What Gives You Hope?

Directing a ministry can be a headache. It can be heartbreaking. It can be budget breaking.

But, at the end of the day, these are just simply comforts that Royal Stage is on the right course, because Jesus never said ministry would be easy. In this world we will have troubles.....but at the end of the day, in the grand scheme of things, it makes me so, so happy and holds an incredible place in my heart.

Great, incredible things are happening in Royal Stage. The only NON-incredible thing is definitely that I am STILL working on the thank you cards from Arts Day of Giving. So if you gave on that day, thank you thank you thank you! Your legit thank you card will be in the mail by Friday, I promise.

Things I LOVE about Royal Stage right now

 - I have heard repeatedly from our instructors these past few weeks that they've had incredible prayer times, spiritual breakthroughs, etc. in their classes. Things are so anointed in that studio - we love it!

- We officially have signed on to a studio in Sacramento - more ministry, more classes, another safe place for people to come create for God. Two dance studios in two years - I'm gobsmacked.

- Our two camps are going FANTASTIC. I was scared to death to simultaneously run two camps, because it seems I never get the administrative & teaching support we need to get it right. But this year - gosh, our staff is incredible! Amanda, Laura, Sue, Kyle, Autymn, Shamaya, Arianna, Hannah, Ryan - I love you guys so much!

- Some of us are leaving the country for a bit in April :)

We also are working with more trafficking survivors, continue our ministry to Section 8 kids, and teach dance at the Mercy house in Lincoln.

If you can, please consider allowing God to use you to help Royal Stage continue to do all these amazing things. If you weren't able to give during Arts Day of Giving, that's okay! We need to round up at least 25 MONTHLY supporters of $25. That is seriously so easy, right? If you can't give $25 a month, consider giving $10. Every little bit helps!

You can give here  - just select recurring donation - http://www.gofundme.com/kw8s4

Or if you have paypal, you can paypal it to me at princesstam25@yahoo.com - just please be sure to specify it's for Royal Stage so it's transferred and credited properly.

Thank you so much everyone! This ministry seriously makes my heart soar - and I like to think many others, too.

Summer Up

I cannot stand summer. I have reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder. I hate the heat, hate my birthday, hate the heat, hate the mosquitos, hate the heat.....

But I'm determined to love summer. They always say that love is a choice, right? So if I have to be in an intimate relationship with this dang season until September or October, then let's do it right.

Things I Love About Summer (and I actually do): 

• reading stories to the kids in the hammock
• swimming, water slides, white water rafting, anything H20! 
• barbecues
• walking through parking lots at night without it being dark
• more opportunities to see people I love 
• pedicures!
• my skin achieves color level PALE instead of just regular TRANSPARENT. So white :( But less so!
• seeing kids' eyes light up as they discover the arts at our summer camps
• Sam's birthday :) 

That's pretty much it. Not a long list, but a decent one. I'll keep working at it....

Old Men Versus Mama Bears

As some have the driven passion to share the message of vegetarianism or Scientology, I have become a zealous fan of the Lemon Blueberry Shortbread ice cream at Baskin Robbins. I have converted many, and some of my Royal Stage teachers are asking for it as payment now, since it's only available at the BR by my house for some reason. 

Excellent. One step closer to my own world superpower - we officially have a currency. 

So as I went to get a scoop for a singing class sub who had caught wind of the ice cream euphoria, an old man was sitting there eating a come of chocolate. Chocolate?  I silently judged him for his lack of adventure. 

Just then, a woman burst into the shop with three exuberant little boys. One of them jumped up and down and shouted in excitement. The mom reached out to calm him, but before she could, the old man shouted "HEY!" angrily at the poor kid. 

Uh oh. 

The mom whipped around and I thought certainly the fire in her eyes would melt the chocolate ice cream and HIS FACE. Mama bear senses criticism of her cub. Must. Destroy. 

I totally get this. I have a little boy. Boys are packed tightly with physical energy and emotional aggression wrapped up in a cute, mommy-lovin' package of dirty fingers and big smiles. There is seriously nothing like being the mom of a little boy. 

But don't. Mess. With. Them. 

"Hey YOURSELF!" She snapped at the old man. "THEY don't get Baskin Robbins every day! They are just excited and he's a CHILD." 

Point for old man - how did woman know the old man got ice cream every day? Seemed like an unfair assessment. 

"We'll I had three boys all at once, and they weren't noisy." 

Point for mom - because really, you had triplets back in the good old days? And even if you did - what do you mean YOU 

Had them ALL AT ONCE? Like babies blew out of your non existent uterus, making a perfectly synchronized entrance into the world? Why aren't you in a museum? Or medical journal? Or you know, dead from that? 

"Go eat your ice cream somewhere else!"  The mom screeched. "I mean it! Get out of here!!!" 

Point for old man as he suddenly became the Rosa Parks of waffle cones, defiantly sitting there, licking his ice cream and staring her down. 

I was impressed by how valiantly the old man defended his right to eat an uninspiring ice cream flavor in peace. I completely understood the mom's freak out over a stranger bellowing at her son. 

We all need something in life to fight for, to stand with. Maybe it's your child, maybe it's chocolate ice cream....whatever it is....make it something good. 

Right now I'm really defining what is worth fighting for in my own life. My kids, obviously. But beyond that? My work....my ministry....certain relationships....myself. Am I worth fighting for? My heart swings back and forth in opinion and honestly, I'm not sure which side will win. 

But I'm here now, and I hope God uses me for something as tough as an old man and as exciting as 31 flavors of ice cream before a child's eyes. 

Yeah. That would be amazing. 

Bad Into Good

On my Facebook feed today, I saw this incredible story. I don't usually click on video links - I like to read, and with two little ones running around it's hard to gauge if a video will be appropriate or not. But I'm glad I clicked this one.

http://www.upworthy.com/long-shot-doctors-inject-fatal-virus-into-dying-girl-this-100-true-story-will-amaze-you?c=ufb1

If you don't have time to watch it, basically this little girl had terminal cancer. The doctors injected the HIV virus into her system, and her cancer vanished. She has been in remission for over a year. They took the HIV virus, made it so it no longer caused illness, and created what is known as "serial killer" cells. These cells kicked butt and took names on Emma's leukemia, and now she is gorgeous, healthy and thriving. She was already gorgeous though - her family's blog is amazing.

I'm not going all granola on you. I don't believe that this will work for everyone with cancer, and neither do the doctors who designed it. But I love the miracle here, and the lesson it teaches.

God has given us incredible minds. He desires us to do good things in this world.

To take something evil like cancer, and then obliterate it with something equally evil like HIV....whoa.

We need to take a cue from this and look at our own lives. What is something bad that has happened to you or is currently happening? How can you fight fire with fire and create something beautiful in the end? Will we let the Devil win in our lives, or will we take hold of our situation....and turn it into something good?

God gave me the opportunity yesterday to help someone with a circumstance I would not have had any chance of giving input on if I hadn't experienced it myself. In one of my most horrible, ugly, shameful life moments - God used it for good for a brief passage of time.

Yeah. I want more of that.

Camp is Fun.

This week we launched our two summer camps. They have gone rather awesomely.

Sacramento Camp:

                                         Prayer time

                                      

                                          Hawaiian week......ninja week?

                                          Singing

                                         Water balloons!

                                          Dance class

                                         Acting

                                          New friendships forming

Roseville Camp:

                                                    Art time

                                          The water war after our awesome game of water balloon tennis swim ball!

                                         The Littles.

                                  

                                                   Dang inflatable pools in my little car.

                                         Hula class with Mr. Kyle!


The Roseville Littles, Middles and Bigs altogether. 


The kids are having so much fun, our leadership at both sites are truly awesome sauce. This is going to be an amazing summer.

Demanding Truth

There have been times when I've demanded truth in my life. When someone did something utterly ape crazy and I pressed to know why. Someone should make me a cape or something because I'm a tireless justice seeker. I want to know why people act the way they do, I'm a "fixer", I'm confrontational and sometimes I don't react ideally when there isn't an immediate solution for something.

For example, why is my four-year-old doing push-ups at 5:15am instead of letting me sleep? 

I need to make sense of the crazy. 

And I need to stop. 

In a tirade of tears after a day where I was on the millionth hour of trying to reason with a Royal Stage parent that just did not want to be reasonable, and reading a text message from someone else that was just straight up disappointing and angering, Frank told me, 

"I just want to release you from the thought that everything needs to be perfect. Your belief that you need to make everyone happy." 

Bam. Truth. 

You mean there is a possibility I can talk to Jesus and not bring my huge suitcase of guilt, regret and fear into the conversation? But what will I stare endlessly at? What will I possibly do without my shield of wounds, resentment and all-you-can eat platter of apologies for everything from rush hour traffic to a lack of peace in the Middle East? 

Have I cried enough tears for my eternal ocean? Is God strong enough to pick up this tremendously heavy collection of baggage and just hurl it into the sea for me? Can it float away, drown, be forgotten? 

It can? Sweet. 

I want to demand a different kind of truth. Beyond a cross-examination of my flaws and failings. 

I insist that the jury no longer gets a vote. So I can freaking hear the Judge and believe it when He says all charges against me are dropped. 

I demand the right to be selfish when it comes to accepting God's love fully. I want every ounce of His wisdom, healing and growth He offers without apology. 

I want every nook and cranny of my broken, messed up spirit to be filled with Truth. 

There are things in my life that may never change. 

I may always carry around the residue of fear that has covered me for years. 

I may always have stupid little issues like not being able to handle the feeling of laying down on grass or driving by particular places without that horrible churn of difficult memories becoming real again for a flash of time. 

But I'm learning that I'm okay being broken into a million little pieces if that means I get to somehow be used by God to make a million little differences in this crazy world. 

I'm excited for that. And summer is a great time to start.

Relief.

Tomorrow Royal Stage is kicking off two summer camps. 90% of the children coming have never been a part of RS before and we've never had two locations running simultaneously before. 

I am freaking out. Correction: I was freaking out. 

I know my ministry is small, but sometimes I just still look around awestruck at all God has done. Through my fear and hurt and years of doubting myself and Him, He still chose to bless me regardless. 

Hi, I'm dancing in a studio that people told me I'd never manage to get, and the whole stinking thing was basically handed to us on a heavenly platter of free flooring, mirrors and the barre is from freaking Joel Osteen's church - and I don't even understand how this happened or why I get to be a part of it. 

It's small but it's big to me. I don't ever want to minimize the fact God has given us so so much and I want to really maximize the fact that despite our fear and  self-loathing...He can still use us. I am so blessed to see Him use others that come into the studio every week. 

I am learning not to be a runner. I still have my emotional running shoes on, but I'm trying hard to learn not to dash off the moment something disappointing happens. And I am determined to accept that God places value in me. It's still a work in progress, but I know I need to become confident in his love once and for all....for two very special reasons....

I love this from my john piper devotional tonight: 

So the prayer of the upright that delights God comes from a heart that at first feels precarious in the presence of God. It trembles at the hearing of God’s Word, because it feels so far from God’s ideal and so vulnerable to his judgment and so helpless and so sorry for its failings.

This is just what David said in Psalm 51:17, “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” The first thing that makes a prayer acceptable to God is the brokenness and humility of the one who prays.

I am definitely broken. And in admitting that, I've found strength. 

Whirlwind Day

This morning we were on Good Day Sacramento. Live TV stresses me out. I loved doing Beckie Kovar's show because we got endless takes. This was a "here I am in all my awkward glory" 3-minute segment.

C was totally fine all morning until right up to the moment they said we were on the air and she fell to pieces. Actually, everything today made her fall to pieces. 

Here are the two faces I made all day.

I am so disappointed in the choices you are making today. 

I am going to have to kill you because of the choices you are making today. 

Anyway, Sam also had his preschool graduation today. Sweet boy is officially a Kindergartner. What!!!!



It seems like yesterday he was a teeny, tiny little sick peanut in the NICU, and people kept telling us that he would be "normal" by preschool and we would forget what this was like. They were correct times a million.

\

We love Miss Elisa!

                                                    THAT is one heck of a colorful diploma.

Best preschool teacher ever. 

Celebratory ice cream cone following celebratory Chipotle.

The whole fam came to celebrate Samasaurus. Yay for ice cream and Uncle U!

                                          "Cheers!" Here's to alarmingly bright sherbet and Kindergarten.....