Sunday, May 25, 2008

God's Promises


Today I was reminded of God's promises and the joy of knowing that He will always keep them. The particular promise that I was thinking of is the one from Psalm 37 "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." Lately, I have to admit, I've not been finding all of my delight in Him. If you go to my church and heard my pastor's message today, you might remember his Valentinos analogy. I won't go into that right now, but it just helped things hit me the way they needed to. I just need to remember to claim Christ's promises throughout each day. What joy comes from following close to Him! Nothing can compare...especially not a loaf of old crusty bread (from the Valentinos analogy).

The rainbow that I saw this evening on the way home from a friend's graduation. : )

YAY!!!!!!

WOW! What wonderful, happy announcements today! : )


Josiah and Abi

After the message in church today,

Josiah Wissmann held up the hand of his new bride-to-be and announced their engagement!

What a shocker! I never saw it coming!

You guys did a fabulous, record breaking job at keeping this a secret. : D

So, after I bent over and picked my jaw up off the floor,

I couldn't stop smiling.... YES!!!!! happiness! Save the date......September 20th! : )))))))

Will be praying for you guys!!!!

Praise the Lord!
for more pictures check out Josiah's blog
or his family's blog


Alicia and Justin

There was also another equally exciting announcement.... : )

Pastor Larry asked his oldest daughter Alicia to come and stand up front with him.

He then shared with all of us how he and Mrs. Nelson had given Alicia a heart locket with both of

their pictures inside representing how her heart was theirs until a very special young man came

along and gained her father's permission to win her heart. Next thing ya know....

that young man by the name of Justin Enquist walked up front

and Pastor formally gave him permission to court his daughter. : )))))))

I am soooo excited for you, Alicia and Justin! You both look extremely happy.

I will be praying for you as you start this exciting journey together!

To God be the glory!


(your ring is absolutely lovely, Abi....*sigh* lol)



Great things HE has done!


Wednesday, May 7, 2008

The Day I Almost Missed Tomorrow


I just thought it would be fun to post an old essay that I wrote
last year for my English class at Metro.
I got a 96 on this!! : )



Grace Waldo G. Waldo 1
ENG 1010
05 April 2007
Essay 2 Final Draft
The Day I Almost Missed Tomorrow
My family and I were on vacation in western Wyoming when we decided to go for a swim in the Snake River. We drove to an isolated spot and after the boys grabbed their fishing poles, my family headed out. I stayed behind for a moment, totally engrossed in a book, but that didn’t last for long. The lure of a river swim was too much to resist and I soon left my book to join my family.
As I carefully scrambled down the sharp incline, I lost my footing several times and slid to insure my safe landing. Finally, I made it to the bottom and scanned the view. Small, smooth river rocks stretched over the entire ground reaching up to the waters’ edge. After the spring meltdown, water had flowed over the stones, but now the river was much narrower. I looked down at my bare feet and hoped I could make it across the expanse to the water without completely bruising my feet on the rocks. As I took a careful step forward, I knew right away that it was going to be a long tedious journey to the river. A sharp pain shot through my feet as I struggled to keep my balance. Finally, after what seemed like ages, I reached the edge of the riverbed. I carefully sat on the uncomfortable rocks and massaged my sore feet.
The stream looked cool and inviting. After my feet began to feel normal again, I stood up and stepped out into the freezing water. To my dismay, the very same stones that I had just injured my feet by walking on, covered the bottom of the river! I quickly decided that I if I planned to walk on my feet the next day, I had better think of another way to enjoy the water.
First, I tried crawling on my hands and knees, but that only made it worse! Then I figured out that if I lowered myself onto my stomach, I could float, gripping the stones with my fingers. I pulled my body into deeper water and let current take me with it. My brother Isaac joined me as I floated lazily downstream, head first, with legs behind. It was all fun until I tried to stand up and found it was impossible to touch the bottom! I knew right away that I had better get out of the current as soon as possible.
However, when I tried to swim toward the shore, I got no closer. We both began to swim as hard as we could, but we were only being swept further downstream. The current was much stronger than either of us and my arms were getting tired. There was no use trying not to panic, I was terrified. I screamed for help with all I had, but no one could do anything for me! If I did not get out of the current within the next 10 seconds, I knew I never would. Many terrible thoughts and emotions ran through my head in that instant. “What will happen to me if I don’t get out of this? Where is Isaac? He is going to die too! Is this the last time I will see my family? Am I ready to meet God?” When I was sure that I was done for, my feet hit bottom. A surge of hope rushed through me! With some fast maneuvering, I was able to get a grip on the rocks with my feet and escape the current. I looked behind me, and saw that Isaac had also found safety.
The flood of relief that washed over me did not last for long. I heard my parents screaming and yelling; I looked 100 yards further down the river and saw my two youngest brothers
struggling to stay above the surface; the current was successfully carrying them away. I was horror-struck! This couldn’t be happening! I could not be losing my little brothers!

Two fishermen who had witnessed the scene unfold, began to run down alongside the river with my dad. They yelled at Nate and Micah to swim closer towards shore, but they were not able to break away from the powerful current. I knew that they were goners and I began sobbing. I felt utter anguish that reached way down inside, tearing my heart in two! As I was thinking about how I would never see my brothers in this world again, a miracle happened.
They somehow were able to swim out of the current and into shallow water!
I don’t know how it happened and I don’t know how I suddenly found safety either, but I DO know that God was in complete control of the situation. He had protected our lives! God was there with our family and did not allow anything to happen to us that day.

Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge,

Even the Most High, your dwelling place,

No evil shall befall you,

Nor shall any plague come near your dwelling;

For He shall give His angels charge over you,

To keep you in all your ways.

In their hands they shall bear you up,

Lest you dash your foot against a stone.

Psalm 91:9-12

Friday, May 2, 2008

Alrighty!

Sorry for taking forever to post again. Blogging isn't really enjoyable for me. I mostly do it because I know there are a few people out there who enjoy looking at my pictures and seeing what's going on in my life. So, it's hard to force myself to sit down and upload a ton of pictures. It takes forever and sometimes I feel like I'm just wasting a lot of time. But since I seem to have a whole bunch of blog viewers who are screaming for pictures, I'll post a few.
Just a warning....they could be terribly random and not at all related to each other.
(and maybe someday in the future like next month or next week or so....I might just post some NCHEA pictures......)

There, the best way to start off with is an adorable face! Love you Nicole. : )

Brittany, Esther and I using up our tiredness in strange ways...

Don't ask! (this is at the Oklahoma City china painting museum)

To our horror, we discovered that we had successfully ended up yanking

the poor old lady's arm off with all of our shenanigans!

Thankfully we were able to semi -relocate it into it's socket!

************



A few ice cream inspired moments....


Matt...


Kelsey. : )


Christy



Yep, there's Jacob!



And of course my favorite one of all saved for last..... Micah and Jon. : )






Friday, April 18, 2008

OK. Fine. have it your way!

You all did as I expected.... more than 6 comments and now I have to post. argh. lol However,
I don't have time to post a large post with lots of pics right now, but I will try to in the next week. For now, enjoy this......

"With good friends you will laugh,

With great friends you will never forget."

-Anonymous

Thursday, April 10, 2008

*sigh*.....I guess everyone else is posting on NCHEA....so I will too...(sorta)

...before I get into more trouble.... :-P

But ya know....instead of adding a lot of pictures, which you can see on anyone else's blog (just click here to go to Anna B.'s: http://sillypippi1.blogspot.com/ and scroll down a bit, Nicole's: http://nicolest2t.blogspot.com/, to the Grady's: http://thegradyfamilyarchives.blogspot.com/ (and scroll down a bit), Alatheia's: http://theworldofalatheia.blogspot.com/, Bethany's: http://bloggingbeth.blogspot.com/, and.....Kristin's: http://sempre-dolce.blogspot.com/. There, I think that's it. I'm doing the same thing as Nicole, but as I don't feel like uploading all of the same pictures everyone else is....(and I don't have any exceptionally good ones) I decided to shortcut this time. Sorry!

I tried to upload a few videos....and no, Bekah, not that "certain" video taken at CiCi's! ;-)
.....but the videos wouldn't load. argh. So you'll have to live with no pics and no videos...unless I get like 6 comments asking me to post. Then I'll actually put some of my own pics up. : D

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Busy-ness!!

AH! Life is definitely crazzzzy around here lately! That's why I haven't posted in like a week. NCHEA starts first thing tomorrow and I still have so much left to do! ....packing, sewing, paper work, studying, cleaning, more packing, and errands to run! And it all has to be done by TONIGHT! yikes!! I'm sure I'll be up till 2-3am just trying to finished everything, it'll be a miracle if I'm not!

So tomorrow morning, bright and early, (6:15am) I'll be on the road with all my van packed full from back to front and up to the ceiling with "stuff" such as drama props, tons of room decor, furniture, a huge trunk, sleeping bags, goldfish :-D, my over night bag, etc. With CCC Church as my destination in mind, I'm stopping to pick up a friend (and her luggage :-D ) on the way.

I would like to post again before I leave, but I can't promise anything....
TTYL!!