Life

My mom sent me this quote from Rick Warren a few weeks ago and as I was going through my emails today, I came across it again. It was worth the second read today. I really like what he has to say about how life is not a series of ups and downs, mountain tops and valleys, but rather that we are always going to have something good and something bad going on, running parallel, and we choose how to live within and respond to that reality.

"People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were not made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven. One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body-- but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.
We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense. Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into an other one. The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort. God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.
This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer. I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore. Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life. No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.
You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems. If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, which is 'my problem, my issues, my pain.' But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.

Happy Friday!

Aja

PMT Week One

Week one of pre-marathon training--check!

We just finished our four mile run and I know it sounds silly because it's only four miles, but I'm really excited that I was able to run it all because it's been a while since I've run more than a mile or two, not counting this week. Landon ran it a little faster than me, at about a nine minute mile pace and I ran it about a 930 pace, finishing a couple of minutes after him. But still, it felt so good to have done it--I think that the feeling that you get when you finish a hard run is one of the best in the world. It's addicting.

We've got a couple of races that we've got to run for this Hal Higdon's training program that we're doing, and just found out today in our Bible class that there's a 5K that our church is doing to raise money for a really cool organization called Second Mile Mission on the very same weekend that we're supposed to run a 5k for the program. I love it--we get to get our running in with a bunch of our friends and raise money for a very worthy organization.

And, we're signing up for a 10K in April at the Fort Worth zoo and trying to convince some of Landon's family to run/walk it or the 5k with us. We'll see--I think it could be a lot of fun though and it's a lot of fun getting in shape with both our families. Everyone's working out and getting in shape and I LOVE IT. And, somehow running 3 or 6 miles seems a lot more appealing when there's fun things like hanging out with friends and family and all of the animals at the zoo while we're doing it!

And, our last running update--we've decided to join the World Vision team for the Chicago marathon. Even more fun and motivating than running and hanging out with friends and family is knowing that by running this race together, we can be raising money to help little kids like our sweet boy Joel that we sponsor from the Congo and families like his and villages like the one he lives in. We're registering to join the team this week probably and will begin raising funds for this awesome organization at some point. I'm SO excited. And, you get to wear cool, orange team shirts like these--
Anyway, I'm feeling excited about running tonight, so I just thought I'd share a little. And now, I've got to go and get everything together for work tomorrow!

Thank You Chris Sly and Gary Thomas

Last week I posted about how I'm reading Sacred Marriage--a great book. In this book, there's all kinds of ideas and stories and points that Gary Thomas talks about that keep rolling around in my head as I go about life. As I'm driving down the road or lying in bed at night or watching my kids work in class, I find myself mulling over some things he talks about.

One of those ideas that he talks about is that our spouses are the people that hold a mirror up to us so that we can see who we really are--often more so than anyone else can. And often times, this is not a fun process. Sometimes what we see in that mirror is hard to take because not only does it show the good part of us that we like to show the world, but it also shows the bad and the ugly that we don't generally like to show off.

So true.

I've been thinking about this over the last couple of days. When I mess up or fail or say I'm going to be better at something and then don't or say I'm not going to react a certain way to something and then do, and the mirror of marriage plainly reflects this, I have this tendency to be really hard on myself. I start thinking that I will never be good enough, will never measure up, will never be able to be the kind of wife I want to be etc. The trouble with that though is that I just get depressed and nothing does get better, so it's like I create this weird self-fulfilling prophecy. If all I do is focus on what I failed at or didn't do right, nothing changes.

Now I was thinking about this as I was driving out to visit my parents today, and the song Empty Me by Chris Sly came on the radio. I immediately turned it up and started singing, and when we got to the chorus and I found myself belting out the words

Empty me of the selfishness inside
Every vain ambition and the poison of my pride
And any foolish thing my heart holds to
Lord empty me of me so I can be filled with you.

something dawned on me.

That's what it's all about. So much of my not feeling like I'm good enough is SO selfish. It's not that I'm being convicted by God, it's that I'm afraid someone will think I'm not good enough, or that I feel that I'm not good enough. It's about measuring up to the world's standards or another person's standards and not only does it not matter if I measure up to their standards or meet their approval, most of the things I am trying to measure up with really don't matter AT ALL. Like whether or not my house is immaculate. Or whether or not I cook every night. Or whether or not my kids are doing exactly what my principal thinks they should be doing when she walks in, even though they're engaged and learning. Or whether I ran the amount of miles I said I was going to run in the time I said I was going to run it in.

Those things that I tend to measure myself by don't matter. And if I get to the heart of it, they have way more to do with my pride and vain ambitions to look good to other people than anything else. Those words that I was singing, about the poison of my pride and emptying myself of all the selfish ambitions and foolish things that my heart holds to, really hit me today. I want that stuff gone from my life--I don't want it to be what I measure myself by.

What matters is that I am constantly striving to reflect God and to grow in my relationship with Him. To really live that out. Really. To be kind when my human inclination is to be mean or retaliate. To be pleasant and positive, when all I want to do is complain. To do something different than I've always found myself doing, if that action or reaction is not something that Jesus would have done. To read the Bible when I want to watch TV. To serve without wanting to be served in return. In the past I've said that I want to be different, but it was really more that I wanted people to think that I was good. But it's so much more than that--it's about knowing Jesus and being like him--and I find myself wanting that so badly right now, because as I see continually how broken I am, I am realizing on a deeper level just how much I need Him. I can't be who I want to be without Him. I just can't.

I know I will fail. And I know that I'm not going to be perfect. But, I know that God wants to work in us and change us and mold us to look more and more like Him. I'm clinging to that.

And those are the things that I do need to be working on and that I do need to feel convicted of and upset about when I fail, because those things matter. As I work out my salvation, it is a constant process of putting off the old man and putting on the new. But still, ultimately, those things do not make me better or worse. Because, as hard as it is for me to grasp, nothing I do or do not do makes me any more or any less loved or saved by God. It's not about measuring up.

Even though it's hard at times, I am so thankful for the mirror that marriage holds up in front of me. And for good Christian music.

Pre-marathon training and life per usual

This week Landon and I started our pre-marathon training program. We ran three times, did a little cross-training at the gym and then tomorrow we have our long run--four miles. I know it sounds silly because we're training to run 26 miles, but right now 4 miles feels FAR! That can't be a good thing! Oh well, I guess that's why we're starting early...

Landon and I have never worked out together much, but it's quickly becoming SO obvious who's the more athletic one in this marriage (and it ain't me) which I think is incredibly unfair given that of the two of us I'm the one that's much more likely to opt to go work out or run or walk the dogs etc, on any given day (marathon training excluded, of course). Anyway, I'm just going to have to work extra hard and run on days that he doesn't, and get the little voice in my head that keeps telling me that I will never be able to keep up with him, to just go away! :)

Other than the addition of nightly workouts into our schedule, life around our house has been rockin' along as usual. Things are a little insane at work for me right now and a little turbulent for Landon right now, but all is good. And the working out has helped with the stress, which is always a good thing.

This past week Landon was working at home a lot more than out of town, which was a treat for us. We got to watch 24 and House together, work out together, try out some new recipes and just hang out at night. All the little things I used to take for granted. And, he helped me clean the house by doing the vacuuming--which I HATE. It was so romantic. :) Seriously.

This weekend we also saw a couple of good movies--we rented Eagle Eye on Friday night, which we had wanted to see in the theaters and never did--and tonight we saw Taken (thanks Lauren for the gift card!!) on the recommendation of Michael and Ashlee. I would definitely recommend both if you like those kinds of movies, which we do.

It's been a good weekend so far and I'm looking forward to church, lunch with friends and a wedding shower tomorrow. And our four mile run. It will be a full day, but it should be a nice one.

And then, I'm on the countdown...

One week until TAKS (and the day I can go back to actually teaching reading and writing--woohoo!), two weeks until the Dancing With The Stars season starts and three weeks until Spring Break!

We are so blessed and have so much to look forward to!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Today has been a sweet day. I've been looking forward to Valentine's day for a while because I love having an excuse to celebrate something and because I've been wanting to give him his present ever since I bought it a few weeks ago!

Last night, as soon as we got home from work, Landon and I headed over to my parents' house to celebrate my dad's birthday. My mom cooked a delicious dinner and we had a nice night--we sat around the table and talked and ate and laughed and gave my dad all of his presents. It was a nice night.

On the way to my parent's house though, Landon surprised me with my Valentine's day present. We took a really roundabout way to get there and I soon found out why--we pulled off the highway and in to the Sam Houston Race Park, where there was a huge sign on their billboard advertising their "Give Me Some Sugar" 5k and 10k on Valentine's day morning. So, we signed up for the 10k.

my Valentine's present :)

Landon's Valentine's present--a Nike running watch that works with his Ipod--so cool!

what I saw when I woke up this morning--my favorite flowers, my
favorite chocolates and a precious card with a little beagle on it :)We arrived at the race site around 7am, after stopping in Wal-Mart to try and buy some breakfast bars, only to discover that neither of us have brought our wallet with us! So, we were breakfastless--we got a good laugh out of it, but it was kinda sad, because we were both hungry and no where close to our house at that point!

All ready to run!

During the race Landon did awesome, but I started to feel really not good, so we ended up only running the 5K. It was still really fun though and Landon was really sweet to me...and, we got roses as we crossed the finish line!

We got home around 9, played with the dogs for a little while and then CRASHED. When we got up, I made some breakfast (on some little Valentine's plates I found that I'd bought a long time ago) and then we just hung out together this afternoon and watched movied and relaxed. I love days like that.

Landon found where I'd hid the other part of his Valentine's present--some peanut butter chocolates and a card--in front of his computer, the one place I knew for sure he'd go at some point today.

Tonight, we splurged (we figured we earned it since we got up and ran on Valentine's day, even if it was only a 5K, and went to our favorite local mexican restuarant. It was so yummy--we used to go ALL the time when we first got married and it brought back some memories of the old days, the first year or so of our marriage--before we worried about gaining 50 pounds from eating mexican food all the time!


I love you more as the years go by, babe! Happy Valentine's day--
thanks for always making it so special!

Dreams and Reality

"Either do, or do not. There is no try."--Yoda

When I was younger, and really just up until about a month or so ago, I used to talk about how I'd love to visit our sponsored children and meet them in person. But I'd always talk about it like it was just a silly dream that could never be reality.

When we were making our 100 Things To Do Before I Die lists a few weeks ago though, I started thinking about how, when Matthew studied abroad for a semester in South America with ACU, he went to Paraguay, where Miguel and Santiago live. He could have visited them. Easily. Why on Earth would I think that this is not something I could do?

Then, 2 days ago I got a letter from Miguel, who is now 18 and out of the program and doing well, and in his letter, he asked for a picture of us and said that he would really like to meet us in person and that stopped for in my tracks. In my letter I wrote him today, I told him, "me too--I'd really like to meet you in person one day too."

And then last night I stumbled across a friend's blog from church who has gone to China a couple of times and visited the orphanage where the little girl she sponsors lives and she knows her. Really knows her.

If she can do that and meet the children she sponsors like that, why can't we? Now, getting into the Congo to visit Joel might be a little tougher than Paraguay right now, but we can wait it out. And keep praying that one day there will be peace there.

Happy Birthday to the Best Dad in the WORLD!!

Thank you for passing on your love of music.

Thank you for demonstrating for me what it looks like to trust God fully in hard situations.

Thank you for living out what it looks like to be a godly husband, so that when I knew what to look for in a husband.

Thank you for coming to all of my basketball games and track meets and cross country meets growing up and for all the mornings we spent running together--I love those memories.

Thank you for all the mornings you made me breakfast--even when I repeatedly told you I didn't like to eat breakfast! :)

Thank you for teaching me about health and modeling a healthy lifestyle that I can one day also model for my kids.

Thank you for raising me in a church that loves God and in a home where people love God, passing on the baton of faith that I can now pass on to my kids.

And thank you for all the little things, day in and day out, that you did growing up and still do today, for your family...there isn't enough room on this blog to list them all.

I hope you have a wonderful day and know how loved and appreciated you are, Dad!

Love,
Aja

I'm currently reading...

Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas.

I heard about it about 6 months ago and ordered it off Amazon. I started and stopped it for a few months, not really jumping into it until this week. And oh my goodness, it is so good. It's that kind of good where you have to kind of work to wrap your mind around what it's saying because it's not how you're used to thinking about something, but it's so worth the work because you want to develop that kind of thinking that the book is talking about.

If you haven't heard of it, the basic premise is "what if God designed marriage more to make us holy than to make us happy?".

Its the kind of book that I want to hurry up and finish so that I can read it over again and really get it. It's already all highlighted and marked up (because I seem to find it impossible to read a book like this without doing that) with so much good stuff.

I'm trying to let the idea that anything that happens in my marriage is an opportunity to grow spiritually, sink in. Happiness is not the ultimate goal, for when things are tough--whether it be a little argument or a marriage shattering decision, that is often when we have the biggest opportunity to grow in our relationship with God, which is the ultimate goal (and undoubtedly helps us to have a happy, healthy, long-lasting marriage).

And as this sinks in, I'm committed to making it actually play out in our lives.

The chapter I'm reading at the moment is on being a servant and serving one another within a marriage. It's a simple concept, but something I really needed to hear-when we're serving anyone, but in this case our spouse, we're imitating Jesus Christ, for he was the ultimate servant. (But this only counts if we're serving with a good spirit! :)) And trying to grow in likeness to Jesus Christ deepens our spirituality and relationship to God, which gives a much larger purpose to things like doing the dishes and laundry and cleaning the house than just doing housework. And when we're doing all these things, we're not only serving our spouse and imitating Christ, but we're also serving God. I tried to keep this in mind last night as I was doing the dishes after dinner.

There is so much more I could say about this book because it's all swirling around in my head right now, but it's still all jumbeled up together as I try to figure out how to make this a reality in my life and really get that the larger purpose to my marriage may just be to help Landon and I deepend our relationship with God and to show God to the world.

And plus, Gary Thomas says it SO much better than I do. Read the book. :)

Superbowl fun

I know this is a little late, but I just wanted to put up this picture from the Superbowl party we had at the Blackburn's a few weeks ago with a bunch of the couples from our Young Married's class at church.

One of my prayers for a while has been for Landon and I to find a group of "couple" friends--people we could really get to know and develop relationships with outside of just saying hi at church.

When I step back and see how he's working and answering my prayer and allaying my worries, I am so grateful. I am grateful for the friends in our lives and for our great God who weaves our lives together.

UNO

Last night was game night at the Speights household.

It was one of those perfect nights where we had this crazy thing called free time. We both got home from work during the daylight hours, took a little nap, had yummy leftovers for dinner and then, what we look forward to every Tuesday night--24. Love it.

By 8pm, all of my to-do's were done. Y'all, I even dusted. On a weekday. I know.

So as I was dusting, I was thinking that we should do something fun. Even though he was working some, Landon graciously indulged me. We thought about a movie but couldn't find one. So we looked through the games.

Funny thing--most games are not meant to be played with two people--at least most of the games we have.

And thus, we would up with Uno--which, by the way, I don't think is really a two person game, but whatever. We made it work.

Two hours flew by as we sat at the dining room table, with KSBJ playing in the background, and Landon obliterated me. Things started out looking up--I won the first round, but forgot to say Uno. Who does that? Me apparently; Landon said it was his win by default, but I say it's a draw. I redeemed myself by winning the second round, but then proceeded to undo it by losing every other hand. I really need to find a game I'm good at. Come on--I can't even win at Uno?

But really, I could care less about winning Uno. We were having fun.

It reminded me of the days when we first got married and were broke. Instead of going out on Friday and Saturday nights, we sat at our dining room table and played each other in games like chinese checkers and badgammon and checkers. We felt a little lame at the time, but I look back on those nights with a smile .

Just like I look back on last Spring Break with a smile when I think of all the HOURS we spent playing Scrabulous on Facebook. Now that was a game I eventually was able to be competetive at with my husband.

Oh, how I miss Scrabulous. And how I miss Spring Break. Only 4 more weeks...

Speights Family Fun

Every year our church takes their high school seniors on a mission trip and to raise money for that they hold an auction. Landon's dad is in charge of this auction, so this year on Friday night we were up there helping out. It was so cool to see how God works through this and I was blown away by how much money they were able to raise toward the mission trip, despite the state of our economy. Plus, it was a lot of fun--and we walked away with two 6 month Bally's memberships that we got for a really good price. We figured we can use them in our marathon training!

On Saturday morning our Speights family fun weekend started bright and early. We jumped in the car with Pam and Wes and hit the road. Our first stop was in Bryan to see his grandparents and aunt, uncle and baby cousins, who just happened to be there visiting for the weekend. His grandmother is doing well after her chemo and radiation and it was so fun to sit around and visit with everyone--and hold their precious new baby!

Emily was sleeping when we got there--so precious.

She is such a happy baby!

sweet baby hands

we passed Emily around all morning

Grandma and Emily

Cutie Ryan--he was our ring bearer about 3 years ago.

Landon and his Grandad

Ryan playing his video games

Ryan decided he wanted to take some pictures too!

From there we headed over to Waco to eat lunch with Kenna and then all of us headed on down the road again, ending up in Keller to spend the night with Logan, Elizabeth and Abagael. It was a quick trip and a quick weekend, but a lot of fun. We took a few walks around the block with Abagael, went bowling (I forgot my camera but will post pictures as soon as I get some!), out for a late dinner at the Saltgrass Steakhouse and then ended the night with a couple of games of Clue--which everyone is great at except for me! Oh well...maybe one day I'll win.

the view from the road

all ready for our bike ride!

it was a beautiful day--I loved how the sky was so blue.
I'm kinda obsessed with the sky.

We walked all over the neighborhood while Abagael drove her Gator.

And today has been a perfect ending to the weekend. We got home early this afternoon and have had some time to relax and catch up on the sleep we most definitely did not get Friday night or last night. And, I'm trying to try out new recipes, so now we're eating my latest experiment (and my first every casserole to make) as we watch House, our latest re-run addiction.

All in all, it was a really nice weekend. Next weekend is Newhouser family weekend as we celebrate my dad's birthday! Woohoo--I really do love living near to family.

Oh, and I forgot to mention...

We are now officially signed up for the Chicago Marathon in October and the Goofy Challenge in January. Hotels and all.

And everything is completely non-refundable.

My dad said, "well, I guess you can just sell the bib's on Craig's List or something."

My brother said "I don't know if 3 months is enough time for the memories of the pain to fade away and leave you with only the good feelings."

Both said laughingly and both absolutely true.

But, we are so doing this. :)

Snippets of Life

I have a little girl in one of my ESL classes named Isis. Of all the students that I worry about with TAKS coming up in a month, she was at the top of my list. She's a smart little girl and probably one of the hardest working students I have this year, but her English is still developing. On Wednesday, we took a practice test to get a feel for where each of the students are and then yesterday they graded them in class. I was scanning the room as I was calling out the answers and happend to be looking at Isis as I called out the last answer and told them to count up how many they got right. She looked at me and mouthed that she only missed two and the smile on her face was priceless--some combination of shock and joy. Then, she leaned over to her reading partner, who is always having to explain words and passages to her, and asked her how many she got right. When Ana told her that she missed four, I could see that Isis was struggling to hold back a huge grin. It was just the shot of confidence that girl needed to beat this test. Totally made my day. It reminded me of the feeling I had after my first cross country meet of my senior year in high school. I had trained all summer, running almost every morning with my dad, but didn't really expect to see any dramatic changes because I'd never really been the best on the team. I think my face must have looked just like Isis' when I came across the finish line and my coach called out my time and my mile spilts, which were significantly faster than anything I'd ever run before.

Hard work pays off, and the great thing about it is that when you see the payoff, you're motivated to work just that much harder. I love it. Isis has been working her butt off these last few days, now not only talking about passing the test (which at first she thought was impossible) but about going for commended. This is why I teach. For little moments like this.

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Oh, and by the way, I am typing this from my brand new computer. (Mine died a few months ago and I've been borrowing Landon's mom's, but then last week Landon's died, so he is borrowing his mom's for work...and so he said it was just time.)

Landon surprised me with flowers and candles and a card with cash in it yesterday when I got home from work. He'd driven around to all the electronics stores around us and found the best deals and computers I thought I would like and then took me on the tour last night. I ended up picking the exact computer he thought I would; he knows me so well. I love it.

And now, I'm off to bed. I've been off caffeine for about 4 months now because it was making my heart to weird skipping a beat things, so that means I need to actually rely on getting sleep now! The house is clean, the papers are graded, the plans for tomorrow are finalized, the dogs are already snoozing and there are fresh sheets on my bed calling my name.

Good night!