JULY 2022!

 QUOTE OF THE MONTH:

"If I win, I win.
If I lose, I win.
My responsibility is to obey God
and then trust Him with the outcome!!"

~Charles Stanley

JULY MEMORABLE MOMENTS

• Katherine Claire's "Berry 1st Birthday" party!
• Taking Triston for his first neighborhood drive!
• Having family and friends sign my future house frame (now fully insulated - moving right along)!
• Writing 52 verses on the framing and foundation!
• Celebrating Kristin's birthday with Cheesecake Factory brunch!
• Celebrating the 4th with a fun family get-together! (Dinner + fireworks + hanging out with Amelia Bell)
• Covid quarantine rest days when me, Mom, and Dad all had it at the same time!
• Facetime calls with the niece and nephews as they were in South Carolina!
• Looking through Mom and Dad's wedding album with Mom (after reconnecting with Michelle on the CCU discussion board)!
• Life.Church At the Movies CODA sermon - really good!
• Staying inside bc of Covid for most of Diesel's birthday swim party!
• Kristin's wonderful card and gift supporting/celebrating my grad school decision!
• Trying Baked Bear ice cream for the first time with Triston!
• Deciding to go all in and be FB public with the grad school decision!
• Making the trip to Colorado and navigating the car rental, hotel stay, and trip schedule on my own for the first time!
• Curling my own hair two days in a row! lol
• Role-playing with Uduak (a Nigerian woman living in Texas) and getting to know more of each other's stories as we worked on our counseling skills!
• Being crazy impressed with the character and integrity of the professors and the atmosphere of the CCU campus!
• Attending the Mini Miss K's last summer volleyball game with this team!
• FINALLY (after multiple reschedules) getting my hair done with Janelle for the first time since I moved!  Love that she's started her own salon - super nice!
• Finally getting to meet Jon and Kristin's children over a fun lunch together!!
• Charleston’s dinner and a great catch-up time with Tiffany and Sarah Elizabeth!
• LIFE-GIVING:  Time hanging out with Kristin W. - always a favorite!  Times I honored my conscience. Getting extra rest and time with Mom and Dad when we all had Covid.  Listening to Little Women and crying over some of it while driving. lol So good!  Starting a daily text thread with Sarah.  Being surrounded by likeminded Christian "counselors in training" and feeling a sense of belonging/community at CCU.  Making bold choices toward a more meaningful life! ❤
• LIFE-DRAINING:  Actual Covid symptoms.  The stressful drive to and from the Denver airport.  Terrible headache on day one of Residency.  Two major bruises on my arm after 3 nurses tried 6 times before getting a good vein and enough blood for lab work.  Having two more buyers back out of signed contracts on 522... praying for lucky #7 to be the one!

HAPPY LISTS

I Listened To:

• The Gospels -- Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John =)
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott -- an all-time favorite for me!!
• The Rabbit Listened (a brilliant children's storybook we listened to during Residency) ❤
• I so hate to start a book and not finish it, but sometimes it's best to let it go - I started Crazy Rich Asians this month, having really enjoyed the movie, but the book is far more crass... and when I got to a chapter where the author describes a dog fight event in detail, I was super irritated and chose not to finish it.  Kudos to the movie director for taking it in a much different/lighter direction!
• The usual favorite podcasts + Power Thoughts + morning worship music - I want more of those lyrics running in the background in my spirit! ❤

I Watched:  

• Thor: Love and Thunder at MWC Warren Theater with Tman -- I'm  genuinely annoyed by the darker turn Marvel is taking lately - blarg.  It's significant and notable to long-time fans.  We like your movies because they're lighter and more endearing/relationally-minded than the DC Comics -- please don't emulate your competition when you're already far more successful!
• The first couple episodes of The Terminal List on Amazon Prime.  We all know I adore Tim Riggins (aka Taylor Kitsch) and Chris Pratt!  I watch a lot of action movies that include an ignorant amount of violence, but when it crosses the torture line, I have to hop off the train.  This show is about a Navy Seal taking revenge on the men who tried to discredit and frame him and murdered his Seal team, wife, and daughter... so as you might expect, it got cuh-razy violent pretty fast.  So although I wholeheartedly applaud whoever chose to cast Chris and Taylor together, I decided to listen to my conscience and not push through this one.

I'm Celebrating:  

• Finishing my first master's degree class!
• Making some new friends at CCU!
• Feeling closer to God + family + old friends in this season!

Needless to say, it has been an eventful and transformative July 2022.  I hope you're having a splendid weekend, friends and fam!! ❤

May you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is!

(Ephesians 3:18)

HHBD

 Happy Heavenly Birthday to Grandad today!! ❤

"He wasn't rich and he didn't have a costume, but he was his own kind of superhero... and I miss him!  I didn't expect this to happen, but it's been kind of cool thinking about him as an entire body of work instead of thinking about him as the person that he was over the last several years, which is tough to think about.  I knew that he was probably sad in a lot of ways... He probably lived past when he considered a fruitful life to be, and that can be really sad for him.  It can also be really sad for his loved ones who love him and want him to be happy.  

But when he passes, you miss him so much more because all of that just goes away, and you remember the entire person that he was.  It happens in an instant, and it's overwhelming!  It's made me smile and laugh and cry all together.  I think I can simultaneously be relieved that he's not suffering anymore, and just incredibly sad that I don't have him in my life anymore, especially now that I remember how he raised me and what he taught me..."

~Penn Holderness, "Remembering Dad" podcast

I loved Penn's perspective on that podcast.  I teared up when he talked about how when someone dies, "in an instant" you remember the entire person rather than only their final season of life.  It's true, and I'm so grateful for that.  It's incredibly hard to watch someone you love suffer, and I acknowledge that that season is much longer and harder for some than others.  It all matters, and how you treat people in that final season matters deeply...

The work of caretaking and trying to help someone through an ever-increasing sense of loss while also preserving their dignity can be all consuming when you're in that awful shadow-of-death season.  But I'm sooooo thankful we can remember and celebrate all the better times now too, honoring the full work of his life and valuing the hope of heaven more deeply!!

Thanks to the work of Christ, we have hope that Grandad is alive and well now, young and able, riding horses and eating great food and telling stories and laughing over long visits with the people he loves there!

Happy Birthday, Grandad.  We love and miss you down here, but we'll see you again someday! ❤

May you understand the truth about those who have died,
so that you do not grieve over them without HOPE.

Residency One Recap

My first Residency experience with Colorado Christian was phenomenal!  Each of the professors I met and/or heard from are solid, Godly, respectable men and women I admire and want to join at the staff table someday!

This = Uduak, Abby, Abriel, Joyce, Emily, me, and Dr. Robinson (our faculty mentor).  Emily and I are from Oklahoma and the others are all Texans!

This trip is one of the most independent, adulty things I've done so far, and I'm proud of that and grateful it went pretty smoothly!  My first time renting a car and staying at a hotel by myself, and my first in-person graduate school classes and counseling role play sessions -- lots of things that felt a bit intimidating but were really good for me!  My first Colorado park walk, as well. lol

They had a worship night on Saturday with New Life Worship, followed by a fantastic message  from Dr. Phillips (a CCU professor) on being rooted and grounded in Christ.  I may have to do a separate post on that one later!

The campus is pretty, as you would expect Colorado to be in summer.  We basically rotated between three buildings: The Event Center, Leprino Hall, and the Anschutz Student Center.

I was accepted too late to be able to stay in the dorms, but no regrets on booking this hotel and having my own happy introvert space to retreat to at night!

Last night, I had dinner with Amy, Lauren, and Michelle!  Lauren is from TX, and Amy and Michelle are both from Edmond!  We have several mutual friends from the CHA and Faith Bible Church circles.  It's been quite a while, but Michelle and I actually remember each other as childhood friends... her mom taught with JoBug for several years, her dad was a groomsman in my parents' wedding, and Mom and Dad met at a New Years Eve party hosted by her parents -- small world!!  Anyway, it made me happy that we spent a large portion of our dinner talking about everyone's Enneagram types.  I'm used to others getting bored and changing the subject there, but in this group of Counselors in Training, we were all equally fascinated by personality styles!

The thing that made me most nervous about this was the counseling role play sessions - I was paired with Uduak, and Candi was our Residency Three supervisor. We took turns being the counselor and counselee, and I strongly preferred the counselor role!  We did this three times, and Candi was exceptionally kind and encouraging in her feedback, so I left feeling like there's lots of room for growth, but I'm an attentive listener who is well suited for this career!

Lauren and Amy at our dinner at Ted's Montana Grill!

For the first time in my memory, I missed Chet's birthday party!  Sad day - and definitely the fault of COVID since we both had it during the original party week!  But I posted this of me being there in spirit with the friend group!

I adore that there are verses posted all over campus!  And I'm so grateful to have Michelle and Amy and Emily living nearby any time we need extra help, encouragement, and connection going through this program!

"You are a child of God.  Your playing small does not serve the world.  There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.  We are all meant to SHINE..."  Love this!! ❤

A great counseling verse:

We prayed together and got a pic by the fireplace after our last role play session!

A counseling-related meme for you on this lovely Monday.

The food was good - they served breakfast and lunch every day (my hotel also served breakfast, and that was faster option most days).  And there was an In N Out Burger and several other restaurants near the school, so that was happy news!

❤

Me and Emily, a new friend and OBU grad from Shawnee!

Pic with Michelle and Amy after the Worship Night!  Huzzah for God bringing me the supportive friends and peers and mentors that I will need in this new season!

This grad school trip happened fast in some ways... and in other ways, it's been decades in the making!  (I'm sure the same will feel true with adoption!)  This week has been great confirmation that I am in the right place.  I'm incredibly thankful for God's guidance and for the many ways He has used John and Stasi Eldredge and Donald Miller in helping to shape my life's journey! #johnsalmamater #heroonamission

The last thing we did this afternoon was a commissioning prayer -- the Residency Three students who are almost done with their program circled around and prayed for us  - for strength and blessing as we move through the program!  Then we flipped that and prayed over them as they are about to graduate and move into the workplace.  It was a great way to end it, and the entire week made me feel more confident  about this decision.  This will not be easy, but it will absolutely be worth it!!

May God grant you, according to the riches of His glory,

to be strengthened with power in your inner being through His Spirit!

CCU Update

Greetings from Lakewood, Colorado!!

I brought my laptop (aka Tman's old Macbook), so I decided why not update the blog tonight?

Stasi Eldredge for the win with this timely post yesterday (my first day at CCU).

No lies - Wednesday and Thursday were rough times!  My 8:15pm flight was delayed twice and very turbulent (I watched The Intern, and that helped a bit - so precious! - but it also ran my phone battery down). We got to Denver and had to sit for 30 minutes waiting on another plane to move out of our gate.  Once we finally got off the plane, it was a crazy long walk + tram ride + shuttle ride just to get to the car rental place, then a pretty stressful 40-minute midnight drive in a car that's not mine through a big city I'm unfamiliar with using navigation on a phone with low-ish battery (and a folded-in passenger side mirror where I could only see my own reflection).  Good times.

I had genuinely the worst headache I've ever had yesterday morning.  Between the altitude change, the stress, other bodily factors, and likely some spiritual warfare, I felt like I could cry from the pain, and it was very hard to focus or think clearly and be friendly whilst introducing myself to so many new people.  I skipped the group lunch hour to go to Walgreens and grab Excedrin, and the afternoon was far better after that!  Then I went to bed around 9pm last night, and that was also a solid call!

By comparison, today has been completely fabulous!  Here I am walking across the CCU campus this morning, feeling giddy about being here on the very campus where John Eldredge went to college!

❤❤❤

I love that there are verses posted everywhere, outside and inside the buildings!

And this cool little prayer-time stairway lounge!

I've met several wonderful people from all over the country here, and I've been impressed with every professor I've heard from so far.  We had a small group session today where we all shared the short version of how we got here (like the life journey that led us to CCU).  It was all fantastic, and it felt like confirmation that I belong here!

I'm looking forward to the worship night and spending more time with Amy and Michelle tomorrow, but I was proud of myself for driving to Addenbrooke Park (about 10 minutes from my hotel) and doing a 30 minute Peloton walk tonight! =)

Yay, Colorado... Yay, God... Yay, beauty... Yay, counseling!

Random park statue

So. many. geese!

So happy - so grateful - feeling very encouraged today!  (*Sorry for all the selfies, but it's awkward to ask for a photo when you've just had one meal or one group session together with some new friends.  Much as I wanted the pics, I didn't wanna be that girl.  But I'll totally get one with my fellow Okies tomorrow!)

Okay, maybe it's just me, bc there's a stadium and several other places by this name in Colorado, but I could never say that I went to this church with a straight face.  It's right near the school, and I've laughed every time I drive by it. #milehighclub

Here's me and the nephews at the airport Wednesday night!  Dad drove us, and Jace complained about having to come the whole way... good times. lol

In ironic news, some teenage girls at the OKC airport handed me this church invite, letting me know that they go in Colorado, but there are campuses all over the place. lol I told them I go there too and we had a nice chat - I appreciated their sincerity and was encouraged by their boldness in passing those out to lots of people! =)

Anyway, I just got off the phone with Mom.  I'm in my room drinking my Chick-Fil-A shake and watching Wonder Woman (so good - I adore her feisty courage!!), then I'm off to bed soon.  Just wanted to check in and say hello.  Hope you have a fantastic weekend ahead!

May you not be conformed to this world, but continuously be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you may be able to determine what God's will is — what is proper, pleasing, and perfect.