BLESSED

Tonight, I was surrounded by the love of our church family in Longmont. We got to sit back and eat pizza at Old Chicago with all our friends from our church where we are members. There were about 30 people there! I felt so blessed to be surrounded by my church family.

As I was sitting back and loving on all the people here, I thought of all the people "back home" in Missouri. This past year I have felt so much love and support by people in both our church in Missouri and at my school where I work.

WE ARE SO BLESSED.

We not only have one group of "family" that loves us here in Colorado. We have another family in Missouri who loves us and supports us and makes us feel like we are at home in an unfamiliar place.

I feel God's blessings of laughter, friendship and family so deeply tonight. Thank you for all you do for us, both to our biological family, and the group that has surrounded us and taken us in as family.

My grace is sufficient for you

I haven't blogged before about my back issues, because I hate to complain about it. But today is the year "anniversary" of my injury. One year ago I suffered an injury to my back. After many, many, many journeys through different treatment options, I still have pain on a daily basis. I have some days where I am optimistic about eventual healing and the pain is less. I also have some days where I am in such intense pain all I can do is give all that I have to make it through the day so I can go home and cry from the pain and from frustration and fear.

This post is not an attempt to get people to feel sorry for me or to get for advice on what to do. Instead, I want to offer hope to any who are suffering or may know someone close to them suffering on a daily basis from "a thorn", as Paul calls it in 2 Corinthians.

A few months ago, I read this verse in Adam Hamilton's book Why: Making Sense of God's Will.

"I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. ⁸ Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. ⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. " - 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

This verse has helped me realize how much I must rely on Christ's grace to give me strength and hope. It is through His grace that His power is perfect, especially in our weakness. Through our weakness, we have to give up relying on ourselves and look to God to fill us with his peace, power and hope. I have found that I cannot rely on my health to get me through the day, but with God's presence in my life I can peacefully say that he will sustain me. When I am weak, I am strong through Christ! I hope that this verse brings you some hope and peace whether you are dealing with physical pain, emotional turmoil or any other weakness. I do not know whether God will heal me tomorrow, next year, or not for another 10 years, but I will continue to try to rely on God's sufficient grace for me.

I will end with a word of hope from a song called The Valley Song by Jars of Clay.
"I will sing of your mercies that lead me through valleys of sorrow, to rivers of joy."

P.S. - I am also reading this book, which I highly suggest for anyone who may be dealing with chronic pain: Patient Endurance by Kari Bailey

Let's go Rigers! (ta, ta, ti-ti ta)

Today for Father's Day, we got to spend the morning with Bryson's dad at Lucile's, a creole cafe. After stuffing ourselves with tasty food, we headed over to the Babb house to go to the Rockies vs. Tigers baseball game. My dad and mom both grew up in the Detroit area, so I was raised on Tiger patriotism, but never lived there. I like the Rockies too. So I got all dressed and ready for the game.

I kind of provided a buffer between the Rockies and Tigers fans. The picture doesn't capture the D on my brother's shorts or his Tigers crocs, by the way.

We had a lot of fun at the game, just hanging with the family.

Coors Field, home of the COLORADO ROCKIES!

Me and my Pop!

Bryson and me

The family minus one brother

Justin Verlander, getting ready to pitch an impressive game

Tulo hitting one of the 4 Rockies hits of the game

'Twas a sad day for Rockies fans. But a fun time had by all in the Babb/Lillie clan!

I'll be a working, moderate, income socially concious Boulder hippie.

I got to spend a wonderful day in Boulder with my parents today. We started at Chautauqua. This is at the base of the Flatiron mountains (pictured) and just a few miles from my parent's house.

The beautiful Flatirons in the sun.

Looking over Boulder from our little hike.

My dad and me at the Flatirons.

We then took a walk down the Boulder Creek Path. Apparently, the snow fall was at about 300% for the year up in the mountains... so, the Boulder Creek, which runs down from the mountains, is VERY high!


A little story behind this next picture. This is a picture of a health food store in Boulder, Alfalfa's. When I was in elementary school, my choir sang the song "Alfalfa's" by a Boulder jam band named Leftover Salmon. We got to visit Alfalfa's today! It was just like the song said:

When I grow up, I wanna work at Alfalfa's!
Where the cheese is dairy free.
A Birkenstocks, Spandex, necktie patchouli grocery store.
I'd have a job, picking through the produce - no pesticides for me!
I'll be a working moderate income socially conscious Boulder hippie!
And I'd drink soy milk all day long
And fest on bulgar, wheat grass, and Windom Hill songs.
Ride home on my mountain bike,
Just in time to turn on my solar powered growing lights.

Spent some time in a few yoga stores along the Pearl Street mall as well. If I lived here again, I could see myself becoming a pretty free spirit!

The sweet mountain air

All kinds of updates from the Lillie household... but THIS update is brought to you from the sweet mountain air of Colorado!

(I didn't take this picture, but this is from my beautiful hometown!)

The weekend was full of trying to frantically get ready for our trip on Monday. I got all my thesis work done that I needed to have done before we left! That means that I get a nice little break from thesis until our return back to Colorado. I am LOVING my thesis work, but thankful for some time to not think about it overly hard.

Yesterday, we left SUPER early to get to Denver for Bryson's meeting with the District Committee on Ordained Ministry. We had a very uneventful drive out, and my back held up super well for the 10.5 hours in the car. Praise God!

Bryson did a wonderful job at the meeting! The first question they asked him was "Would you be willing to serve in a rural church right off the bat?" ...Let's not discuss that topic right now... I tend to break into a cold sweat and my heart starts pounding out of my chest thinking where they might place us next year... BUT Bryson was approved by the district committee to go on to the Conference Board of Ordained Ministry! He is now property of the conference. They were super impressed with his organizational work in all of his paperwork and how he is getting to intern at Church of the Resurrection in KS next fall. I am so proud of him!

We got to Bryson's parent's house around 6:45. We thought we were having dinner with his parents. However, we were surprised by his brother and wife, and the Harris clan, which is like an extention of the Lillie house, also being there. It was an amazing night of love and friendship. I am so thankful for all the love and support and second families we have in Missouri, but it is wonderful to be home for a few weeks.

Today will be spent in Boulder, hitting up Celestial Seasonings and Pearl Street, and getting to see my mom and brother. All while basking in the glory of God's wonderful mountain creation.

Very technical brain research!

I put this information together today from two articles, and it made me SUPER excited!

There is a theory in autism called the "temporal binding deficit," which means that individuals with autism have reduced integration of specialized local neural networks in the brain. It is an element to help explain the Weak Central Coherence (the ability to process information in context). The temporal binding deficit might be due to a reduction in the synchronization of high-frequency gamma waves between local networks processing local features. This may cause some of the deficits in communication in autism. (Brock, Brown, Boucher & Rippon, 2002).

However, gamma band activity plays an essential role in auditory RHYTHM perception. (Induced activity refers to changes in ongoing brain activity induced by processing of stimuli or movement preparation. A well-studied type of induced activity is amplitude change in oscillatory activity. For instance, gamma activity often increases during increased mental activity such as during object representation. - wikipedia) Induced gamma band activity may reflect expectancies for pulse and meter, and be related to synchronization in the brain to outside stimuli (Zanto, Snyder, Large, 2006).

So, the use of rhythm may help that gamma band activity in autism so that neural networks may communicate, and help with synchronization to the outside world??? Rhythm calms the sensory system and facilitates communication???

Beat out that rhythm of language!

Did you know research suggests that newborns can hear the difference between the rhythm of languages as early as 5 days old? There are theories that the languages of the world can be differentiated in different classes: stress-timed, syllabic-timed or mora-timed (a mora is the smallest unit of sound in Japanese and a few other languages). English is classified as stress-timed, French is classified as syllabic-timed. The newborns can hear the patterns of the rhythm of their own language class and recognize their own language rhythmic patterns from other languages that are of another class. At 5 days old! As Bryson said, "We really are fearfully and wonderfully made!" (This is one of the articles I read today.)

Rhythm of speech, called prosody, is thought to be a central part of language acquisition. So when the rhythm is played with to have a structure that follows meter and a pattern, like that of music, will that increase language acquisition for individuals who might struggle with language, for example, kids with autism? Hmm...

Introducing: My Baby

The school I work at is a very... fertile... school. Women are popping out babies left and right. As the women talk about their children, I often feel pretty lost and clueless (but it's not as bad as when birthing conversations happen.) Heck, we don't even have a dog to treat like a child (something I hope to change next summer!) I one day jokingly started talking about my imaginary baby, "Juanita." Well, people, I no longer have an imaginary baby. I would like you all to meet my baby, Gertrude.

Gertrude holds all the information and articles for my thesis.

My thesis will take up ALL of my free time this summer. I am writing on how music methods might increase the communication and organize sensory systems for children with autism. I'm going to be working with kids with autism by presenting conversational speech, rhythmic speech and melody (song) and see if each of those will help children produce language in a play environment. It's going to be a huge project, but I am super excited about it. My review of literature outline must be done before we leave for Colorado. So this morning, I have a pot of tea and my articles ready to read and organize. Later, Gertrude may join me for a bit of relaxation at the pool. Don't worry, I'll be sure to blog those pictures.

Summer has started!

Summer has officially begun in the Lillie house! Bryson finished a two week intensive course in Revelation a week ago. Can you say flying monster fun? I finished the last of the school year on Friday. We had eight people leave our school this year, and it was hard for me to say goodbye to the friends I have made, and it was a reminder that I would be doing a lot of goodbyes next year. I think some pool and relaxation therapy may help this week! Tomorrow's plans involve a pot of tea, thesis reading, and some pool time. The summer will be filled with my thesis work, but I am hoping for some quality time to rejuvenate for the fall as well. We will get three weeks in Colorado coming up soon and Bryson also has a mission trip scheduled for a week in July. I think it will be a very happy summer!