God of This City

I cannot tell you how amazing it is when you get the chance to show total strangers some love. When you expose them to honest goodwill, it blows them away. I love seeing the reaction on people's faces when you want to do something for them, no strings attached. They can't believe it- everyhting these days has a catch. I had the oppurtunity to go with some friends to a local laundromat and pay for people's laundry this weekend. It was the best 3 hours I've had in a very long time. I think if more people found the time to do something like this our nation would be flipped upside down!

Crazier

So it's been a pretty busy month! I started a new workout with a different gym, so I've been getting up at 4:00 twice a week for Boot Camp. It's been pretty grueling, but next week is my last week in it, and I'll get to get measured and wee my results! I'm pretty excited!

Work has been kind of slow, but I have been doing some stuff to get a new make up line in, so that has been fun. I will soon be the only spa in Cedar Hill to carry Jane Iredale, Iredale Mineral Cosmetics!!! I'm so excited! I'm really hoping that boosts my business.

My dad ran for city council in Ovilla, and won. He will be getting sworn in next week, so we are all really happy for him. The day of the election, he sat and waved at people all day as they drove by the city council office. And that night, we even had a watch party, so we got to see him when they announced he had won. I had never seen my dad so happy. It was priceless. I'll remember that moment for the rest of my life.

Last weekend I had a booth at the local Costco and handed out bochures from my spa. It was pretty fun. That night I went to a fundraiser for an organization called JustOne. (www.just4one.org) It was really an eye opening experience. My small group from church is already organizing a community outreach through the JustOne initiative called Laundry Love Project. I'm really excited about it.

Life is really going pretty well these days. I'm reading a book called Enjoying the Silence, along with most of the encounter peeps. it's been really cool so far. We've been doing a series about how to hear God. I know sometimes I can't always tell if it's Him speaking to me or not. I know I need better disernment in that area.

I guess that's about it. Hope you all have a great and blessed day!

Running In Circles

Wow, so it's definitely been a while since I've writting on here. My bad. I've been a little busy. Doing what? Doing lots of stuff! Work, networking, youth group stuff (always fun!), spending time with Collin, and ... I guess that's about it.

Well I guess I can try to get you all caught up on what's been going on. I mean, if there is anyone out there who reads this and doesn't talk to me on a daily/weekly basis. I guess I left you guys off with visiting my cousin and my friend, Matt. Both visits were very interesting. Collin and I always have fun wherever we go. That day I think we had lunch at Chili's. Yeah... because that was like the one time we ate somewhere other than El Fenix and it definitely wasn't entertaining. We had a great time entertaining ourselves. And making fun of Collin's cane. We did get to use his handicapped parking tag for the first time. Usually all the handicapped parking is taken.

After lunch, I headed to Hutchins and spent a few hours at Fire House 2 with Matt and his shift. He gave me a 30 minute tour of the house. No lie... I now know what every compartment on the fire engine is for. It was actually a lot of fun, and the guys pretty much devored the lemon bars I made for them in about 10 minutes.

The rest of that week wasn't as eventful but I guess I survived. Haha. The followig two weeks were good, I had classes at International Dermal Institute on Monday and Tuesday. And I even ran into an old friend from my Paul Mitchell days, so that was really cool! We got to have lunch together and catch up on what we had been doing since graduation.

At the beginning of April I went to West, TX and got to do some moulage make up on the high school kids for their Shattered Dreams program. I was so nervous that I woke up at 2:30 in the morning!! It was crazy because I had never done special effects make up like that, and I was really afraid that I would mess it up! But the most rewarding part of that day was when the kids walked out to the accident scene and I heard some EMTs say "Wow, that moulage is really good!"

So after that I felt pretty much on top of things. Still made sure to see my cousin about ever other week or so. He and Matt actually hadn't met, so we all got to have dinner to together a couple of weeks ago. That was really cool. They sat and talked about Chick fil A all night. I am just so glad God spared my cousin's life. And so glad that Matt was at the hospital the night of the accident.

Last night, Collin and I went to some gala for the Southeast Dallas Chamber. We went, we ate- and then we left. It was kind of funny. We ended up dropping off some stuff at the house he's moving into this weekend. I can hardly believe the accident was 5 months ago. He has come so far.

God has been teaching me so much lately. I can't even explain. Mostly about patience. Especially with work. The last couple of weeks have been good. But I look at my schedule for next week and see that I have no clients booked, and its hard. There are times when I really wonder what I got myself into. But I know God put me here for a reason, and while I don't know what that reason it right now, I know that it's there.

I hope you all have a blessed weekend!

Who Wouldn't Want to be Me?

I have an amazingly blessed life. It has taken a long time for things to really feel like they have come together at the spa. But last week I finally had my ribbon cutting and that went really well. About 30 to 40 people showed up and I booked 4 appointments, so that was really exciting!

There are still a few things that I am trying to work out with the shop owners. Just a couple of small annoyances that need to be handled, but other than that, everthing has been going really well at the shop. I haven't sold as much retail this month, but I have a few more clients coming in this week, so hopefully I'll have a chance.

Tomorrow I'm off to visit with my cousin, Collin, and my friend, Matt. Yay! So that's it for now!

Never Again

So another Valentine's Day has come and gone. Although, I have to say, this year was far worse than any other.

I've never had a "valentine" and that's fine with me. I think the whole day is pretty stupid. I don't need Hallmark or anyone else telling me when to send my friends and loved ones gifts and cards. I don't mind doing that stuff for no reason, so don't make up some day and tell me I'm a bad person if I don't mold to the status quo.

Anyways.... so I'm already not a big fan of the day. But, like I said, I usually do something for my friends. Usually a card and a small gift. Well, this year I happened to mail a card to a friend of mine that lives out of town, and it contained references to inside jokes. Nothing inappropriate, just funny.

Well, I worked all day on Saturday and by the time I got home, I was exhausted. When I walked in the house, my mom said that I had mail. I looked at the counter and there was a card-sized envelope with my name on it and the friend's name in the return address. So I immediately thought they had sent me a card as well.

But when I opened the envelope, my stomach dropped to the floor. It was the card I had sent them. They had sent it back. Along with a letter explaining how they felt our friendship was unhealthy and was causing emotional impurity. Needless to say, I was shocked and incredibly hurt. Especially since I had just seen that person a week beforehand and felt that they should have said something then if they weren't comfortable with how things were between us.

I guess I don't have to say that forgiving this person will be next to impossible right now. I value honesty, even if it hurts at the time. It's very difficult for me to see how this person called themself my friend and couldn't find a way to be honest with me.

So yeah, I guess my weekend didn't go very well. I also got sick on top of it all and had to cancel on my clients today. Hopefully I will feel better soon, physically and emotionally.

Common Ground

So today I was sitting with one of the store owners and we were talking about how people my age don't go to church. I hate that the attendance for 20 somethings had dropped to bascially nothing. Even at my own church I can count on one hand the number of singles. And then we talked about how great it would be if there was a place in the area where young adults could get together and hang out after work, and on the weekends and meet other Christians.

I was really excited about the idea! We discussed how it could have a game area, and diner, and a place for concerts, too. I mean, this would be great if it happened! Then I thought about the financial part and my suggestion was getting the fundung from churches in the area so that it would be a place for everyone, not just one denomination, or one church. It would be more of a community hang out and place to reach out.

The ideas were just spilling out! Like having a counselor on staff so that if someone needed some help with a serious issue, then there would be a a safe place for them to come.

This would be absolutely amazing if this could actually happen. Finding a place to lease as a community center for young Christian adults and then finding funding from churches would definitely take a lot, but I think it would be totally great, and a great way to get Christians my age to meet and make friends. I know that it's hard finding friends my age. Someone I share common ground with. But this would be great. It really would be amazing. And I would love to see it happen.

Push Me Down

I am so tired of being made the bad guy all the time. Of being pushed away when my friends have a problem. Of being told they can't trust me. Right, yeah, okay. I am so tired of being the only one who hears the "honesty" but the minute I say what's honestly on my mind I'm some kind of crazy person.

I'm hurt because someone would do all of this to me and say they were my friend. I'm confused because it always gets turned around on me, and they say it's the other way around. I'm tired because it seems like this is a vicious cycle and they will never see a need for change.

At the end of all of this though, is forgiveness. I'm sure they don't think that I have truly forgiven them, and that's their issue. But see, I know they will never apologize. I know they will never see that they might have been wrong for treating me like they did. Treating me like yesterday's garbage when they had a bad day. Or lying and saying everything was fine because they thought I didn't care. For all of that, they are forgiven. And they can walk away, that's their decision.

But James hit it right on the nose when he said "What causes fights and quarrels among you?" We spend so much time finding a reason to be mad at someone that we cannot see what we did wrong ourselves. He also said "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." I truly believe that. Was I perfect with what happened? I'm gonna say probably not. But at least my conscience is clear with being willing to take the first step and forgive them.