What is a Sabbatical?

Brent has been a Student Pastor for nine years now at BCC. We absolutely love it there! However, the past year has run us down physically, mentally, and emotionally. Sometimes, it has been to the detriment of our family. Student Pastors work all the time.  I know in a normal job such as a Police Man you work all the time, but you at least get two consecutive days off here and there, and work clear hours (a start time and stop time).  With being a Student Pastor you can never predict when a teen is going to need counseling, when a funeral will happen, when volunteers want to share ideas, or when someone will need you for a last minute devotion:). All this added onto regular hours and life is a whirl wind.  We have two new families that are on staff with us at BCC that we truly love and adore as friends; Marty and Laura Burgess (college)  and Brad and Brooke Snipes (students). It would just kill us if we were the type of people that sacrificed our family on the alter of ministry, and these new families saw that as their ministry example. The Bible calls us to REST! Unfortunately, we have been terrible in this example. There should be at least one full day of turning off your Blackberry, Facebook, and whatever else links you to your job (even volunteer job:) and resting. Our bodies need rest, they crave rest, they were created to REST!  So, as you can guess Brent is on a sabbatical. He is not on a vacation.  Every day he has parked himself from 8am-4pm in the forest with a number of new books.  He starts his day off reading the Bible, praying, and journaling. The rest of the day he has been reading books about history, marriage, and culture. Then, after reading a full day he comes home to US! We have a actually had six homemade meals in a row!  We have played games every night with our little girl, read her books, and done our bedtime routine TOGETHER! It may sound so common for you to do this, but not for us. At least four nights on a ministry week will be spent either at church, sporting event (HS or MS), or a meeting- all lasting past 8 pm. We rarely have two nights in a row with nothing but just us. I write this hoping that our friends and family realize that our bodies and minds can only take so much. We can do all things through Christ, however, he does not NEED us to do everything for Him.  He wants us to be renewed. So, please renew yourself. Stop thinking you have to do everything for Him. He doesn't really need us, He just wants us to serve Him out of love and desire. We sometimes don't rest bc we think others won't accomplish the task or even do it as well as we do. Ha ha ha! That's just saying you have to be in control at all times and don't trust God to take care of it. Maybe it isn't important as you think it is:). Make sense?

OUR NATURE WALK

My little gal is completely gifted. First, she has the gift of entertaining people. We were at the doctor for hours and Marley pretty much enchanted every nurse and patient there. Of course she had to yell about having to "pooooop!" when it was super quiet. She finds it amusing bc she really doesn't have to, she knows it annoys me and others find it hilarious (ok so do i). Then she asks if the doctor is taking the baby out today? What the heck? Second, she is gifted in the area of tantrums...uncontrollable tantrums...in the most public places. I try to be fun and take her to the playground in the mall after our dr appointment. Wouldn't you know she has to take off her shoes to play there. For those of you who know my child, you know that Marley insists on shoes at all times...for everyone! After around 10 minutes of just sitting there screaming, "I don't want to! Hold me!" she saw another little girl take her shoes off. Marley bent down, took hers off, and shut down the water works in an instant. Sometimes, all you can do is just sit back and let her deal with it in her own time, never mind how loud or how much she is embarressing me:)

Cheesecake

The youth staff and some other leaders in the church went to the Catalyst Conference. There is so much that God has awakened in me, and bc of that I am still processing the information that I heard. So, when I can put it into words I will blog about it! Until then allow me to be completely superficial and express my love for something that has just been introduced to me..... THE CHEESECAKE FACTORY!  They have the most beautiful decor, longest menu, and HELLO! every flipping type of cheese cake your little heart could conjure up! If I could experience this type of dessert every day of my pregnancy it would make me forget how uncomfortable carrying a small human around is:)

at the end of the day we bought our very own grocery store apples and pumpkin:)

Sky Top Orchard

Like every good mom of a toddler I thought we would have a family day and go apple picking and pick out a pumpkin. Fun, right? Flat Rock has a beautiful place called Sky Top Orchard. We went this exact same time last year and it was peaceful with not a lot of people there. As we drove up the mountain we found ourselves in a long line of traffic going up and a steady flow of traffic was going down. When we arrived, it blew our minds! There were cars and people everywhere! Marley couldn't get to any of the play areas bc it was wall to wall kids. We were going to go apple picking, but the line to get a basket and then weigh the apples took about thirty minutes to wait in. So, we decided to go over and get a pumpkin. Wrong! The pumpkins were limited, and the lines for those were super long. Btw, it was super hot today. Marley was exhausted from the late night out at the football game, and she wasn't in her most pleasant behavior. We also had her dressed really cute for pictures with the pumpkins, but every time she sat down there were other children and adults all over her (not to mention their feet were in the pic). One final note on my disappointing family day....I have never seen so many little girls with gigantic hair bows in my life.  Marley wears hair bows, but not the kind that look like they are going to eat her head.  I was able to get some cute pics so I will post them late tonight.

It is 1am and I have no freaking idea why I am on here:)

We just got back from a very eventful day. Our ultrasound was scheduled right at lunch/nap time for Marley and then we had to drive two hours to the football game. The ultrasound went well. My lovely placenta is still low but off of my cervix (didn't you want to know that:). Our little family had an hour to kill before meeting up with Olivia, Allen, Kristen, and Brad at the airport so we went to Target of course! I needed pants, I loath maternity pants btw. They absolutely suck. You can try on one pair in a size and it won't fit, then try on another pair in the same size and they fall off! We met up w/everyone and we all took the church van down to Burns. It was so much fun! Marley is in love w/ Allen. Her new phrase thanks to Kristen is "Silly Gooses!".  My child just has to be the life of the party anywhere she goes. It worries me that she takes anyone by the hand. We are blessed to have teenage friends that love on her and treat her so kind. She adores them. Well, the Devils finally won a game and my chaplain husband  and Brad were able to pray after a win not a loss:).  So now I am off to bed at 1:13. 

I am laying here in bed with my husband who is trying to get me to share emotions after he has watched three hours of HEROS. He says he is being sweet. Oh now he is threatening to shut off the computer. I should get my three hours in now. No, now I'll just check his email for him. He really is precious.

Now, he says I'm just supposed to write about how I spent my day:

*had lunch with Brittany Barrie at Sunrise (forgot my checkbook)

*walked to the park w/Marley and played (she collected leaves on the way)

*took a nap

*went to church and Marley sat in "BIIIIIIG CHURCH". she was too cute... singing and raising her hands:) made me melt.