In years past, I have taken the time around thanksgiving for all the things I have been given. Today I have had multiple reminders that I also have to thank God for sparing me from the things in this life that I have not had to face, though there are many men, women, and children around the World that have to face them daily.

As I walked from the parking lot into my school, just on time (but of course not early) I saw my favorite student leaving her mother's SUV. This child has a personality that is fierce, her smile will always brighten a room, and when she is unhappy, boy do you know about it. She is beautiful, innocent, and has a completely "seen on tv" attitude- think stomped feet and overly flexible neck when she is angry. Today, however, I didn't have the time to wave and say hello, walk her to her class as I would have any other day. Her mother came flying around the car and started beating her, full on punches to the head and neck. She lifted her up and threw her on the ground, despite the screams and protests of two adults who were obviously as horrified as I was. I ran over, saying her name, willing her to come to me. The school counselor got there first, and this child's mother (still screaming profanities) knocked the counselor out of the way screaming "Take your hands off my child, you don't have to raise her. I raise this child."

"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. "- Proverbs 22:6

This is what she is being raised in? I have never seen a person touch a child in such a manner, and I went into the school building (after this beautiful. fragile, tiny child was taken out of harm's way) visibly shaken. I am so grateful that even if I did not always live in a house full of worship music on Saturday mornings, or parents that were home after I returned from school, I was raised in an environment of love and care. My parents, though occasionally choosing force to discipline, never once raised a hand to me out of anything but correction in love. I fear for this child. For whatever the outcome of this situation, she has been brought up and trained in an environment that uses abuse as a form of reinforcement. I regret ever whining about a family who may have at times not been my biggest support system, because whenever I truly need any of them, they have always been and always will be there.

I have so many things that I have been given to be thankful for- I am truly and irrevocably blessed. The blessing, however, not only comes from Him giving us what we do not deserve in terms of love, grace, and blessings, but from him sparing us from the things we do deserve- the wages of our sin. Today, I have also seen that he has preserved me from much of what I could have faced on Earth.

Father, My thanks- for what I have been given and for what I have been kept from. Amen.

i think that i have been wrong all along in thinking my mother was insulting me when she talked about her marriage which started in a plaid dress, with a forty eight dollar ring from Brand Names, and was followed by a reception in her mother's living room. I have thought she was scolding me for extravagance, and all this time I have been pinching and working to keep everything relatively low cost, compared to weddings today. i was wrong though. She wasn't insulting me. She wasn't telling me I had to cut back or that I had to give up my silly dreams of a fairy tale wedding (which isn't even what I want...) She was telling me that no matter how nice my WEDDING was, that my marriage would not be better or worse for it. No matter how many people were there, or how I look, or where or what we eat, at the end of the day, it will just be Greg and I. That the struggle of everyday will not be easier if you spend $5,000 or $48 on a ring if you don't remember what the ring you are wearing represents.

If you think about it, weddings have alot to do with pretense. Two people, dressed in better clothes than they will ever wear (unless they are a barbie doll) with their hair done in ways they probably never wear it, and with more make up on then normal (for the pictures.) What's important about a wedding? Not registries, or engagement parties, or save the dates. Not the originality of the center pieces, or the usefulness of the favors, or chair covers, or open bars, or buffets vs. sit down. The important part of the wedding is the oath that when the fanfare ceases, your love will not. I am marrying Greg to have a marriage, not a wedding. A home- whether full of color coordinated tupperware, or in the corner of the world in poverty- that travels with you. Part of my love for Greg has to do with the fact that he doesn't need anything but God and I, and I don't need anything more than that either. I don't need everything to be perfect- I just need us to fight for each other when it is not.

So as I look into tomorrow and see all the stress that people are associating with "the wedding," I am excited to know that it doesn't end there, it begins. That August 17th, 2008 will truly be the best day, because it will be the first day that I am one with the person who I will stand beside until my last day. August 16th? I could take it or leave it... because what I am looking forward to is something that will last far FAR beyond that.

it is close to completely ridiculous that i maintained this xanga through almost all four years of college, and then with the influx of myspace and facebook, it has fallen flat. though i know in all honesty my xanga died in the same manner as my journal- in a flurry of business, student teaching, stress, being an RA, and trying to finish strong at valley forge. i stopped reflecting on life because i could barely make it through my initial reaction. in my walk through the past four years, i have talked far too much about romantic delusions and ideas about people who were unwilling to actually share their hearts with me. now that i have someone who cares about me in reality, rather than in theory, i never share the pieces of my heart that he has impacted and changed for the better.

so, in initial conclusion: i am lame.

i am going to change all that though. i need to find my way back to being me, and part of the person is someone who writes. the silence is over. :)

this summer so far, i have told more people than i can count that i don't have direction. i am aware that this isn't true, i think the real statement is something more like: i am afraid to pursue the path that will turn me into the person i am ultimately supposed to become. i am afraid to be the person i am now, as well. i don't want to lose my passion or heart. God, keep me on the path that you have for me, despite myself.

well. i don't even know that this is cohesive. sorry.

stream of conciousness doesn't ALWAYS work.