...Speechless...

I am utterly speechless when I think about the pure and perfect love I have been shown by my precious, precious friends over the last 3-4 weeks.

From phone calls, "just because," to amazing surprise visits (even whilst I was on the road!).

I AM BLESSED.

Here's just a smattering of the pure joy that has covered me of late:

These two amazing, amazing loves of my life are seriously closer than blood. They are definitely my brother and sister (most importantly, in Christ). They always house me, always feed me, always love on me in just the right way. I love their continual reassurance that I am not moving away, but rather, off on an extended vacation :)




This little lady drove down to spend some time in CS and say our farewells...I cried...she cried...We're girls, it's fine ;) But, I am so excited for her as she embarks on her journey through nursing school - SO PROUD OF YOU, LOVELY!!

I also got to spend a substantial amount of time with this sweet girl. Oh, Mak...there are no words. You, little lady, are beyond a blessing to my life. I love how our friendship has blossomed, even over distance. I can't wait to wave to you and Wes as y'all pass through the Frozen Tundra on your way to Alaska!!

And this kid...we have no clue how we have missed out on him for the last 4-5yrs...I mean, wow. Can you say insta-best friends??

For this group of "'Cause we're the..." that was certainly the case.

TRUE

LOVE

I was also super blessed to get to see my bestie Elaine this past weekend - it has definitely been too long.

She and her hubs are getting ready to move in to a new house! And, I was fortunate enough to get to see the place before my move to the frozen tundra - it will, for sure, be a gorgeous home for them to settle-in to. We got to spend an entire afternoon/evening together (bliss) and Josh even made the two of us his famous fried rice when he got home from work - thanks friend!!

Love you, Ponder!!

From there I made my way to see my darling Kristen...and what was there waiting for me??

This guy. Ummm, I cannot express to you how much these kids fill my life with joy. You know your friends love you when they make a decent little drive after a long week of nursing school to surprise you...I could have punched B, I was so excited (Ricci...I think you're wearing off on me...)...and kinda ticked 'cause I had already bawled my eyes out for a good 20min when I said goodbye to him the night before -and so I knew I would cry again the next day when the three of us parted ways yet again, rude... Ah, well...it was totally worth the extra water works =]

And so, after a loooong night of visiting, and then a fairly full day of visiting and lunching, the three of us went our separate ways and I made the rest of my trek back home to continue on my housing search and moving preps....and THEN!

This lady came all the way to Arlington to see me!! We got to have some sweet, sweet time while I was down in CS this last time, too - oh how I adore her!! (Note: Alyssa, we need to take more pictures together...just sayin')

Something I will definitely miss about CS/TX is this:

My precious, precious Hope Group. I cannot express to you how much these amazing brothers and sisters in Christ have blessed my life. I seriously do not know what I would have done without them the last year and half/two years. Such an amazing blessing to my life.

I'm sittin' with Miss Cindy in this one. Oh how I love this wonderful woman of God. The Freemans have more than taken care of me and I am going to sorely miss Ken and Cindy...like, really.

While I was in CS this last time I was able to spend a good amount of time with Ken and Cindy - absolutely fabulous. Ken helped me make a beautiful cross to take to my new place - I'm way happy with it. He makes just stunning crosses and it was great to get to make one on my own with his supervision, of course...I didn't think I'd be able to make one as creative and beautiful as his, but he just let me loose on the tiles to come up with my own design and everything, and voila!, here's my creation:

I like it a whole lot...like, a whole lot, and I absolutely cannot wait to put it up in my new home. YAY!!!

Though it's probably needless to say, I have been quite busy the last few weeks. But I wouldn't trade it for the world. These people are absolutely my family (and the J-man just walked in front of me like a chicken, making the following sounds, "Doo-doo. Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo..." Just thought I'd share.) and I wouldn't trade them for the world. And this doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the magnitude of people God has so, so generously blessed my life with ('Cause, I dunno...some people went out of town when I got to CS...Poarch...).

And for now, dear readers, I will close...it's late and I've been working on this post for long enough.

Blessings to you!

Shalom!
~MW

I'm still here

I don't want to leave.
My heart breaks when I think about saying goodbye...and already has with the few I've already had to say.
I can't stop crying, but I feel like that's ok...for now.
I'm really, really tired, but really, really blessed by the amazing people God has placed in my little life.
He's rocking my world with this move, but He isn't leaving me out in the cold on my own - He's going with me and filling me up with the love and encouragement of the family He has allowed me to find during my time here.

I'm going.
It's going to suck some days.
It's going to rock some days.
I'm ready.
Am I ready?
Will I ever be ready?
With God I will be.

Let's do this, yo!

~MW

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Now playing: Tenth Avenue North - Hold My Heart
via FoxyTunes

HT...those days I skimped on...

Ok, so this is how this is going to roll: I'm going to divide this post by day so you can just read what you want when you want if you don't have time to read about three days all at once :) Have fun, and good luck! (P.S. - I'm still non-functional as far as society is concerned...therefore, this might not be all that coherent, but I'm going to do my best!)

HT Day 4

Day 2 of the conference was busy, but good...this is a running theme, praise the Lord ;) We opened our day with a fantastic Matins and dove right into the second plenary session, led again by Pastor Kind. He dug deeper into what the Lutheran worship service is and why it has the elements it has - it was a nice reminder of why the liturgy is so important and how it is structured to bring us into a closer communion/fellowship with God. The liturgy is a gift to us: it leads us to Christ, proclaims the Gospel, teaches us to speak, lends us to worship, protects us from error, protects our unity, connects us to Christians throughout the ages, unites us with the Church in Heaven.

So the breakaways...these were really good! The majority of the group went to Pastor Cwirla's session called, "Answering the Atheist." Dynamite. I might do an entire entry on this at a later date. But basically, he squeezed an entire plenary talk into a breakaway...impressive. A lot of us also attended Pastor Tiews' session on evolution. It was really good. Especially since Pastor Tiews was an educated evolutionist (he was geologist) up until the last 13 or so years (the point at which he became a Christian), so he knows what evolutionists base everything on, why, and where they get their information from. This session was very important to me as I currently run in the evolution circle, especially once I start my graduate work in the fall. Since I've studied life/earth/biological sciences for the last few years I've learned a lot about what macro-evolutionists believe and how they present their "facts." I've already a number of evolution debates with some friends/colleagues and it's usually ended with both parties somewhat stuck talking in circles, or else I've been totally stumped on how to present a well grounded counter-argument for whatever point was brought up. So, getting to hear and learn from Pastor Tiews about where macro-evolution crumbles and the majority of evolutionists agree are wonky was extremely helpful for me. Bring it, grad school! You can access his slides through his church's website, here, under the Higher Things sidebar on the right. The kiddos raved about this session...most of them could not wait to go to his second session the next day...that says something, I think. They even asked for paper so they could take notes! They were into it, to say the least.

We closed our day with the evening prayer service and then the kiddos went to the Wildhorse Saloon for a private HT party - they had a really fun time and enjoyed visiting with a lot of the other youths attending. While they were all tearing up the dance floor and playing pool, etc. I was afforded to opportunity to visit with one of my old college roommates who now lives in Nashville. It was really great to catch up with her for a little bit. Blessings, blessings everywhere :)

Because we got back so late from the party we didn't do much of a devo...we were all exhausted to say the least.

Overall, another fantastic day of diving into the Word.


HT Day 5

Day 5...wow, talk about a full day. The plenary speaker was pretty off the chain. Oh, Pastor Sell. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak/preach, take it - you will not be disappointed. Not that a sermon needs to be entertaining, but he had those kids (and adults, too...shhh, don't tell!) roll-ing! His talk was on the topic of understanding God's call for your life... As this was day one of his run as plenary speaker, there was a bit of background/foundational info that he started us out with. It was full of wonderful reminders of how we are as the renewed Body of Christ - Baptized eyes see everything differently.

A few of the kids and I went to day two of Pastor Tiews' talk on how to debunk evolutionists and that was another really good session. Lots of notes...oh, and just in case you weren't aware: Lutheran's preach, teach, and believe in 6 day creation. Something that was nice and kind of out of the ordinary when it comes to discussing the belief of macro-evolution was Pastor Tiews' addressing the issue of macro-evolution Christians, or, non-6-day Christians. I hadn't really ever thought about the fact that saying God could have used macro-evolution as a means to form the earth would have required suffering and death before sin ever entered the world...woops! That doesn't jive with what God tells us about the beginning and the fall of man. Very thought provoking and informative. Everyone who went to this one got a lot out of it.

Some of the girls went to a breakaway on the topic of what marriage looks like as it is to be a reflection of Christ and His Bride. They really enjoyed it and seemed to get a lot out of it, from learning about what it means to submit to our husbands as wives, to what it means for men to die for their bride. It's always a joy to hear young people, especially young women in this day, understanding and really hashing-out what it means to engage in a Christian marriage. So many people much older than these precious youth still don't have a clue, even those who are members of a body of believers - heartbreaking. I am very thankful and blessed that these ladies went into this session with open hearts, ears, and minds to what God's Word says about this issue.

A few others went to a breakaway on prayer and seemed to really enjoy it - I didn't get to go into too much detail about it with them, but they seemed happy that they went.

The day closed again with the evening prayer service and the groups were dismissed to go off and basically do whatever... the girls started out at the HT talent show - they loved this. A few of them went off to try some karaoke and most of the boys hit up the rec center...you know, had to go pump some iron ;) There was also rumor of swimming with Cwirla!! Doubt any of those swim trunks will be washed again..!

At the very close of the day I got to spend some more time with the girls and talk about some of the things God's word tells us about...we focused mainly on the great commission, here. It was really neat to hear about what scenarios make them clam-up about God and what scenarios are easy for them to witness in. How different the world is for these kids, even from when I was their age - if you ask them, that was a long time ago...come on, I'm just shy of being a decade older than a few of them...I can't be that old... Haha...they made me feel old this week, let me tell you: I am not made to function off of an average of 3-3.5hrs of sleep per night...ah, well, such is life with teenagers. We not only talked about witnessing in our everyday lives, but we also talked about going and sending. Even though we were all exhausted it was another really sweet time in the Lord.

HT Day 6

Whew! The laaaast day...wow. How the week flew...I'm pretty sure it was going at warpspeed - I think I even heard a few "Beam me up, Scotty!"s along the way. Wait, whaaaa...? Yup.

Another morning of Matins followed by Pastor Sell's 2nd and final plenary session of the week. He continued on with his theme from Day 5 of discerning your vocation. He prefaced this with running through the 2 different kinds of worship: church/corporate and the "other" worship, your vocation(s). Your vocation is daily worship (Duh! Why didn't I think of saying it that way...?). But, how do you determine what your vocation is? Pray for wisdom, research, study, learn, ask questions, seek council - NEVER UNDERESTIMATE SIN (as a muddler of hearing your calls from God). On that note, as well, if you don't understand sin, you will have a disappointing life (Rom. 3:10-12).

There were no breakaway sessions this day, but we did have our 3rd and final in-depth session. As I believe I said before, I chose to go to Cwirla's in-depth, covering Isaiah: Who Would Name Their Kid Maher-shalal-hash-bash? I decided to go ahead and wait to tell you about the in-depth until we were all finished with it, rather than giving you bits and pieces that may or may not have made sense on their own. So, without further ado, let me tell you what we covered! We started with a brief history of what Isaiah even means. Did you know that it is the equivalent of "YHWH saves"?? What a cool name!! We then progressed through Isaiah's life history. Cool random fact: Isaiah's wife was called a "prophetess," not because she herself was a prophesying, but because she was married to a prophet, it was a title of honor - neat-o! Did you know that Isaiah was part of the upper class and so had connections to the royals?? OK, I've read a lot of Isaiah, but I had no idea that he was so incredibly legit! He even had his own circle of disciples who, most likely, wrote the different parts of the book for him - sort of like having a bunch of personal secretaries who write down everything you ever say or do. That's pretty neat, I'm just sayin'. This book does something really cool in that it reveals to us God's use and possession of time in kairos and chronos. Kairos is basically all time compressed into "now." Chronos is simply chronological time. So God is awesome and gets to use and fully understand both aspects of time, whereas we can sort of live in kairos when we read the prophecies and all that, but we can't really grasp all of it like God does...we're pretty much stuck with "getting" chronos. I don't know about you, but I'm totally OK with just having to deal with chronos :) An example of a kairos event is Christ's death: He died for everyone once and for all...past, present, future. How freaking awesome is that?! God rocks, y'all, like really. If you ever get the chance to do a study on Isaiah, DO IT!! I mean, we powered through this book in three hours over the course of three days, and I learned SO much...I can't wait to find a study on this book that I can do over more than 3 days. And the major themes, hoh...wow...wow. We ended our last session with this, Cwirla's summary sentence of the entire book: God's Anointed One, the Shoot/Branch of David Immanuel - God with us, the Servant who suffers for the sin of the world will lead His Bride - the Church in procession down His Holy Highway to Zion - His Holy City on His Holy Mountain to which all nations will come to the Marriage Feast in a New Creation on the ultimate Day of the Lord, the Mouth of the Lord has spoken it. Yeah, soak that one in for a few minutes. And then, Cwirla started playing his ipod on shuffle while we asked questions and such...what was the first song that came on?? One Week - Barenaked Ladies. Cwirla = legiiiiiit.

We closed our day and the week with one of the most amazing Divine Services I have ever experienced. The Lord's Supper is always a beautiful thing, but add in the fact that we were communing with over 1105 brothers and sisters in Christ, and then the hymnody...oh my goodness - the goosebumps I got during that service were ridiculous! Our theme hymn for the week was "O God, O Lord of Heaven and Hearth." That hymn paired with those 1105 voices and that wicked mad organist...you could hear the angels singing that day - I'm pretty sure there were tears in my eyes at numerous moments throughout the service...it really was one of the most beautiful times of worship I've ever had. We also sang "At the Lamb's High Feast We Sing" and, of course, "Thy Strong Word," amongst others, but those three rocked the boat. I can't wait to get to Heaven and party like that with all the saints and angels!!

After that amazing service I scurried back to the dorm with kids while Dad/Pastor ran to get the van and meet us at the dorm. We loaded up our junk and hit the road for Little Rock. We had a nice closing devo with the kiddos and hit the hay - we were all beyond exhausted, to say the least. Getting those kiddos up the next morning was fuuuuun. Let me just tell you. But we did it and we made home to A-town just a little after 1...impressive, if I do say so myself - I mean, I didn't do anything, but it was still impressive.

Unfortunately, the picture uploader is not cooperating at the moment, so I'll have to add those in at a later date.

I'm sure I have forgotten to mention loads of things, for you BSLC-ers, talk with the kiddos who went - I'm sure they would be more than happy to share with you some of their experiences. Some pictures will be up soon!!

Thank you all so much for all of your prayers - they were most certainly felt.

To God be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Shalom!
~MW

HT Day 6

Made it to Little Rock!!! Be back soon

I'm 'a give y'all a killer update tomorrow - prepare to have your worlds rocked!!!

Love!
~MW

HT Day 5

I am terribly sorry to say that tonight I have the same sad story to tell as I did yesterday...it's far too late to give a proper post, but I do have a picture for you :)

Our lovely altar area

And, yes...I know I owe you all TWO updates...today was packed...even with two slots of free time...we are all exhausted, and it's only piling up even more. The drive tomorrow will definitely be a challenge -I have a feeling most of the kiddos will crash as soon as those wheels start turning. Yup, tomorrow is our last day of the HT conference. CRAZY!! It feels like we just got here :(

Please continue to pray for my dad, the 11 youth, and myself as we prepare to close out the conference and make the trek half-way home tomorrow.

Well - I'm off to bed to try to keep myself at least somewhat functional for tomorrow...

Shalom.

~MW

HT Day 4

I'm sorry, readers - way too much to recount, way not enough time for sleeps.

I'll try to include today's update in with tomorrow...let's just say this so you have an idea: the kids LOVED their Breakaways and In-Depths (we started those today - I'll explain tomorrow)...could hardly stop talking about them at our pow-wow. Such a marvelous sound!!

For your viewing pleasure, because I love you too...:

Some pretty building on campus - enjoy!

G'NIGHT!

~MW

HT Day 3

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Now playing: JJ Heller - Invisible Love..
via FoxyTunes
Our fabulous theme for the conference!

Sigh...Who's crazy tired? Oo! Oo! Pick me! Pick me!

Haha, yeah. I am definitely really feeling the exhaustion today...I mean, reeeeally.

Also, remember how I did that thing where I graduated from college and so I no longer make daily two mile treks across the world...multiple times within in that "daily?" Is it weird to say that I've kind of missed it?? Random thought?? Not exactly, let me explain:
HT is being held on the campus of Vanderbilt...and everything is rather spread out. Aggies, it hardly compares to hauling it from Zachary to Wehner...hardly, but it's still fun to be wandering around one of the prettiest campuses I've ever been on - it's like walking through a forest wherever you go!! Heavenly much?? For this hippie it's pretty awesome.

So, yes, today we checked-in to the conference and our dorm - it's pretty nice, other than being community bath style, but that's whatevs, been there, done that. The only thing I was really kinda bummed about was that there aren't even sinks in the rooms - even the corps dorms had sinks!! Ah well, I'll survive :)

The opening service today was super legit - I love the occasional high church experience. The imagery is something that no other worship service can touch. I especially love how pretty much everything is chanted/sung. Singing to my Divine Daddy is one of my absolute favorite ways to interact with Him and give Him the glory due His Almighty Name. We also got to share in the gifts of the Lord's Supper - what a beautiful way to start out our time of fellowshipping, growing, and digging deep into the Word! Oh, and Pastor Cwirla (Svwirlaaaaah!) lead us in a fabulous sermon talking about our Giver God and how He wants to receive His gifts without question; "If you don't want the gift, you can go to hell." Yup, that pretty much sums it up - gotta love Cwirla's boldness in preaching the truth.

Awful picture...but here's our Cwirla welcoming us all right
before plenary - it's ok, you can be jealous ;)

Our first plenary session was led by Pastor Kind - it was pretty good. I think it was maybe a little too academic for the kids, but he touched on some different ideas about why we go to church, other than, "my parents make me." :)

After plenary it was dinner time, followed by evening prayers - one of my favorite services.

So, this is our line, which continued for another 30min or so once we
got through those doors...at this point we had already been in
line for 30-40min...fuuuuun...

From evening prayers we went to Breakaway Session A. I really enjoyed mine: How Martin Luther Rediscovered the Gospel. Wow - I learned so much! Like, did you know that Martin Luther's last name was originally Luder?! He changed it to Luther after learning, somewhat simultaneously, that he was free from sin and guilt in Christ, and that Greek work for "freedom" is "eletheria." So, as a sort of personal emancipation from the works righteous of the Roman Catholic Church he changed his last name, swapping the "d" for the "th" (one letter in Greek) of his new found freedom. Isn't that cool?!

The kids went to a few other breakaway sessions and we all got to talk about them during our group devo pow-wow. I think I'm going to ask them to each write a little snippet about their favorite breakaway, come the end of the week, and if they agree I'll post them for you here so you can read about some of the things that spoke to the kids.

My time with the girls was pretty short and sweet tonight. But, oh so sweet :) Can't wait 'til we get to come together again tomorrow!

And with that, my dear readers, I am going to close - I'm fading fast. Oh, that reminds me: I am going to formally apologize ahead of time for the ridiculous amounts of typos that these posts are going to have (and already do....hehe). I'm tired y'all, that's my only excuse :)

Shalom!
~MW


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Now playing: Josh Ponder - You Are Worthy
via FoxyTunes

HT Day 2

From here on out I am going to title all posts relating to Higher Things as "HT Day X." I'll be completely honest: I'm simply too emotionally, mentally, and physically spent to come up with witty titles for each day of this long, but blessed week...If I fall into a random ounce of creativity I'll add it to the cookie-cutter title...but for now, don't expect anything "out of this world." Thanks & Gig'em!

So...Day 2 is done and over with. And, with that, so is our driving! ...For now... *sigh*

But wow...what a day!

It seriously feels like today has been TWO separate days...like, really.

I was blessed by the gentle nudging forceful shove of the Spirit to actually get out of bed when my alarm went off at circa, oh, 6am...ooooi vey! And, what a beautiful thing that was. I was so blessed to wake my sleeping beauties for the day...multiple times for some (but that's to be expected when they finally settle down for the night circa 2am...)...and then head down stairs for what was not outstanding, but a cup two cups of coffee and breakfast, nonetheless. With that I got to visit with the kiddos as the stumbled down from their rooms to find some sort of sustenance for the second day of travel. Hilarious. Precious. Priceless.

We said farewell to Little Rock around 9am...really, it was only 9am?? Felt like it was already noon or something...yikes!

We crossed the Tennessee River!

We stopped midday in Memphis.

Pyramid??

Wow. I mean, the town/city/thing is way neat, but listen to this: We stopped in at St. Jude's to visit a little boy named Tristan who is the son of a pastor friend of my dad's.

One of the complexes of the hospital.

Tristan is about 12 (I can't remember exactly how old he is) and was diagnosed with leukemia a number of years ago, I want to say he was about 6. Currently, his body is clean of the cancer, but his fragile organs are failing. Could you imagine having a child whose kidneys, liver, etc. are failing at the age of 12?! Heart-breaking, to say the very least. We weren't all able to go in and see him, since he is in ICU right now, but Dad was able to go in with Tristan's parents. While they were visiting with Tristan, the kids and I walked around St. Jude's for a bit - talk about impressive. We also got the chance to go up to the ICU doors, and we stopped and prayed for this precious boy and his family. One of the kids led the prayer, and may I just say, simple and short as it might have been, it was one of the most beautiful and heart-felt prayers you could imagine. I'm so proud of these kids.

After St. Jude's we stopped at Chic-fil-a for lunch and a visit with one of the kiddo's uncles - cool guy! He brought homemade habanero hot sauce and blackberry jam! Talk about legit.

It was pretty much a straight shot from there. All we had to do was make it to the Mississippi River...

And we finally reached out destination of Nashville!! A-WHOOP! No more long hours in the car for a few days - Glory! I have to say, though, that along the way today I saw probably good 7-8 road signs for towns in TN that stole the names of our TX towns, like, oh I dunno...this one:

I'm just gonna come right out and say it: our hotel tonight, though it's the same chain as the one we were in last night (and will be on Friday...), is WAY nice...world's above the other one. In comfort, cleanliness, and service. We like the staff lots here - not that the other ones were mean or anything...they just didn't really interact with us very much. These people rock! And the kiddos really like the pool :)

Anywho. Dinner was way fun tonight. We trekked up the hill to the Cracker Barrel **Aggies, I don't think it was the 1st one...we'll find it someday!!** So, get a load of this: we had two tables, a 5 and an 8. All the girls sat at the 5, and all the boys sat at the 8. Dad and I decided to kind of spice it up tonight, and so....he sat with our ladies and I sat with our gents. OH. MY. GOODNESS. What an experience. So, one of the boys had his ipod touch with him...complete with the game of Risk - can I get a WHOOP!? Thus, we all played a game of risk as we waited for our food - it was beyond fun. Especially because the computer version of the game is a little different than the board version of the game...since the computer does all the rolling for you, amongst other things. It was great fun, and I got to visit with one of the guys I don't know as well as the others. It was kind of like pulling teeth making conversation with him, but it was totally worth it. Hoping to get to know him a bit more as the week progresses.

We came back and had our group session shortly thereafter. Tonight was fun because we all made a tentative schedule of what breakout and in-depth sessions we all want to go to - it's going to be a cRaZy week! But so, so very nourishing. Diving into God's Word pretty much 24/7 is soooo great. I mean, I really can't wait to see what is revealed to us individually and as a group.

The lovely ladies and I had another amazing time in our "safe zone" time. Wow. What a precious and beautifully transparent time we had. I'm utterly speechless. These girls are amazing, I'm just gonna throw that out there right now. I can't wait to dig into more and more of what God tells us about living in His Word as we continue to meet up this week...I'm probably going to need to invest in a pack of tissues, though. Just sayin'.

Alrighty, loves, I'm outty.

Shalom & Blessings!
~MW


P.S. - sorry the picture quality isn't awesome...I'm just using my phone to take pictures right now...

15-Passenger Vans & Arkansawyers?

Hello, all!

As many of you know I am presently on my way to ville of Nash...er...rather, Nashville. With, you guessed it, a whole slew of high schoolers from our church youth group. Paps is the male chaperon and yours truly is the female chaperon. What fun! What fun!!

I've been pretty nervous about this trip for a a while, and so have solicited a number of my prayer warriors to move to the front lines for me, dad, and the kiddos, especially "my" precious girls...and a number of other sweet warriors have stepped up to the plate of their own accord - God's fam ROCKS!

I must tell you, while the road trip has been long and tiring, the kids have been great. Hardly any snibbling whatsoever - miracle?? I think yes.

We successfully made it to Arkansas...and my what a state. There is definitely not much here other than pretty trees...and oddly named places...

Gum addicts, I have found your heaven on earth!!

We are currently in Little Rock and got to cross the Arkansas River on our way to Little Rock, where we are not so alone, but you know...not everything is like they say it is in country songs...

Kinda pretty...kinda "muddy"...what river in the middle of industry isn't?

Side-note: Did you know that people from Arkansas generally call themselves Arkansawyers?? Some people are trying to make it officially Arkansans...but, personally, I like Arkansawyers.

We checked-in to our hotel only to find that the pool was closing in 30min, bummer...but, there's always tomorrow, I reckon. So, on that note we decided to make a trek find some fooooods!!! I We were all quite hungry. We ended up parking our feet at a Taco Bell/KFC - classic. As is usual when i encounter a Taco Bell...I caved and ordered myself a volcano burrito, complete with cinnamon twists!! YUM :)

After dinner we had our joint devo time and then we girls came back to our room and the boyos stayed put where they were so we could have our "safe-zone" devo time. May I just say that the girls and I had a beautiful time of transparent honesty tonight. My heart was weeping tears of joy that felt safe and comfortable diving into things with me. While we are together this week we are going to have our "safe-zone" devo time each night. During these special times we will be digging into and hashing out some difficult but beautiful issues we as young aspiring Christian women face, quite often on a day-to-day basis. I seriously cannot wait spend more time with this precious daughters of the King. As broken as we all are in own very different ways I think we will all benefit greatly from our quiet times together each night. I have a feeling God is going to move in big ways this week. {***excited!!!***}

Please, please, please continue to pray for or add all of us Higher Things bound peoples in your prayers this week, especially my sweet girls - that they would continue to feel comfortable and safe talking to me about things they have on their hearts, etc.; that their hearts and minds would be open and surrendered to the love and refinement (all so often painful) of our Heavenly Daddy. For me, that I would have open eyes and ears to what God wants me to address with these young ladies; that whatever I might say would be said out of love and would be completely pointed and intentional; that I would be bold for Christ with these girls. And...that I would keep my sanity would be a good one to add to the list, just to be safe ;)

So far so good!! Glory!

Tomorrow, circa 9am we will hit the road again, in an attempt to reach Nashville by about 3pm. Higher Things doesn't actually start until Tuesday, so we will have some free time tomorrow afternoon/evening before everything gets rolling and true exhaustion begins brewing on Tuesday! Hooray! I'm extremely excited about getting to see one of my old roommates once we get to Nashville - can't wait to see you Fai!

And with that, loves, I am outty - gotta get some shut eye before the last leg of the drive tomorrow.

Nighty-night!

Shalom!
~MW