Camp Electric

Here is a video of a student who came to Camp Electric last year and made it on Oprah's show about the Most Talented Kids. Pretty cool! For those of you who don't know, this is Camp Electric is my pretty awesome job. I am blessed. Enjoy!!!

Former Camp Electric Alum Graham Stookey on OPRAH playing with Lenny Kravitz! http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Rockstar-Lenny-Kravitz-Surprises-Fan-Video

The "D" Word.

Depression.


Everyone cringed when I wrote that word. 


One thing I have learned from my husband is to not steer away from topics no one likes to talk about. He has been talking about sex with the youth students and he hasn't been holding back much. I never would have heard some of the things he has brought up in my youth group/s growing up, BUT I wish I had. These tough topics need to be discussed. 


Back to the scary "D" word. 


I have had an overwhelming amount of people, books, blogs, etc. where this subject has come up and I would be lying if I said I had never felt that word in my life. 


I am not a doctor, but I think there are several different "levels" of depression. I believe it can be a fleeting thing and it can also be something that sticks with you and you may need help coping with. 


I have been reading Mary Beth Chapman's book "Choosing to SEE" where she talks about how she has struggled with depression for YEARS and she has had to take medication to help her. Those meds were upped when her daughter passed away. But, she says it's a constant part of who she is. 


So, that is the very hard end of the spectrum. 


Then, I have had friends say that because of an event/s in their lives they have had times of momentary depression. I would probably fall closer to this end of the spectrum. 


Please read this:


Psalm 42


1 As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.

2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?

3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
"Where is your God?"

4 These things I remember
as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of God
under the protection of the Mighty Onet
with shouts of joy and praise
among the festive throng.

5 Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.

6 My soul is downcast within me;
therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan,
the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.

7 Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.

8 By day the Lord directs his love,
at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life.

9 I say to God my Rock,
"Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?"

10 My bones suffer mortal agony
as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
"Where is your God?"

11 Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.

Now, if anyone has ever said that the Bible is not relevant in our lives today, that shows me that it is. This Psalmist was going through a time of spiritual depression. He said "Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?"...I do believe that depression is something from the enemy, but we have the power to overcome it. 

Here is a blog that someone referred me to. Amazing. The blog is called "Enjoying the Small Things" by Kelle Hampton. 

Take the time to read this: Nella Cordelia Birth Story

Kelle's second girl was born with Down Syndrome. They didn't know it until she had given birth and the girl was in her arms. 

Then read this: Down Syndrome

I think this blog post puts things in perspective. If anyone had a "right" to have a time of mourning or depression, it was her and I love one of the things that she said about feeling blessed that she had been chosen for this task. You would have to have read Nella's whole birth story to see where Kelle had came to this point. Now, I am not sure if Kelle is a believer or not, but it made me think of a lot of things. 

It made me think: How selfish am I? It also made me think about what other people are going through and how certain things may seem like mountains to me, but in the grand scheme of things and in the grand scheme of eternity...how meaningless are these petty "problems" I have. I have really tried to see the world from a more eternal perspective with "Kingdom Eyes" as Grant likes to call them. 

I challenge you to do the same. 

If you are looking for some more encouragement about depression, I encourage you to read this article from John Piper

If you have been following my blog for a while, you will see that I am all about prayer. If I can pray for you, please give me the privilege! You can email me at my first and last name .mac :) Or, leave a message on here for me to contact you. 

God Bless. 

Headphones!

Just a quick note to share these nifty headphones we got for Maks! He is always coming with us to concerts, church services with loud bands (good bands) playing so I decided to attempt to save his hearing! We have 2 concerts just this weekend plus Sunday service so I know these will get good use out of them!

Life Lately

I am baaaaaccckkkk...

So, once again, I am an awful blogger but I honestly love it so I am going to try oh so hard to keep up with this :) So much to update...where to start.

Maks is 6 months old as of yesterday (shows you how long it's been since my last update). Here are a few pictures of our growing boy!

He LOVES to sip on anything we are drinking. We don't actually let him taste it, but he actually gets antsy when he sees us drinking (and now eating) anything and not letting him experiment with it. Here's a picture of him sipping some sweet tea at The Rendezvous for his Grandmommy's Birthday!

Here's a lunch play date with our friend, Laura Epting and her sweet baby girl, Izzy. Izzy has made her appearance on my blog before. Her and Maks are 2 weeks apart and that's pretty much how it was through Laura and I's pregnancy.

Happy Boy laughing!

Below at Grandpa Daycare enjoying (?) some cereal :) I think he looks like me here. 

Eating...our favorite thing :)

I always thought I would not be that person that posts everything on Facebook/Twitter about my child because I thought "who cares?" but that's pretty much my life and I care so that's all that matters, right? Ha!

At 6 Months Maks is:

-Grabbing everything

-Putting everything in his mouth

-Sitting up pretty good, but he still needs a little guidance

-Rolling when we actually put him on his stomach...he hates it (since 4 months)

-Loves his Johnny Jump up

-Eating rice cereal 2x a day and fruit as well

-He HATES green beans but loves sweet peas, bananas and most of the fruit

-Pretty much just started sleeping through the night a few days ago. I put him down at 10 p.m., he woke up at midnight and Grant changed his diaper and he went right back to sleep (he usually eats then) and didn't wake up again until 5:30 a.m.! Amazing! Last night he only slept from about 9:45 p.m. until 3:30 a.m. but that's a good 6 hours which the doctor counts as "sleeping through the night"...so he's making it

-We use an Angel Care Monitor which he tends to roll off of, so an alarm goes off (it monitors the baby's breathing and if it doesn't sense breathing for 20 seconds, it sends off an alarm that stops when it picks the breathing back up again). The alarm went off the other night and Grant SHOT up and ran up there and he had just rolled into a little ball by the head of the bed. He likes to sleep curled up and sometimes holding his toes :)

-He still loves his bouncer

-Does much better in his carseat (when he was first born he was great then started to hate it and is back to doing great again)

-He recognizes Grant and I as his parents and has started to cry when we leave him. Selfishly, I love that he misses us :) Bad...I know.

Update on our church and ministry:

Grant has started last month preaching full time at our Bartlett campus Christ Church. It has been so awesome. I love being at one location (not that I don't love the Arlington campus, because I do!) but I love getting plugged into this specific location. I am giving choir a shot (luckily they don't have tryouts!) and we are still doing youth group. Grant is doing an amazing job juggling it all and Maks and I are trying to tag along as much as we can! Here's our church website!

Much more to update, but I will save some for the next post.