I really hate it when people get back from a mission trip and say the rest of us are all screwed up.
I will praise the Lord, who counsels me;
even at night my heart instructs me.
I have set the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest secure
Psalm 16:5-9
what do you do when you stuck between two worlds, and neither feels right.
what do you do.
what do you do when you don't know what to do, and your faced with many choices.
what do you do.
what do you do when it makes no sense, and things don't come as easily as they used to.
what do you do.
what do you do when you just want to run, and never stop running, and never be emotionally engaged.
what do you do.
what do you do when the textbook answers don't apply anymore, this is real life, the training is over.
what do you do.
what do you do when everything falls apart, everything.
you run,
I run to the author perfecter of my faith.
I run to the healer of my soul.
I run to the one who will never fail me.
and I run because there is no time to waste,
my Savior is waiting to embrace me,
with all my flaws,
he is waiting.
strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord, we will wait upon the Lord
- chris tomlin
It is your birthday,
And you are now 18
So let me reminisce 18 of the things I love most about you.
You take everything with great stride, every challenge, task,
Or great feat, and we both know there have been plenty of these!
Your encouraging, you never cease to remind me there is a
Plan in everything, and that God always has a purpose
We make an awesome pair of bakers, I make the mess, and you clean it up.
I still remember that time I insisted on us using the kitchen aid, and oh
What fun I had with that! And even though it ended up spewing flour
Over the kitchen you laughed at me when I insisted it was the only
“proper” way to be mixed.
You are a fabulous moss block pinner person.
What more do I really need to say, quick you may not be.
But your blocks always look pretty spiffy!
You are my personal librarian,
The library of ming will never diminish. Ever.
And your not just any librarian no, you pick the best books.
The best.
You forever and always will be my Passion Friend.
Because I know when everyone else bails out, *cough*
You were there with your luggage packed at the doorstep of my house
With a shiny red spaghetti pot, just for me.
You are definitely my traveling buddy,
Whether 4 hours, or 4 minutes you and I are the
Safest drivers out there, with our “blind spot checks” and our
Commands that it is safe to pull into traffic, followed by an apology
With an assurance that we do trust the others driving judgments but it’s just a habit.
I love the way you question everything, It makes me question too,
but the way you do it is so healthy, And we learn so much through it
Your excitement for knowledge thrills me. It makes me strive to be smart too.
Emphasis on strive.
Your complaints are very few, semester after semester the complaints you have heard about my work load could probably fill a large vat. And you never ever, ever, remind me that your work is at least twice as grueling and less then twice as easy.
Your craziness and abnormalness kills me
It ALWAYS keeps me guessing, I never know with the next phone call whether you are calling to tell me you ran over your brother, or running off to who knows were!
I love your honesty, even though at times honesty wasn’t the easiest choice, you went for it, and trusted God.
I love your confidence in God, that I have only seen grow stronger in the past years, it’s amazing what two people can conquer and learn through each other in such a short amount of time.
I love how you deal with my random bursts of excitedness, and never cease to laugh at my random quirks like loving the color red, being obsessed with my dog, need I continue?
I love the way you keep God in the center of your life, I love how you search and question waiting for what God will teach you next.
I love our random drives to nowhere, and our random conversations that leave you guessing as to what will come out of my mouth next, and you're always there to offer a laugh, even if what I said made completely no sense, or was completely stupid.
I love our serious conversations, I don’t know what else I can say about them, hours pass and neither of us ever felt it, because we were so deep into talking about boggling things.
Most of all I love your friendship, God truly has been good to us!
So to end this…. Happy Birthday Ming!
Your 18!
It seems like this has been a very long time in coming! We finally have started on the mooresville property, and it's pretty exciting, minus the poison ivy, wasps, misquotes, the never ending pile of beer bottles, ants, bees...
