Home, Sweet Home

He is risen, He is risen Indeed!

I enjoyed being Home this weekend. I capitalize it because where I live in Knoxville is my home, but where I'm from is Home. :)

Home always fills me with this wonderful sense of community and relationships and good things. I'm always so sad to come back to my "home" here in Knoxville. Don't get me wrong. I love my life here. But there's just something about being able to be with family that makes life good. I had wonderful home cooked meals and spent time with one of my sister-in-laws and was able to see my nieces. I did not get to see Ben or any of Gabe's family. I got to see both of my grandparents and spend some quality time with my parents. There's something about being home that makes me long for home. It makes me long for the hope of one day living close enough to have lunch with my brothers family or my grandparents any day I feel like and catch up with friends that are in town...one day...

So, I begin this week with a semi-heavy heart and a strong remembrance of all the wonderful things I have to be excited about and thankful for and look forward to.

• Jesus' resurrection
• My new job.
• Visits with friends this week.
• Warmer weather.
• A wonderful family.
• A quick vacay.
• Good things to come...

Good News, Great News

Wow, what a week!

A great week but a crazy week!

1. Some of you know that for about the past 7 weeks I have been working as a temp for a LARGE hospitality company that owns thousands of hotels that start with an M. All of their accountants are based out of a shared services group just outside of Knoxville. About two weeks ago, a manager of another team in my department approached me about a potential job opening. We had an "interview", if you want to call it that. And then a week or so went by with no other phone calls or meetings or interviews. I was pretty disappointed thinking that it wasn't going to work out. Well finally this week another manager came by my desk and we talked and on Wednesday they offered me a financial analyst position! It's a real job with benefits, great pay and all that other stuff. I'm still a temp and will be working as one until I have completed 700 hours of work. That sounds like an eternity, but I already have worked about 275 and I think I'm about to start working some over time, if today was any indication. They wasted no time getting me started in my new role. Pretty crazy day and I have felt completely scattered and ALL over the place. But I am so so excited for this opportunity and for the chance to work for such a great company. Pray that I would do a great job and be able to be successful in this role. There's a lot of pressure associated with this role but I am excited about the challenge.

2. Gabe and Ashley, my brother and sister in law, who lost sweet Maeve last May are expecting again! We are so excited and cannot wait to meet this new addition to our family. Please pray for a healthy baby :)

3. I am going HOME this weekend. I haven't been home since the beginning of February and I am SO looking forward to it! I am going to visit all of my siblings, their wives, their children, my grandparents and hopefully some friends too!

4. I am going to visit my good friend Joseph from grad school next weekend. I have been trying to go visit him for awhile now but just haven't been able to do it! He lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and I am looking forward to getting out of town and celebrating with him about all the good things that are going on in my life!

So, needless to say, I am just ecstatic and grateful to a loving God about all the good things going on in my life right now!

"Is Jesus in there?"

Approaching Easter Week, I can't help but think of Jesus. Today we, as Christians, celebrate Palm Sunday. The entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem. The celebration of his last week of life on earth. There are so many things about Easter that I enjoy - blooming azaleas, blooming dogwoods, gorgeous weather, spending time with family, eating...I could go on.  It's often easy to get wrapped up in other things: Easter Egg Hunts, Cadbury eggs, Peeps and Jelly Beans. My mom told me this week that my nephew H was participating in an Easter Egg Hunt and handed his Mom one of the eggs that he found and asked "Is Jesus in there?" I just thought that was HILARIOUS.

Seriously though, just a reminder to focus on Jesus and what he did for us as we celebrate his life and resurrection this week.

Can't wait to hear these words next Sunday: 

He is Risen...He is Risen Indeed

Musical Similarities

I LOVE MUSIC.

Pretty much all kinds of music.

I love musical discoveries too. I mean, I like when someone tells me these things, but I like to find them on my own too!

Well all of this running I've been doing recently, I got really tired of the limited music on my iPod and my friend Megan said she runs with her phone and listens to Pandora while she's running. OOhhh yeah....Pandora. I almost forgot about it. It's an online radio station with few commercials and it plays the music you want to hear. You can choose an artist as your station title and it will choose songs with similar qualities and only play those on that station. Pretty cool deal. While I run I listen to "Todays Top Hits' or something like that. It's usually pretty upbeat music - rock or rap or something rockin'...that's more fun to exercise to AND I have my phone with me so I feel  more safe while I'm by myself. I didn't create this station, it's one of the pre-fixed stations.

So I started listening to Pandora at work too. Work is kind of loud because it's all cubicles and everyone talks to everyone and yells and everyone and there's a lot going on so it's kinda loud. So I usually just put in some head phones and rock out to my Mumford & Sons station on Pandora. This has been cool because there are some EP's that Mumford & Sons have released and they play those too, as well as the songs on their CD. Well anyway - yesterday, I heard Modest Mouse's Float On. I was liking it. I still like it only sounds REMARKABLY similar to Lupe Fiasco's new hip hop song The Show Goes On (which I am loving). I went to Grooveshark when I got home today and played them one right after the other and it is crazy. I know that people remake songs all the time but these two groups are SOO different that it was weird to hear the same chords and sound come from Modest Mouse that comes from Lupe Fiasco. HA! It's definitely not the same song, but the music is totally similar and so are the words and the meaning if you listen closely :) For all you musical peeps, go find both of these songs on Grooveshark.

While I'm promoting free online music...Grooveshark is pretty awesome too. There's pretty much every song on there that you'd want to listen to and you can choose your play list!

Forgiveness

Ugh. Ouch. (Someone has been stepping on my toes a little recently.)


The Bible Study that I've been doing is a Beth Moore called Praying God's Word. We're just reading through the book - not doing the extended Bible Study. Each week has a different "stronghold" that everyone struggles with and then scripture in the form of prayers that deal with each topic. The topic this past week was rejection. That's a tough topic to deal with. I don't deal with it. My typical response when rejected is "well, it's certainly not my fault. what's wrong with them? Him? Her? It's THEIR loss." Never my fault, never because of who I am. If it is because of who I am, then, well I don't even want to go there! I have chosen not to deal with it. It's not that I've ever been rejected, because I certainly have: friendships, guys, other relationships, work. Ouch. Yeah, it hurts.


In talking about rejection, my friend Melissa suggested that a related topic is forgiveness (a chapter later in the the book that we're skipping ahead to read this week). Ouch. Again, stepping on my toes a little. I like to hold on to things a little bit. Usually when I've been wronged by someone that I know, I like to dwell on that, harbor it, let it hurt my feelings and then make me angry. After that I usually leave it...for a while. But then, I like to come back to it and get mad about it again. For instance, there's this girl that really made me pretty angry this one time in college. She wasn't even really one of my friends but we had to work together. Even, right now I'm getting fired up about that. It was 2004...over 6 years ago...LET IT GO, MARIE!!


Well, in thinking towards this topic of forgiveness (I haven't started reading for Bible Study this week), I opened up my email this morning to see the topic of Michele's weekly newsletter was forgiveness. Michele wrote a poem about forgiveness - this is an excerpt from it.

Oh, it's forgiveness we need. The whole big planet of us.
We know how.
And we know who.
[It's us. To each other. For each other.]
Let's not make the past hurt the present.
Let's not let them drive our days.
Let's acknowledge the pain (it's real) and allow ourselves the grace to be better.

The truth is that deep down inside, every time I've been rejected (no matter the relationship), there's a little bit of me that says I'm not good enough. Deep down, a little piece of me thinks that I'll never be good enough. This is usually just a fleeting thought and I cover it up with the "it's their loss" thoughts. Beth Moore's whole thought process seems to be: yes, it hurts to be rejected by people, but God will never reject you. All the scripture verses this past week were about God's love and kindness and acceptance. I love that. It's so good to know that "no matter how I may encounter rejection in the world around me, I am welcomed to abide in the Creator of heaven and earth and the perfect Son of the Most High God." - Beth Moore


This week, as I ponder and read about forgiveness and "the grace to be better", I'll leave you with this:

Peace, I leave with you, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 14:27