Volunteers?

I am so proud of myself! I worked my tail off and got all of our laundry done this weekend! It is so glorious to not have massive piles all over the place!

Now...

...if only I could find time, energy, or someone to fold it! :)

Go other team!

A fun evening at a preseason Chiefs game! Spur of the moment gift tickets with a parking pass! It was a nice night with my hubby and my pal Rochelle. Go other team! :)

This was the radar last night around 2:15 in the morning. I thought we were going to need to seek cover in the bathtub with our bicycle helmets on!

My prize!

My prize for all my recent medical tests and the start of school. Super fun!

First Day of School!

Today was the first day of school! I was super sad to miss the kids coming in in the morning (I had a doctor's test to go to) but I got to school around 10:00 and had a great rest of the day. Today we just did recess and lunchroom rules, so not super exciting, but I am really excited to do music class tomorrow. Bryson asked me what my hopes and dreams were for the year at our start of the year dinner (at Jason's Deli). Here's what I came up with:

• Really incorporate the stuff I learned in my Orff class this summer.
• Be a source compassion, grace and joy for the kids I see every day.
• Take time to reflect on the enjoyment of my job.
• Graduate with my Masters
• Remain positive and hopeful through the personal issues that I may face this year between my heath and the possible changes coming this spring.

On a completely different note, today Bryson got an email about his Church of the Resurrection internship. In addition to being in school and continuing to work at First UMC Independence, Bryson has also been given the opportunity to intern at Church of the Resurrection, a 20,000 member UMC church in Leawood, KS (just over the border). Today, he and his spouse got an invitation to have dinner at Adam Hamilton's (the head pastor) house. We are both huge fans of Adam Hamilton... I think Bryson wet his pants a little with joy and excitement. Super exciting!

hope

This is a paragraph from the book I'm reading, Patient Endurance by Kari Bailey that I read this morning:

Whatever you do, don't lose hope for your healing and wholeness. Fight for what is rightly yours. Keep seeking God for wisdom to guide your next step. As discouraging as going from one doctor to the next and trying procedure after procedure has been, it has proved to be the right move for me. I wish I could have got the solution right the first time, but God in His sovereignty has allowed me to hop from place to place, trying new things. Though He has allowed me to suffer much pain in the process, nothing is wasted in the Kingdom of God, and He will use everything for his glory... When we have God, we are never without hope. Don't give up, and don't give in. The Lord will give you what you need to endure until the end.

SONIC!

My parents and brother had never been to Sonic. After being in the Missouri bubble for so long, I had forgotten there were people that hadn't ever been to Sonic! My dad was all a twitter as we made it event, grabbed our camera and drove down the road to our local neighborhood Sonic.

All excited for our Sonic order! (Tracy was incredibly embarrassed by his dork of a family)

Mom ordering

Dad ordering

Ma and Pa by the Sonic sign

Enjoying our Sonic Drinks

Yummy ice cream! Very happy about it.

My Ebenezer

Tomorrow is my visit to the surgeon. I am very anxious but have been trying to trust in God's plan. My prayers are filled with requests of peace for whatever is decided. Should it be surgery, I pray for peace for how it will effect my school year and the process of the surgery itself. Should they not decide to do surgery, I pray for peace for trying to decipher what road I need to take next. I am praying for continual acceptance of my limitations, whatever they may be this year. I will continue to try to do grace and not stuff.

One of my favorite hymns ever is Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. Verses two says "Here I raise my Ebenezer". This does not mean that you are holding up an old crotchety man from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. This is in reference to a verse in I Samuel 7:12. The Israelites had been in battle with the Philistines, and the people had told Samuel to not stop crying out to the Lord. He made a sacrifice to the Lord, and when the Philistines attacked, God helped the Israelites defeat the Philistines.

Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying "Thus far the Lord has helped us." So the Philistines were subdued and they stopped invading Israels territory. Throughout Samuel's lifetime, the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines. - 1 Samuel 7:12-13

Thus far, the Lord has helped me. I have been given many Ebenezers in people's prayers, help, kind words and love. I know He will continue to give me Ebenezers no matter what may come.

Here I raise mine Ebenezer; hither by thy help I'm come;

And I hope, by Thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God;

He to rescue me from danger, interposed his precious blood.

Babb Family Visit

My parents and one of my brothers came in to town on Thursday night from Colorado! Some highlights so far...

Friday my mom and I went down to Crown Center while Bryson and the boys went to the College Basketball Experience.

Tracy dunking

Daddy going for the big shot

We also went on Friday night to the Tigers vs. Royals game. It was close game and went even an extra inning. Tigers won.

Kauffman Stadium

Jesus apparently has a favorite team. The Tigers!

My Papa and Me

My mama and me

4 of the 5 Babbs (missed you Trevor!)

Me and Bryson

We had fun with one of the players. I couldn't figure out why they kept booing Moustakas. I finally figured out, they weren't booing, they were mooing. So we mooed.

This morning we went down to City Market and tonight the boys are going to another Tigers game while Mom and I hang out at home. I love having my family in town!

Do grace

I am a do-er. I love to be doing things. I am doing grad school. I am doing my thesis. I am doing my research. I am doing a 4.0 grade point average in my graduate degree. I am doing my teaching job. At my teaching job, I am doing committees and extra classes and extra clubs. I am doing my church job. I do choir and praise band and media and sound set up. I do Sunday School for the kids during part of the summer. I am doing my job as a wife. I do dinner, I do cleaning, I do grocery shopping. I do extra things to make my friends feel special. I do surprise parties, cupcake dates, fun nights out. Even when we're sitting around in the evening with the TV on, I am frequently doing.

This morning, I was reading the book Patient Endurance, which is written by a young woman close to my age who lives life in chronic pain from back problems. Today I was reading about accepting your limitations. I wrote down a couple quotes in my journal about limitations.

"I do have to accept the here and now and submit to its limits and boundaries."

"When you accept your limitations, you are not giving up on your faith or your hope of being healed."

I journaled about my limitations, how I have a very real time limit on activity, how my house is never clean because scrubbing bathtubs picking up is difficult. The next couple questions to journal on were "How do I accept my limitations and surrender my will to God?" and "What does God want to teach me?" I believe what God wants to teach me, is this. It's not about doing. I don't have to do everything that I once did. It's about showing the love, grace, compassion and peace of God to those around me. I don't need to be teacher of the year. But I need to show my kids love and grace and compassion. I don't need to run everything at church. I need to demonstrate how God is working through me and empower others to do some of the jobs that I can't. I don't need to have a spotless house to show my husband I love him. But I do need to take time to show him love and patience. I am going to try (yes, try... I know I will stumble) to let God take away some of my doing. Instead, as this school year starts, my goal is to do grace. To do love. To do compassion. To do peace. To do rest in God.

Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn't get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations... At first I didn't think of it as a gift, and I begged God to remove it. Three time I did that, and He told me, My grace is enough; it's all you need. My strength is all you need... Now I take limitations in stride and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down in size... I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become. -2 Cor. 12:7-10 (Message)

Holy flying pigs!

I have never in my life seen a temperature this high somewhere that I am living.

Back in the day...

Most people know that Bryson and I met on Facebook. I saw his profile in our college's Campus Crusade group and thought he was cute, so I poked him. Recently, Facebook has changed its message system so when you click on a message from someone, you see ALL the messages you have from someone. I found this today and thought it was funny. Our first words to each other:

March 9, 2005
Bryson Lillie
you poked?
howdy, I do believe you poked me. I apologize for for asking this but have we met before? Your name sounds familiar for some reason. And by the way, good quotes on you profile.

March 9, 2005
Sarah Babb
Nope, you do not know me, as far as I know! Just wanted to meet some new people and I enjoyed reading your profile!

March 9, 2005
Bryson Lillie
re: hey there....
Its nice to meet you! I'm glad to have found a friend out in the facebook jungle.

Love you more every day my wonderful husband!

Happy Birthday, Bryson!

Today is Bryson's 28th birthday! We had a pretty low key birthday tonight. We went down to a restaurant for dinner in downtown KC called The Brick. We had never been there but it was on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, which is one of Bryson's favorite shows.

I spent most of the day working on his birthday cake. It was a Chocolate Guinness cake from scratch. It turned out pretty good! Not super sweet, but very chocolaty. The frosting really kept it from being overly sweet so you could just delight in the chocolate-ness of it.

We came back and had cake and ice cream and he opened his couple presents. His big present this year he got in Colorado, so tonight he just got a couple things. I got him Green Lantern Boxers and my parents got him the first year of the Feasting on The Word Bible commentary.

Here are 2+8 things that I love about Bryson (yes Jodi T., I stole this from what you write about your kids!). I was originally going to write 28 things, but when Bryson told me I was going to have to come up with 29 new things next year, I decided this might be a little more doable. Not that there aren't 28+29 things I love about my husband. But I was a little worried for his 126th birthday, since that's how long he said he was going to live!

2. I love his goofy sense of humor. He always keeps me giggling.

1. I love how hard he works to follow his dream about becoming a pastor.

8. I love how he cleans better than me. I then always have an excuse to let him clean. :)

7. I love how these last few months he has let me work on my thesis and has taken care of a lot of the household things.

6. I love how he will try and help alleviate my back pain with a back rub every once in awhile.

5. I love how tickled he gets over superheroes and Hell's Kitchen.

4. I love listening to him pray in church. He has such elegant words to lead others in prayer.

3. I love how optimistic he is when I have a hard time staying positive.

2. I love how he deliberates over things to make the best decision that he can.

1. I especially love how much he has grown in his theological understanding the last 3 years. I am so blessed to have such a Godly man for a husband!

Happy birthday to my wonderful husband!

I didn't have time to get the numbered candles... so I made Bryson hold up a sign. :-P

Blow out those pretend candles Old Man!

Green Lantern, GO!