perspectives shift (warning: unorganized and sad post follows)

I can't even begin to describe everything spinning around in my head now...HORRIFIED, relieved, confused, scared, sad, thankful, PEACEFUL...My thoughts are bouncing back and forth between my eternal perspective and my worldly perspective. My eternal perspective tells me to rejoice that my mother loved the Lord and served Him and is now in heaven. My worldly perspective doesn't know what to do without her...I miss her so bad already. I have missed talking to her the last week and a half...I will never be the same.


I KNOW that God will use this situation to glorify Himself. I KNOW that sometimes we pray and plead for things, but we are told firmly and gently, "No." I also know that Jesus felt these same emotions. Last night I was reading my Mom's Max Lucado book, and it was bookmarked on a page talking about that. I KNOW I will be okay, never the same, but okay. I KNOW that I am just a person, and God is God, and I don't have to understand why this happened. It happened because He allowed it to happen. I KNOW that He will use me to glorify Him.


I am sure people have a lot of questions, and there are many that I won't answer. Sometimes (a lot of times) people say dumb or weird things. You wouldn't believe the rumors from Jasper that people called asking us about (not just today, the past several weeks)...Word travels fast. We (Dad, Chris, Bryan, Lori, and me) were with my Mom when she passed away. We left Little Rock not too long after. I told Chris several days ago that I was standing by Mom while she was resting, and talking to God. I had an "AHA" moment. It was extremely difficult to be so far away and go through everything that happened in the last few months, but I will never have to go back to Little Rock, and that may help me cope. I was like, "Oh, okay God, I see now." A lot of people don't know what to say. That's okay. Just knowing that people are praying is enough. I will post the arrangements after we make them. It will be several days. Please continue to pray for us as we make plans and try to re-adjust our lives. Chris told me to be nice when people say inappropriate things, but I might write them down and post on my blog (haha, just kidding-sort of. Y'all know I have a warped sense of humor and I am going to use it or I might lose it).


Tomorrow I am going to get Morgan to do my hair and wax my lip (I just thought it was fuzzy two weeks ago...). Dad and I are going to spend the day together while Chris goes to school. He has a test Friday, and we want another A! Brooks is laying at my feet. He hasn't let me out of his sight since Connie and Patrick brought him to me. We have some serious catching-up to do. :) Oh, and Megan started brainstorming on a project several weeks ago. I will post and send out an email about it later, so let me know if you're interested...It's supersecrettopsecret right now, but we will reveal it in time. :)


Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:1-8