Cheap kites and tea bags

Here are some pictures of the wedding reception in OR. To the right is our cake made buy Ross's I think it actually turned out pretty good.

Notice the beautiful background scenery. That's just the way it is here in OR. Everywhere(ok not everywhere) you look there is so much beauty. It takes my breath away!

Ok these next two pictures have a funny story. Trevor is running along the beach here with...

A kite! A rather cheap kite, but one thing about the OR coast, you can seriously fly almost anything, because it is really windy. Well it was really funny because this kite was the cheapest I think I have ever seen, and believe me I've seen cheap in my life(remember my maiden name is Nissley :-) and proud of it) Anyway, so we open this kite and like half of the pieces were missing. My mom being determined as she is, yeah she has a little bit of that in her as well. Now, you know who I got it from. ;-) Yeah so she ties a few things together and walah, the kite is ready to fly, Dad's like , " That kite is not going to fly." and Mom is like "Yeah it is. " and mom and I start giggling. We get like this sometimes. Ok so we take this kite out onto the beach, and mom stays in the car because it is really cold. So we take it out and tada before we can say.... Well, anyway the kite went up. And mom's in the car just smiling. And we are on the beach just laughing at this cheap thing in the air. The kite's string is made up of about the weakest string of thread you could find. I don't remember how long it was up in the air when all of a sudden pop the string breaks, so me being cut from the same determined cloth as my mother tie this and this and that, and there you go, there is your kite, Trevor Ha! I obviously did not get the kite fixing expertise from my mother. Because this kite gets a little ways off the ground, and just spins frantically, and then it breaks again and shoot's out across the beach. You just had to be there it was a comical site to behold. We all had a good laugh at that kite, and it made great memories.

I'm finding out more and more that life is what we make it. There is that saying,"When life gives you tea bags, make sweet tea," Ok that's not exactly right, but that's the southern version. :-) We really have to make a choice I think, day by day, moment by moment, to look at the best of our situation, sometimes that means choosing to laugh when we want to cry, praising instead of whining-- becoming better instead of bitter. Now, granted I believe with all my heart that there is a right and appropriate time for grief and crying(ask my hubby I do plenty of it so I must believe this) , but sometime along the way we have to dry the tears, pick up where we left off and choose to praise. Most times in my life if I would have just chosen to look at my circumstances from another angle, I could have been enjoying myself instead of moping around in a self pity party. Now when we bought that kite that day and found that it was missing pieces we could have stewed and huffed and angrily, taken it back to the store, and demanded our 2 dollars and 25 cents back( When I say cheap I mean cheap:-), but we didn't. We made the best of the situation and laughed at it. Now trust me, that was a fairly easy decision to make, I mean what's a kite, but what about the times when the choices get a little tougher. When supper plans get changed at the last moment, when you get stuck in a two hour traffic jam, when something you were working at all day long turns out worse then when you started, when your not feeling good physically, when your lonely, when you move far away from your family and friends ;-) , (I had to add that one). Yes, most times if we just choose to look at it from a different angle and make a choice to focus on the good, we are surprised with the joy that God blesses us with. Really we can't do it on our own strength. However when we choose Joy and turn to God for help, and just praise Him for who He is and ask him for His Joy which is our strength, then He miraculously steps in and fills us with His JOY!

There are those times when no matter what angle we look at it, it's just bad, so we cry, and that's a good thing, but we don't stop there, we go to Jesus and sit in His big comforting arms and yield to His comfort, His plan, and His healing Love. Here again it's all about choices. I've seen both. I've seen people let the bad things that happen to them in life turn them bitter and away from the only One who can help them, and they turn around and hurt the ones they love and mostly themselves through their bitterness. Then I've seen those people who have just cried out to the Lord in their suffering and let it draw them closer to the One who knows what it's all about, the One who knows the ending of there story and promises "It will work out for the good..."(Romans 8:28)I've seen this choice turn them into beautiful people, people whose light shines so bright with the light of Jesus that it reaches out to those around them and touches them with the light of His love.

You know bad things are going to happen to us. It's just apart of the life we live, but we ultimately we make the choice, sometimes through weeping and grief, but we make it! God helping me I want to always choose Him, and I trust you all do to. So when life gives you a Cheap Kite -- make a memory....