April 7- I ♥ Faces

Just wanted to enter this contest that I found online at the blog above. It's got great pictures and you should take a look!

My nieces have their moments where they can bicker with the best of them, but I can't imagine two better friends for each other or their favorite Aunt Debra!

SWAG BUCKS

I read about this on a blog I trust...so you should do it!

http://swagbucks.com/?cmd=sb-register&rb=433624

Please use the promotion code HENDRICK (case sensitive) and then go to Heather's blog and leave a comment and you will get entered into a drawing for a 20 dollar gift certificate to TARGET!

Heather's blog is http://www.allthingshendrick.blogspot.com/

Swagbucks is powered by google, and you basically earn points for searching and turn the points into giftcards and such. You know you wanna do it!!

Grace

This time last year I wrote a post entitled Grace. You're more than welcome to visit it there. Maybe it's just the time of year (very very busy at school), but Grace is something I'm really struggling with right now.

Am I the only one?

I really try to believe and have faith that no matter what I've done, and no matter what I may struggle with, God's grace covers me for eternity. I think it's the most amazing thing and the most difficult thing (at least for me) to understand about Christianity. I mean seriously folks, what did I do to deserve the love of the creator of the universe?

I think all earthly love is conditional...well not conditional, but maybe situational. Bear with me as I ramble on here.

I know that sounds weird, and it's just me typing here, but even if you are married or you have kids...that love is conditional. Would you love your kids if they weren't yours? Would you love your spouse if he was someone elses? Would you love your siblings or parents if they weren't yours?

God's love...the love and compassion that we can find through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, is unconditional. Sometimes its just too much for me to comprehend. I'm hoping that as I mature as a Christian that it will become an easier concept to understand.

I just don't feel very worthy of it sometimes. Then, I know that's me not having enough faith, so then I feel guilty for not believing. Sheesh. Why am I so hard on myself.

Oh well...I know this is a strange post, but I will end with this...If you pray please send up a little prayer for me, but send up some big prayers for Stellan. I follow MckMama's blog and have since before this little one was born. He's struggling a bunch right now.

Love and such...
Debra

Babies, Basketball, and Bonus Brothers

Even though I usually post pictures on my picture blog, I thought I would make an exception. This weekend I spent a lot of time on the road and got to see basketball, babies and my bonus brothers.

Basketball

This is a shot from the second floor of our school before the playoff/send off pep rally for our girls basketball team, state swimming qualifiers and state wrestler.

This is our girls basketball team...pretty and pretty awesome. They lost in the regional finals, one game out from the state tournament. It was harsh. But...it happens. Most of our swimmers placed, including a pretty awesome freshman. And our wrestler got second in her weight class.

Babies

In between watching basketball in Austin (see pictures below) and Waco (see pep rally above) I got to see my friend Robin and her two sweet girls...Tyler (23 months) and Dylan (4 months).

Bonus Brothers... I got to hang out with the Netsch boys and one of the Land boys while I was in Austin to watch Taylor's senior night game.

I wish I could write about these kids and do justice to their senses of humor, intelligence and pure love for one another. You can't see Kristen on the far left but she's a cutie! Nick is the oldest (glasses), Marcus is the middle child (3rd of 4) and Lucas is the 2nd oldest. They really do make me laugh so much!

Even though you can't see his face (I'll post a clear one below), this is one of my favorite pictures of Taylor. He's so unassuming and humble and just an amazing guy. He was looking down while all of his stats were being read. That's just the way he is. Please pray for him. This was at the game on Thursday, he proceeded to play baseball on Friday (yep, 2 sports at the division 2 level, graduating with a 4.0 in may...really), and break his arm badly enough to warrant surgery during Saturday night's game. Please pray for strength and healing. He's got a good grip on his life, spiritually and otherwise, but it can't be easy to have the thing you love taken away from you before you were quite finished with it (their team will be in the playoffs and he was seriously considering a tryout with a European team). Love him to pieces.

Blogging...The Dirty Truth.

I blog stalk.

Big Time.

I read about people lives that I've known for what seems like a lifetime.

And I love to read about people I've never met. I've referred to these people in conversation as friends. Sort of sad but true.

Don't judge.

And, in a totally unrelated matter. Who made an entire cookie sheet of homemade Nestle Tollhouse cookies valentine's night...I am taking most of them to work tomorrow to get them out of my house...but how single woman at home was that!

You can read about people that I actually know in real life:

Erin (Harper) and Jeff Rose -- my favorite newlywed couple

Charis (Adams) and Sam Lau--as they venture around the country on their way to East Asia for mission work.

Jenny (Fuqua) and Brad Smucker--a friend from dear old Navasota that went to UMHB our freshman year

Angel (Foster) and Russ Weir--went to UMHB. Have one bio and two adopted kids...very sweet blog

Amazing other blogs...warning they are seriously addicting. Don't blame your husband and kids not being fed on me!!

The Pioneer Woman. Shut UP! She's amazing. The food alone is worth your time. I made the molasses cookies at Christmas this year to rave reviews. And the best sheet cake ever went over amazingly at the most recent counselor birthday bash. For those of you who've had my rum cake, she published the same one (from the Bacardi bottle)...and the sheet cake is even better. When you have massive amounts of time, read the "Black Heels to Tractor Wheels) set. It's hysterical. She's amazing. Does giveaways, and 10000+ people read her blog daily. Seriously.

The Bacak Nation. Don't know her...but my readers (ha!) will love her. Her little brother is Robbie Seay as is the Robbie Seay Band, a famous Christian group. Her older brothers are Brian Seay who works for Compassion International and Chris Seay who just published a new translation of The Bible called the voice. She's wise and amazing and I want to be like her when I grow up. The links on the side of her blog are great too. Check out Lynsey Kramer's Blog...her photography is awesome.

MckMama. I don't have kids, but this lady can write and is crazy. 4 kids under 4. Seriously. She is so stinking funny.

Last but not least is Angie Smith. Her husband Todd is the lead singer of the Christian group Selah. It is the most heart wrenching thing you have ever read...go back to the beginning....and moms beware, it's about the loss of a child and tough choices that had to be made about carrying a child who would not survive to term. She's amazing and crazy and funny and a phenomenal writer. You will spend hours reading this blog from the beginning the first time. I did. My sister did too.

Again...I have know idea how I came across all of these. You know they all just link to one another at some point I'm sure.

Here's a bit of small world for you. Angie Smith is this global scale kind of blog. She talked about emailing and getting to know another woman in her same situation named Sara from Texas. She's a girl I went to college with...nuts right.

Happy stalking...and don't say I didn't warn you.

~debra

Seriously

Seriously.

This is going to sound like the rant of desperate single 30 year old woman.

I guess it's a little of that.

I've tried the online thing on and off for almost 7 years. That's right. 7. I joined a website that's affiliated with the denomination that I belong to in the spring of 2002. I would join for three months or six months, then not be on for a while. Then I did match.com. Then eharmony. For the first three months of eharmony I got like 10 matches and repeated emails about how I was too selective and too narrow about my choices.

I've been on two dates. Good odds. I'd like my money back.

I've written back and forth with guys several times...and it always ends in the same way. Let me take you down a little of that road.

Dr. in Oklahoma (when I lived in Dallas). Wrote back and forth for a month. Finally sent a picture to him (this was back in the day before the camera in your phone days). Emails ended. As in, never heard back.

Professional Golfer in Kerville. Wrote back and forth for three months. Thats right three months. He saw pictures. He wasn't a super catch either...but he was pretty cute. Then the emails stopped. Cold turkey. Never heard from him again.

Cop in Midland. Wrote back and forth for a few weeks. He decided we were just too different. Stopped writing, but at least had the decency to tell me he was.

Banker in Amarillo. Thought this one might actually be different. He wrote me first. Saw a picture before we even started writing and wrote anyway. Wrote well. Wrote nice emails and said fairly similar things that I actually enjoyed hearing.

Then they stopped. Just like the others.

Look. I know. Things change. You decide you see something in a person or read something in a response that triggers an alarm that makes you want to run for the hills.

Seriously. Write the hard email. Be honest. We aren't dating we are just getting to know one another. I'm not gonna cry or get upset. Sure I will probably blog about it.

But you don't even know that I blog.

I try to have the faith that everything works out for a reason. And I know that. I try to cling to the hope that God's timing and God's plan for my life will include a husband and maybe some kiddos.

Sometimes its just hard to imagine when you can't even get one to write you back.

Or at least be man enough to say why you don't want to.

Dummy.

Perspective

I spent a good part of this weekend, when I wasn’t checking my email, thinking about what someone else thought about me. Shallow right? Pointless right? Staring at a computer screen wondering, in a most futile way, if I would get a response. What kind of response, if any, would I get.

What would it take to make me happy, or at least not sad.

A response, an acknowledgement.

Then I went to school.

She was a junior. Fairly bright. An older sister to a freshman brother. Her parents came to this country from Korea to give their children educational opportunity. It’s the American dream. To be pressured to do well in school. To translate for your parents because they don’t know English. To pay the bills and run the household at 16. And to help run the family business.

They found her, no note, no explanation. A lifetime without a response.

Makes getting an email seem really really stupid.

Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. Psalm 37:5