office and wanted to talk about Jesus. I thought she was lying. I shared the Gospel from beginning to end at least 3 times. How can you hear this and not believe and not accept Jesus? That afternoon, she said something about more time. I tried and failed. Good thing for me, God uses the Holy Spirit and not me to convict of sin. I would give up too easily.

On Tuesday evening, I shot down every excuse she could throw at me for not becoming a Christian. "I'm not good enough, I have things in my past, I don't understand everything, What if I don't feel like a Christian?" She drained me of everything I knew to say and all I could do was offer her Jesus. She chose Jesus!!! 2 weeks of craziness could not compare to the pure joy that came from that moment and has continued since then.

God used me. Why? To share Jesus... it blows my mind.

Happy April!!!

I love the month of April. It is Spring and my allergies are screwed up, but they seem to always get a little better in April. Time will tell. Ok, so many stories!

My roommate, April, got engaged. Yep, we were planning this really cool surprise birthday party on Friday night where she was somewhere and we showed up with the decorations and stuff and yelled "SURPRISE!" Imagine my surprise when we walked in the door and she is wearing this t-shirt that says, "I said YES!" Kinda crazy, huh??? A few people knew, but since I'm incapable of keeping a secret, they didn't tell me. A decision those people will regret later as I plan on giving them a hard time for a long time. I think I had this feeling of shock for a few moments and then did a sweet recovery and congratulated the happy couple, as it should be! :) It turned into an engagement/birthday party, pretty much fun. We were way tired!!!!!!!!!!!

On April's actual birthday (the next day) we got to spend some time together at one of our favorite places in Memphis, Shelby Farms. It is this wonderful place in the middle of the city that has hiking, bike trails, lakes, bison, kite flying, and so much more. It is absolutely beautiful, you feel like you are in the middle of nowhere just enjoying the outside! We had a great time just hanging out! I think it might be a sign that we are getting old!

Ok, gotta run for now! More soon!

Best day ever...

Today was quite possible one of the best days I have had in a long time. Could it have been because I had a wonderful free lunch??? Maybe. I realized today (not for the first time) how much I absolutely love my job. It gives so much freedom to be creative, think, minister to people, accomplish something with an actual purpose, watch students grow, and the list could go on.................................. I know that I could do better and I'm definitely not perfect, but each and every day I get to go to work and do things that I enjoy. How sweet is that??? This morning I could not wait to get to work, cause I had a brilliant idea to share. My job beats the socks off an accounting job any day.

Rejoice! --Shawna