Here Goes Nothing

Inspired by a wonderful mother on my swim team I decided to start a blog. I really enjoy writing in my journal, but my hand writing is awful, and I find it much easier to type than to hand write things. God has been teaching me so many things lately, and I thought to myself that this would be a wonderful way to document not only the day to day happenings of the craziness which is my life, but to also sort through all the things going on in my world and think about the lessons I am learning.

The types of life lessons I planned on writing about were things having to deal with faith, relationships, day to day happenings. However, the first lesson I feel the need to document is to never leave full glasses of water on your antique bedside table. As I was just climbing into bed with my computer in hand, I knocked the water all over the table. Luckily my towel wasn't too far away and it was easily fixable. Don't need to go getting in trouble for ruining a nice piece of furniture.

This has been an interesting summer thus far. I'm head coach at the HP Elks for the second year, and this is my fourth year with the team. I finally feel like I have a handle on the ins and outs of running the swim team, but of course I still don't have it down perfectly. I'm sharing the position of head coach with Chris. This boy keeps me laughing 24/7. Just two nights ago you could find us in the board room at the lodge talking and laughing... the meeting moved to my house around 12:30 when the lodge kicked us out and continued until after 2. I haven't laughed as hard as I did that night. We had been working on entries for about 10 hours, and laughing seemed like the best answer. Laughing is good for the soul. He's a good guy... and I'm thankful to have had the opportunity to work with him for so many years now.

There are 6 other coaches who are on our staff as well. Going from youngest to oldest we've got Lauren, Aaron, Brooke, Morgan, Mindy, and Taylor. This is a great group of people who have kept me smiling this summer. Swim team is going to be over in one week from tomorrow, and my life is going to feel empty without waking up to their faces every morning at the pool. Other than the 7 of them, I don't have many friends around this summer. My friends from High School are all away at their various colleges for the summer, and my Elon friends don't live here. It has left me with some very lonely moments, but has also helped me to treasure the moments with my elks people so much.

The other day I had more work to do than I could possibly have imagined. This was the same day where we spent 10 hours working on entries for the city meet. However before any of that could begin I had to get all the times from the meet entered into the computer, print labels, do the ribbons, print labels for improvement candy, put them on air heads, and get all of this stuff into the kids boxes before they drove me nuts asking where their ribbons and candy were!

After practice that day Aaron, Lauren, Mindy, and Ethan (someone who helps me out so much with swimming stuff) came over to my house to help get this stuff done. After Mindy left to go to the dentist, I found myself in the middle of one of coolest moments. We were all kind of minding our own business doing work, when the song Mighty to Save came on my computer. I think Aaron had started playing Christian music on the computer. All of a sudden everyone was kind of humming/singing along to the words and I was so clearly reminded of the power and goodness of our God.

The night before my wonderful friend Rachel had texted me to say that they had sung that song at worship at the camp she was at, and she had thought of me because we had sung it together at IV this spring. That song is just powerful, always has been to me, and probably will be forever. I remember singing it at Holy Trinity Brompton in London the Sunday that I found out my Pop had died and I wouldn't be able to get back to the states for his funeral. My heart was so heavy, and I was crying, yet God was so present at that church, and I was reminded of the kindness of my Savior, and how mighty He is to save. I know that was a random side note, but this song just means a lot to me.

Today I found out that my friend Mary Catherine's dad has Lou Gehrigs Disease. I know this can't be easy for her or her family to go through, as 50% of people diagnosed with this die within 3 years. It reminded me to be thankful for the things that are sometimes easy to forget like good health. I hope that God will show me how I can best be there for her, and for my other friend Kelly who are going through similar situations.

Later this evening, I began facebook chatting with my friend Rachel ( the same one mentioned above ). She's working with the youth at her church this summer, and just got back from a one week camp with them. She was talking to me about how God was teaching her about making her life and her faith one thing together. This is something that I want to work on too, and we decided to hold each other accountable in this area of our lives. I'm pumped. Accountability isn't always pretty.. but in the end its worth it.

I think I should go to bed because my body is exhausted and its 12:30, but this blogging thing is kind of addicting. At this point I'm really only writing for my own benefit, but I guess that is reason enough. I've never been a good writer, and probably never will be.

I have to write quickly about a quote I heard in a movie this evening... " I think I’m more comfortable with being disappointed…" The lady was talking about relationships and how she was scared and kind of angry with this boy because he wasn't disappointing her and that was what she had become comfortable with. I'm wondering if this is where I am. I've let myself become comfortable with being disappointed with relationships, so everytime something potentially good comes along, I run, because I'm fearful that it could be something good and I'm comfortable with disappointment. This sounds weird written down.. but when she said it, it clicked with me somewhere in my heart. I need to sort it out though, because otherwise I'm going to push away every good man that walks into my life.

Well I think that's it for now, there are so many things for me to write about but I need to go to bed so I'll get up in the morning. City Meet entries are due by 1 pm tomorrow (July 4th) and so I need to get up and make sure things are finalized. I have only been notified of one potential problem or change since I posted them yesterday at 1 which is AWESOME! Now we just have to sort out that one thing and then be done with it. I hope I can just submit them, and not worry that I made a mistake. If there is a mistake I don't catch.. well that's life.. and I have to learn that it's okay to make mistakes. I'm not perfect...

Happy 4th of July