Lent Lessons

I've spent the past 40 days off of Facebook for personal use as my sacrifice for Lent.
Disclaimer: I totally used it for Tastefully Simple stuff and PWOC Bible study stuff.  God and I worked it out.  No biggie.

The idea was that I was giving up something that I rely on and waste a lot of time on to show God that I don't need it because He is all I need.  Because, really, do I need Facebook in my life?  Not really.  I mean, sure there are times where it's convenient to have, especially now that we've become a society where everything is shared, announced, and updated in milliseconds on the social network.  But by giving up Facebook and worshiping God by showing Him that He is more important than Facebook, He showed me a lot of things and opened a lot of new doors.

I spent the beginning of Lent hanging out with my sister and her fiance who came up to visit.  Instead of sitting on the couch on my phone/laptop checking Facebook, I actually interacted with Mindy and Clay and enjoyed all of our time together, present in the moment.  We cooked dinner together, had sister time, game night, and just truly enjoyed being together for the long weekend.  For the first time in a while, I actually felt like I was present in the moment instead of distracted by my phone.

I also got to spend a weekend with my beautiful sisters in Christ in Washington DC at the Global Prayer Gathering for the International Justice Mission.  I spent 3 days deep in God' presence as He opened my eyes and my heart to injustice going on all over the world.  From forced labor to sex slavery, so many of God's children are stuck in the dark, and it was incredible to be surrounded by 1200 other believers lifting up these mission workers and enslaved people together in His name.  God called me to get out of my comfort zone and showed me some areas of my life He's calling to, but that's for another blog post.  He also answered a long-standing prayer for more Godly women to build friendships with, which was amazing.

I had the opportunity to reunite with two of my absolute best friends from Ohio during this 40 days, and to just enjoy being together for the first time in almost 2 years!  We laughed, we reminisced, we ate junk food, and we enjoyed every minute of our time together.  It gave me a chance to show them around Drum and Syracuse, to introduce them to some of my Army family up here, and to finally share this chapter of my life with them.  I absolutely loved having them here, and was so sad when they had to leave, but it was such a blessing that God worked out that they could be up here for almost 5 whole days with me!

God also opened a new door in terms of a job for the summer.  I've been praying and very worried about what I would do when the school year ended and I couldn't sub anymore.  With graduation coming in August and my loans coming out of deferment, I knew I needed something and I just kept praying that God would provide.  Boy did He ever!  A friend in PWOC introduced me to one of her wonderful neighbors and her 4-year-old son.  She was in desperate need of full-time childcare for her son in their house, and after a 2-hour interview we realized that so many of our thoughts on children and development are on the same page.  I start at the end of this month spending Monday through Friday with this sweet little boy who just needs some boundaries and love, and God has truly come through more than I could have ever hoped in terms of providing for our finances. 

Lent also saw the end of another grad school semester, the completion (and passing) of my Master's thesis paper, and some more weight loss - woo hoo!

But the best part about Lent this year?   That I have developed a deeper and strengthened relationship with God.  As we're into Easter weekend at this point, the sacrifice and love that Christ showed to all of us has never been more apparent to me, and I'm so thankful for His grace and mercies, which I don't deserve but which are always enough!

So happy Easter to you and your family.  May you spend tomorrow surrounded with people you love, celebrating God's love however you see fit.  No matter what you do, though, don't forget to take a moment to sit in peace, surrounded by His presence, and thank Him for His undeserved but immeasurable love.

He is risen!

Spring Cleaning

March is almost here. This is good for a few reasons.
#1: That means only 3 more months of teaching!
#2: Spring break is coming up, which means a week of relaxing (although SB is in April for me now that I teach high school...but March means it's getting close!)
#3: Spring is right around the corner :)

I'm sooooo ready for March. I'm ready for the weather to start to clear up a bit, for the sun and the birds and to see the ground again as the snow melts away. I'm also ready for some intense spring cleaning. Our place isn't a mess or anything, but we could use some reorganization around here. Clutter tends to give me anxiety, and the clutter around here has managed to pile up over the past 7 months. March brings spring cleaning, and I'm going to become a cleaning fiend.

Here's my list:

• Clean out the livingroom closet
• Clean out the hall closet
• Clean out our bedroom closet
• Organize the top of the fridge
• Organize the bookcase in the livingroom
  

The last two of these will probably get done this week (or at least started) since my mom, sister, and nephew are coming up on Saturday and I'd like the house to look mildly organized. But I'm starting to feel the spring cleaning bug and wanting to start organizing--now if only I can get H on board... :)

Where is Spring?

I'm so over this snow. All week, it was warm and sunny (and by warm, I mean 50 degrees which is incredibly warm for Ohio in February) and it seriously made my s.a.d. feel much better--I knew it wouldn't stay, but I was hopeful. It felt good to feel like that again. Not that I'm depressed at all, but I definitely get the "winter blues," especially when things like work are so stressful; the sunshine and warm weather was such an uplifting feeling.

H and I had date night last night for his birthday (which was Wednesday) and it was so nice to get out of the house and do some fun things together. We went to the Toledo Museum of Art and took a glass class, where we made glass flowers together. It was something we'd been talking about wanting to do for a few years, so for a birthday present surprise I took him to the class. It was a lot of fun, and it was great to try something new together. For dinner we went to The Melting Pot, which is this really awesome fondue place where we had cheese fondue with chips, veggies and bread, a wine fondue with steak, chicken, shrimp, lobster, and duck, and a white chocolate and amaretto fondue with cake, brownies, and fruit. It was amazing, and it was an interactive dinner which was really cool. It was so wonderful to get out of our normal routine and try new things together--I love when we do that because it's a great bonding experience for us, and it gets us out of our normal rut. Plus, I think we needed a romantic night out---sometimes life around here gets boring, and we need new things to keep us going :)

I'm ready for Spring. I'm ready to not be cooped up in the house every evening because it's too cold to go for walks or go to the park. I'm ready to be able to keep the windows open and feel the breeze (and not have to be under a blanket because it's too cold). I want to drive with my windows down or the sun roof open and not have to have the heat on to balance it out. And I want the sunshine to be a regular occurrence again. Where-oh-where is Spring?!