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.....