Where was I?

Jordan is a very thoughtful little girl. She is one who will sit and ponder all sorts of thoughts and ideas. One such thought came up yesterday. As Jordan and I were sitting downstairs, Jordan looked over at Justin's and my wedding pictures. She's asked before where she was in those pictures, but we've told her that she wasn't born yet. Well, yesterday, that answer quite disturbed her. She asked again where she (and Rylie) were, and was becoming visibly upset, even near tears, "But...where WAS we?! Were we tiny? Were we big? Where WAS we?!" She could not wrap her sweet little heart and mind around the idea that she was not in existence. How can that even be? Something that was not is now what is? Something from nothing?

Isn't God amazing?! I pray we would all be in awe of our mere existence, that God would choose to make us something when we were once nothing!

Grandma and Grandpa Neill

These are the only pictures I got with the grandparents from this weekend.

Cousin Carson

The hunt

Fallyn was so good at helping Rylie find Easter eggs. She was so selfless and generous!

I wish I would have gotten some pictures of the Orchard cousins...they are so good with the little ones! We love them a lot!

Gobbling up the Easter Candy!

I can't get over her cheesy smiles!

Sweet Baby Emily

Jordan and Rylie's new cousin, Emily, and her older brother Carson came to Wichita for Easter. Such a sweet picture of Emily and her mommy!

Easter Morning

Christ is Risen! Happy Easter!

Without God, nothing else can satisfy

"Meaningless! Meaningless!...Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!" Ecclesiastes 1:2

This book of the Bible has been heavily on my mind recently. Today, I spent my day with the Lord reading through each chapter. Over the course of this year, my eyes have been opened to see the meaninglessness of the "things" my students fill their hearts and minds with--partying, drugs, boys, girls, sex, popularity, fame, attractiveness, money, success, grades...the list goes on and on. Ecclesiastes 3: 11 says that "He has also set eternity in the hearts of men." My students try to fill up this eternity in their hearts with pleasures and practices that are completely unfullfilling, even destructive, all the while running from God, the only one who can truly fulfill their hearts' desire. I see the hunger for something more, a thirst for a life with purpose and meaning, but there is a lostness about them, wandering as though they were blind in the worldliness of our culture.

My heart is burdened and grieved for the lost that can't seem to find their Savior. I want their lives to matter; I want them to find true meaning and purpose; I want them to be found and saved by the One that gave His life for them. Without God, nothing else can satisfy. I know the hunger and thirst in their hearts...we all do (God put eternity in the hearts of everyone). This is what Jesus means when He says "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." John 4:13-14. Jesus fills our eternity, and we realize that filling up with the pleasures of this world become utterly meaningless, a chasing after the wind.