We're Not in Texas Anymore

July 4th is typically synonymous with the Ballard family reunion, sunshine, heat, humidity, fishing, lots of adult beverages and laughter. This year, was a bit different. It was rainy and dare I say, cold! Tuck and I were freezing when the day was spent mostly in the 60s. That's a 45 degree difference than what we left behind in Texas! I wish I would have packed a sweatshirt or jacket!

There was still plenty of fishing, adult beverages, and laughter. More photos of that to come later. I seem to have left my camera cord in the land of 100+ temperatures.

Summer Lovin'

As I type this post I'm sitting in front of an open window, with my ceiling fan going enjoying a cool, quiet summer night with a tall glass of sweet tea. My sweet dog is perched on the chair arm staring out the window listening to all the sounds of summer. A few birds are outside sharing stories about their day, every fifteen minutes the bell tolls at Pat Neff (whose green tower I can see beautifully from my window) and occasionally, a car drives past. But in all, life is quiet. Calm.

I just love nights like this. Especially at the end of a year like this one.

I am about to finish out the last few months of my first year at work at Baylor and I must admit that I would describe the last year as anything but calm and quiet. It has been a full year. Full of lots of fun stories, quality time shared with students, crazy incidents, laughter and tears. It's been good. It's been chaotic, challenging, stressful. But, Good.

I have only begun to process the last 11 months of life, but one truth stands out among it all.

God is faithful and good. Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God -Deuteronomy 7:9.

As the days of summer roll past, no doubt more quickly than I might wish, I hope and pray that our Lord will continue to reveal His faithfulness and goodness. That He will continually open my eyes to see how He has been faithful this year, that He would provide a since of renewed hope and purpose as I prepare to start my second year here.

I am so blessed to know that the God I serve has called me for this moment and this work. He has called me to be sitting in this window, on this night, in this place. How thankful I am for that knowledge, my God, and the peace that He gives. I pray that he would give me the strength to remember that always, and to be joyful because of that knowledge always.

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

-Ephesians 2:10

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.'

-Acts 17:24-28 (NIV)