Hungry for Him

Today in church we sang a song, We Are Hungry, that I haven't heard in quite some time. In fact I think it might even have been as long as my SBU days since I have heard this song during worship. As the church was singing I just sat and meditated on the words as a prayer to God to know Him more. I wanted to share the lyrics with you also to meditate on.

Lord I want more of You

Living water rain down on me

Lord I need more of You

Living breath of life come fill me up

We are hungry We are hungry We are hungry for the more of You

We are thirsty, oh Jesus We are thirsty for the more of You

Lord I want more of you

Holy Spirit rain down on me

Lord I need more of you

Living breath of life come fill me up

We are hungry We are hungry We are hungry for more of You

We are thirsty, oh Jesus We are thirsty for more of You

We lift our holy hands up We want to touch You

We lift our voices higher and higher and higher to You

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My little urban garden

I'm excited about my small little container garden that I have started this year. It is my hope that in the next few years I will be able to build an actual garden in our backyard, but the list of home improvement projects on our house is quite long. We hope to re-do our backyard in the next few years, so for now I'm very content with a few containers to start building my garden skills.

Last year I started a window herb garden. This year I added to my herbs that I am growing. I have grown parsley, chives, cilantro and basil last year. This year I am continuing to grow those, as well as the additions of thyme, oregano and rosemary. They are growing quite well and I have already been using them in my cooking. One of my favorite ways to prepare summer hamburgers on the grill is to mix the ground beef with minced garlic, wor. sauce, salt, pepper and an assortment of my fresh herbs.

Along with my herbs I am also growing tomatoes! I used to hate tomatoes growing up, but in the past few years as I have begun cooking with fresh ingredients, I have grown to love the versatility of the tomato. I'm growing my tomato plants in two different ways, an experiment to see which way works best, in a container and in a Topsy Turvey!

Next to my tomato plant I am also growing some more rosemary and thyme, two herbs that I use the most of.

My Topsy Turvey plant already has two little tomatoes sprouting!

I'm excited to enjoy my harvest this year and hopefully continue to research more and expand my little urban garden in the future.

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Summer Recharge

For me, summer is a time of rest, reflection, relaxation, reconnecting with friends, planning and rebuilding. I just came off probably one of the most draining years of teaching. It sounds pretty funny to say that since I have only been teaching for four years. Here is a little background on my teaching history.

My first year of teaching was filled with the typical first year nerves and mistakes, along with a very challenging class which my principal admitted that I should have not been given that "class" as a first year novice. Add on top of that dating, engagement and planning my wedding. I ended that year with a severe case of strep throat that wiped out my energy which stayed with me for over a month after school let out. My second and third year were wonderful. I loved my class, had a great teaching partner both years and my desire to teach was affirmed daily. Then came the 2009-2010 school year.

This year came some new challenges and conflicts that I had to face and struggle through. Once again I had a challenging class, not necessarily all behavior problems, but enough to wear me out. Plus my class was academically low this year, much lower than I have experienced before. Once student, will call him C, really gave me a run for my money. In fact every night Brett would lovingly ask me how my day with C was. Along with my actual class was dealing with a teaching team with conflicting personalities. A lot of tension and conflict resolution was experienced.

My desire and love for teaching was not present in my life this year. I spent a large amount of the year longing to be in a different season of my life. About 2 months ago I realized that this discontentment and lack of joy came from the absence of spiritual disciplines in my life (prayer, God's Word, fellowship). I said to myself, "Duh! I of course that makes sense."

I view summer as a time to recharge, to spend large amounts of time reconnecting my relationship with God, meditating on and memorizing scripture, preparing myself for a new school year in August, and doing things for myself so that I can be a better wife and teacher, as well to build other disciplines for motherhood hopefully in the future.

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