Massage Therapy

The weekend before Thanksgiving I attended a conference, Onething, put on by IHOP-KC in Raleigh/Durham. This is the second year I've attend the conference and it was just as impact full.
During the Saturday morning session, while worshiping, they challenged us to pray. Pray for healing, pray for power, pray for our pastors, youth groups, high schools and middle schools. I was standing there barely moving because my back hurt so much. On the way up I had slept in the car, seemingly it was just the added stress my back needed for a large section to be strained too far. I was just on a plane a week before and knew that I needed my back messaged bad, but had pushed through.. So I decided to talk to God about the pain in my back and the amazing thing is it went away! Of course I tried to act like everything was the same and stealthily moved around checking out my back, but while I was doing this I knew it was ridiculous. So I'm standing there moving ever so slightly and God says, "I love you. You are my daughter and I don't want you to be in pain ..... You need to start taking care of yourself.", and the pain came back. Very funny God.

It's so true though. I have several friends who are wonderfully skilled at massages, one even is a masseuse, and yet when I actually needed my back worked out I choose to pretend like everything was okay, simply because I didn't want them to know I was in pain. I was choosing my pride over my well-being. How stupid is that?
God knew that if He took my pain away I would never humble myself. And still, with being called out by God himself, it took me over a week to ask someone to help me. Last night I finally broke down and asked my brother.
While I was laying there he painfully worked on my back I realized how prideful I had been ... wanting people to think I never deal with pain. Pride, it's a huge hindrance, and sometimes it's in the seemingly small things that it can hurt you the most, where just a small amount of humility can take you so far. I'm trying to walk this out; right now it seems I need to do this by asking for some back massages. Talk about message therapy for my soul :)

My Mike

It occurred to me last night that I probably should talk about my life more than the tiny excerpts that I rarely inform yall of, like a general aspect of my life so you actually know where I am and what I'm doing.
Well I have currently been back in Greenville for almost 3 months, just spending time with my family and friends. These few months have been amazing; being able to reconnect with my mom and best friends has truly been a blessing.
You may have noticed, but only if you read my last post, that I was just in Oregon. In fact I was there for two awesome weeks visiting my boyfriend. We just hit our three months a couple days ago and things have been amazing. Yes, it has been super hard dating someone on the opposite coast, but we both feel like God planed this so that we could work kinks out, grow and make sure we wanted to be together.

Well, let me tell you some things about him:

He is 6' 2",

Italian,

and a YWAMer.

We meet this summer in Haiti; he was the national director for Mission Adventures in Haiti and I came along as a staff member for a little bit. During that time I got to see his relationship with God. There is something different about being on outreach; the lack of food, sleep, cleanliness, organization, and security, reveals to others how dependent you are on Christ. And what I saw in him made me admire and respect him. 

I believe that the man should lead the relationship, should drive them both toward God and desire to spend more time with Him and be more like Him .... and Mike does that. 

Nutmeg

Though I do not like the weather aspect of the winter I do love the seasonal food and drinks. There is almost nothing better to me than to walk inside from the cold to a warm house that smells like fresh bread and a hot drink!

Anyways, fall is here and even though I wasn't ready for summer to end, I have resigned myself to enjoy the weather, even if I am freezing and wet. Being in Oregon for their fall means you have to 'jump in the river to dry off' as someone here put it, but when the sun comes out it is truly a beautiful place.
The cafe here on the YWAM base just announced yesterday at lunch that they are now proudly serving eggnog lattes; this might have slightly raised my spirits.

Here are some seasonal tips I have picked up here in Oregon:
- Always carry a compass with you (no matter how far away something is they always tell you it "blank miles southwest of here" ... even if it's around the corner)
- Don't buy tea, carry a tea bag around with you (most places with give you a cup of hot water, cream and sugar for free)
- Wear your rain boots and swimsuit everywhere, you might have to swim to your car
- After hitting up the Starbucks for an Eggnog latte, head down to one of the eight coffee houses on the street for a Pumpkin spice latte, then head on to the next one for a cup of Thanksgiving blend coffee and so on
- If it's sunny don't expect it to be much longer