I didn't forget I was just waiting for better pictures

Guess what!
Symphony had a baby and his name is Augustus Wallace Lovelady!

random tidbits from this summer

Time sure does fly when you're doing lots of things and the last place you really want to be is on a computer. Anyways, here is a picture walk through my summer thus far.

lots and lots of laughing!

Especially when friends let me put daisies in their absolutely ridiculous beards.

Contemplative moments around a fire with friends after a long road trip.

Taking pictures again after a long time of not doing so and absolutely loving the way my hair looks in this picture a friend took of me recently.

A quick trip to Philly to see a friend and see God's community in action at PBU and CCC.

Enjoying getting to know my nephew Matthias (a brother of mine from another mother, and sister too).

Meeting interesting critters along the way.

Enjoying time spent with my wonderful Grams at Brookside Buterfly Gardens and having adventures while learning that riding a motorized wheelchair in gravel can be very difficult.

Visiting a most beautiful farm for a weekend in West Virginia where life slowed down considerably for a while.

Growing a vast garden only to have much of it be eaten by pesky groundhogs (this is the only time I can think when a gun would be handy).

Kayaking at night and sharing the creek with the lightning bugs.

Enjoying the River in other ways!

Letting the moon amaze me with it's beauty and light.

Climbing around with friends.

Enjoying the genuineness of pictures that are taken when not expected.

Thoughts aplenty
words are few
wishing I knew what to do

God your will
is on my mind
let it be of my will too

obedience is hard
disobedience much harder
LORD help me to be smarter

no not smarter
but wiser still
to follow only and always your will

things i don't want to forget

So I've told this story to a few friends and will probably never forget it but in the event that my memory gets really bad this is one I don't want to forget.

This past week nearing the end of the work day while playing out on the parking lot with the remainder of my students and the two year old class one of my kids fell down and scraped their knee. I of course go over and pretend to perform emergency surgery and "cut off" their leg to be replaced with a new one. With my assistants help and after many giggles the surgery was a success and the patient walked away well with a new and improved elephant leg. After he got up one of our two year olds flopped herself in my lap and yelled "cut me, cut me."

I can't tell you how long I laughed but it was the perfect end to a day and just reminds me of our pure and simple these kids are. We show them something and they react in honest eagerness (whether or not what they ask is actually good for them or not). I love being able to have a conversation with these little ones and walk away astounded at their innocence and purity. No wonder you hear so many instances of children praying to God about crazy things and God coming through for them. I want that kind of innocence and purity in my conversations with Him again and always. And not just because I want Him to give me what I want, but to have Him reveal Himself to me too.

I guess the first step is mine.

emotional mess

I know I haven't been on here much lately but I guess I haven't felt like I had much to say (I often feel like that). However, my beautiful sister wants me to get back on here and write so for her (and a little for myself) I will attempt this yet again.

Rather than trying to catch up with everything that has been going on since I was last on here I'm going to start with the present.

On this glorious Easter day I have probably gone through every emotion imaginable starting off with anger and exacerbation then moving on to exhaustion, loneliness and self pitying and lastly blessed, loved and at ease (not only with myself but with those around me). Where are all of these emotions coming from? Firstly a build up of life questions that have been haunting me lately and secondly from a side effect of being a female (when I was younger I used to not believe in PMS but as I've grown older I've been more observant of changes in mood and lack of emotional restraint once a month or so).

While I could go on and on about the latter reason I want to focus this post more on the persistent life questions that have been following me around lately. I started this year off wonderful and confident and feeling like I was learning and growing in my relationship with God a lot. As soon as I proclaimed this growth to a few friends satan attacked me with past sins, self doubt, and insecurities and rather than face them full on I ran away and hid from the world.  This way the world (you) wouldn't see how messed up I truly am. Since then God has been slowly drawing me back out of my hiding place with questions like:

What do you have to be afraid of?
How can you feel unloved with a father like me?
How do you communicate to others?
Why are you letting other peoples problems hurt you? Give them to me.

Each of these questions that I've thought about before but never needed the answers to more than now.

I was helping my mom out with Easter dinner this afternoon and purging all of these thoughts and more on her while she patiently and quietly pointed me back to putting my trust in God. It made me think of all the suffering that I've put myself through in the past and compare with the suffering that Jesus endured on the cross over 2,000 years ago for me and it reminded me that He suffered so I wouldn't have to. A simple concept all too easy to forget. Being able to forgive myself for the faults in my life that he forgave me for a long time ago.

Thanks Abba!

Oh Bountiful Summer!

I was looking back at how little I posted on here this year when I realized I hadn't posted about my garden in all of it's glory! Well here are the few pictures I actually have of it.

One thing I've learned in this whole experimental garden is that it takes A LOT of time to make it work 'well'. A garden will still grow if you're not there to tend it but it may not grow what you want it to. I got into a good rhythm for a while going out in the morning for a short while each day to weed and make sure everything was looking good. Also I need to get a sprinkler to I don't have to stand there and water the garden and not really know how much water it's getting each week.



The things that were successful in my garden this year were; tomatoes, potatoes (although I might try a different variety next year), swiss chard (I had more than I could handle of this but it was good for sharing), onions, basil (not a big fan of it anymore), bell peppers, acorn squash, zucchini, yellow squash, parsley, cucumbers, berries, and a few carrots .



I think next year I'll do chives instead of onions and I'll try some cauliflower and broccoli. My green beans and peas didn't do too good where they were so I'll have to get that figured out too. I was able to harvest some but not a lot. I haven't looked into it yet but kidney beans might be something I'll try and a hot pepper plant for chili fixins. Corn never got in the ground this year but it is something I want to grow, along with sweet potatoes and strawberries. All this food is making me hungry.

Inevitability

Today I came to a realization about myself and what the future holds for me and that is this:

I will never be monetarily rich. I won't live a life of luxury where I will never have to think about what I'm spending my money on. Nope not me. I don't have the right kind of career for it, let alone the aspirations for it. Instead I will live a life full of the simple pleasures. A life where I will never have to worry about money because it's not mine to begin with. Everything I have belongs to God and He can manage it a lot better than I can. I will be rich in the blessings that God has to offer to His children. That seems like a better choice to me anyways.

Kayaking is my favorite place to be!

I have been kayaking a lot this summer with friends and family. I wanted to go so much more and with more new people but I don't know how to make things happen sometimes. Anyways here are a few pictures of this summers kayaking adventures and things found along the way. Enjoy!













Have a great night!

a fragile existence

Have you ever been frustrated with how fragile and breakable you or the ones you love are? I can see how easily it would be to become angry with God for the loss of a loved one or the pain we experience in this life through sickness, pain and disease.

Then I have to think about that amazing truth that God made us this way for a purpose. If we lived forever and could never feel pain, the joy and preciousness of this life would be lost on us. We would forget to cherish every moment and live our lives full. I may not always thank God for the life that he gave me (especially when I think my body is not acting like it's supposed to, I hear that happens more and more as we grow old) but it is my goal to try!

Lord help my existence not to be an empty one but full of the joy You give.

Interesting video!

The Longest Way 1.0 - one year walk/beard grow time lapse from Christoph Rehage on Vimeo.

Falling Spring Falls

This past weekend some friends of mine and I went down to Virginia to check out some waterfalls and hiking. Well we didn't really do all that much hiking but we did enjoy the waterfall and surrounding area of Falling Spring Falls. There were many pools of water below the falls to explore and some big enough to swim in. The waterfall wasn't so powerful that you couldn't go under it and if you walked down further along the edge of the fall back where it was dry there were these various caves to explore that were easy enough to climb up to. It was all around a fun place to explore and just enjoy God's amazing creation. The best though was at the top of the waterfall with a little walk further back there was this pool with rope swings to jump in and swim around. It was an absolute blast and something that I've wanted to do for so long.
There were so many things about this trip to enjoy. First off getting to spend more time with a friend that I haven't really gotten to spend extended amounts of time with (apart from her wedding day and into the late nights after bible study). It was good to hang out in a different setting than normal for us. The camping was nice because I got to sleep on the extra cushioning of a futon cover (the most comfortable waking up experience I've ever had camping!), and we also gave ourselves enough time to pitch the tent while there was still some daylight (at least one of the nights). The waterfall was awesome because there are a couple of things that I've always wanted to do at a waterfall but never felt that there was the opportune time when I'd gone before with friends and that is to jump into the water and also to walk under a waterfall.



The other amazing thing was exploring these caves. I climbed up after Dustin and I wasn't really sure what to expect but as the others were climbing up I went further back into the cave and realized how large it was inside. We sent Dustin back to the car to get the flashlights (and water and batteries and string) so that we could go back further and explore. While he was gone I used my camera to shine a little more light in the darker area of the cave so I could get an idea of what it looked like in there and realized it wasn't quite as big as I thought it might be at first but still worth exploring none the less. There was dew everywhere inside and when a little light was shone on it it glittered and shimmered everywhere. We even found a critter who had made the cave his home (the random bones and many seed shells were a bit of a give away). There were probably many but we only encountered one. We saw all kinds of stalactites and rock formations that were absolutely beautiful to behold. One place even looked like an upside down palace.

I've only ever explored caves one other time without a lighted tour along a concrete path was when I was at Messiah College. I went with a group there and we played hide and seek in the cave in the dark (if you've ever wanted to feel what it's like to be blind and not know where you are in a dark and cold place then I definitely recommend it). It was an experience I'll never forget. Anyways it was neat to explore a cave on my own without anyone who knew the place already and could tell me what everything was but I had to kind of figure it out on my own, or only with the observations of those with me. It forces me to look at everything more closely than what I would've done had I had someone there to tell me everything they already knew about the place.

It was definitely an amazing place to explore and enjoy!

Go and have some fun outside!

Road trip!

What do you do when you are stuck in traffic for over and hour and a half?

You get out of the car and start making sandwhiches.

Then you get to know the people around you and share the zucchini bread that you made way too much of!

Here's to new adventures, new people, cool license plates and enjoying every moment!