Just Something recent

The Progression

Yay! A great Brenner family picture! We were lucky enough to get this pic outside the museum in Cincinatti we visited on Sunday afternoon! We had a great time and both Ayla and Emma were troopers and very tired after a big afternoon! Later that night, you'd think taking a pic of Krystal and I would be no big deal, right? Think again. Someone started giggling, and it was over. Here's a series of pics Jamie took all within a matter of minutes. Here's what we lovingly refer to as: The Progression.


At this point we gave up, and called it a day. Our faces hurt.

Who Loves Mother Teresa?

I had to share something with you! I found a prayer written by Mother Teresa of Calcutta. It is the prayer of my heart. I'm going to nursing school, and I have found myself asking God to never let me become too jaded or worn. I asked Him to always remind me why I'm doing what I'm doing, and keep me focused with a servant's heart. A true blessing to me, I have found a prayer that I have taped to the inside of my Clinical Notebook and when I become a nurse, it will be lovingly taped to my locker for me to read and pray every day before work. (And perhaps a time or two during the shift on tough days:)

Dearest Lord, May I see You today and every day in the person of your sick, and while nursing them, minister to You. Though You hide yourself behind the unattractive guise of the irritable, the exacting and the unreasonable, may I still recognize You, and say "Jesus, my patient, how sweet it is to serve you."

Rain For Days

I LOVE the smell of rain! It's probably at the top of my list, up there with "winter" and "Fall" and the freshness of "snow".... love it...

But it's raining today, and I can't help but feel: Blah....restless, stir crazy, home sick, tired...and I've heard landowners, farmers, and ranchers start asking for the rain to stop so that they can actually get some work done. And so it goes, "you want what you can't have". If it's dry, you want rain...until it does, of course. Then you'd like it to stop. I want it to stop, I'm not going to lie.

Instead, I choose to pretend I'm in Belieze, like I was in the summer of 2003. In Central America, those countries have very distinct wet and dry seasons. During the dry season, it DOES NOT rain, and in wet season, it rains without ceasing for days on end, or just several times during the day, each day. We were there that summer for the first rain of the wet season... It was so dry and hot. Water reserves were lacking and they worried for dry forests that could catch flame at the slightest spark! it was 8 pm, dark as night, and we were a mile or so out from camp in a small opening in the forest. Our guide smelled the rain coming. He told us it was going reach us in about 10 minutes, and if we wanted to leave, we'd better head out quickly... some went, most stayed. We thought he was crazy, but sure enough, the rain came... It was the hardest rain I have ever felt! It actually hurt, and by the time we headed back to camp, we were all but RUNNING! It was a joyous occassion indeed! Everyone celebrated! They had been waiting for their rain, and it was finally here! The mood had lifted. Every local was ecstatic. It was a wonderful event to witness (and feel as we were soaked to the bones with no chance of drying off any time soon).

So today, I will celebrate the coming of the rain. I will be joyful and laugh while I lift my face towards Heaven. I will praise God for his never-ending provisions. I will give thanks for this VERY wet season!