Roommate #1 Married

So, I have to backtrack a little. On October 13, 2007, April got married. It's quite the funny story about how April and David got together. He liked her long before she even knew that he liked her. The three of us were at our apartment one day and April said, "I think I might be ready to date someone." This made me laugh a little, cause I knew that David liked her and had tried to tell her this. About a week later, David asked her out. About a year and a half later, we celebrated their wedding. It was quite the experience and the wedding weekend was one of the most fun times in my life. All three of the roomies had been a bridesmaid in many weedings, but we had never been in a wedding together. It was so much fun! Teri got to be here for a few extra days and we had a blast together!!! So, a late congratulations goes out to April & David. Thanks for allowing me to be a part of your special day!

New Electronic Gizmo

My beloved digital camera has died. Of course, everyone knows that you cannot live without a camera. So, I bought a new one. The options are so much better than when I bought my first camera 3 or 4 years ago. Being the fashion-consciences girl that I am and realizing that every electronic that a girl owns is more like a fashion accessory, I bought this:

It is so beautiful I hate to put it in a case. It matches my pink cell phone and ipod. 'Cause it's really all about coordinating your accessories.

highlighter v. pen

For the past year and a half of my master's classes, I have used a highlighter when i read. My friends all use pens and just underline. I think I have given in to the peer pressure, although I must use a pen with colored ink (not black or blue) and only gel ink... kinda crazy. I think this combination offers the best possible emphasis for the text!

What about you? Do you use a highlighter or a pen?

Cheap Grace

I read this today. It's a quote from Bonhoeffer. I love his writings. He will be a person that I will want to chat with in Heaven.

"Cheap grace - people congratulate themselves that they are forgiven, without repenting; that God is on their side, without their following the way of God as revealed in Jesus; that they are Christians, without it making much difference in their way of life."

Does being a Christian make a difference in the way you live?

Thought-provoking class

I'm taking a Christian ethics class this semester and the topic of Racial Prejudice has come up many times, especially with related to the church. So, this got me thinking about my personal life and reminded me of my dear friend Danyel. I met her about 6 months after I moved to Memphis and her friendship has proved to be one of the highlights of my time here! We have sat through some really boring accounting classes together, ate lots of Red Robin burgers, enjoyed birthday lunches, some graduation parties, and a wedding! I have had the privilege of going to church with her and being a part of her family! And I have loved every minute of it! I'm so grateful for her friendship even though our skin is opposite in color.

So, anyway concerning prejudices in the church - it is definitely an issue in the Memphis area. How do we resolve this? I'm not sure... thoughts? comments? How should the church respond?

Busy all the time...

Last weekend, my older brother and his family of 5 moved to Memphis. Tomorrow, my little brother will be moving into my apartment. Yesterday, my roommate moved out. Tonight, my mentoree is spending the night with me. Too much busyness, not enough time to blog! Happy Friday! I love the weekend!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Today is my dad's birthday! He's 65! Yep, quite the old man. :) To me he's the best dad ever. I'm his only daughter so that makes the dad/daughter bond a little more special! My favorite thing about my dad is his love for my mom. Also, he is such a Godly man, the world needs more people like him!

Happy Birthday Dad! I wish you the best of days. You have been and always will be my hero!

A plethera of random

Bullet points are my favorite and most appropriate for now:

• My mom has finished her second chemo treatment. Chemo is awful and has the most horrible effects on your body. We rejoice in every good day. I read Nehemiah yesterday, he told the people to stop mourning because, "the joy of the Lord is their strength." That's a great promise when dealing with cancer of someone you love. I'm hanging on to that one.
• I've got a new group of girls for Sunday morning. Actually, they are an old group. I had them in 6th grade and now I have them in High School. I love them. We are bonding again. They seem a lot cooler than me though! :)
• My brothers are both moving to my town within the next 2 weeks. Scary. My little bro is coming to live with me. He's a cool kid. I'm glad that he is going to be around.
• I saw the Bourne Ultimatum this weekend. I'm a cheapskate and never go to movies because they are so expensive. This was worth my money. I would see it again.
• I'm working on a new Bible study group and Girls' Retreat for the fall. Crazy, yep! I love my job and the opportunities I have been given.

That's it for tonight. I have a birthday sometime this week! Maybe a post about that later! :) Peace out!

Free Stuff

Today was the most incredible Thursday. Well, not exactly, but I did get some free stuff.

First of all, Chick-fil-a (the greatest fast food restaurant ever) gave out free Chicken Biscuits!

I love chicken biscuits anyway, but free one's just taste better.

This afternoon, as I was sitting at my most favorite place, Starbucks, the manager came up to me and some Bible study girls and asked if we would like to try the new Blueberry Frappuccino.

A tall Frappuccino, of course!! Blueberry is not my favorite drink from Starbucks, but pretty good! :) Then, she proceeded to give us gift bags with cool Starbucks stuff!

What more could a girl ask for in one day... I love free Thursday!

Where have I been?

In the past couple of weeks, I have been to Missions Camp and a Mission Trip to Brazil. I've celebrated people's birthdays, experienced airport delays, and much more. Information on all of this is coming soon. The most exciting news... I have a new nephew, he was born last week. His name is Jack Ryan. I'm so excited about this sweet baby boy. I cannot wait to meet him.
Pictures from the past couple of weeks will follow in the coming days.

For now... I'm so happy to be home.

Saying what I've been thinking for a long time...

Sometimes, I read things and I think, "Wow, I've been thinking the exact same thing." Check this out.

Normal Things

I'm working on writing my book, "Life Doesn't Always Turn Out the Way You Plan!" Just kidding, although sometimes I feel like I probably could. Anyway, my dad believes that during this time with my mom we should live life as normal as possible. I agree wholeheartedly. These are some normal things that have happened lately:

• My friend/co-worker, Andy, has a blog. I'm so excited about this for a number of reasons. I promised him a long time ago that I would read his blog if he ever decided to blog. And he is a deep thinker. His words are challenging. Check it out, I promise you will not be disappointed. He is the work theologian. I give it a good stuff guarantee.
• No relation to the above, I am terrified of toads. I had a tramatic experience last week and I'm still working on the recovery.
• Way of the Master Radio may be my new favorite thing. I cannot get enough of it. Thankfully for me, there is 2 hours a day of it!
• Next week is Missions Camp in Lousiana. I'm excited about teaching my family group. The theme is "Here and Now." The lessons are though-provoking. I'm learning a lot as I study, I hope this carries over in me being able to share with my girls!

My mom has 1 more test tomorrow. We are praying for great things!! God is bigger than cancer. More info as it becomes available.

delay

I've been putting off blogging because of some not so great news. I could just start talking about something else and pretend like it's no big deal, but it is a big deal. My mom has more cancer, maybe in her colon and some on her pelvis. More scans and tests will be run to see the extent and course of action to be taken. It's been a tough couple of days. I will definitely share more later. Looking back, I believe God was preparing me and my family for this. If ya get a chance, pray for her. Prayer provides the greatest hope...
Believing in miracles,
Shawna

They didn't know...

On Sunday Mornings, the 7th grade girls are going through characters of the Old Testament. This morning, I taught on Esther and that famous line, "Yet who knows where you have come into the kingdom for such a time as this?" I shared the background of the story and the girls had no clue about any details in the story. I'm not sure if they had even heard the story before. I think I ended up teaching in shock. How can you be a girl and not know about 1 of the only 2 women in the Bible who have a book named and written all about them? I absolutely love everything about Esther's story and these girls were clueless. I believe I need to do a better job communicating with them. The Old Testament has some fascinating stories and real life application for now.
Wow... my burden as a teacher has increased!

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!