Beauty makes me cry...

and this is beautiful.



I hope it touched you as you watched. Thanks to my friend Jonathan for bringing it to my attention.

Brad, the frustrated.

Last night at 9:30 my phone rang and like I always do I looked at caller id before I answered it. Because the reality is I can't live without caller id, I like to know who is on the other side of the phone before I say, "Hello?". It showed up as, "Unknown caller" I paused but then I decided to answer it anyway because some of my friends block their cell numbers. It was a telemarketer, or close enough anyway. The voice on the other side of the phone was a pleasant young man named Brad who wanted me to take a survey about the shows I watch on television. But it wasn't a phone survey, oh no, they wanted my mailing information so I could check off little boxes of which shows I watched at what time during the day.

He sounded like a nice enough guy but I didn't want to give him my address. So I kindly told him no but he insisted that it would be a really good idea for me to take this television survey. So I, kindly, insisted that I'm not really a survey taker and even if they did send me the papers I would never fill them out, so why waste a stamp? Then Brad did something I've never heard a telemarketer do. He held the phone a small distance away from his mouth and made a frusterated grunting noise! I found this funny so I laughed and told him I was very sorry and I hoped he had a good night, even though he was probably being rejected many times over. He laughed too and said, "Goodbye, thanks for listening!"

It was a nice conversation, I like Brad.

With greatful hearts, we say thank you...

Psalm 103:1-5
1 Praise the LORD, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
2 Praise the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits-
3 who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
5 who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

I have a whole lot to be thankful for, God definitely deserves to be praised! God has blessed me with amazing friends, who feel like family. With parents who have been patient with me as I find God's place for me in my time on earth. God has set me free from many worldly desires that used to claw at my mind, heart and soul. God has healed me from sickness many times this past year. God made a way for me, a fallen person, to be reconciled with Him; to ensure my eternal state would be with Him! I am blessed, and I am thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Gathered Family

We all know what's it's like to have a family. Some of us come from really amazing families where the love is spread around and the good times never end. Some of us come from families where...it's a bit awkward. And unfortunatly some families don't know how to be a family at all.

Then there are our gathered family. What's a gathered family? It's the people in your life that you have no blood relationship to but they feel like your family nonetheless. You make them your family. I've got a very large gathered family, and I love them to pieces!

I'm not super close to my real family, it's always been a little bit awkward for me to fit in with them. I love them, but it's sometimes hard to be a part of them. It's something that I'm working on. That's why I started "gathering" family members a few years ago. It was more a fact that I realized I was closer to these people then my blood relatives. It's not something that I've verbalized to these people in my life but I hope I show it to them through my words and actions. In my gathered family I've got brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, moms, dads, crazy uncles, cousins, a grandpa, a couple grans, I've even got a son and some daughters!

SBBC has played a big part in the gathering of these family members, many of my gathered family are in my life because of the camp. In fact I spent this past weekend with a bunch of them! On Saturday we had our staff appreciation banquet followed with a camp wind-up on Sunday afternoon. Hence my "busy" blog just before this one. It was a great weekend! After the appreciation banquet a group of us (many of them who I consider to be part of my gathered family) stayed together and played 4 on a couch, then we watch old camp movies (home videos?!) and I was so blessed by our time together.

Having a gathered family is one of my favourite things!