this precious life.

a few weeks ago, christine, grace & i packed up the mini van FULL of food & luggage and headed out on an 10 hour drive to virginia for the delight retreat. it was a gorgeous day and we decided to take a long lunch break in charleston, wv so we could do some site-seeing.  for a tuesday afternoon, the city was quite interesting & their state-house has the prettiest dome we've ever seen! we ended up eating at the bluegrass kitchen  which had some delicious betwixts -- yummo! these girls are top-notch road trip buddies. windows down, music-blasting, car-grooving, Psych-watching road-trippers.  such a fun opportunity to get to know them both better and live life with them for a week! also, major shout-out to all that they did to prep the house for the retreat and clean up the entire house after the retreat! i'm so thankful for both of them!

this has been the coldest winter we've had in a while! and on top of the bitter temps, fresh snow falls every few days… just as the previous snow fall is starting to melt away. it amazes me to see people still biking around the city in the freezing winds… i barely want to walk from my car into a building most days!  i currently lead the indiana small group for the delight ministry and it's been fun meeting up with girls here and there over the past month. it's giving me a taste for the retreat in april and i'm really excited to meet & love on so many girls! sarah, grace, anna & i met up last week for some yummy burgers downtown & it was beautiful to hear their hearts & dreams!  three fave places downtown: silver in the city | bru burger | foundry provisions coffee shop

When I came out at 5am to take Karen to the train station on Sunday morning, Kristin, despite being exhausted in every way, shape & form, insisted on coming with us... and another one of the girls joined us as well. Despite the promise that "joy comes with the morning", we were already feeling spiritually drained at the beginning of the day as we headed to the station. The train was running late and so we sat in the car discussing the heaviness covering the house and interceding to the Father on behalf of the girls who were so desperately struggling with their fears & burdens.  Every kind of hurt, fear & brokenness was in someway represented at this retreat and most of it needed attention while we were all together. Scripture says, "where two or three are gathered together, there I am with them" and as we gathered together for those few days as His children, He was there, working & redeeming the broken. Proclaiming the grace & hope that is found ...