Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O, Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life

....i posted that awhile ago.  My mom used to sing it as a song all the time.  I love You Jesus.

My soc methods class wasnt as boring as usual today...  We had done an activity where each group put 6 adjectives on the board to describe something....one groups words were something like: caring, responsibility, stressful, loving, nurturing or something like that.  We had already had one that was 'motherhood' so a lot of guesses were mom, fatherhood, parenthood etc.

The answer was motherhood again, he just put it up twice...so anyway, he asked "What would you add or say differently if we were describing fatherhood?"  ...No one really said anything...someone mentioned provider...and then nothing for a minute and one of the students said "drinking"...others started...drunk, football, eating, lazy, m.i.a., dysfunctional, abusive, loud............they were saying it and i'd say half of our class was laughing.............like it was acceptable, or normal....................or too difficult to talk seriously about with 20 students...i dont know...it hurt me to hear people use these terms to distinguish between motherhood and fatherhood...it hurt to hear these terms associated with fatherhood at all...is this really a cultural view on being a father? 

...just thinking... 

learning how to surrender the little things...

I looked through the old pictures on my computer this morning.  So many good memories.  So many lives that have touched mine in way's I'll always be grateful for and never forget.  So many people God has put in my life to point me toward Him.  So many blessings.  So much growth.  And still, He's so busy at work in my heart. 

...following blindly, knowing what is promised and finding joy in the lessons along the way.

peace to you.

Talking on the phone with stephanie tonight about back before I got baptised.  We were talking about when I had a one on one talk with someone.  My exact words to her about it, in a quick, brush-it-off tone, were "Well, it was one on one because no one really cared about me then." 

I said it and bit my tounge.  Stephanie had the same thought. "I was gonna say," she said after I took back the statment. She knew I didnt mean it. Where did that come from?  It was part of how I felt then, but I know that statement did not have any truth to it.   I dont feel any resentment toward anyone right now.  Not any.  Relationships have been built stronger since then in so much love.  But have they been built over resentment that buried itself in an iceburg hoping not to be found?  Do we bury emotions and smooth things over only to have them come up unwelcomed and out of place in the future?

Other than that little schpeel.  Life is so full of hope and faith and trust in Him these days!  Beautiful signs of growth, love and His presence remind me every day what life (both the big picture and the little moments) really is about.