I had to write about this new blog I found via Pastor Kerri’s Website. It is called Stuff Christians Like and it is waaaay worth the read. Charles and I just read #323 and cracked up about the “looking cool in church”. My favorite? #4 To Look Generous. Bringing out your tithe money in one dollar bills and cramming it into a tithe envelope??? Funny stuff. Anyhoo, this guy has the same sense of humor Charles and I do, and it is really refreshing to read a Christian blog out there that enjoys the humorous parts of life that God created, instead of being serious all the time. I mean, God created humor, so I think He would have some, right? However, for the safety of you readers, it might be safe for you to stand at least 50 feet from me for awhile in case God doesn’t find this funny.

Charles and I have dreamed about sailing around the world for several years now. We are not sure it will ever happen, but the dream is still there. So when we heard about Zac Sunderland we were immediately interested. He is a 16 year old who is attempting to be the youngest person to sail around the world by himself. He left two days ago on a 36 foot boat named Intrepid and has to make it back in about 11 months. You can read his blog or see his website. After reading several articles about this young man (YES I said young man I am starting to get old now!) I have got to say that I am impressed. Not only with him, but his parents. He is a straight A home-schooled student, that is the oldest of 7 children. His mother, why she is not freaking out right now, is even more impressive that she supports him, and manages to raise 6 other kids. Praise Jesus that she is still somewhat sane! His father outfitted the boat so he can sail the whole thing by himself and is very close with his son. Zac brought along his school work, and in one interview said the things he is really worried about is not finishing his school work on time, and missing his family and friends. Ummm…. I think I would be more afraid of the hurricanes, pirates, SHARKS, and tankers at night that might not see a 36 foot sailboat. Charles and I are supporting this young man and check his blog almost daily to see what is going on. I am not sure if they are Christians, but he definitely could use some prayer, so when you think about it, pray for him and his family, (mom dad and 6 other siblings.) It is awesome to see a teenager in the media doing something positive!

I just completed a new website. It is Dare 2 Shine and can be found at www.sophiadare.com This is a content management website run by WordPress. Basically I set up the bones of the site, and the owner can blog, sell items, change the look of the site, and do anything she wants. I created the theme you see with her specifications, and pretty much let her go. There are so many options for wordpress sites it is amazing. A HUGE shout out to people that contribute to WordPress.  Sophie’s story is really good, so you might want to check it out once in awhile.

It had been windy for a couple of days so I decided to purchase a 3 dollar kite and try to fly it off of our neighbor’s dock. So we had the whole family set: Micah in his fancy jeep stroller, Grace holding daddy’s hand, and me holding a small plastic kite with a tail about 15 feet long. After having some minor issues and a slight argument about where the string should be clipped onto the kite, (It is the front of the kite, not the bottom of the kite, Sarah!), we were ready to go. I’ll let you look at the pictures and read the captions so you can see what happened. Sort of like a photograph montage of sorts.

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While driving down the road the other day, I was stopped at a stop light behind a mid-size car. Toyota, Honda, something like that. What was happening inside the car was what caught my attention. I saw a man hitting the woman in the passenger seat. I’m talking about a beating that should have been on pay-per-view with Oscar De La Hoya. In between punches, she would throw in a jab at his face as well. The light turned green and he hit the gas, still punching her and her punching him. He was all over the road trying to stay in the right lane, then moving to the middle lane, almost hitting me, and then finally deciding to turn into a parking lot, he swerves in the right lane again in between jabs, and hits his brakes finishing what he started. Many of you would be shocked at seeing this. I must tell you, I was a little, but I have seen it before on this side of town.
I live in a very poor neighborhood. You have a strip clubs, drug deals, prostitution, and gunfire. I pretty much have the non-emergency police number on speed dial. The last two times I have called the police have been for gunfire shots right down the street, and prostitution right on our property. Charles and I look at each other and ask, “Why in the world are we here?”
Because God wants us here. Believe me we have looked around at other neighborhoods. We have priced the houses there, and looked at the school districts. God apparently has closed all other doors. So I sit here amidst all of this and choose to be thankful for putting us here. Perhaps we are here as lights in this area where poverty, abuse, anger, racism, and hatred run rampant in these streets. There is so much tension around here, and yet so much opportunity to show love. One thing is for sure the Byrd family is on the mission field as we speak. Keep praying for this side of town. We ALL need it.

I was in a cleaning frenzy on Saturday. Vacuuming, cleaning the kitchen, scrubbing the floors. I was down on my hands and knees wiping the dusty baseboards that I don’t think have been cleaned since I was in my nesting phase during my 6th month of pregnancy with Micah. So there I was, wet towel in hand concentrating on a particularly hard spot when a spider–oh, we’ll just call him Gigantor– came sauntering, YES sauntering, up to me as if saying, “You wanna piece of me?” This spider was 2.5 inches in diameter, and I guess I had hit his territory and he was not happy about it.
So I quickly got my handy Black & Decker dust buster, aimed the miniture vacuum at him and turned on the power. What happened next would embarrass Black and Decker. As the power was on I didn’t see him in the see through dust collector. I slightly lifted the vacuum and saw him still sitting there, laughing at me. So I then proceeded to press down as hard as i could and moved the vacuum back and forth to possibly squish the spider. If the vacuuming wasn’t going to work this spider would die the old fashioned way! After a couple of minutes, I saw that the spider was inside the dust collection cup. Whew! I turned off the vacuum and inspected my work.

He jumped inside the cup.

The dude was still alive! I turned the vacuum back on and watched as he swirled around in there like a giant cyclone. I believe I heard tiny squeals of delight and him saying, “Is that all you got?” So I kept the vacuum on and glanced over at my children who were watching me in amazement. My hair was strewn about, I was muttering to the spider saying, “Why don’t you just die??”, while peering into the vacuum cup. Yeah, kids, talk to God on how He choose me for your mommy, you might need serious God-therapy later!
So the vacuum was going, the spider moving around, and then the vacuum battery starts to die. The power begins to wane, and at that point the spider heads towards the exit of the vacuum to crawl right back out again!
I mutter something not so nice about Black & Decker, go outside, and “free” Mr. Spider outside on the grass. I still believe I heard him laughing at me as I headed back in the house.

His cousin however was not so lucky. Later that day Charles and I were working in the yard. As I prepared to put my dirty yard shoes on, I asked Charles if he could check them for spiders since they had been sitting out on the porch for awhile. What Charles said next, he wished he could take back. “Why are you so afraid of spiders? You make such a big deal about it, there are no spiders in your shoes.” He picked them up and out jumped..you guessed it, a very large spider. This made the first spider look like a minature. It was about 4 inches in diameter and could move like nobody’s business.
Two overturned chairs later, the spider had gone to his reward, proving two points:
1. Spiders like to scare me.
2. Never doubt what your wife tells you. 

Today Grace, Micah and I met a group of women at Sunshine Park for Play day. Sunshine Park is this awesome park at the beach that is well… AWESOME. Kids playing everywhere, slides, swings, you name it, they have got it. This was the same park where Grace had her second birthday.
Anyhow, we were coming into the entrance of the play area and a little girl and her mother held the gate open for us because I had a stroller. I thanked them, (Grace did the same because she mimics everything I say), and then walked into the play area. I turn around and both Grace and the little girl are staring at each other. Grace smiles at her, then she smiles back. The little girl puts her finger to her mouth. Grace copies, and then they giggle. Grace puts her hands down by her sides, and the little girl copies her, and they giggle again. Then they start to follow each other as they run around laughing and really hitting it off! Grace and the little girl start to play with another woman’s baby seat so I tell Grace to leave it alone, and I guess that snapped the little girls attention to the fact that she was not near her mommy and she ran to the picnic area in the center of the playground where her mommy was. Grace’s attention went to me, and then by the time she looked back, the little girl disappeared. Looking for her, she retraced her steps to where they first met. Then she scanned the playground to see if she could find her, walking at a snails pace to be thorough.  I realized what she was doing so I tried to guide her slowly to where she was to see if Grace was indeed looking for the little girl. I didn’t want to force anything, but wanted to help her the best way I could.
As we meandered closer and closer to them and it was becoming more apparent she was indeed looking for the little girl, I said, “Look Grace, there is your friend.” Her head perked up and as she spotted her, Grace ran over to where she was and plopped herself down next to the little girl at the picnic table. Grace thought she was eating lunch with them!
The mom looked at me and smiled, and I told Grace that she could play with her after lunch. I felt so bad for her because she was so excited. We went back out to play. After about half an hour, the girl came out to the playground and I let Grace find her on her own. When they spotted each other they ran and gave each other a hug. I’m talking about a lean on each other “Oh my gosh I haven’t seen you in ages!” hug. It was so precious, and just about everyone on the playground let out an, “Awwwwwwww!” They started giggling again and ran around after each other.
Never have I felt such emotion for someone else. I wanted Grace to be liked, I didn’t want the other girl to be mean to her and crush Grace’s spirit, I wanted to make sure the other girl played nicely, and I was excited for Grace to have a friend her own age. Grace was so excited to play and giggle with another two year old and just be herself. It was beautiful. Praise Jesus for that awesome moment!

Shine is officially over, now what? For four months I have been planning, attending dance practices, praying, and praying some more for this event. Now after all that hard work, I must say…it was AWESOME!!!!! For those of you that don’t know, Shine is our annual women’s conference held at our church. We have speakers from all over the world coming to pour into the lives of these beautiful women, awesome worship time, and different activities for them to participate in. We had spa treatments available, a seperate room for girls ages 11 to 18 to just hang out in, a coffee bar, etc. Go to www.shineinc.org if you want to find out about next year’s conference! With over 1,500 in attendance in 2007, we were expecting pretty big numbers this year. I haven’t heard the final tally yet, but I am sure it was huge.

So what did I do this year? Well dance of course!!! The first night was the big opener. At first all the lights went out and the stage was lit by these neon blue lights and there was a spoken word by Celita on stage (don’t know if that is how you spell her name.) She was talking about how God knows each of us, how important God is in our lives, and it was pretty much a take off of Psalm 139. My personal favorite!! After that, there were three girls that were standing on different platforms placed at each end of the sanctuary. They wore beautiful long dresses dyed from an ice blue to a dark blue and had lights shining down on each of them. They sang “Our God Reigns” at first acapella and then the music started in. It was so beautiful and moving, women started standing up and just raising their hands in the air. Talk about an awesome Jesus moment! After that culminated, the lights were going everywhere the 6 video screens in the sanctuary were playing a video of different flowers growing at an accelerated rate, and the music was pounding out a sort of warrior beat with a little “charoits of fire” music added in there. We had arialists hanging from big sheets of fabric on the ceiling, doing acrobatics. 6 dancers (including myself) were running down the aisles with bigs strips of fabric and then dancing in front of the stage. Talkabout heart racing! As you can see from the photos, we had flowy pants and white leotards (Fun fun fun!).  Then after the lights went out on us there continued a sort of heart beat for a couple of seconds and then one of our best singers at Celebration came in and started singing a worship song. This girl has a voice that is clear as a bell, and immediately helps you get into God’s presence! All this was just the first night!!

The second night was the After Party. We choreographed and learned 17 songs to teach everyone. Think line dancing with a different flair. We were all dressed as “today’s 80’s” with a punk flair, as you can see in the next pictures. What a fun group of girls and guys! We rehearsed for four months every Monday for at least 2 hours each night. It was so much fun. I can honestly say this was some of the best group of girls that I worked with. Everyone had such a great attitude from the beginning, and the commitment level of each of these girls was astounding! So we rocked the outside stages from 9:30p.m. to 11:00p.m., blaring music that we picked out, some Mary J. Blige, Some Toby Mac, Some Franklins (both Aretha and Kirk!). We passed out lighted rings and watched as Pastor John, Pastor Willie, and Cam took turns singing Respect. By the way, Pastor John: dressed like Billy Idol; Pastor Willie: Micheal Jackson; Cam: total 80’s Rocker dude. After an hour and a half of dancing we were all sweating like nobody’s business. On a side note we had two pregnant women out there! Amber was 26 weeks pregnant and Angie, 27 or 28. They both hung in there like champs! Go girls!!!!

All in all it was so much fun. As I sit here now that the dust has settled, I realize what a privilege it was to be a part of such a huge God-Driven production. Here I am little old me, used to dance in clubs drinking and partying like nobody’s business, and only a few years later, I am dancing for Jesus in an awesome women’s conference that touches so many lives. How did I get here? How did I get so blessed? I feel such joy in my heart looking back on my life. Seeing that God orchestrated my life into such beauty. Wow. Thank you Jesus!

It is so amazing to be able to use the talent of dance that God blessed me with in His church.

 

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It was Micah’s first play day with Slade who is just 10 days younger than Micah Bear and such a cutie! They had a great time, laughing at each other, playing with their toys, and of course boy wrestling. Grace got in on the action by feeding a bottle to Slade. (What a mommy!) Here are the pictures of the great event.

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I have been going through a phase in my life that seems like I am just going through the motions. The joy and peace that comes from feeling God’s presence doesn’t hit me every day. There were times where I would get up in the morning and immediately go to my bible and pour over the pages, pray, and just sit and enjoy God’s presence. Lately, well, I’m just hearing crickets!

Does that mean that I am not passionate about God? Actually, I am thankful more and more everyday for Him and His blessings He has given me! Have you seen my blog lately? Look at those adorable children, and that wonderful husband He blessed me with! No, it is not that I feel any different about God. I know that regardless of how I feel, I still have to press on towards the goal that God has given me. To continue to do His works that God has laid out for me no matter what I feel like, and to continue to spend time in His word and in prayer.

Maybe God is seeing how faithful I really am. Not to be dependent on a feeling, but to be dependent on His word that tells me He won’t leave me no matter what, that He is always with me no matter where I am and what I am doing. If I want to continue to live my life as a sold out Christian, instead of living from good feeling to good feeling, I should live from moment to moment continuing with being a parent, a wife, a daughter, a sister, and most importantly the apple of God’s eye.