Breathing Hope!

               Below is another poem, yes I am really into poetry lately. I have no reason behind why I all of the sudden have become more attached to poetry but once again this poem spoke to me. Yesterday morning at church during our Easter service I was looking through our entire bulletin and when I turn to the back I found this poem. The back always has something like this on it each week, it can be a poem, a short reflective piece, or anything else that has to do with our lectionary for the week. Normally I glance at them but never read them. But this week something about this poem caught my eye and I began to read it, and read it again. This poem bought me a sense of refreshing freedom each time I read it. A reminder of how Jesus died for us and has given us the chance to have new beginnings. At this point in my life new beginnings are a huge thing for me. After having overcome depression, anxiety, and a long list of other things and contin...

              This afternoon someone shared this poem with me after we had talked for a long while about life and how it is ever changing and never guaranteed. I have spent much time talking to this person and making life changing decisions that have truly helped me to become a happier person and have the freedom to do many things I once had fear of doing. This easter weekend as I sit here at home with my family and take in the beautiful spring weather, I enjoy the simple things. The sunshine, the cotton candy clouds, the breeze in my hair, and the chance to take  my dog for a much awaited walk. Times like these where I have the opportunity to sit back and enjoy the simple things without worrying about doing work or a to do list, allow me to reset and be mindful of my own inner workings. I can sit and reflect, evaluate my emotions, feelings, and needs, and recharge to take on the next adventure in life.So I leave you with this poem this afternoon...

                            I have been on the look out for a few months on ways to make sure that I was spending enough time in my life on self-care and self-reflection time. I have tried many things, promised myself I was going to do dozens of other things and failed at doing them. So I took a deeper look within myself. What do I love to do, that I can do alone or in my own time/space? How can I create a time for just thoughts, my emotions, and me? As I began to look at those questions and start the process of answering them I found a fairly simple solution to my struggles with the follow through on the many self-care practices I have been taught and read about over the last few years. The one thing I had to do that I wasn’t doing was I needed to schedule it. I needed to write it in my calendar, set a reminder, and have my phone buzz at me non-stop until I did it. So every Monday, Wednesday and Friday my phone...

As I drink my morning coffee and look out my window from my room I notice the white snow that lies so peacefully on the grass. I see cars drive by as people hurry on with their crazy lives never noticing the simplicity of the world around them. Over these last few months I have spent time journeying through many new emotions, ideas, and ways of life unsure of how I all fit together. One of the things that I have started to do in my daily life is to take 5 minutes a day, just 5 minutes to sit in silence and observe the world around me. In those five minutes I often sit on my bed which looks out a window onto part of my college campus. I just sit and watch to take in everything. Sometimes I sit with peaceful music other times just with pure silence. Through these reflective 5 minutes each day I find myself re-energized and restored to continue with my day. These 5 minutes have started to transfer into my every moment. I notice the simple things much more quickly and have slowed down my...

I don’t know what sparked me to think of this today but for some reason my mind went straight to this blog and the fact that I haven’t been blogging at all. I started this blog way back in the beginning of my time in high school. For many years I used it as a coping mechanism to deal with the crazy changes that were occurring in my life at the time. It became a sanctuary and place for me to write about Alpha-1, the newness of it, the fears and the anxieties that come with the unknown. So today I reflected on why I haven’t been writing, what stopped me, and why hasn't it even crossed my mind to blog in months. Well here are some of the answers I came up with in my time of reflection.             Why haven’t I written… well the simple answer would be I’m a college student and carry a crazy course load each semester but when I was honest with myself this was not the true reason of why I haven’t been writing, I easily could have fit...

Well the last time I wrote was November…. I have definitely been slacking on updating all of you!!! College life has gotten in the way of my updating and has taken up most of my time. This semester has been especially full of classes, work, projects, and of course getting into the classroom and teaching the amazing kids that often teach me more then I feel I am teaching them. They never fail at amazing me in their energy, love, passion for learning, and of course the many crazy things that they say. This semester I am surrounded by 19 wonderful 1 st graders who brighten my day every time I see them! When I am not in the classroom either as a student or a teacher I am normally doing work to be a student or the teacher. It is a never ending flurry of things to do, but I wouldn't change it for the world. So many wonderful and positive things have happened since November that it is hard to pick a place to start but I think the best place to start would be the wonderful trip my fam...

As many of you know I started writing this blog to share the journey my family is on dealing with Alpha-1  Antitrypsin Deficiency. Alpha-1 is a genetic condition that is passed on by parents to their children through their genes and can cause serious liver disease in children and liver and/or lung disease in adults. Alpha-1 antitrypsin is a protein that is produced mostly in the liver. Its primary function is to protect the lungs from neutrophil elastase. Neutrophil elastase is an enzyme that normally serves a useful purpose in lung tissue-it digests damaged or aging cells and bacteria to promote healing. However, if left unchecked, it will also attack healthy lung tissue. Alpha-1 antitrypsin, in sufficient amounts, will trap and destroy neutrophil elastase before it has a chance to begin damaging the delicate lung tissue. Consequently, if an individual doesn't have enough alpha-1 antitrypsin, the enzyme goes unchecked and attacks the lung.  My Dad was diagnosed in 2008 and...