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Wednesday, May 18, 2011

My Missional Community Ladies

I have been apart of the Austin Stone for four years now, and that church has encouraged me to live in community by being apart of a Missional Community. For those of you who don't know what a Missional Community is, it's kinda like a "Small group", but we are encouraged to live missionally and intentionally while we serve the city of Austin. I joined my MC group three years ago, we meet once a week (Thursdays) and keep it real with Jesus. I love these girls, and week by week we are blown away as we see that God has hand picked each one of us to be in this group. We all seem to struggle with the same things at the same time, it is ridiculous...God sure knows his stuff!! I love these girls and I can't imagine living a missional life without them.

So what's with the introduction? Well before I posted my Confession blog post (yes, it is still a work in progess), I wanted to introduce you to the girls who have encouraged me, prayed for me, hugged me when I cried and so graciously laughed at my cheesy jokes. These girls are the bomb...yes, I said bomb. So here they are, some aren't with us anymore and we sure do miss them! ;)

Reppin' the major colleges in Texas. (Wreck 'Em!)

Dinner at Galaxy Cafe.

Celebrating my birthday at Dave and Busters.

Celebrating our MC leader's birthday at OPA!

Serving at Gandalf's Prayer Cafe.

Social night at The Cookie Lounge.

Fun day on Lake Travis!

Celebrating my birthday at Hula Hut.

Celebrating my birthday at The Highball.

Missional Community Open House at Halcyon.

Learning how to cook Thai food.

UT vs. Texas Tech game watching party.

Karaoke at The Highball in the "Country" themed room!

Social event: First Thursday on South Congress.

UT Football National Championship game watching party.

Dinner at Joe Dimaggio's.

Celebrating Allison's birthday at J Blacks!

Serving at The Austin State Hospital.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Beauty For Ashes, Indeed

When I haven’t blogged in awhile, I usually reintroduce myself with a “what I’ve been up to” post. Sometimes, it goes a little something like this: “Oh I haven’t been up to anything. I am the most boring person in the world. Nothing ever happens to me. Why do you people even check this blog?” Seriously, I think I have written that post several times. Well to those who have had faith in me, those who refuse to accept that I will never be a boring person, this is for you. After a several months of an unintentional hiatus, I actually have updates worth blogging about. Save the cheers and applause because this isn’t a happy go lucky post, but it isn’t a “oh poor me” post either. This is a post about the hard stuff and everything in between.

A little over a month ago my family lost my Grandpa to pancreatic cancer. He had been battling with it for almost two years. I can’t even begin to tell you how strong he was throughout the process. His strength on his deathbed came from singing hymns and having Bible studies with his family. That is just a small glimpse of how big his faith was. Losing my Grandpa is one of the hardest things I have gone through. He wasn’t just a “Grandpa” to his Grandkids, he was my brother’s best friend, my cousin’s number one fan and he was my biggest influence. It was hard to look at his life and not be encouraged or inspired. My Grandpa would be the first to say he wasn’t perfect, the first to take the attention off himself, but he would also be the first to step up and be a servant leader and actually live out the words of Ephesians 4:1 “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” I think their Pastor said it best at his memorial service when he said: “He went to a better place, but because of Howell Cobb, the place he left is better.” And it’s true, that small town in Georgia gathered together to celebrate and reflect on the life of an amazing man. The church was filled wall to wall, there were tears and laughter, Grandchildren gave speeches and in the end we saw that God was indeed glorified through the life and death of Howell Cobb.

As you can imagine, mourning the loss of someone that selfless was hard. We all had our days, and we still do, but if there is one thing that I took away from that week in Georgia it was encouragement. Encouragement to live my life worthy of the calling I have received. Encouragement to know that when I am tired, weak and weary God is still planting seeds because He is not tired, weak or weary. The seeds God planted throughout the life of my Grandpa were represented in that church, through the hundreds of greeting cards my Grandma received, and through the love and generousity that was poured out to us all week through their friends. My Georgia grandparents have always been a couple that I have looked up to, their marriage, though not perfect, is something that I think all their grandchildren will always strive towards having.

This update is small. Won’t take up too much space. But it is quite the big life changing event. I AM MOVING!! Yup, as of this Friday I will be a single girl in the city. Well, I’ve always lived in “the city”, North Austin to be exact but as of this week I will be about four minutes away from Downtown. I am experiencing every sort of emotion you could come to expect from a twenty-something single lady. I am nervous because I have never lived alone, but I am also excited to make this place my own and decorate it the way I want it. I am excited to frequent all the local Austin eateries and hope to put my GoLocal card to good use. Seriously, I think there are five cool little Austin joints within walking distance from my new place. Even though all these things are fun and awesome, most of all I can’t wait to use this apartment as a place of community and fellowship. When looking for an apartment I prayed that God would put me in a location that I would be used for His glory. Needless to say I am very excited to see what He has in store for me this coming year.

After much thought I have decided to make this last update a separate post. I feel like it has been such an important topic in my life the past two years that I don’t want to minimize the details just make it fit into a couple paragraphs. This is something I have struggled with, something I have ignored and something I have dreaded. But in the past couple of weeks I have seen exactly what bringing sin into the light feels like, and I have experienced undeserving Grace and it is just too good not to share. So the next post will focus on confession.

In the mean time, to be continued…

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