Incredible Day

One of our greatest blessings here in Brownsville has been Chris and Donna Barnard. They have a boy and girl not much older than our's and then they have one in Jr. High, one in High School, and one that is 20. Its great because we have kids that have a lot of fun together but at the same time they have a wealth of wisdom from having three older ones. They are fun, encouraging, and REAL!!!! From the beginning Blake and I have said to each other, "I hope they don't decide we're too young to hang out with! We love being with them and look forward to continuing to get to know them. Today they took us to Port Mansfield on their boat. We fished and caught catfish, crabs, and some other stuff, played on beautiful white sand and clear turquoise water, hung over the boat and tried to touch dolphins, ate each other's picnic lunches and talked and laughed a ton. I kept thinking today that "this is better than Disney World!" I feel like today was a blessing straight from the Lord...one that he has been waiting and anticipating giving us. I am so grateful.

Here is a picture of us trying to spot the dolphins and get close to them.



Here is a picture of my hand as I hung over the boat trying to touch the dolphins. I never succeeded,but I was still overwhelmed by this amazing experience.




I have been off the boat now for five hours, but I still feel like I am rocking. Hope keeps telling me she feels weird....I think she is feeling the same thing. We are all burned and tired, but it was SO worth it! These are the memories I will have forever...the look of delight on Hope's face all day long, Camden racing up sand dunes and catching hermit crabs, Blake in his usual quiet way savoring every moment and making sure that the kids and I were all enjoying ourselves, for me... standing up and holding on with all my might as the boat flew across the water getting completely drenched with salt water, seeing sting rays, pregnant crabs, and dolphins inches away, and overflowing with gratitude AGAIN to God for bringing us here.

Have I said Thank You?

One week ago, if you had asked me whether or not I had strict parents, I would have given you a resounding "yes!" I could give you a list of things that I was not allowed to do that drove me batty. Like walk to the mailbox in my socks, or eat my fast food in the car, or watch anything more than a G rated movie when I was 14! But I had a conversation with a friend last week that gave me a completely different perspective about my "strict" parents.

This friend of mine has some amazingly wise insight on parenting with grace. She has talked to me about it on at least three occasions. I have been praying and contemplating how I can incorporate her "teaching" into my own parenting. This past conversation, however, made me think, not of my own parenting, but rather, about how I was parented. She talked about how important it is to NOT have a set idea of how each of your high school and college age children should go about entering adult life. She said that it is common and popular belief by most all parents that a child should graduate from high school with a diploma, immediately enter into college, graduate with at least a Bachelor's degree and then go on to their career. Where is it written that this is the only plan God has for every young person? She has five children and her desire is to encourage them to do exactly what God is leading them to do. She said that she does not care if others look down on her because her child is not doing what the world expects of them. Her only desire is to see her child lead the life they were born to live.

When she said that she didn't care what others thought, I began to think of my Mom and Dad....They let me drive all around Angelina County months after getting my drivers license with three other teens in my car teaching Bible clubs, often in the bad part of town. They let me skip out on some of my home school work in 10th and 11th grade to pursue other things that I was passionate about. They let me graduate one year early and get my GED and go two hours away to a University when I was seventeen. After one year at college they helped make a way for me to come back for a year and teach first grade at a small Christian school. As college graduate Baptists, they were behind me all the way as I left the next year to attend an uncredited Charismatic Bible College. They gave me their blessing when I got married when I was nineteen to a boy that was eighteen!

How could I for a second, not believe that my mom and dad parented me with more grace than I can ever imagine. I am in a place in my life right now that is a dream come true, and I am humbled to realize that I would have never gotten here if they had not let me live my high school and college years "outside the box." They trusted the Lord with my life and didn't allow what others thought to cause them to parent me any differently than what their convictions and love for me lead them to do. I hope and pray that I will bless my children the same way. My desire for them is that they do not miss ONE thing that God has for them because of my own ideas of what I think is best for them. God, help me follow in my parents footsteps and be for my children what my parents were for me. They have always believed in me, always prayed for me, always listened to me, and always made me want to be everything God wanted me to be - nothing more and nothing less. Thank you Mom and Dad. I love you!

Lets Get on the Same Page Little People!!!

First day of school!!! I am inspired, organized, energized, excited, and animated. Just like any elementary teacher should be. I call my two little students to the living room for our first subject: Bible!! As I stand there with my big smile and bright eyes my two "angels" come dragging into the living room. Their shoulders slumped, their lips turned downward, and their eyes just barely visible slits. They drop on the couch like a couple of blobs of goop. I think to myself, "Keep it together, Christina. Your excitement is contagious!" I declare exuberantly, "Stand to your feet and let's sing." And in my best teacher singing voice I start...I've got joy down in my heart. Deep deep down in my heart." I'm smiley, doing motions, singing loudly...and there my kids still sit sprawled on the couch looking at me like I've lost my mind and like they would rather see me hit by a bus than standing there doing my Broadway act for them. I finish the song feeling more ridiculous by the second. I have this momentary fantasy of climbing back in my bed, turning on the TV and telling the kids to catch the next school bus that drives by. But I shake it off and start pleading with the Lord for mercy and wisdom. Three hours, five subjects, and a dozen spankings later we finished our first day of home school. We eat lunch, I put on a movie for the kids, and I crawl back in bed.
Two hours later I have enough motivation built back up to return a call to a good friend who had called me during school. She has had a lot of home school experience - so I tell her about my day and she tells me something wonderful.....that this is NORMAL!! Ahhh, nothing she could have said would have been more encouraging! She explains that when kids go off to school that it is something new...a new teacher, new kids, new class, but when you home school they are in the same house they have been in all summer with the same mom they have had all summer. All summer they have had no schedule and no school work. They have more or less done what they wanted when they wanted to. So although as a mom we are thrilled with a new beginning...our kids are not necessarily feeling the same way. Our goal is to persevere...lay down the law so to speak! And know that they will get used to it, and in a couple of weeks or maybe less if we're lucky we won't be fighting tooth and nail...but there will be harmony and learning and discovery and wonder!! Yes! That is what we will have! Until then I am praying for greater creativity, out of the box thinking, discipline to be a consistent disciplinarian, and a ton of patience!!

Things I miss about DFW

1. My house, My house, My house. Oh how I miss my house. I try hard not to think about it.
2. More tv channels. Our antennae picked up about 15 channels while we lived in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Here it will only pick up two English-speaking channels. Its NBC and CBS but they show different things here than they did in DFW. Not liking that so much.
3.A computer. Blake is having to use our home computer in his office so we do not have a computer at home. I am SO ready for him to get a work computer so we can have our computer back.
4.A neighborhood to walk in with nice sidewalks. We don't really live in a neighborhood and I don't feel particularly safe walking around where we live. I REALLY miss our neighborhood and I'm sure my heart misses getting a cardio workout.

Things I love about Brownsville

1. It takes Blake 5 minutes to get to work and back. That gives us approximately 3.5 extra hours with him a week than we had before.
2. Blake gets like one work phone call a week when he is at home. This is compared to like 10 a night that he had before.
3.I don't feel like I have to go all out fixing myself up. It is much more laid back....living near the coast plus on the border contributes to that. Shorts, tshirt, flip flops and a pony tail and I fit right it! Love it!
4. We are at least 5 degrees cooler that the rest of the valley here in Brownsville. I have no idea why, I think because we are so close to the ocean maybe.... Also the evenings cool off. In Fort Worth it was hot even after dark...but come 6:30 here the breeze starts blowing off the coast and it feels so great outside.
5. The ocean - I love it. I hope that I never get used to it. When I am at the beach looking out over the ocean I am slammed with how big God is and how beautiful He is and yet at the same time I feel so close to Him...like he's sitting on the sand beside me enjoying His beauty with me.
6.I am being social!!! When we went to Gateway, I knew that it was not a place that I would be at for an extended time. I didn't spend a lot of effort making friends or putting myself out there. When I got to Brownsville, I threw myself into this church and its people from day one - actually before day one. Since coming here, I hug more, I smile more, I listen more. We have people over, and go places with people. I talk on the phone now! Big change! I I have more love in my heart than I ever thought possible. And I am having so much fun and feel so incredibly blessed.
7. Working with the youth. When we went to Gateway, Blake and I knew that it would be a place that God would build our character. For that reason, I put up a lot of walls and didn't let many people get too close, especially people from church. I knew character building could be rough and I wasn't sure I wanted an audience watching me learn the hard lessons....prideful much?? The few times I felt like I really put myself out there it resulted in a few unsuccessful and a couple of humiliating experiences. There were many times that I felt horrible about myself, and wondered if I even had anything inside of me left that God could use for His glory. But God was so good to me. He reminded me in that secret place of just him and I who I was and to not give up on the dreams he had placed in my heart. He also taught me in those quiet times with him that when he brought me back into a place where I would get to minister and lead that I must not let peoples' praise make me think higher of myself that I should just as he was teaching me not to allow failure to make me think less of myself than I should. I came to this town and this church knowing that I was going to have a chance to live out my passions and I have....It has been amazing, but I remind myself every day where I was just three months ago and plead with my Jesus to give me mercy for I know that I am only here because of Him. And my only desire is to glorify Him. Every word that comes out of my mouth has the power to bring others closer to Him if my heart, my pride, and my will is Christ-centered. I HAVE to have Him. I know it more now that I ever have before.

There is more - But I have to go be social!! Woohoo!!

His Grace is SO Much More that Enough!!

Of all the best wishes and wisdom given to me before I left, there were two that stood out to me. Two women at two different times looked me in the eyes and with a tone of "this is from the Lord" said to me, "God will give you the grace that you need in your new place." It was almost eery how identically they said this to me. I was not thrilled with this "bit of advice". A need for grace means....I will be facing things that won't be easy, right? I imagined all the reasons I might need God's grace and tried to be grateful that the Lord was already showing me through these two women that I would have grace to...survive.

Well here I am after ten days in Brownsville and without a doubt I have needed God's grace. The thing is, however, that I was oh so wrong about His grace. His grace is not about just surviving. Its about lifting us above our challenges, our "moments", our fears and, our disappointments, and filling us with joy, peace, excitement, and inspiration. I can't tell you how many times in the past ten days, the Lord has, sometimes in a matter of minutes, changed me on the inside: my expectations, my preconceived notions, and my cultural ideas of how things are "supposed to be". There have been situations arise that I've thought, "Oh no this is NOT good." And then twenty minutes later my viewpoint has turned 180 degrees. He has stuck His pointer finger in my heart and said, "Hey see that....oops....are you a snob?" And I've responded, "Oh, my, surely that can't be! Snobbery disgusts me! But gosh darn that is pretty nasty!" And I've felt Him dig it out and suddenly my surroundings look beautiful and full of life and I feel like dancing and hugging people.

Today was probably my hardest day. I was tired, I was hot, I was stressed, I was worried, and I was grumpy! As I drove home from the store I asked the Lord, "Where is all that grace Lord?" And He whispered to me, "Hold on.....it is there. Just because you can't feel it at the moment doesn't mean its not there." I turned up the New Life Worship CD and I suddenly felt God's presence all over me. He didn't give me a miraculous change of viewpoint this time, but He gave me something better....He gave me Himself. I ran over a curb turning a corner because I could barely see through my tears. Tears from a heart in love with my Gracious Savior who I will never have figured out and who chases after me sometimes and sometimes sits back and waits for me to come after HIm. I will not let go, Lord. Where else can I go? I have tasted and I have seen and I am hooked..... You are mine and I am your's...wrapped in your most amazing grace.

My favorite song right now and an awesome testimony!