Christmas In May

My family has been involved for many years with Bernese Mountain Dogs and clubs that support them. We even helped form a club here in North Carolina. The Blue Ridge Bernese Mountain Dog Club has come a far way in the years since it started. However, we still have many traditions like Christmas in May.

This weekend my mom and I took off for Christmas in May picnic. We of course took one of our Bernese Mountain Dogs, Morgen, and my little Pomeranian, Rocky A.K.A. the Berner want to be. We took two White Elephant presents for the gift exchange and I found a huge stuffed Bernese Mountain Dog at Target for the raffle. I had not been able to go to one of our Berner days in a long time so it was interesting to meet the new people and reconnect with the ones I already knew. Morgen of course was her normal sweet as can be self, while Rocky finally realized he was not top dog. We had a good time having fun with the dogs and playing games. We ate good food, I brought a chocolate cheesecake. We came away from the raffle with a Duke dog leash, an "I love my Bernese Mountain Dog" car magnet, and homemade dog treats. From the White elephant exchange we came home with a $15 gift card to Pet Smart and a real looking chipmunk toy.

The highlight of the day for me though was the meeting. I knew how boring am I. The Bernese Mountain Dog Club of America (BMDCA) has finally recognized our little club and we are real! Secondly BMDCA has asked all regional clubs to have a person in charge of getting medical information about research foundations that are working to help Bernese Mountain Dogs and all breeds. This include Histo, which is a form of cancer my family has lost 3 dogs to. The exciting part for me was being elected as the regional person in charge of the medical research. I now get to help other people and dogs in a new and different way.

"You Are NOT Alone"..... God

Over this past week I have felt very alone. Change that over this past month. So much has happened in my life. I have moved back home, been diagnosed with a disease I will deal with the rest of my life, searched for jobs daily, and lost someone that mattered more than anything in the world to me and that I had not even met.

As all this has come upon me I have felt more and more alone. Then I started getting this feeling that God was telling me I am not alone. I have reconnected with Emily, a girl from high school. We disliked each other very much in high school and now we are hanging out and talking like best friends. I have been in contact with another person who is awaiting her diagnosis of the same disease I have. I pray she does not have it, yet I don't see how she cannot have it. Finally, this past week two of my favorite shows had the same topic. The same thing happening to the two main characters as happened to me last week. I know it is just TV, but I felt like God was using these shows to tell me I am not alone in this. God has been giving me these friendships and these shows to tell me and show me just how Loved I am by the God who has known me since before I was born.

College Friend Weekend

This weekend I decided to head up to Asheville and spend time with some college friends. I got to stay with my best friend from college, Elizabeth. She has this adorable little house in Black Mountain.

We started out the weekend by having a girls night. We dressed up and went into Asheville and had dinner at Carrabba's. Then we went and delivered brownies to her boyfriend and the guys playing poker. We rented movies and watched TV. It was such a good night.

Saturday we put up a fence in her dogs enclosure, which I might add did not work. We got a phone call in the middle of our work from Jennifer. She was on her way to Mars Hill for her sister-in-laws ordination the next day. She wanted to meet us for lunch. So we all went out for lunch and I got to meet her new boyfriend Mike. Elizabeth and I then watched one of the movies we rented. We meet with Alicia and Ben and went to coffee around 8 pm. Then finished out night walking around Downtown Asheville with Brandon and Aaron, Elizabeth's boyfriend and his brother.

Today We went to church. Then had subway, a tradition going back to college. Finally we went back to her house and watched our other movie before I had to go home.

Conclusions from this weekend. I miss my friends, but loved spending time with them. I am enjoying being back in North Carolina and cannot tell you how much I love it here. Finally I am going to be good and eventually go back into ministry.

Baptist, Methodist, UCC

As I am now staying at home and not having to worry about too many bills, rent, or food I can spend time figuring out my life. This for me means taking the next year off from ministry and finding a denomination that will support me in ministry. As I am back in North Carolina I am finding this a little harder. First off I am not Texas Baptist anymore and will not be licensed at the end of this summer. Second I am living in a house with my Grandfather, who is die hard Methodist. Third I have no clue what I am doing, I just know I am called.

So my first step was to meet with the soon to be ordained Rev. Owen Barrow. He is a good friend of mine who is associated pastor at my families church. We sat down and talked about everything that happened in Texas. My finally decision that if I am to stay Methodist I am going deacon track. Then how staying Methodist is probably not the best idea. I do not have the best file and it is going to be difficult if not impossible to ever be ordained because of my file. Yes I have been shown my file and it is not good. So the next thing out of Owen's mouth was "how do you feel about Congregationalist Baptists?" I kind of looked at him stupid and said I was sure no Baptists in North Carolina ordained women. Well they do! I explained to Owen that I did not agree with the theology totally. Then we went through the other big denominations and I said I have been thinking about UCC. This shocked Owen as he did not know I was as lgbtq friendly as I am.

Now over the past two days I have been doing research on the UCC congregations in my area. Sadly most of them are not involved in the "God Still Speak" campaign and are not open congregations. The closest one that I liked from the web page is in Chapel Hill, a 30-40 min drive. Then today I was on facebook and saw a post by Bridget about becoming a fan of The Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists . I asked her about it and got information and found a cool liturgical congregation just one town away. I also then checked out the Congregationalist Baptists and decided on checking out two different congregations right here by me.

Now here is the questions Baptist, Methodist, or UCC?

You Can Go Home Again

For many years I have made one statement; I will never go home again to live. I have even gone as far as to keep myself in Houston for 5 months living off my savings earlier this year because I could not get a job. Now here I am living back in North Carolina with my family. So far it is not too bad. I have reconnected with two friends from high school, who I had not talked to in almost 8 years. I have been interviewing almost every day for jobs. Just trying to keep myself busy so that I don't miss Texas too much. The best part of being home is I got to spend my dad's birthday with him yesterday. I have not done that in many years and he was very happy to have me around.