Designing Life

"No crying in soccer part two"

2008-09-30T20:02:00.001-07:00

Kierstyn in the sidelines at the Cherry Bombs game.

"No crying in soccer"

2008-09-30T19:56:00.001-07:00

Ok so at least I didn't pretend that I was going to be a good blogger....right? I have this blogging app on my iPhone now, so maybe I will actually write a little more often. Tonight was Kierstyn's second soccer game since playing for the Cherry Bombs. It's really funny to watch her. She is so much smaller than the other girls her age....Reminds me so much of myself at her age. In the first few practices an the first game, we had some trouble with her crying a lot, not understanding the game, feeling like she wasn't getting a turn to score because the other girls are faster. Rodney and I have since talked to her a lot at home about playing your hardest, playing as a team, an doing your best. It's been great to see her attitude change since. It came full circle when she sat next to one of the biggest girls on the team who was crying and whining and she put he hand on the girl and said- um, hey, there's no crying in soccer. It was a proud moment for a mom.

Wow, I told you that I'm bad at blogging....

2008-07-13T21:13:00.000-07:00

Well, I made the effort at least right?....AND I warned you. I warned you from the beginning that I'm not a very disciplined blogger....but I'm going to keep trying! I won't give up! I was inspired by something the other day....So I'm going to blog about that....Peanut Butter and Fluff - ok if it's just me and I've been living in a cardboard box and everybody knew about this except for me just go ahead and say it...but this is all new to me. Did you know that simply by removing the jelly from a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich and by replacing it with "fluff" which is marshmallow cream as I understand it, you can create Heaven? Did you know this? Well I just found out......but let me warn you - it will make you fat.....have one - just one - and never eat it again..... I had two - but that's it - I'm never doing that again!

Homeless

2008-06-10T08:20:00.000-07:00

Well, there's definately not a picture for this one. If you're wondering if I dropped off the face of the planet - I did - I went to youth camp. I'm totally just kidding because I LOVE camp! It was so much fun - we all had a great time bonding with each other and with God and letting Him do amazing things in our lives. This is probably the reason I came back home to the reason for my title. You see, if you haven't been keeping close tabs on our current situation, my family and I moved from Marion, Indiana, to Enid, Oklahoma about 14 months ago. We felt very compelled that it was the call of God for us to leave where we were at, as well as the home we owned to come here. We believe also, still, with all our hearts that God will take care of us. So, while we have (patiently yet impatiently) waited for the sale of our house, we have been living in a tiny little apartment with our daughter and our dog, while all of our stuff resides in a storage unit. Well, about two weeks before camp, we came home to a notice that said we would not have our lease renewed after July 1st. So, this was a huge shock. We have never done anything to provoke this.....we've always paid our rent - no wild parties... Anyway, Rodney went down and spoke with her and found that they just didn't want to have our dog here anymore...he hadn't done anything wrong, but he was way bigger than the allowed amount and they decided even though they had approved him to live here, they were going back on their word. Now, we didn't like this, but we decided to submit. The landlord said if we could find another place for our dog to stay, our family could continue to live here. So, we went about finding a place for our dog to live.

When we returned from camp, however, we had another notice stating we needed to vacate the apartment June 30th. So we called down to the office just to reiterate that we had found a place for the dog and our landlord basically said that it didn't matter, we ALL needed to leave.

I know what you are thinking: "This is crazy!" I know...it is. So, after a lot of investigating, we found that the landlord had fabricated stories about our neighbors complaining and had allowed their dog to run free (totally against the rules). So, we decided their was no fighting it. Here we were, one hour home from camp, and searching for a new home. So, it's four days later and our plans are not secure as of yet, but it is the same plan as it has been all along: He holds our world in His hands. We'll keep you updated.

Getting Away

2008-05-31T19:13:00.000-07:00

Lately the best metaphor I can seem to come up with for the state of my life is...."a blender". I feel like there are so many things just all thrown in and spinning around and I'm just running back and forth trying to catch up with them all. By my own nature, this time in my life is not when I would choose to take a break. I tend to internalize, to have a need to have things under control, basically, to hyperventilate. So, when Rodney told me that he and Pastor Kevin were going to ride in this 100k bike deal called Tulsa Tough and that the two of our families were going to make a weekend of it, I kind of thought the timing was a bit strange. Here we are getting ready to leave for a week of youth camp on Monday morning and we have our True Love Waits service tomorrow night among other things such as my work and just regular life stuff. However, I just threw caution to the wind and went along with the crowd this time. I have to say that although we do have a lot to do before Monday morning...it was totally worth it. It was great to spend quality time with Kierstyn since we will be away from her all week. It was great to get away from all the chaos of life and work, it was just good to get away. The picture I posted here with this blog is of Pastor Kevin. We were at Academy, a sporting goods store, when he apparently found this punctured hairy ball deal and decided to wear it as a hat. He looked so good in it the store donated it to cover his "lack of hair". Needless to say it represented the theme of our short weekend away well. The moral of the story: Life never stops. It never will. So, sometimes you just have to stick your foot out and stop it yourself and get away.

Three Minutes....

2008-05-27T19:02:00.000-07:00

I just came home from a two hour drama practice with our student drama team. We are learning a human video for our service tomorrow night to the song "One More Day" by Jackson Waters, which happens to be one of my favorite bands. Anyway, we've been doing this series called "Epic" for the past three weeks, tomorrow night will wrap it up. Last week, if you've been reading, you'll remember we went to see "Prince Caspian" as it went right with our theme that we are all part of a larger picture, a story that started long before we were ever though of, and will come to and end very soon. Tomorrow night we will wrap up the series with a message called "The Kingdom Restored"; a message about Heaven. Our human video should work nicely with it. I couldn't help but think as this group of students worked so hard and spent hours to learn this human video that will last all of three minutes, if it was truly worth it. I hate to admit it, but in my line of work, that thought crosses my mind a lot, especially in video production. Mostly because making videos is laborious for me, it's not my favorite thing to do, and it takes forever. I remember one time I spend 16 hours on a video that lasted 45 seconds....not sure if that one was worth it. However, the truth is that the time we spend on something like this, if it is to further the Kingdom; to touch a life, it's so worth it. The truth is that hours on our part, to give three minutes to others can change their life forever. And if tomorrow night it changes just one life, it will be so worth it.

We Are Not Alone

2008-05-26T18:09:00.000-07:00

I thought I might take a minute to catch you up on the week I've had since my last post. I found it kind of ironic that the subject matter of my last entry was about the fun day I had hanging out with students and interns - kicking off a great summer. The reason for that is that the following morning something horrible and wonderful happened. Both of our college "interns" and two of our high school seniors were on a trip to visit Central Bible College when they were involved in a terrible accident. In order to avoid crashing into other vehicles on the highway, Matt was forced to steer away suddenly throwing the vehicle into a full on roll. The car rolled four times across a four lane highway - missing all vehicles that were oncoming. To make a long story short, they are all ok. Two of the girls came away with just cuts and bruises and some sore muscles, one girl had a sprained ankle, and Matthew, the driver had a pretty serious head injury. Matt had to stay in the hospital one night to surgically repair the wound to his head and was allowed to go home the next morning. He has a long road of recovery and more surgeries to get his wounds healed properly, but no words can describe how very thankful I am that they are all alive and with us. The truth is that if Matthew had not had the quick thinking and reaction that he did, I believe we would have lost some of them that day.

I found it also ironic that just a few days prior my good friend Cheryl called to tell me that her husband, also a very close friend of our family, had been involved in a serious motorcycle accident. You'd have to know Jerry to know that he would be fine to ride his Harley down the highway at night with no helmet. Cheryl knows this too, but that night she felt an urgency to have him promise to wear his helmet and he agreed. Thankfully he did, because that night on his way from Colby to Pratt, KS, he swerved to hit one deer, missed it, and "t-boned" the next. Jerry says his bike laid down on the highway and proceeded to slide 250 feet. He said he let go about half way, slamming his head into a metal pole that pierced his helmet, barley cutting his head. He came out with a good amount of road rash on his arm and a broken finger, walking away from an accident that should have cost him his life, and normally would have had Cheryl not listened to the gentle urging of the Holy Spirit.

The truth is that there are many stories like this in my life, and maybe one day I'll come to tell them all. I find it hard to understand the people who do not believe that our every step is ordered by God. I am so thankful for His protection on these dear friends of mine. I thank Him every morning that I did not have to suffer their loss.

If you know us well, you know that we are going through a trying time in our lives right now. It kind of has the same irony as the wreck of our students: horrible and wonderful. Over a year ago, God led us to this amazing city to serve in, and there is no place in the world I'd rather be. I am so thankful that we are here, yet at the same time, we still struggle hard as our home in Indiana still remains on the market, unsold. It is hard for our family, emotional, mentally, financially, etc. However, it is stories like these that I've just told that put my heart at ease about this situation with our house, because it's at these times I'm reminded that we are not alone.

School's Out For Summer!

2008-05-21T20:44:00.000-07:00

Well, I have to say that today was the first day of summer vacation for me. Kierstyn's last day of "preschool" was yesterday and most of our students are getting out this week as well. So, today I realized what I really miss about summer. I went to the church first thing this morning to get some of the church websites going and ended up spending the entire day. It was actually a really fun time. A couple of the students and some of our college kids that are now home decided to spend their day at church as well. It was like a family reunion, a homecoming if you will. Everyone was crammed into Rodney's office with laptops strewn about. We were sharing each other's favorite music and stocking up our iTunes. We were building websites, eating snow cones.....just about anything you could think of. It made me thankful that sometimes life slows down for just a minute. Thankful that school stops and gives us a moment to enjoy one another's company. Not to mention that today is Wednesday and we are normally scurrying about trying to pull things together for an amazing service, but today was different. We had been doing a series called "Epic" to build up to the new movie, "Prince Caspian" which we all went to see as a family tonight. And when I say family, I mean about 50 of our students who packed the house at the local theatre. It was a really great time....a good day to kick off a great summer.

S'mores...a whole...notha...level

2008-05-17T20:52:00.001-07:00

Tonight I went to an "end of the school year" party at one of our student's houses. It's a yearly tradition as I understand. In fact, I think maybe a week after I moved here last year, we were invited to the first one. It was really neat to sit and talk with all the kids tonight about how we barely new each other a year ago and how superficial everything was. We were making small talk: "You have such a nice house!" "Oh thank you! How was your move down here?" .....all that kind of junk. Tonight, we hung out in the back yard, maybe 20-25 of us. We made a huge bonfire as is the custom, roasted some wieners, climbed trees, played catch...made elementary jokes about "roasting wieners". We were all family out there tonight....and I was thankful for how far God has brought us this year. I have to say my inspiration for this entry really came from the s'more I ate. I even took a picture of it - that's how impressive it was. See, I come from the old school: graham cracker, marshmallow, Hershey bar. However, tonight we took it to a "whole notha level", as Pastor Kevin would say. Ms. Susan, the woman of the house, made a genious move and skipped the Hershey bars and just bought chocolate covered grahams. My first reaction was....hmmmm.......my second reaction....after the first bite was....ohhhhhh yeahhhhh. And so in closing, I would like to encourage all of you, on your next bonfire experience, to leave out the Hershey's and go for the chocolate covered grahams.........peace.

Designing Life continued...

2008-05-15T11:14:00.000-07:00

Today I spent nearly the entire day designing business cards, greeting cards, invite cards, postcards...(you think I'm exaggerating for emphasis, but I'm so not) - for my home church. It was something I've needed to do for a long time for sure. In fact, this weekend I think I'll spend a lot of time with our Pastor's oldest son, redesigning our web presence, which is in need of a LOT of help.

As I began to trudge through all these different "cards" that I needed to punch out today, I felt myself dragging, being uninspired. However, all it takes is that one minute, that one image that gives you inspiration and you're on the go. I found myself clicking faster as thoughts raced through my head of how many times I was at the grocery store and ran into someone that I'd love to invite to our church. Don't misunderstand me, I still do invite them to our church, but these days, you've got to have something to put in their hands. As I finished up the invite card that we'll be using...just a business card size, very handy, I felt myself getting excited that I could pull that out of my purse and hand it to someone who, hopefully would be drawn to it and to our church, because of the time I put into it.

That is why I decided to title this entry as I did, because it hit me once again that what I do is not just art...it's lives.

Starting somewhere...

2008-05-14T10:26:00.000-07:00

I've never been a writer, or a reader for that matter, but somehow I married one. My husband, Rodney is a book-a-holic, and a blog-a-holic, as of late. The thing is that he is good at it. He can communicate with the written word in a way that I never realized until he starting writing in the last couple of years. So, with that said, I have to preface this blog by saying I won't be writing as often or as skilled as he does.

So, in thinking about starting a blog, you have to give it a name, and in keeping with my thoughts about the differences between my handsome husband and I, I have chosen "Designing Life", as you have already seen.

For those of you who don't know me as well as the others, I've always been a bit of a "creative" as they call us these days. However, my love for teenagers and the opportunity to impact them overtook my love for art and I ending up very willingly giving my life to them instead. However, as God has a way of doing, He gave an opportunity for my giftings and my passions to come together.

About three years ago, though a series of events. I began to dabble in graphic design. This began a downhill slide to what would ultimately be God's plan for my life.

I spend every waking hour either working on our student ministry here in Enid, Oklahoma, or on my Mac, designing for other student ministries, all over the country. It's a beautiful marriage, these two parts of my life. The way I see it is, no matter what I'm doing, I'm not just drawing lines, putting together brochures, building websites, or constructing a logo. No, its more than that. It pushes air into my lungs to know the reason I click the mouse all day long is to help our students and other student ministries all over to take pride in their youth group; to help them make it worthy of inviting their friends. Ultimately to have a very small part in growing the kingdom of God with teens. Since God has allowed me to do this for student ministries, to partner with them from every corner of the country, I am able to do more than the average designer. I get to design life.