Goodbye Scott

I had to put Scott down today.

I cried like a baby in front of the vet.

I made my mom drive all the way down from Houston to go with me.

She took him home to bury in the yard.

So goodbye Scott.

Thanks for being the world's best gecko.

Whitney and I will miss you dearly.

Don't Hate Me...

Ok so I'm pretty sure I have become the worst blogger ever. Things have been kind of crazy since rotations started back up - I was on psych (I told you things were crazy) and now I'm in the HIV clinic, which I love.

To catch you up briefly since the last post...
Nicaragua was incredible. We saw around 550 patients in 3 days and many of those patients came to know Jesus! We had members from the church working alongside us to share the gospel and pray with the people as we ministered to them by meeting some of their medical needs. I promise to devote an entire post to the trip as soon as I get the rest of the pictures from Linda!

I went traveling. I drove to Baton Rouge to visit Sarah and Jared, and then to Fort Worth to see Lauren, Jen, and preggo Rachel! I had so much fun catching up with everyone!

Scott (the gecko) had surgery. Yes, I paid to have surgery performed on a GECKO. Go ahead, laugh. I know how ridiculous it sounds, but you haven't had him for 8 years! More about that later.

That's pretty much the skinny on what's been going on lately. I promise I will eventually get around to blogging more about the Nicaragua trip and Scott's surgery. Until then, here are some great links to keep you occupied. I would love to take credit for finding them, but really I stole them all from Liz Seay (Robbie Seay's wife and Jen Bacak's sister-in-law).

This is a music video by Brooke Frasier that I absolutely love. I just had a conversation about how you can't really understand third-world poverty until you've seen it with your own eyes.

I can't describe the smell of a slum, piles of burning garbage everywhere and sewage flowing freely through the streets. I can't explain the emptiness in the eyes of a child living on the streets who lost both parents to AIDS, now high on glue to escape reality. There just aren't words.

In the song Brooke says "now that I have seen, I am responsible - faith without deeds is dead." Well said, Brooke.


Here's a video about an orphanage in Bulgaria. I came across this on Liz's blog a few months ago and stayed up half the night watching it. My heart just broke for these precious children. How can we be silent in the midst of their suffering?


Finally, here's a link to a blog of someone who actually blogs. Her story is incredible. The Ripple Effect
Read the whole blog if you get a chance.

Ok, one more Brooke Frasier video!

Peace out, Texas!

In just 4 short days I will be boarding a plane to Nicaragua.

The story of how I ended up on this trip is worth mentioning, so I'll start with that.

One night a few months ago I was reading Revolution in World Missions (an amazing book) on the Spicer couch and I had this strange desire to go on a mission trip this Christmas.

Ok now I know all of you LH people just went "did you actually READ the book?"

I know. The whole book is about supporting native missionaries.

Like I said, it was strange.

Anyway, I just put the book down and asked the Lord to open a door if He really wanted me to go.

The next day I emailed asking for info about a trip I had been getting emails about through the school. I got an email back from a girl saying she thought that the trip was full, but I could email another lady if I wanted to double check. I didn't.

So that was that.

A few weeks later I got an email from a girl that was supposed to go on the trip, asking if I was interested in going. She and her husband had some family issues come up, and she really felt like she wasn't supposed to go on the trip and had heard that I was looking for a spot.

I emailed her back and got some details, and then she tells me this "they need a decision by Friday." This was Wednesday night.

I prayed about it and then I started calling people who could help me think through this.

Rachel Rogers... how I love this girl. She always has such wise advice. She reminded me that I had prayed for a door to open, and that this might be one of the only times in my life where I will have the ability to just pick up and leave for a week.

I emailed back and accepted the spot.

Looking back, I think it's so funny that I asked God to do something, and then when He did, I questioned Him. I kept praying for Him to tell me yes or no, when He had clearly already answered me by opening the door.

I need more faith.

Seriously.

Anyway, I am going to Managua for a week with doctors, nurses, and students to run a clinic with a local church.

There are around 15 of us total, and we'll be staying in a mission house that the church owns.

I'm really excited about being able to team up with the local church, helping them establish relationships with people in their community. We can provide medical care for these people, but the truth is they need Jesus way more than they need to be free of worms.

Members of the church and people from the community will be able to come to the clinic in the church for free healthcare, and the church will have volunteers there to share the gospel and pray for them.

We will also be spending a day in La Chureca, a landfill in Managua that is home to around 1500 people.

Please pray for us while we're on our trip! We leave this Saturday (the 15th) and get back on the 21st. Pray that God will move in big ways on the trip, and that we will be able to help the local church in Managua reach out to the community.

Love you guys!

I'm So Proud

Who knew this skinny kid from Crosby, Texas would turn out to be such a big deal?

Ok so maybe we all kind of thought he would. Seriously JJ was that kid in highschool that made the rest of us quit playing musical instruments. We'd all be jamming out in Jacob Blizzard's garage (Ben on guitar, Jacob on bass, me on the drums because no one else wanted to play them - and no, I can't play the drums) and then JJ would come over and gracefully blow us all out of the water without even trying. Always gracefully.

I used to make JJ come over and play piano and sing to me for hours. It's no wonder I was slightly in love with him at the tender age of 15.

But for real you guys need to go listen to his new cd and buy it! It's so good.

Go!

http://www.jjworthen.com

P.S. Yes Allison, same guy.

Oh Whitney...

My sister just told me about something that happened the other day, and I felt the need to share.

We have a dark-colored rug in the living room at home, and apparently the dog decided to leave a "present" on it.

Being nicely camouflaged on the dark rug, my sister didn't see it and stepped in it.

She of course started freaking out, and Whitney (my 2 year-old niece) came running to see what it was. My sister told her "yucky poop" and hobbled off to wash her foot and get something to clean up the mess with.

Mandy came back to find Whitney standing in the living room, holding the poop.

As Mandy looked at her horrified, Whitney said "I like poop" and started petting it.

Mandy screamed.

Whitney threw the poop.

Much hand-washing followed.

Ridiculously funny.

The Heart of the Matter

I'm still working on the topic of dating in my head. It's a hard topic for me, because I'm the kind of person who wants straight answers for everything. I want to know exactly what I'm supposed to do and when I'm supposed to do it. I want a bulleted outline complete with dates, times, and locations.

Last I checked, God hadn't emailed me an excel spreadsheet. So here I am, wrestling, or "hashing" as Heather would say, with this topic.

Mostly I just wrestle with myself in my head, but every now and then Heather comes in and adds her 2 cents (in my head). The voice of Heather is always welcome in my head, except when I am driving on I-45 between the 610 and the beltway. There are like 6 giant blow up items on stores and car dealerships on that stretch of road, and that's when the imaginary voice of Heather goes on a rant about how stupid blow up items are instead of sharing wisdom. Funny, but not helpful.

Anyway, I haven't come to any conclusions about there being just "the one" or not, but I have come to some conclusions on why it is so difficult for us and why we end up hurting ourselves and each other so often.

I think the heart of our issues with dating is just that, the heart.

Perhaps our problems with dating are merely symptoms of larger issues in our hearts.

Maybe our issues with dating stem from the fact that we are incredibly self-centered people, who find ourselves in relationships for all the wrong reasons.

What if our focus in our relationships was truly bringing the Lord glory and building up the other person? Would we even have dating issues if that was our goal, instead of making ourselves happy?

What if we truly served the person we were dating instead of demanding what we want?

I think the real problem with dating is that we can't get over ourselves. It has become about what we think we want, need, and deserve. Our culture drills this into us. It tells us all about how we deserve to be treated, what we should get, and how the other person should make us feel.

I hear all the time that you can tell where your focus is by where your time, your money, and your thoughts are. Man, even if I can manage to give away a little money every month and spend some time serving others, that last one gets me every time. I think about myself all day long.

So it's only natural that when I'm in a relationship with someone that I focus on how they're not meeting my expectations, or how they're not giving me enough attention, or how they're not making me feel special enough. Me. Me. Me.

Issues.

And that's just what they are - issues. At the end of the day I find myself worrying and struggling with all of my issues because I've spent my entire day thinking about myself.

When I do take my eyes off of myself and seek the Lord and when I spend my time serving and loving others, I suddenly find myself with a lot less issues. I find the Lord healing me and changing me, without me doing anything.

Love God, love others. So simple. If we could just get that down, I think we would have a lot less issues with dating, and a lot less issues in general for that matter.

So maybe the problem isn't "dating" itself, but us. I still don't have the answers to how dating should look, and probably it's a little different for everyone, but if our focus is on the Lord and loving others, I can't imagine us having nearly as many problems with it as we do now.

"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."
-Matthew 6: 33

"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
-2 Corinthians 4:18

Oh man...

I'm pretty sure I'm about to get myself unlinked from the Roger blog for not posting in a timely manner....

Fear not, I am alive and doing well. I finished pedi and general surgery in the prison, and now I'm in Houston doing plastic surgery at the VA, which I love. I am finally catching up to my domestic friends in the sewing department (hey flesh counts, right?).

Ok so the real reason for this post.

This lady.

I mean seriously, how is it possible to be convicted all the stinkin' time through a BLOG? Heather, you're killin' me!

But seriously, I love it. I love being challenged with the truth and letting the Lord teach me through this wonderful, crazy woman.

Lately Heather has been talking about dating on her blog again. Now honestly, I kind of hate talking about this topic, but I feel like it is something we so desperately need to talk about. The way we approach dating, even as Christians, is terrible. We focus on ourselves, our wants, and our needs, take our eyes off of Christ, and end up with wounded hearts, broken friendships, bitterness, and anger.

This isn't the way it's supposed to be.

I honestly think so much of this is because we are selfish, stubborn people. We want to find the perfect person for us. The one who will fulfill our every want and need, and make our lives wonderful. Do you see the problem here? What is wrong with us?

When are we going to figure out that life is not about us? I find that I am the most discontent with being single when I am focused on myself. When all I think about is how unfair it is that all of my friends are married except me, and how I deserve to be loved and adored, and how the Lord should give me a husband. Selfish lies.

So what do we do? How do we honor the Lord through the dating? What does that even look like?

I have no idea.

All I know is that we need to do things differently.

If you haven't done the Hendrick dating worksheet, you need to. Be warned now, it will make re-evaluate everything you thought you knew about dating. It will challenge you and frustrate you, but it is so good. The comments on each page are filled with wisdom from amazing men and women, both married and single.

So go do the worksheet!

Let's ask the Lord to change our stubborn hearts and show us His will for us.

Ready go!