"If any man will open the door I will come in."

First the child speaks:

Dear Lord Jesus, will You come

Into such a little home?

It is poor and it is bare,

Dear Lord, You'll find nothing there.

It is very dusty too;

Oh, it isn't fit for You.

Not a flower has bloomed for me,

There's no fruit upon my tree.

And, Lord Jesus, have you heard?

I have not one singing bird.

Dearest Lord how can You come

Into such a dismal home?

Then the Lord answers:

But, My child, I want to come,

Want to make your house My home.

If I come it shall be fair,

In and out and everywhere.

I will clear the dust away,

Make it clean and make it gay.

All its flowers will bloom for Me,

Fruit will ripen on your tree.

In your garden will be heard

Many a merry singing bird.

Dearest child, I want to come.

May I make your house My home?

And at last the child says,

O my Savior, Lord and King,

Come, I give You everything.

With my whole heart I say, Come;

Come and make my house Your home.

-Amy Carmichael, Ploughed Under

dear spring break,

In other news,

Jonathan had a birthday and he's now in the double digits, which is sad and amazing and exciting all at once. He had a birthday party. My house was full of ten-year-old boys. Ten-year-old boys full of sugar. Ten-year-old boys feeding off of one another's energy.

 (Oh, and that's my brother. The one with the plate in his mouth.)

We've had some warm days and I was able to grab a good book and a blanket and retreat to the woods.

I saw Tim Hawkins live in Memphis! Funniest. Man. Of the world.

(Oh, and this was the lovely view from my seat. I had fun in spite of that.)

I deleted my Facebook.
It turns out, the average person spends about an hour a day (or more). This adds up to be 7 hours a week, which in turn adds to 30 hours a month!  
30.
And in a year? That's 360 hours!
I think this is only going to be temporary for me, but you never know.
But really, can you imagine what one could do in 360 hours, instead of wasting it learning things you didn't want to/shouldn't know about a person on Facebook? Those are my thoughts. I'm not saying you all have to go out and delete your Facebook. No, I just know that it's been a distraction and a waste of time for me, so I deleted it. And that's that.
And nooo, this doesn't mean I've fallen off the face of the planet. We live in the 21st century. There are ways one can be reached outside of Facebook. Feel free to email, call, text me, or even write a good, old fashioned, real and lovely letter.

After many YouTube videos and a good push, I finally did it. I grabbed some scissors and just cut.

 Bangs!

TeenPact MS

I've putting this off and putting this off. Really, I've been waiting for some pictures - 'cause I know I'm not exciting enough to get you to stick through the whole post without some media (and even then, probably not).

Anyway. I didn't take pictures, but Anna did and Lindsay did. So, all of these photos are courtesy of ALC Photography and Lindsay T. And instead of just pictures, I went all out and made a slideshow of pictures. Now I'm no pro-video-maker (?), so go easy on me.

This year, I got the privilege of staffing TeenPact MS. Where do I begin? It was a crazy, lovely, wonderful, eventful week filled with the joy of seeing old friends and meeting new ones.

I had always been curious what really went on behind the scenes, you know, when we students weren't watching/when the staffers left/what they did at night, etc. And now. . .well, I can't tell you.

Just kidding. We just grade homework. But, without sounding like a complete nerd, that was really one of my favorite times. At that point we were tired, and delirious, and a tad bit crazy. So, fun things went down.

Highlights also include playing ultimate frisbee, eating in the Belhaven cafeteria and playing the hand game, evening sessions with Mr. Cal, Do You Love Your Neighbor, Disney songs with Anna and Hannah/getting to staff with those lovely girls, the whole staff team, the awesome parents, and most importantly, the great students, TP Elections, leading Rendezvous in an awesome cabin with awesome ladies, learning the Tasmanian toetap, um - SNOW! - Bacon Day, having the opportunity to give a devotion on Romans 11 & 12, and getting to lead the FIHI Committee with Micah. Let me tell you about my committee...to sum things up, best group of kids ever. And ironically, I had a lot of people I already knew. Ha.

So that doesn't even begin to describe my week. But a picture's worth a thousand words, and here's like 50: