Sarah B.

I heard a doorbell. I went to get it because I thought it was Emily.

I opened the door and there stood a girl in a pink shirt and khaki pants. I was confused.

"Can I use your phone?"

"Uh...sure, let me get it for you. Come on in."

My mind immediately fixated on what I read earlier about discipleship and multiplication.

This mysterious girl walked into my living room as I walked back to my room to get my phone.

I handed the phone to her and stood against the door jamb leading to the kitchen. She called her friend. She sounded lost. She sounded like her friend wasn't really her friend.

My mind immediately fixated on how much this girl needed the Gospel.

"Can I call my Mom?"

"Oh yeah, totally fine. Go ahead."

Her conversation with her mom was steeped in rebellion and disrespect. It reminded me of me before I knew the Lord. It reminded me of me on so many regretful occasions with my mom after I knew my Savior.

My mind immediately fixated on how I know the Gospel and the Lord commands me to share it with the world. The Great Commission is for all believers. "Go and make disciples."

"Can I call my friend? She tried to call me while I was on the phone with my mom."

"Sure."

Her conversation was one of despair and lack of a true friendship.

I tried to pay attention whilst praying, "Lord, allow this door to be open. Allow me to connect with her."

I found out she lives in the Virginia apartments right up the street. She is in 7th grade and yet is supposed to be in 9th grade. Her name is Sarah B. and she does not like her last name.

"Do you have a phone charger?"

"Yeah, let me go get it...I don't know if it'll fit your phone....but we can try...what kind of phone do you have?....um, let's plug it in here...."

I muttered all this on the way to my room and back to the living room. [Yes, I talk a lot, and oftentimes it is very purposeless] The charger fit. She turned on her phone.

"So I don't know if you would like to hang out sometime or something...uh, I'm glad you stopped by. Maybe we can exchange numbers and get together and talk sometime."

"Yeah, that sounds good. I have a lot of college friends so yeah, we should do that. What's your number?"

We exchanged numbers.

My joy about this possible friendship grew at this willingness.

"Could I borrow this for awhile? I can bring it back when I come over to Josh's house to play. He lives right next door." She said while pointing to the phone charger.

"Um, well um, yeah if I can have your number."

I got her number. I invited her to the spaghetti dinner on Friday. Maybe she'll be able to go. Maybe I'll be able to share the Gospel with her. If I never hear from her again, all it will cost me is my phone charger. A small risk to take for the opportunity to have some relational evangelism.

To My Children

Dear Children,

I love you even now. I pray for you often. I do not know who your father is yet nor do I know if the Lord wills for me to be blessed with you. In all the uncertainty of the future, I still love you.

I pray that it is the Lord's will that you be saved. I pray that by God's grace, your father and I can raise you up to be men and women who love our great and precious Lord. I pray that you will be men and women who love to serve Him and delight in His glory. May you know the joy that your father and I know through the sacrifice of the cross. May you be satisfied in Him so that He will be most glorified in you.

Oh, how I delight, even now, thinking upon having the opportunity to see you grow and mature physically and emotionally but especially spiritually. I look forward to the great joy that it will be to see you discover new things and learn about this beautiful planet that the Creator so graciously set us upon. He is so good to us.

I look forward to rocking you to sleep at nap time, watching you take your first steps, running around our yard with you, seeing the delight you will find when we plant our garden and little green shoots pop up from the ground. I look forward to playing with you and having, yet again, another peek into the mind of a child which I was not so long ago.

As I am turning twenty this year, our God is teaching my small heart so many things. He is teaching me to be fully satisfied in Him. He is teaching me the importance of discipleship. He is teaching me the importance of simplicity in my life and where priorities should lie. He is teaching me contentment.

In all of His teaching, I find myself not to be the best student. Often His teaching does not make sense to my little mind and thus I prefer to take my own path. He is good as a gentle Shepherd to lead me back unto His flock each and every time I stray. I write this to you, now, to say, "Yes, I was once twenty." I once did have to deal with the same temptation of sin you will most likely be dealing with at the age of twenty. I pray even now, when the time comes for you to face temptation that you flee. I pray that you cling unceasingly to our Savior, Protector and Father. He is teaching me these things right now. Precious children, He is worth much more than this world will ever offer you. His sacrifice on the cross is far above the value of rubies and diamonds.

Beloved children, our life might not be easy. It might be marked by pain, suffering and loss and yet, our God is good in the midst of all things. He is our ultimate Source and Joy. From Him, comes life for without Him we are dead. In the midst of pain and loss and suffering, cling to Him who is sovereign over all things knowing that He has a plan.

Our life might not be marked by money. Your father and I will provide for your needs but your wants may go unfulfilled. It is not your happiness that we seek; we desire to see the Lord built up in you and this will happen, by His grace and sovereignty, with or without the presence of money in our lives.

Children, I think upon the days that I will first know you exist inside of me, the day that I first hear your heartbeat, the day that I will be able to first hold and kiss you. These days will come soon enough for life is but a vapor and it passes oh so quickly. I am content in what the Lord has laid before me now. He has much for me to do before I am married or before I devote my time to teaching and serving you. I delight in this time knowing the Lord is preparing me so that I can better serve you and your father for His glory alone.

May His glory be my delight and my purpose. I love you.

#97

#97. Curl my hair randomly for school.

Elissa braided little braids into my hair on Monday night and I decided it was time to accomplish another of my 101 in 1001's. So I curled my hair Tuesday morning. It was fun. It brought me back to the days that I curled my hair every day for school my sophomore year of high school. So fun. I love having curly hair; it simply takes a lot of time. Now that I have long hair it looks a little weird for it to be all curly. I enjoyed Tuesday nonetheless.

#70

#70 Make a successful wheat bread loaf.

Behold, I give you BREAD!

On Wednesday, 4/21, I made 8 loaves of wheat bread. I gave one to the Sharp family. I took three for myself and left four at my parents' house. My parents kept the rosemary Parmesan garlic loaf, one of the cinnamon raisin loaves, the lemon orange loaf, and the cinnamon pull aparts (on the far left). I took the three plain wheat loaves and one of the cinnamon raisin loaves. I love making bread. It is so cool the more I learn about yeast, salt, sugar and their relation in making bread and how that relates back to Scripture.

Update on 101 in 1001

Here' my 101 in 1001 List for your reference.

I've been working on #34 (Read through the Bible) which is going well. It's been a blessing to allow myself (hence escape from legalism) to read through it in a longer time period than a year. I am still in Romans. It is good. God is teaching me and causing my desire for the Word to grow daily.

I've also been working on #58 (Don't eat sugar for an entire year). This I have broken a couple of times. I am ok with that. The time that I did break it my stomach hurt so bad for the entire day after eating this sugar and fat loaded dessert something or another that I have not had the desire to pick up sugar anymore. It is no longer a temptation. I will reevaluate this in December and decide then if it counts or if I should do it for another year.

I'm also working on #44 (take math 181). This is not the class I thought it would be. It covers a little bit of differential equations, goes a little bit into calculus II, and focuses heavily on applied probability within the context of biological life processes. It's a good class but if I had known these things, I would have NEVER taken it.

I tried #5 (exercise for 21 days straight) and #39 (find and disciple a young lady) and failed. That's ok. It's a good learning experience to experience rejection and failure. I will get back up and try again. My God is good.

Grocery Shopping

I have not been to the grocery store in 28 days. There are a few reasons for this.

1. I have not had the need to do so.
2. I have no means of getting there other than my own two feet.
3. Walking to the grocery store takes time that I simply do not have.
4. My bike tires are flat.
5. I haven't had time to walk my bike to the gas station to pump up the tires.
6. Nor do I know how to do so (time for me to become more handy, as a single and independent lady!)
7. I have not had the desire to do so.

I have been eating plenty of food. No starvation here. I am only now starting to get into my bean stash.

Let me tell you this time of not going into the grocery store or other shopping avenues has been so GOOD! Discontentment flourishes when I shop frequently. I think, "Oh, I need that, and that and that and oh that too." Before I know it, my shopping bill is more than I had planned to spend. I have so enjoyed living frugally over the last 28 days. It has rid me of much discontentment and made me aware of how easy it is fall prey to discontentment unknowingly in my life.

Years ago, I met up with my ballet instructor after she returned from IHOP in Kansas City. She told me that before she would go to Wal-Mart, Smith's or Albertson's to go grocery shopping, her husband and she would sit down and pray that the Lord would guard against discontentment as she entered into an environment full of enticing advertisements and food choices. At the time, I don't think I fully understood what she meant. I thought it was a good idea but I didn't really see the purpose of it and thought it was a little extreme.

Well now that I have been without my car for a month and a half and thus had to stay home a lot more often, I have realized how much discontentment I was allowing to breed in my life. No more. When my car returns, I am going to have to be very careful of falling into the easy trap of going to Flying Star for dinner, Satellite for coffee or Le Peep for breakfast. I am going to have to commit my heart to the Lord so that it doesn't go crazy when I reenter the normal world of weekly grocery shopping.

Side note: I rocked Sarah to sleep this morning for her nap. That is one of the many joys of my job. Having a baby cuddle up on your lap, lay against your heart and fall asleep brings me so much joy. I look forward to the day that the Lord chooses to bless my husband and me with children that we can rock to sleep. For right now, my sister will do because I am very content. There is much the Lord has for me to do before I am married and responsible for helping not only my husband but caring for little ones.

Changes

I was looking over some pictures from two-ish years ago on facebook just a minute ago.

So many things have changed--relationships, people, personalities, interests, activities, marriages and children.

It has been two years since we graduated. This boggles my mind because these past two years have gone by SO QUICKLY.

I feel like what the old[er] people say all the time about time passing so fast is so true. Time does not drag on--we are only vapors.

The changes that some people have undergone bring me joy and encouragement. Other changes are really difficult to stomach especially when they are obviously becoming very lukewarm in their walks with the Lord or have completely disregarded Him.

This is expected to happen. You go to a Christian school and everyone is a Christian especially when retreats are so emotional and it's cool to disciple someone. Then, that influence is gone and something else is "cool" so paths turn mighty quickly.

I can take delight in the fact that the Lord is sovereign and that if they were truly His they will return by His grace.

It sorrows my heart to see changes that are steeped in sin! Oh, it was so much easier to live in that Hope "bubble" thinking that no one was sexually active, doing drugs or walking the wide road. Although that wasn't realistic. The truth had to be exposed.

It is just sorrowful sometimes.