I am no fool...

Two posts in one week? On a roll..While my sister is graciously putting together some new blog designs for me - I decided to create a "favorite photos" page on my blog. You can check them out using the tab at the top.

Also the main reason for this post is to share one of my new favorite quotes:

"He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." -Jim Elliot

Austin Stone invited J.D. Greear-pastor from the Summit Church in Durham, North Carolina-to speak last Sunday. The Summit Church has a mission to plant churches all over the world and J.D. spoke about having a love for the world, like Christ does. His sermon encouraged me to evaluate where my focus is as I prepare for the Dominican Republic. Where would I be without Jesus? I would be one of the ~1.6 BILLION unreached lost people (my heart aches when I read that reality). I did nothing to deserve His love and grace, but by the grace of God, "He who promised is faithful" (Hebrews 10:23). My focus is so easily turned inward; selfishly fixating on how my own story will be told. I am not the main character - God is. His story is the one to be told. What a joy to be able to share it. Praise the Lord that He CHOSE to use me; that He CHOSE to cast me in His story at all.

So what does this quote mean to me? It means Jesus is so valuable that I would give anything to follow Him. It means I forfeit my story, for the sake of His. And what do I gain? I gain Him. I gain a heart that breaks when His breaks over a broken people. I gain love only because He loves me and shows me How to love others. I gain the freedom to laugh when He gives me joy. I gain the freedom to strengthen my faith when He allows me to experience struggles.
I gain life; meaningful, everlasting life.

all that comes with Halloween

I decided I'd make another post for Halloween with a few pictures. Julie and I get overly excited about holidays (or just about life in general), so we've been preparing for Halloween for quite some time. Technically, Julie's mom is to blame for that because she sent us a Halloween Care Package with lots of decorations and fun stuff...so of course that spurred on our excitement.

When we came to Austin for Matts lacrosse scrimmage, Julie and I picked some baby pumpkins from moms pumpkin "patch."

Then the weekend before Halloween we made the mistake of carving our pumpkins. Unfortunately we forgot how fast pumpkins go bad down here in this Texas heat so they were pretty "wilty" by Halloween...but at least we had fun carving them. (Oh and did I forget to mention, they were awesome!?)












Julie's was a willow tree, mine was a mummy, and Jesse's was a....cyclops?...we think? haha He's a pretty simple guy so I guess the pumpkin did a good job of reflecting that. (or maybe he's just smarter than us because by only carving two small triangles...his pumpkin lasted longer than ours).











And finally, here is a picture from working the Haunted House at the dance studio. Julie, Matt, Matt's roomates (Mark and Shane), and Troutt helped me out at the studio. (I discovered I have AMAZINGly reliable friends....and the night all worked out, thanks to them!)













In case the picture isn't clear enough:
I'm Elastigirl from The Incredibles,
Shane, Matt, and Mark are professional athletes (go figure)...but when they put the pillow cases over their heads, they're characters from The Strangers. (I think?)
and Julie was Tracy Turnblad from Hairspray!!