Going to State!

I only have a minute because I must get some sleep, but I wanted to let you know that I'm heading to south Georgia in the morning for the fast pitch softball state tournament. I know, I'm a wild one, aren't I? :) But Matthew is the assistant coach and we live close enough to go, so I am. It used to be a yearly trip for the team but like all dynasties, things change and it's been a while since they've been. On paper, they shouldn't get very far, but the Braves showed us what teamwork and chemistry and heart can do when talent might not be evenly matched. So we'll see what happens. But as we all go to bed tonight, there are 8 teams hoping to become the state champion and at this moment, we're all on equal footing. Go Hoyas!

Birthday Blog

It's official - I have lived to see another year begin in my life! Most of the time I'm glad about that, but I have to admit that the older I get, the more I long for the day when everything will be made right.  There's so much sadness and pain in the world that sometimes it makes my heart hurt.  That's when I realize that God's patience with us is greater than I'll ever be able to comprehend.

I know I haven't been updating my blog regularly and I really do hope to get better at it again.  To catch you up, I'll hit some of the highlights of the last month. 

~ I last left you with the Braves making the playoffs. Alas, we didn't make it out of the first round and we had to officially say goodbye to Bobby Cox as manager of our Atlanta Braves. Tiffany wrote a really good blog about the season ending, so I'm going to be lazy and just put a link to it here and then I won't say anymore about it. Well, except that it's only about four months until Spring Training and I live close enough now that I can drive there for a couple of games next year. :)

~ In September, our friend Annie came to visit from Baltimore. We had a lot of fun having her here and enjoyed showing her some of the nearby sights. Even though Maryland is pretty far north, it is still south (barely) of the Mason-Dixon line thus keeping them from officially being Yankees. But I never saw any magnolia trees while living there, so we had to show Annie what the true south was like.

Of course, one cannot visit Atlanta without being introduced to the Varsity.

If it's baseball season, then a Braves game is a must also. Brooke got to join us so we had a mini Baltimore reunion even though she's back in GA too.

We also went to Stone Mountain to show her the giant rock east of Atlanta. (Did you know that it was formed by a volcano that never quite erupted and that most of it is still underground? You learn something new every day.....)

Thanks for visiting, Annie! We'll see you at Passion 2011!

~ Moving back to Georgia reunited us with Matthew who still teaches and coaches at Harrison. Being the supportive parents that we are, we've been to several fast-pitch softball games and helped cheer the Lady Hoyas to victory as region champs this year. They're currently in the second round of the state playoffs and if they win that, then I'll get to visit my friend Liz in Columbus next weekend.

This was what was left of the water cooler contents after they were poured over Matthew. He's one of the assistants, but I guess the girls figured dumping ice water over their pregnant coach wasn't a good idea, so he was chosen.

~ Even though we're back "home" in GA, life is very different than it was before we moved. All of my friends are now grandparents and at different places in life than we are. Two of our kids are in different states and with the economic downturn, our income has decreased which makes traveling more infrequent. I'm still pondering what to do with my free time - do I look for a job? Do I take a class or two? If I'm not careful, I can get discouraged by what I see, forgetting that the unseen is where life is really being lived. But the extra time is allowing me a lot of solitude which I just learned from Tiffany is a spiritual discipline. (Side note - I've been learning a lot of interesting things from her as she shares some of what she's studying!) Being comfortable with yourself and with God in the quiet is something we miss in our age of information and instant everything. So I'm trying to receive this time and quiet as the gift that it is knowing that seasons pass and there is growth in all of them. I took some time last week to just walk around the apartment complex on a perfect fall day and take some pictures. These were some of my favorites.

This is the evil goldenrod, better known as ragweed, that tries to kill us every fall.

~ Time to get busy! If you're able to, give your kids (or parents) a hug today. You never know when you'll live too far away to do so.

Playoffs!

Greetings on this fun numerical day of 10/10/10. It's been a while since I've posted.....sorry! I only have a minute today but will catch back up in the next couple of days. For now, I want to just say that THE BRAVES ARE IN THE PLAYOFFS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is what the excitement looked like on the field a week ago when the Giants beat the Padres to guarantee the wild card spot for the Braves.

And this was what it looked like in the clubhouse with the players and coaches. (photos courtesy of ajc.com)

There's just something about pulling for the underdog in life no matter what the situation is. Even Cinderella's rise out of the ashes was coined into its own term of "Cinderella Story". But even Cindy probably didn't expect it to apply to a baseball team many decades down the road.

Anyway, we're about to leave so I must go. I just wanted to say hello on this beautiful fall day and wish you all a very happy Sunday. Oh, and go Braves!!

"We Can Do Hard"

This is the 200th post of my blog and I've been wondering what it would end up being about. I mentioned last entry that life's been a little hard the last couple of weeks.  I'm still having adjustment issues and it seems like everywhere I look these days, life is hard for somebody.  I love the title of this entry and I can say that because it's not mine.  Mary Beth Chapman coined this phrase as she's helped her family navigate through the tragedy of losing little Maria a couple of years ago.  Watching God bring beauty out of ashes in their family has been an encouragement to so many because of His amazing faithfulness.  Should you want to follow her journey yourself, here's the link to her blog.

Since moving back to Georgia, we've been going to Passion City Church.  This week, Louie and his sister, Gina, had the sad but wondrous experience of being with their mom as she slipped into eternity to be with the God she faithfully served while here on this earth.  We know according to Psalms 116:15 that "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His godly ones", but for those left behind there's a loss that won't be fully healed until they're reunited someday.  Here's the link to the Passion City Church blog if you want to know more about what God is doing in Atlanta through this ministry.

Today, my heart is especially heavy for a friend of Tiffany's that she graduated from Furman with.  I introduced you to Emmett and his family several months ago and shared how they had learned very unexpectedly that he had esophageal cancer.  They started a blog to keep friends and family updated and I've been following their journey of faith and struggle.  Earlier this week, they went for another CAT scan to assess the chemo effects and got discouraging news.  If you'd like to follow their story, here's the link.

I'm going to let Wendy's words (Emmett's wife) close this entry.  Sometimes life is hard, but because of God and His love and grace, we can do hard.

"You see, if you read the Bible as I do, from the slightly cynical angle of someone who started walking with God later in life, then quite often Jesus answers questions in a way people vastly misunderstand. Pretty much every conversation he has makes sense in light of the cross, but if you think about the context, then people’s perplexed reactions make perfect sense to me. I am completely and perfectly aware that I may have misunderstood the Lord’s answer to my prayer that day because I want to believe Emmett will get well. I completely understand that I cannot see beyond my circumstances and ten years from now I may understand that prayer differently than I do now. But for now, we’ve made the choice to take him at his word, which is very difficult for me. Because you see, as I write this, thousands of women are being or have been raped in the Congo by rebel and government soldiers, with no one to turn to for safety. Children in southeast Asia are being sold as slaves into the sex trade, and thousands of people around the world are going without food, medicine, or clean water. So why would God have mercy on us? There is absolutely no reason he would. Suffering of all kinds exists because there is sin in the world, and sin multiplies just like the aggressive cancer in Emmett’s body. And the love of Christ, which he has chosen for now to demonstrate through his church, seems as impotent as the chemotherapies used to fight Emmett’s advanced cancer. The beautiful mystery is that God’s love will triumph over evil on this earth, and millions of people throughout history who don’t deserve the love of God will find true healing in the blood of Christ. So we’ve chose to believe in physical healing because that’s the only way we can find the courage to face each morning. We weep often because we find it difficult to balance apparent reality with a hopeful faith."

Smiles

I have found that when I stop to look for them, there are lots of things that come our way to make us smile. It's when I quit looking that life seems to get bleaker. I'm sure that's part of the reason Jesus reminded us to come as children because who better sees life's wonders?

It was a quiet weekend for the most part, but a couple of things got my attention and reminded me to be wonder-filled again.

First, we went to the Braves game on Saturday with some friends and strong storms were in the area. Fortunately, nothing hit us until right about the time we got to the car after a brisk walk/run. But it did create an opportunity for a cool rainbow appearance. I only had my phone to take a picture with, but if you look closely, you can still see it.

The game ended up going into extra innings and in the bottom of the 12th inning, the Braves won it with a walk-off homerun! Yay for exciting baseball games that we win!! The celebration at home plate was definitely something to smile about!

For those of you who are pet owners, I know you'll agree that they brighten our days often. Kit is very old - she'll be 15 in November and she's definitely slowing down. I know the dreaded "day" will come sooner rather than later, but for now she's still healthy and enjoying life. One of her favorite things to do is sleep on/near/beside her human of choice. If I'm around, it's me but Hamp serves as a great alternate. This was her keeping me company a couple of nights ago. How can you not smile at this??

This week's smiles will mostly be brought to me by what has been dubbed "Theme Park Therapy" by Tiffany and Nikki. I'm heading to Orlando for two days of Disney adventures, including the newly-opened Harry Potter world at Universal. They discovered last year that there's a brief window of time right after school starts everywhere when the parks are hardly crowded. I'm not working right now and they're only 7+ hours away, so......what's a girl to do? Stay tuned for pictures to come!

Edits

This has been a hard week.  Life is just not easy sometimes and when that's true for those you love, it makes you want to ask the age old question, "Why?"  While I often ask that question, I rarely get an answer and if I do, it's always after enough time has gone by that I'm looking in hindsight.  I try to instead ask "What?" so I can be on the lookout for what God may have for me in any given moment.

I thought about that a few days ago as I was experimenting with some editing features on my computer.  I really know very little about it and don't have any of the good software to really try and learn.  I'm hoping to change that in the near future, but for now I'm very limited in what I'm capable of doing.  That being said, I was able to get some interesting looks to an original picture I had taken in Baltimore last year.  As I was looking at the results, I had a small epiphany.  (Side note - isn't that a cool word?  It's one of my favorites and it's just not one you get to use on a regular basis.)

What was this insight you ask?  I'll see if I can explain it by first showing you the original picture I used in my editing experiment.

It was an ordinary scene made extraordinary by the perfect combination of a full moon and a clear night and great timing. Now look at several more pictures of the same scene, but this time with various editing techniques.

The picture is always the same, but with editing the overall look was changed and also how one might perceive it. I realized that the same is true with God. He allows different exposures, color adjustments, and tints in our lives that might change our overall look, but they still keep us the person He created without changing our purpose.

Psalms 138:8 - "The Lord will accomplish what concerns me; Your lovingkindness, O Lord, is everlasting ; do not forsake the works of Your hands."

Something To Think About

~Mary Engelbreit Daily Calendar, September 3rd