Give Me Faith

Last week Hudson, Wilson and I went to South Carolina for the week. We enjoyed being away for a little while to catch our breath. We even got to have some extended alone time in Asheville while Wilson stayed with my parents. We lost our minds for a split second and thought we had spare money to spend on the Grove Park Inn...but it was totally worth it!

Hudson and I talked on our car ride back and agreed that our favorite part of the week wasn't the fancy dinner at the Grove Park or even the awesome breakfast at Tupelo Honey Cafe but instead our Thursday night dinner in Spartanburg before heading back to Nashville the next morning.

Hudson and I got to have dinner with some of his siblings and their spouses sans kids. I believe that might have been a first since everyone started having kids. Typically our interactions are scattered and very staccato whilst the 10 grandkids weave in-between us and crawl over us with their eye on the awesome toys at Ammi and Baba's house. We love those exchanges, too but it was so nice to have extended conversations and really feel like we had some quality time.

We were exchanging stories about what mornings look like at our individual houses. Hudson is a solo parent in the morning with me leaving at 6:30 to head to school. Hudson is great at many, many things but not great with food preparation- so breakfast is pretty comical during the week: fruit, cinnamon toast and a Big Bird granola bar (no other will work). But it gets the job done and I'm thankful for that! It looks quite different at Hudson's brother Kam's house- his wife, Emily, is a machine in the morning with basically her own restaurant in business complete with eggs, smoothies, pancakes and waffles.

We talked about how sometimes mornings are the hardest, yet most important part of the day. Mornings seem to set the stage for how the rest of the day will go. If kids are grumpy, it can change your outlook of the day really quickly. Whether you're corralling a wanna-be independent 2 year old out the door on your own or cooking a ginormous breakfast for 3 ravenous boys, or trying to get 2 girls dressed with the right outfit on (the Lord knew I wasn't ready for a girl- not sure I'm made for that)...mornings can be tough.

Since we've been back in town, I've tried to start my morning off in a more intentional way. A year or so ago, Hudson introduced me to a song by Elevation Worship called "Give Me Faith." It has some great lyrics to it and for me has been a great intro to the day. I listen to it every morning as I drive to school. It's been awesome this past week with the combination of these lyrics and the amazing sunrises we've had.

Here are some of the lyrics:

Give me faith to trust what You say
That You're good, and Your love is great.


And one of those awesome sunrises:

All is Well

All is well, all is well.

Today was an incredibly busy day. It was one of those days where you end the day with a headache. Not because of a lack of caffeine (which is typical for me) or stress induced but just because it was a jam packed day.

After a full day of school (one of two in the past two weeks I might add), Hudson dropped Wilson off with me on his way to a church meeting. Wilson and I went to the middle school basketball championship games hosted by the middle school where I teach. Imagine the energy of Wilson on any given day and multiply that by the noise and excitement you experience at a sporting event: it was wild! We ate pizza, sour patch kids, drank gatorade...and chocolate milk, found a pencil and paper to draw pictures, ate Doritos, found other kids to play with, had a lesson in sharing, changed a stinky diaper in the locker room, clapped for the cheerleaders, showed several people our belly button (Wilson's, not mine) and plenty more as if that doesn't already sound exhausting enough. But best of all we got to sit in the stands and help cheer on both the boys and girls teams to victory! Go BMS!

Hudson was able to meet back up with us at the end of the boys game. From there, the three of us went to a birthday party for a wonderful member of our church. We were joined by at least 50 others who were excited to be together for this special event. We enjoyed meaningful conversations, spectacular food and great company.

On my drive home, I couldn't get the song "All is Well" out of my head. I couldn't help but think: really, All is Well. Hudson and I are so very blessed. We are both surrounded everyday by awesome and amazing people. I often take this for granted and don't spend enough time pondering how this greatly affects my life...how great of a luxury this is. It's so easy to focus on my frustrations and petty concerns and neglect to appreciate the small things. Really....all is well.

All is well, all is well. Let there be peace on Earth.



And then there's this kid...