I’ve always wondered what the whole lent thing is about and whether I would be able to give something up that is extremely important to me. Well, I picked chocolate! Considering that I normally eat chocolate almost EVERY day, I thought this was a appropriate challenge :-) So far, so good! Haven’t had a single piece of chocolate, and I’ve even given up my beloved hot chocolate that normally gets me going every morning. I figured, God gave up His SON, for crying out loud, I should be able to give up some silly chocolate, right?! :-)
This week has been really good. Woke up Monday morning with a smile on my face. Apparently, God is trying to teach me patience and to not judge people and their intentions. Seems like someone who I almost cut off is showing more interest than I initially trusted to believe. And so I ended up having a lot of laughs this week, including a comfortable evening with a movie, some dinner, yummy frozen yogurt, and overall just a lot of peace of mind. It felt GREAT!
I’m excited to say that Caleb and Angela Peck had their first baby this week. Baby Blythe was born Thursday morning and I was so thrilled to keep getting updates from Christi. She is such a sweetheart! I’m hoping to see Cyndi and Paul next month, they are planning on coming to Chicago to see the baby.
As I was volunteering today at the Ronald McDonald House, I heard a very heart-warming story. A lade called to ask for the address of one of our other houses in Chicago. She proceeded to tell me how her nephew’s daughter (5) was brought to the hospital in December with a brain tumor and how her nephew was staying at the RMH during the time his daughter was hospitalized. Three months later, the little girl is slowly getting better and even had her first meal at home last night. The lady was so sincere, she almost started crying. But she said how wonderful her nephew’s experience was at the RMH and because of that, her school and church collected three 1 gallon bags of pop tabs, which is wants to send to RMH. Phone calls like this one, remind me of the reason I am volunteering! I love RMHC :-)
This week our team from NPC and other churches spent in Haiti. We’ve been getting daily updates and it sounded like they must have gone through exhausting experiences. Nevertheless, it sounded like they had a wonderful time and lots of care from God above all things. I am excited to hear there stories and see their pictures!
Tomorrow is a pretty significant date for me. February 28th! Two years ago, I went on my first date with Israel. My life most definitely began to change from that point on. One year ago, I returned from my trip to Haiti. This was the point where I came so much closer to God but was still unsure on how to digest all of my feelings. 6 months ago, Israel broke up with me and I was left with nothing… but God and my faith. From that moment, I trusted Him more than ever and have grown my faith continuously. I’ve been worried about this weekend, wanting to distract myself as much as possible to just get it over with. But when I told my co-worker about my concern, she said one simple thing that changed my whole perspective on this weekend: Don’t look at it as a date that reminds you the things that make you sad because of things lost, look at it as a date of closure. I will not be sad that Israel is gone, I will be happy to start over. I will not be sad that I returned from Haiti after only one short week, I will treasure it and look forward to the next time I can go and provide aid to people in need. More importantly, I will view it as the date I realized I wanted to make a difference in this world. With that in mind, I am happy to being the month of March of 2010. I can’t wait to see what God has in store for my little being. So excited, I can’t wipe that huge smile off my face… :-)