Autumn Reflections

Autumn is my absolute most favorite season of the year - and Ohio is one of the best places to experience it.  I haven't been able to go home during the fall months in 3 years.  :)  This week at home as been an exciting blessing to me.  

Mom and Good Food!
One of my favorite things about home is spending time with my dear friend, mom.  She is a friend, the person that knows me the best, and the person that I am most comfortable with in the whole world.  I think it should be this way with every mom and daughter.  Thanks mom for being an awesome Mom!


Whenever I come home we have great food - tea times, shopping trips, coffee, chocolate, and good chats.  The first day I was home.... I slept in, with enough time to take a morning run on a beautiful crisp autumn lane, and sat down for breakfast with mom - Egg sandwiches and Green Tea Latte's (Oregon Chai)!

The Wedding
The reason for my little vaca was not actually to see fall in Ohio but for my Best Friend's wedding!  Felicia Diane Byler (Now Miller!) got married yesterday.  I dedicated this week fully to her and took so much joy in it.  It was good to have precious sweet moments with her: to help her plan and fulfill Maid of Honor duties, to help keep her mother sane, to throw her a bachelorette party, to pray for her, to present to her the oil painting I did for hers and Jeremy's home and hang it on their wall!, to reminisce about old times and cry with her the night before her wedding, to help zip her into her "Perfectly Felicia" gown, to hold her bouquet and fix her train, to make a toast to her and give my best friend away to her husband "To Felicia and Jeremy, best friends for life" .......


Love
.....But the most heart wrenching moment of the entire experience was when I was standing on stage and I realized that Love is worth living for.  Felicia is someone that I have loved and allowed to love me.  There are levels of love that we will experience more and more deeply over time if we allow ourselves to.  Some though, never choose to.  There are some that never love at all.  Most people love to some extent and love well - but I want to be someone that loves with my whole heart!!  Unashamedly, not holding back, vulnerably.  What is life if we don't love???  Answer that question for me!  


I'm not sure how that actually looks - but may that be the purpose of my heart!

Romans 5:8

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us

1 John 4:7

[ God's Love and Ours ] Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

Song of Solomon 8:6

Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.

Ephesians 5:2 

and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

John 15:13

 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

4 Hour Pumpkin Spice Latte
I'm currently sitting at the DFW airport waiting for Sharon to arrive so we can drive back to Garden Valley together.  This provided a 4 hour refection time which I started with a venti Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks!  First one of the season!!  It lasted me nearly the whole time. 




Please share your thoughts on Loving Deeply......

Runway

Fashion for the Runway

Yesterday Morning we put on a Fashion Show for the girls at Teenmania to talk about modesty....'Get Your Fash' On'!   We went all out.....all of the DD's dressed like runway models....extreme and dramatic!!  My favorite part about my outfit was the Gold Bow wrapped around my head.  This 'happened to me' in the bathroom.....Sarah Nicholas, my fellow DD, says..."And what do you need yet?....grabbed this sash wrapped it around my head ....and said "there!" :)  

We had a blast.  

Some things that we shared with the girls: 

Modesty is a way of thinking about yourself...respecting yourself
It is a way of respecting men by helping them guard their eyes
Our beauty is a [refection] of the Lords beauty which is 
pure and lovely and ultimately gives Him glory 
Women desire to be lovely, seen, admired.... it is the way we are made, 
but we are intended to find our affirmation in Christ and not by attracting people 
We are to be obsessed with the image of God and not man 
 [May our image draw eyes to God] 

Art and A Home

Weekend Escape at the Krusi's

Awakening My He[art]

So Monday rolls around, its a week away from Labor Day weekend, and I'm trying to decide what I want to do.  God forbid I not take advantage of the 3 day weekend and travel to see a friend or find some kind of adventure.  I find out that all of my friends are going to IHOP {International House of Prayer} in Kansas City - which is a great steal for a spiritual retreat.... but I wasn't feeling it.  By Thursday I finally figured out what I really wanted to do with my weekend - what I really wanted was to spend the weekend off campus, but close by, retreating at a home.... So I prayed that the Lord would provide someway for me to do that.  

I ended up at the Krusi's house. The Lord answered my prayers in every way and nurtured parts of my heart that I had been left unattended for awhile.  

The Krusi's are a Swiss family with 5 grown kids (Hanz and Charlotte grew up in Switzerland and came to America when they were adults).  Charlotte is an skilled painter whom I got to know through helping her set up art shows at Teen Mania.

10 am on Saturday Morning - after sleeping in and taking time to feel beautiful.... I drive into the Krusi's long driveway in the woods. As I open the front doors of their brick house I can see straight out to the lake in their backyard through the wall of windows and walk into a room of high ceilings covered with Charlotte's paintings.

Charlotte greets me with a warm hello and quickly makes me feel at home with a cup of tea (Orange Roibous) then, takes me out to the porch for breakfast. 

What I thought would be an apartment to stay in and a porch to sit on became a family to spend a weekend with and a woman who awakened apart of me that has been asleep for a long time.  

I enjoyed many parts of my weekend 

A few to note: 

• Mornings on the Porch overlooking the Lake
• European Food/ Swiss Traditions (Small spoons and forks... Fried carrot and apple squares, bread and cheese for lunch, tasty pasta (Made by her son Stephen), really yummy salad, and most of all swiss chocolate). 
• Inviting friends over to join me (as the Krusi's love to have company)
• Seeing Jupiter and 4 of its moons for the first time through Stephens telescope at Moon Hill 
• Painting with Charlotte during the service on Sunday at CCF
• Canoe rides
• Painting lessons with Charlotte
• Quality time with their family

This weekend was packed with beautiful moments, but amidst it all something truly extraordinary happened!  

The artistic part of me awakened.  As I spent time with Charlotte I began to be softened by her free spirit, even her home carried a sense of peace and freedom; a relief from a very fast and high paced executive atmosphere I have been raised by at Teen Mania.  With every brush stroke, discovering the workings of oil paint, a very familiar part of myself began to come alive.  

I forgot how much art is apart of who I am.... what a gifting it is that the Lord placed inside of me.  Two 9-11 year old girls came to help us paint on Sunday morning and all of a sudden I put myself in their shoes and remembered that my first memory in life was when I was a year old sitting at that old gray cardboard table coloring.  My childhood is filled with these kind of moments: coloring in the lines before kindergarten, coloring contests, creating my own art projects, bead and braiding kits, art class, making cards, scrap-booking, and finally painting.  I don't know when this part of me was set to the side... but I am so glad that it was awakened again.  

Charlotte said that it seemed like I was "starving for creativity."  :) 

My heart truly comes alive when I'm outside, in a refreshing atmosphere, especially a home and nurtured by loving family.  It is in this place that my senses come alive and the Lord speaks to me in so many ways.  When I paint, or draw these heavenly thoughts become expressions. 

I pray that the Lord would show me how to allow this part of me to flow in who I am, and how use it for His glory.  It has been so good for me to develop strong leadership and business skills at Teen Mania, now I think its time for me to learn how to integrate the very artistic - sensing/ feeling side of who I am into that.  

Thank-you Lord for nurturing my heart and thank-you Charlotte for being who you are and taking me under your wing.  

I completed the painting for Felicia's home - but you will have to wait until after the wedding until I  post it on this blog. :)

I also accomplished one of my life goals this wknd too: Taking Painting Lessons

Shalom