Children’s ministry was super fun this morning!  Mike and I were with 4 kids today and we knew that we were going to share the Christmas story with them (since Christmas is this week and everything).  What we decided to do was let the kids share the story to us… to see if they understood why we celebrate Christmas, why Santa brings us gifts, and why it is important that Jesus was even born in the first place.  Mike started off with warm up activities with the kids where they got to let out all of their energy and learn some neat things.  Story time went really well and at the end we decorated cookies with icing and sprinkles which of course was really fun!

So, for ThePatio’s children’s ministry, I’d say our first time celebrating Christmas in Sunday school was great!

I am looking forward to Christmas this year.  Like always my family is going to Virginia on Christmas to spend the night at my grandparents’ house.  

Also, just to let you guys know, I will not be at church this Sunday because I will be at my mom’s church in Winston. 

Everyone have a good Christmas! 

I cannot believe my last blog was in the middle of November!  Even before Thanksgivng!  I am a little embarrassed about that and I am sorry I have not kept up with this commitment.  You know things that you have on your “to do list” that always need to get done but they are so easy to forget?  Blogging is one of them for me.  It’s not that I am avoiding it on purpose I literally don’t even think about it. 

Now that school is done for the semester(yay!) and next semester is not supposed to be as strenuous I feel like I will have more time to remember to blog! 

I am going to be home for the whole month of December and won’t officially come back until January 11 or 12th.  I will be working here in Winston babysitting for a family the 2nd week of January and school does not even begin until the 14th of January so I have a pretty long break at home.  I will still be around for church and other things too so I am not going to just disapear. But it is so important for me to be home especially when I have a big long break like this b/c this may be my last christmas where my sister, mom and me get to sppend weeks hanging out together for the holidays and I want to take advantage of that. 

 Anyways, that is all for now and expect to hear from me soon!

I am so glad it is the weekend!  This week has been pretty busy.  I have been looking forward to this week being over for a while because next week is thanksgiving!  I get to go to Alabama and see my family (we go every year) and I always look forward to it!

While this week has been hard, and I have a cold, it was still a great week.  Having a cold has brought me down some because I kind of feel ”ichey”–you know what nasty feeling I am talking about I am sure  

This will also be our second for the patio at the info ctr!  Last week went really well and children’s ministry is really growing!  The biggest change we are having this Sunday with children’s ministry is probably the check in and check out table for the parents.  Little but little it is getting more organized which is exiting!

I saw the Information Ctr (the place we are going to meet on Sundays) for the first time last night.  I am really exited about the space.  I see a lot of potential there and I look forward to helping set it up for Sundays.  I guess in a way I love  it because we have actually gotten to a point where we need more space- which is such a blessing God has given us.  So many changes…

I hate change, and in almost every aspect of my life changes are happening a lot.  In school we have to be completely flexible every week in clinicals because nothing will ever turn out like we expected, and the patio is only going to change more and more as we get closer to launch.

It’s interesting that God would want someone like me (who hates change) to be a part of two things (nursing school and a church plant) that are both constantly changing…I guess he is trying to change my heart- and I’m okay with that.   God is still molding me into who I am supposed to be and one thing He wants me to work through is my tendency to want to keep things the same…so as scared as I am I am exited too!

Sorry I have not been able to blog a lot recently.  I was looking at the last time I wrote was Oct 19th!  Time is just going by way too fast! 

I started my new rotation for nursing school: medical-surgical nursing.  We just finished up our second week and the work load has gone up a lot from psyche.  We have a test every week and we have these care plan maps and a skills lab.  My days during the week are slammed with things to do.  My first week of med-surg was a really bad week because I really hate change….it is hard for me to adapt.  My stress level was through the roof and now that the second week is over I feel more in control of the work that needs to be done. 

So I am sorry if I seem distant, too busy to hang out, or just distracted…I am trying to juggle all these things and by December it will all be better

I will also dedicate more time to write on my blog b/c even though I am busy I still want to keep up with it.  It is really important for our ministry so if you see I have not written in a while please remind me!

Something I am guilty of is not praying for the rain to come back.  The news and everything has been talking about water restriction and how we only have 140 days left of water or something like that and I have even heard that some places will have to evacuate because they will literally run out of rain….which I think is really crazy !

So anyway, I was talking to Mike yesterday about how it seems like I just sit around and worry about how it nees to rain but then I think to myself “well it will rain eventually, it has to”.  But I have really felt convicted about that and I feel like we need to be praying for it!  God is the one choosing for it not to rain and it’s not just by chance and we are having a draught and He wants us to ask for it.  So I feel like it’s important to pray for it and to give God the credit he deserves for being totally in control and asking him for the rain to come back…because I don’t know about you but I really miss it!

So this past week I had begun my goals for each week and I was sucessful in 2 out of 3!  The one I only did one time (which did not surprise me) was walk 2 miles 3 times….which is okay because at least I did it one time-that is better then none, right!

I finished my mental health rotation of school and so I am officially 1/4 of the way through the school year!  It seems like I have been waiting forever to be in the actual nursing program so I am exited that it is moving along quickley

Hope everyone has a good week!

Is it worrying anyone else that the weather is not getting cooler yet? 

So a couple of days ago I decided to make weekly goals.  I look at all of these things I want to do more of like reading for fun (which includes my bible and other books not school related), working out, flossing, journaling, blogging more, etc etc. 

Aren’t there always lots of things you want to do and you never seem to get around to them OR you see that you have so many of these things that you just never want to do any of them?  I do…

So this week I decided to begin with 3 goals each week and I will do them each three different times over a week.  The three things I chose are:

1.to walk 2 miles

2.to read my bible

3. to floss – as random as that sounds I NEVER do it and I really need do

It seems to be working so far because I keep track of when I do these things and having only 3 to focus on right now helps me to actually get them done. 

One thing that crosses my mind when I jot down when I specifically do my bible reading is “could this be considered legalistic?”  But to be honest, I feel like God has designed me to have lots of structure and I fall apart without it so having weekly goals of spending time with God is not something I consider a bad thing…and I also make sure that when I am logging when I read my bible I say a prayer like ”I am writing this down to not be legalistic but b/c I really do want to spend time with You.”

So far I like the idea of looking at short term goals and I hope to add on to them as the weeks go by

 Everyone have a good rest of the week! 

I tend to be somewhat of an anxious person.  I will make little things really big things in my head by making up fake scenarious and acting as if they are really going to happen…when they never do. 

Something I have also noticed about myself is that with literally every single person I know…whether it’s my best friend or just a classmate that I rarely talk to…I end up thinking that they do not like me.  For some reason I have convinced myself at one time or another that a certain person finds me annoying or stupid.  But it is not that I think they dislike me all the time, maybe if I feel like I was talking to much or was too overbearing then I will begin to think that, ESPECIALLY when I am stressed because when I get stressed I usually am pretty frazzled and when I am frazzled I will ramble.  And for those of you who have witnessed this I apologize. 

It happens a lot and I get really insecure about it.  If I talk to one of my friends about it they always end up asking “why do you think that?” 

I wish I knew why I think that.  I guess it will just take more time for me to be comfortable in my own skin?  Maybe I need to mature a little more in my spiritual life?  I guess I will see.

I also do not want to give anyone the impression that it is anyone else’s fault, it’s only my own.  I am just a whole lot more sensative then what I come across and a word that has been used to describe me is “tender-hearted”, which I kind of laugh at that because it sounds so funny to say that someone is “tender-hearted, but I think I really may be.

I also want to emphasize that the purpose of this blog is NOT to get responses saying “oh Stephanie I think you are so great blah blah blah.”   I am not fishing for compliments or anyting, just sharing!

Hope everyone has a great rest of the week!

The website is done and it was so much fun to look at it tonight!  I guess what is exiting about it is how it is just one step further that we have made!  Everything looks nice on it and the pictures are really fun to look at.

To be honest it feels weird to have the title “children’s director” by my name.  I almost feel not good enough of a person or not experienced enough to fullfill that role. 

I think seeing it there on the website was almost a challenge to strive to be a better christian…like I was thinking “what can I do to really deserve to be doing what I am doing in this ministry”.  And the answer will always be, we will never deserve it because we are not perfect, and it will never be about what I can do…but what God can do through me. 

God has a reason for all of us to be doing what we are doing at the Patio and I feel so blessed to be a part of it with this group of people and honored that I am trusted enough to help with this ministry.  I look forward to our church continuing to grow and seeing more of our group start the other ministries in our church soon!