Hills & Valleys: Our Faith Journey

Seven years. Two people, born on opposite sides of the world. A young man, wondering when he would meet his bride. A young woman, waiting for her husband. God brings them together to meet online. They fall in love through letters, emails, instant messaging, Skype, and phone calls. Six years. Boy meets girl in the Atlanta airport. Girl's heart skips a beat when she sees her love running towards her for the first time with a bouquet of roses in his hand. He proposes, a month after she arrives. She says yes. (They forget to take engagement pictures together.) They say goodbye once again...this time for 3 months as they attend school in separate states. More letters, emails, Skype and phone calls, oftentimes using a borrowed cell phone since she did not have her own. They reunite for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and spend lots of time growing together as a couple. She is unexpectedly accepted into his school as a transfer student, when there were

Again...all I can say is how grateful I am. This week has been kinda crazy busy, very overwhelming at times, and Selah has not been sleeping well for almost 2 weeks. BUT, I serve an incredible, mighty, loving God who cares about me. Since beginning school, I have really  tried to set aside Shabbat (Sabbath - Saturday) as a day of complete rest. I don't have housework scheduled for Saturdays, but up until now I've just done whatever. If I notice a job needing to be done, I'll do it. But, when I began school, I felt like I needed to set that day aside completely from homework and housework - not because I legalistically "can't" do anything on Shabbat, but because I knew I needed some dedicated time in my week that I knew I would just be able to breathe, relax, recharge for the week. I've been doing this for the last two weekends, and it has been amazing! It is so nice to look at projects I really want to be working on throughout the week and know that th

Can I just say how *thankful* I am? This has been a rough week or so with sleep, and of course with sleeplessness, it becomes harder to function. Nerves are on edge, it's harder to get stuff done...and it doesn't help when school is getting into fast-paced mode. On Monday night, I got all confused about what day it was, and I honestly started to think it was Friday night. I thought, "Wow, I'm glad it's Shabbat (Sabbath) tomorrow, because I sure need it!" There is something about services at Beth Yeshua that just make you stop and put your stresses and just plain ole' life aside and breathe. Breathe in more of God and less of me. And somewhere in that service, all of a sudden my problems don't feel so big and my God seems even bigger. I guess you could just sum all that up by saying every service at Beth Yeshua is one in which I encounter the presence of God. Anyway, I have to admit, I was rather disappointed when I realized it was not  Friday, but