THEY WON!

October 3, 2008 Friday.
Yeah, the varsity volleyball team won their game against Woodland Christian School. We needed this win in order to go to into the tournament. Rachael played a good game as so did all the girls. They were definitely on their game and playing as a team. They have struggled this year with coming together as a team and with the "heart" to play. They travel today to Cramerton which is down around the Charlotte area and I always pray for safety for them when they travel. I am not going to make the game because I have the RU daycare tonight. The people that were scheduled for the daycare this evening cannot be there so I will be taking the daycare this evening. I am looking forward to this weekend. Rachael and I are going with the Grove Girls to a corn maze in High Point on Saturday and it should be a great time. The Grove Girls is simply the teen girls that attend our youth on Wed. night. Tiffany Pollard came up with the concept of the Grove Girls and is actively getting them involved in different ministries so that we can all grow together as women in Christ. I love Tiffany. She is so sweet and her family has definitely weathered some storms. Tiffany's husband, Jeremy is the youth pastor for our church and his family was involved in a head on collision last year that almost took their lives. We as a church are so thankful that the LORD saw fit to leave them here to continue to do his work. They are such a blessing and Tiffany is pregnant again. She is expecting towards the end of October and I am excited to meet Caleb. Sunday will be homecoming day for our church and as Baptist, we will eat and we will eat well. I am looking forward to the celebration and the music afterwards. I have some things I need to get done this weekend around the house and maybe I'll find some time on Saturday after we return from the corn maze. Next week will be filled with volleyball games and on Wednesday I am taking Rachael to the Mandisa and Matthew West concert at the fair. They are some wonderful Christian singers. I don't normally not attend our youth group on Wed. night but I am at peace with this decision to take Rachael to this Christian concert and worship the LORD. Yesterday evening at the game, I got to hold Claire for awhile and she is so funny. She is the daughter of my Pastor and his wife, Kim and I love them dearly. Claire is precious and she is talking now. She saids "Ray Ray" for Rachael and I am trying to get her to say "Ang" for Angie. I chased her around the gym after the game and she just laughed. She has a really cute laugh. She loves her mommy and anytime we got near to Kim, she would say MaaaMa. They are so blessed to have her and went through some valleys before they stood on the mountain. God has blessed them with a beautiful adopted Japanese daughter and she is so blessed to have them as parents. I am happy for them and love to just watch them together as a family. It is literally watching prayers answered and reminds me of how GREAT OUR GOD IS! They have been such good friends to Jimmy and I and when my father passed on May 5th of this year, I could not have faced the days without the support of my close friends. Pastor and Kim came down to my dad's place the day we found him and I could not have endured the day without their support and prayers. Jimmy had called them and was on his way down from work and I felt so alone at that moment but gained comfort from God. There are no words to describe how anyone will deal with the death of a loved one. Whether your relationship is good or whether it is bad, the outcome is still the same. That person is gone from your life here on earth, never to see them or hear their voice again on this side of heaven. I cannot go into full details of my relationship with my father because that would be a book to be written. I can tell you that it had its ups and downs. There was a very sweet, caring, gentle side to my dad and that is the qualities that I choose to remember. I had taken the good memories like the ones of him playing "dodge ball" with us kids growing up, taking us the store each time he came home from a trip (he was a truck driver), taking us to Disney World, Six Flags over Georgia, the mountains, and making us candy. My dad made the best homemade chocolate candy. He would take a cast iron pan and put cocoa, peanut butter, butter, sugar, can milk and some other ingredients and constantly stir the pan until the candy started to hardened. He would then pour the batter into plates and put them in the refrigerator. I can remember the taste of that candy like it was yesterday. It melted in your mouth and sometimes he would add pecans. All the kids in our neighborhood would always ask, "when is your dad going to make some more candy?" I miss that. I miss him walking up to my front door with a bouquet of flowers picked from his flower bed and giving them to me. He loved to plant flowers. He loved to be in the garden. He could grow anything and had a giant green thumb. Growing up, our yard always was the envy of the neighborhood. He passed his green thumb onto my sister, Lynn, and her yard is always beautiful to look at. I have his stubbornness and determination. I know that and I don't try and deny it anymore. Jimmy used to say to me, "You can be just like your dad." That used to make me mad, because he would tell me that when he was mad at me and we tend to view the negative attributes of a person when we are in a spat with our spouse, but now I am okay with that statement. I know that I possess traits of my father just as I possess traits of my mother. I inherited my father's stubbornness but I also inherited his determination and brains. My dad was a smart man and determined. When he set his mind to do something, well, he just did it. I know I have that because I refuse to give up or give in. I look at the glass 1/2 full and I hope beyond hope. My sister saids I am always hopeful and that I never give up on our family. Psalms 16:9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope. My dad also loved "fireworks." He also did the best firework display on the 4th of July and growing up it was like being at a "national event." He did not hold back and we loved watching the show. He introduced my daughter, Rachael to his fireworks show in South Carolina in 2004 and she was just amazed. She said, "Did you see Papa and all those fireworks?" Dad loved Rachael. He was the 3rd person to hold her after she was born next to me and Jimmy. He always told her how proud he was of her. I never heard my dad say that to me until a month before he died. He called me over to the hospital and we had not spoken for over a year. He told me he loved me and that he was sorry for things that had happened with us. He then looked at me and said, "I am so proud of you." "You and Jimmy have raised a good child and she loves the LORD." That broke my heart that day. But I will never forget those words said in that hospital room. I know that father is in heaven and I look forward to the day that I see him again. He assured me, Rachael and my Assistant Pastor that he had accepted Christ as his Savior and he knew he would be eternity in heaven. Those were some of the last talks we had in the hospital with him. I am thankful that I had so many church family and friends to support me when he passed. Missy Hege came to my house that evening and just spent the evening at my house talking with me. She dropped everything that she was doing just to come to my house and to be there. Yuri called and just let me cry. I am just thankful there were good Christian friends to hold me and my family up in prayer. That was the hardest week of my life. But GOD was so GOOD to US and sent love to us in so many different ways. I probably will not post a blog this weekend because I have so much to do. If I get a chance, I will but if not, I will post on Monday. Hope everyone has a great weekend and a wonderful time of WORSHIP and PRAISE on Sunday.