Know how you always see a sign before bridges that say "Bridge Ices Before Road?" They're so common that you read them and instantly kind of go, "Oh yeah, I know that. Whatever." Well tonight we learned to take those seriously. We've been told to expect snow and ice for days now. We were prepared for it. It came and it seemed laughable. Caleb got out of school two hours early today and everyone thought it was so funny. We had virtually no snow and ice on the ground at that point. Caleb came home. He relaxed. We had dinner. Well, we decided since it really didn't look bad at all, we'd go to Barnes and Noble to read. Seemed reasonable at the time. We got ready to go and headed out around 7:30. The roads were a little slick, but they didn't seem too bad, until we got to, of course, a bridge. I was talking to Matthew at the time on the phone (trying to convince him that a man who has never liked or been good at writing papers may not want to take Mr. McClister's Romans class for 3 credit hours). All of a sudden the tail end of the truck started to slide and I experienced the scariest moment of my life. We started sliding right towards the right side of the bridge. Caleb somehow managed to keep us away, but of course we then started sliding to the left side of the bridge. He kept us away from that, but keeping us away from that, meant that the truck got turned around and started sliding backwards into a ditch. He managed to stop us at the top of a very huge ditch. We just sat there and stared at each other. My heart was doing the cha-cha in my chest. I thought we were going to die!

We were totally fine though and the truck was totally fine, thanks to God, which is ultimately the point of this whole ramble. So many things could have gone wrong. We could have really gone over the bridge. We could have hit the ditch harder. Another car could have been coming down the road. If they had, this would have been very serious. None of these things happened, and I feel so totally blessed.

Well after we had a moment, he put the hazards on and assessed the damage. We had none. He attempted to pull the truck out but we were stuck. Five minutes later, a man in a bigger truck stopped, asked if we were ok, and if we had a chain of some sort. Caleb had just stepped on a piece of metal. He looked down. It was a chain. They hooked it up to the other guys truck. He towed us out, then thanked us. We were perplexed. Caleb said "No, thank you so much." The guy once again repeated his thanks. Caleb finally ended by saying "God bless you" as the man got in the truck. He wanted no thanks, no credit. I'm not even sure if we got the guy's name. No one will probably ever know he did this, but it meant so much to us.

The whole experience has left me pondering. Maybe that was the point of the whole endeavor. I have been struggling lately. Feelings of loneliness, depression and despair that I had kept at bay for months, have threatened to engulf me. I had begun to cry out in my heart "How long, O Lord, will I call for help, and You will not hear?" Now, before tonight, I had already begun the process of becoming my old cheerful self again, but tonight really pushed all those feelings away. Tonight was a nice reminder that as despondent and melancholy as I might feel, he hasn't forgotten me at all. Furthermore, of course nearly everyone know how much I am terrified of driving. My first thought after all of this was, "I really will never drive." However, I realize that this was an affirmation of the fact that I am an idiot. Why have I been so terrified of driving, when the creator of the universe looks after me when I am in a vehicle?! I'm completely stupid.

And of course all of this makes me think of a song:

"Maybe you're alone in the corner of an empty house. Or maybe you're the one no one notices in the crowd....He sees you. He's near you. He knows your name. He knows your pain. He sees you and He loves you. He knows your name. He knows your name."--"Name" by Fireflight (Of course. They really are amazing. If you don't listen to them, you should. They're song are so incredibly encouraging. After listening to their music, it's hard to ever want to listen to any other band. Why would I want to just enjoy Evanescence when I can be greatly encouraged by Fireflight? This song in particular will make you cry, especially if you're a woman, if you listen to it all the way through.)

Simple words I know. But it is wonderful when you truly stop and think about the fact that the creator of the universe knows you. He's not a God who just made us and then just forgets about us when we're done, like the creator of some toy. He knows us. He cares about us. We may not think he remembers us but he does. Enough to even have an old rusty chain sitting on the side of the road, waiting for Caleb Adkisson one day to step on it. My God is an Awesome God.

Happy Things:
-Near death experiences.
-Silly Kittens.
-Snowy days.
-Hot Chocolate

I'm mostly past all the depressing moments in my life now. Daddy is disfellowshipped officially. But life moves on. It was always in God's hands to begin with, but we've done all we can do and now I can rest knowing that there was nothing more to be done. God's the only one who can work on him now. And I'm 100% certain he's doing just that. I am at peace with the situation.

Anyways, I've been keeping myself extremely busy. I'm hosting a Ladies' Bible class in my house every Friday morning. Yes, you heard it right! I said MORNING! Haha. I've actually been getting up at normal hours like normal people. Thursday morning, I woke up at 6:30 and couldn't get back to sleep! The ladies' Bible study has been nice because some of the people who come over every Friday aren't people I usually get to see. It's always good to get to know people better. It also makes sure I have the house clean for the weekend, making it easier to have people over for meals. Another things I've been trying to do more of. I also just started teaching the 5 and 6 year olds at Church. We're going through Genesis right now because we just started a new curriculum. The kids are great and I've got some real fun stuff lined up for the quarter that I think they're gonna love. I've really enjoyed preparing it all. I love getting to make things for Bible class because it's like being a kid again. Caleb is now teaching the adult class here at Fuquay. I'm kinda sad that I don't get to sit in on his class, but we got stuck with the bum classroom at the front of the auditorium so at quiet moments I can still hear my husband's wonderful booming (and dare I say, sexy ;-) Bible voice.

Saturday, Caleb and I hit up the local thrift stores. We each got a pair of jeans and we found a really cute picnic basket. This is great because it actually inspires me to want to have cheap dates in the park.

I'm going to attempt to diet and exercise, something I have been dreadful about, over the next month like crazy. Matt's wedding is in a little over a month and I really don't want to look back at all the pictures and think, "Ugh! I was sooo fat!" I want to lose at least lost 10 pounds by then. It'd be nice to lose more, but I'm just being reasonable. Hopefully I can do it. The circumstances over the past couple of months have definitely kept me from losing weight. It's sooooo hard to stay away from Pirate Mochas from Leapin' Lizards, stick boys' bread, and sunni skies' ice cream, when you're down. You tend to think, "oh life is horrible I must have this yummy delicious thing to cheer me up!"

Maybe I just need to find some way to make carrots cheer me up....hmmmm....

Well, I just got back from having quite a day. Long story short: I spent the whole day in court, testified against my dad (technically, but I felt like I wasn't because I knew eventually this would help save his soul), and listened to him call me a liar in court. We won in the end though. I knew we would, but it was still pretty scary. I was just very glad that God helped the truth win out over a lie. So now Daddy has a Domestic Violence Protection Order out against him until next year. He's pretty unhappy because this is going on his permanent record. He may even lose his job because of this. Of course, he should have thought of that a looooooong time ago. He doesn't even care about the restraining order part because he knows he's not going to see us after tomorrow anyway.

Phew!

Crazy! Although being in court can be highly entertaining if you're there to watch the other people. There was another couple who had been arguing over baby chickens.

As always though, It's still best to remember the happy things in these situations. So I am going to borrow a leaf from Alyssa's book and end with a list of such things.

Happy Things:
-Making the Pioneer Woman's Meat Loaf at midnight for a needy family at Church.
-Playing hide and seek in the dark at a strange and creepy tiling building.
-Cool oriental stores.
-Matt
-Katie
-Jessica
-Momma
-Caleb
-Brownie Sundaes at Andy's after a hard day in court.....nothing quite like it.

Ok, so I apologize for neglecting to create any new entries in over a year. Every single time I try to make a new one, it sounds so depressing. So I'm going to fly through the depressing stuff and end on a happy note.
For starters, over a year ago my father started acting weird. Things started to escalate last summer when we realized he was getting drunk. Bear in mind, my father was an elder in the Church. Before this moment, he had always been one of the strongest Christians I had ever known. I've always admired and adored him. Well as the past year has progressed, it got worse and worse. He became more and more distanced from us and the Church. He began staying up all night playing Halo on Xbox live with a woman while drinking. He furthermore began to be irrational, irritable, and paranoid. He lashed out at my mother over nothing and by "lash out" I mean physically. He gave her countless bruises, bruised her spine, broke her finger, and busted her head open. My mom is just a teeny tiny little thing. She weighed 115 pounds then and now weighs 95 due to the stress. Furthermore, she is disabled and the stress makes that worse. We moved here thinking we could help. Since our move here, he left the house and is now living with a co-worker. He pops over every now and then to yell at us, break things, and hurt her (when we're not around). We are currently in the process of taking out a restraining order on him. Finally, in two weeks he is going to be dis-fellowshipped following the pattern set in Matthew 18. Unless of course, God pricks his heart. He already called us and told us that when September 1 comes around, he's not going to have repented. He of course then wanted to know what our response to his being dis-fellowshipped would be. Of course, the passage in Matthew 18 is pretty cut and dry. It doesn't say, "Hey if the person sinning is your father, it's ok to be with them." Nope. I sure wish it did, but it doesn't. So needless to say things have been incredibly rough. This has easily been the hardest thing I have ever been through. The only way I know how to describe it is that to me, it's worse than if he had died a Christian.

Anyways, while this has been tough. I have gained a lot of perspective and strength from all of this. Things that once seemed hard ( like being a wife and student at the same time) seem like kids play now. I've also found myself more able to fully trust in God. So there is a silver lining to all of this.

Also, Caleb and I are finally in our own house with our puppy and my absolutely adorable chinchilla Pichu. Pichu brings joy to my heart! I'm so glad God makes cute little things like her :-) She always brings a smile to my face when I see her and apparently when I just try to write about her :-)

Caleb is enjoying being a teacher and I'm enjoying being the "teacher's assistant." I give him advice on what to do and what not to do. He also let me decorate his room which was fun. We found a lot of cool posters for his wall. The coolest of which is a map of MIddle Earth on parchment paper. His 12th graders are reading The Lord of the Rings, so we figured we could get away with that. The Church at Fuquay is of course absolutely wonderful. I love everyone there and I love knowing that despite everything I'm going through, I have their support 100%. It's the best place for us to be right now. Matt and Katie are getting married in October, and they are going to have the coolest wedding! I can't wait to truly be able to call Katie my sister. She already feels like one now! :-)

Finally, I'm within walking distance of the best bakery ever and a used bookstore. Sunni Skies Ice Cream is just 10 minutes away and Leapin Lizards Espresso is just 5 minutes away. They make the best coffee around!

I think all of these things are even better having been through present trials. I think it's like the way you appreciate the sun after it has been raining continuously for days. It's like James says,"Count it all joy, my brothers,when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." Which further reminds me of the bridge from new favorite song.

"The pressure makes us stronger.
the struggle makes us hunger.
The hard lessons make the difference
and the difference makes it worth it."
--"For Those Who Wait" by Fireflight


So all in all, lots of positive things here.

Here is some of my punky girl metal music...