Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me; once was lost but now am found; was blind but b/c of me am still having trouble seeing

Prov 13:12

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life."

Christ is to be my longing. If I let Him, then He will fulfill His promises and thus fill me. And when I am that tree of life with hope in the Lord, I will be abiding in Him and my branches will become fruit-bearing. Those branches will not be thrown into the fire. When I produce fruit, I will add to His joy and He will add to mine. How Alive that feels- ("Life is Christ, everythingelse is just living.") I don't know why I haven't been chasing it since Pine Cove.

John 15:4-"Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing."

And apart from me you feel nothing. You are dead eventhough you are alive, like a cabbage is to a ball of string and a cat is to literature or arithmatic. You may have blood in your veins instead of chlorophyl and you may even comprehend arithmatic, but you are unresponsive to God, whom you were made to interact with. Your tree exists like a skeleton lacking the blooms that it was created to make. John 15:6 "If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned." 1 Corinthians 3:15 "If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames." This fruit production and much more the life of your branches, is not something that we can attain through effort. We do not hold our breath and push till our ears pop as if that would make the apples pop out. A tree doesn't make its fruit by its own efforts; He brings forth the blooms. Matt. 6:30 "If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, will he not much more clothe you?"

Eph. 5:15 "Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."
"The Deeper the Roots the Higher the Reach."-that is on a framed poster on the wall in a Starbucks bathroom in Ennis, TX. Deepen your roots in the Lord by abiding in Him and your tree of life will grow higher and reach farther to others who need your help and need Him. Those century-tree like branches will be bursting with fresh smelling fruit! "The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma." Genesis 8:21. And 2 Corinthians 2:15 says, "For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing."

journal entry about that distant husband guy and what I am realizing about myself-sorta

Thinking about it on my way to sleep. Got up and wrote it down. No, marriage is not this close to the forefront of my mind. I am a single woman right now and proud to be that. But that doesn't mean that I can't think about it.

I want more than anything for that man to hold me so close and tight and let me sleep on his chest with joy and pride in having me as a wife. I want and need him to hold my face and say to me regularly, "You are enough for me. I am completely content and satisfied by you and I could not ask for anything more. Thank you for all that you do and for how you tenderly take care of me and my home. I will treasure you always and I will never ever ever leave you or forsake you and my eye will never desire to go astray. And I will lead our family by God's hand which is bigger than my own."

From what I have gathered, this is the longing in the hearts of most women, but this is one of the first times that I tapped into myself and realized what it is that I am really longing for.

Ozark National Forest

I want to go hike and camp in Ozark National Forest. I have riden through it by car and motorcycle more than thrice, but I haven't done enough hiking in it. I need to put this aluminum hiking backpack to use. October 25ish- when the leaves are turning and it isn't too too cold. Any ideas?

Oh and I am looking at opportunities to teach abroad this summer. Asia or Europe? If I work at camp for half the summer, then it will have to be somewhere with internet access the other half so that I can do grad school classes from there. I bet I don't work at camp. I could teach for anywhere from 3 weeks to 12 weeks. up to me. What do you think?

Naaman Forest. I love my students. I am so tired.

I have not blogged in a long time. I have less time than I used to have. And I have enough company that I need not use this space to replace socialization. I get plenty of "social" at work (there are few places more social than a high school-granted they are all 6-7 years younger than I), so, when I get home, I almost prefer a bit of alone time. Whereby, during the summer I was a bit lonely and when I got back from being in class, where I knew few people, then left my phone on the counter because there were few people to listen to me talk, I needed to type and pretend like more than three people were reading it.
"Alone time"...what is that again? Oh yea- that's when I drive four hours to college station by myself once every 3 weeks. Haha. I am trying to healthily balance being a good teacher (this requires a lot of research since i am teaching some things that I have not learned myself since HS and I wasn't necessarily paying great attention when I learned those. aka: big time commitment), getting enough SLEEP, getting adequate exercise/acivity from Rock Climbing to bike riding and using the Liftime Fitness membership I purchased, spending time with my family and doing chores around the house, and getting a good dose of social time with people my age- most of the teachers I work with are wonderful but older than me and of course the ppl that I spend the most time with are much younger all though I love my students oh so much, and then having quiet time in which I can pray and journal and coffee in a big chair indian style- a few weeks without that and i just don't feel as alive. I have not done arts and crafts in a long time... and I am still on the late August journal- that's wierd for me. My church is wonderful. My community group is beautiful. My accountability group still loves me a lot. I've gone dancing up here enough times to keep me sane and I am required to drive to College Station enough that I don't cry from missing it. Men confuse me, but I don't mind that. I confuse men, and I mind that less. Sometimes I really feel like I get up, race the sun to school, monitor mild maniacs in the hallway (that is not negative, it is funny), then teach 30 teenagers at a time for 8 hours with a thirty minute soup break, then tutor them one-on-one after that, then grade what they did, then eat something, then plan what we are doing the next day, then sleep a little bit. I have gotten sick because of not sleeping enough twice and i had to pull off the road one morning because fell asleep at the wheel- bad and scary. But I hate the scrambled feeling of not being prepared. My first period class probably thinks I'm incompitant because they are my ginny pigs class. But once second period comes in I'm set and the day runs smoothly. I'm relatively quick on my toes. and i try to make them think. i ask them a lot of questions during lecture to get them to think and anticipate as well as to stir discussion. Some classes are AWESOME in group discussion! I love it. Different classes have different personalities- i have always heard that but now i really see it. We have discussed security and freed om and economics and development and maintainance of corporations and the environment and photography and self-esteem and how to treat janitors. A lot of kids are very opinionated and they seem to like to hear what i have to say about these things. I play devils advocate- and while i do my best to be unbiased on political things, they are usually curious and responsive to what I think about what we discuss- which is nice but not as important. I don't want them to just know facts about history. This is "social studies;" i want them to leave my class with a better understanding of society and how to develop their own opinions and how to listen to others. I am really enjoying it- but I do not deny my near exhaustion. I think I already told you enough about that. Ha. I have had some interesting scenarios in my class room. Crazy attention seeker student who cannot stay in his chair for more than five minutes stole my orange juice, hid it from me, took a drink of it, and through it against the back wall last week. That was interesting. I have had a bright laser-like-but-not-quite pen light shined in my eyes while i lectured. One boy got up and punched another one in his seat. Another does things like stand up in his chair randomly in the middle of class and stare at me until i tell him to sit down. If I look at him like he is foolish and ask him to get down without taking away from classtime to give him attention, then his is less likely to do it as often. they are so funny like that. I have had a lot of neat conversations with a bunch of girl students. Football games are a blast. i make my rounds to visit my band kids and my sterling stars and my cheerleader and my Lumberjack boys that treat me like their mom. The lumberjacks stand down on the field and do stunts during games then they run back to me like Miss. Miss. How did that look? high fives high fives. Miss. Miss. watch this! And like three of them run into my classroom nearly everyday after school with some bright idea that they have been wating since third period to tell me. I really like it. I have a bunch o f students that want to start a swing dance club. So we are- that should be a blast. I have to decide what is safe enough to teach them and what's a liability. I have gotten to talk to quite a few students about God already and I love that. they do too. Okay this is long enough. I'm going to drink this wine and head towards bed where i may consider day dreaming for at least twenty minutes before sleeping because it is worth it. Trust me, life without day dreaming is sad. I used to daydream in my journal too, but now it is practically back to back sermon notes. okay tat is not true, but it is pretty close.