My Spring Break Highlights!

So here are my amazing spring break highlights in a somewhat sequential order...

1. Watching the Lord paint a beautiful sunset over Lake Travis in Austin with 3 great friends.

2. Getting peer pressured by my typically low maintenance sister to get my eyebrows waxed with her for the first time.

3. Watching a dear family friend, who I like to call my cousin, marry his beautiful bride.

4. Having amazing car conversations on the road to and from Vidor, Texas

5. Experiencing Vidor, Texas in the daylight (I had only been there at night before!)

6. Taking a swim at night in the cold gulf in Florida...which was as I liked to say, "strangely exhilarating"

7. Sitting outside on a BEAUTIFUL white sand beach with a good book and great company

8. Getting really sunburned, but not really tan at all...

9. Riding the waves on a boogie board...i just love to boogie down!

10. Drinking crisp limeade on the porch overlooking the DEEP blue ocean and listening to the crashing waves.

11. Walking up and down the beach trying to avoid "jellies" (which for those of you who do not think like me that is what I call jelly fish...ryan is so cute he was like, "I have never heard them called "jellies" before, rather than saying, "you are a freak...no one calls them jellies!)

12. Getting 2 holes in one on a really fun put-put golf course

13. Stopping in New Orleans on none other than St. Patrick's Day...enough said on that one!

14. Stopping at Mulats (a restaurant in Louisiana) and getting a TRUE Cajun experience right down from the pecan pie to dancing (sorta) to the Zydeco music!

15. Back in Vidor...eating a bowl of raisin bran looking out into the beautiful vidorian woods and listening to Ryan play the piano...it was pretty much perfect!

15. Peering through binoculars to watch Eagles...no not the band, our national bird, with a bunch of vidor locals.

16. Witnessing a bunch of people be obedient to the Lord and get baptized!

Yep that is only 16 of the amazing things the Lord allowed me to experience this spring break. Oh Praise Him!

(p.s. unfortunately i do not have my cord to transfer pictures from my camera to my computer, so i cannot post any pictures, but you can always give Ryan's facebook a gander if you want to see the visual representation of much of my spring break!)

Sighing...

"Lord all my desire is before you; And even my sighing is not hidden from you."
-Psalm 38:9

I wish I never sighed! No I am not talking about the sigh of relief when you realize you haven't locked your keys in your car or you didn't actually forget your calculator for your midterm (Math majors have that sigh more than others maybe). I am talking about the sigh of discontentment. I am talking about the sighing of dissatisfaction. I think that is the sighing that David is talking about here. The sigh I let out when that interaction with someone close to me didn't go exactly how I wanted it to go. The sigh I let out when I feel like no one understands or no one cares. The sigh I let out when things don't go exactly how I planned. The sigh I let out when I hear a lie from the enemy and though I know its a lie, it hurts to hear. The sigh I let out when I am having one of those weeks that I just don't think I am pretty (girls, you know what I am talking about). I never realized I sighed so much until a couple of weeks ago when Christy Nockles shared this verse in Psalms with us. I thought the verse was amazing.

God cares about our sighing. But I think the most incredible thing is that this sighing comes from our inability to be satisfied in the Lord. Everything I just listed shows me that I still am not fully content in Him. The sighing is hurtful to Him...and yet he knows about it. God's will for my life is to be joyful always, praying continually, and to give him thanks (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18), I don't see sighing ANYWHERE in there. So i hate that I sigh because I know its not what God desires for me. Though He does not desire sighing; He cares about our sighs. I have been clinging to this verse ever since that night knowing that even when I am not experiencing a time of emotional distraughtness (i made up this word...so i hope you catch my meaning) or deep pain, when it is just a sigh, its not hidden from Him.

The ironic thing is a sigh is meant to be hidden. It's a sigh because its not something worth fully verbalizing because if you did, you know it would sound stupid and petty, it's just a sigh...and yet its not hidden from Him. God is so amazing! His love is so perfect and so intimate...i mean if someone can hear my sighs, He is pretty darn intimate with me. I think the beauty of that is that when I realize He hears my sighs, I realize I have no reason to be sighing. David reminds me in this Psalm that there is no area in my life that God doesn't minister to. So I put on thankfulness for this love that is so perfect and so deep. And thankfulness is the cure to discontentment which is the cure to sighing...ahh now that's a sigh of relief.

Instant Oatmeal...

There is a beautiful creation in this world that many people neglect to notice...Instant Oatmeal. You might be skeptical of its amazingness...but really it is. Not only is it warm goodness on a cold day and serves as a reminder that life is not all about cold cereal...but it is also a morning milk crisis saver! It is a lifesaver in the morning when you wake up and dum dum dum...there is either NO MILK in your refrigerator...or worse...very expired milk!

It's those mornings that I just fall deeply in love with Mr. Quaker, like I want him to be the father of my children! You see breakfast is my favorite part of the day and cereal is an essential part of that in my life. No milk or sour milk can most certainly put a damper on my morning! But not with Mr. Quaker and his amazing instant oatmeal...just add water and you can have a tasty breakfast without milk! Many nights I lay in bed about to fall asleep realizing I again procrastinated on my grocery shopping and I start to worry about my milk supply...

but then I rest easy knowing Mr. Quaker lives in my pantry!