"Don't give up! God is still in the business of blessing His children."
-Sandra Byrd

It's been one of those weeks.

The ironic part is that it's barely even started yet. So, I guess I should just say it's been a harder day. Parts of it were amazing, and parts of it were hard. But I guess that's life, eh?

I really don't want to seem like I'm complaining - I'm just being honest. Life is hard... but it's also good.

In the midst of my morning routine, I checked my email and saw this article sent to me by my grandma. The quote really struck me. God is still in the business of blessing His children.

No, life is not perfect. Yes, life is hard.

But God loves His children. And even better than that, He loves blessing them.

He loves blessing us. In everything we do. Sometimes the blessings are little ones that we don't even see. Sometimes they're big ones. But all the while, He is blessing us.

It makes me excited to see how He blesses me. I don't know when He will, or how he will. But I do know one thing: He will.

If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! -Matthew 7:11

So, as hard as it is, I'm trying to be thankful for the good... and yes, even for the bad. As one of my dear friends says, "Glory in the struggles. We wouldn't grow without them." This is something I'm still working on. ;)

Could it be that our lives would be easier if we saw our struggles as a blessing?

It's funny how you find you enjoy your life when you're happy to be alive.
-Relient K

OH LOOK, I HAVE A BLOG!!!

So, where did I last leave you last? Ah, NaNo. Yes, the marvelous thing that has sadly killed my blog for the month of November.

What happened was... I was NOT shooting for 50,000, but yet I still got there. Yes, you read that right. I made it to 50,000. I'm still wondering how it happened!

Circumstances prevented me from even trying to get 50k... at first. My good friend Ashley was coming to stay for a week, and I knew I wouldn't be writing at all while she was here. So rather than get stressed when I was way behind after she left, I decided to just write as much as I possibly could when she wasn't here and see where that got me.

I started off with a bang, making the required NaNo wordcount of 1,667 words per day, even though I wasn't trying. I made about 5,000 words that week, keeping right on target for the word count goal. Then Ashley arrived. That was one of the funnest weeks of my life (post about that coming soon), but even so, I did not get any writing done, just as I had thought would happen. The week after she left was filled with just trying to catch up on daily life. I don't think I even started writing until halfway through the week. At this point, it's pretty much all a blur, so I don't remember how many words I got that week. I was just trying to survive. :P

On November 23rd, somehow I got to 23k. Then Thanksgiving struck. That morning I gave up on trying to write anything, especially since I had a bad headache.

I had posted on the NarniaWeb NaNo thread earlier in the week, saying that I didn't think I was going to make it, but maybe I would next year. A fellow NWebber, Orious, gave me a much-needed pep-talk. (Orious, if you ever see this, hope you don't mind that I quoted you. ;)

MountainFireflower (me) wrote:

Maybe next year I'll make it to 50k.

Orious wrote:

NO! NO! This year! You can totally still win! It's been done! I knew a girl who wrote 50k in five days and you only have to write half of that in five days! Write, write, write! You can hit that 50,000, don't give up! Don't give up! Pretty please?  

...In the unheard of, undesired, and unwanted event that you do go down. Go down screaming bloody murder. Don't give up without a hugely monsterous fight.

I began to think that maybe, just maybe, it was possible. After all, if someone wrote 50k in 5 days, what was half that in 5 days? Soon I began to get crazy notions. I decided to try as hard as I could, and give NaNo the fight it deserved. Even if I didn't make 50k, at least I would have tried. I opened Write or Die. In spite of my heavy headache, I wrote, and ended up writing 1,000 words in 15 minutes. But I still didn't know how I'd possibly get to 50k, especially since my plot was dragging along. Enter Grant Stokely.

He crashed into my story, literally, and within paragraphs had turned my story in a completely different direction that I expected, but one that I wholeheartedly loved. He took the reigns of my story in his completely capable hands and showed me that I had just needed a change of pace. Soon my plot, my characters, and my theme took on new life, and I decided that this book was worth it after all. I was fighting. Hard.

Thanksgiving Day I had 25k. By the end of the day I had 32k. I still have no idea how I did it. All thanks and credit goes to God. He's the one who had his hand on my book, and gave me renewed vigor. Without him, I never would have finished.

The rest of those 4 days start to blend together. I think I got to 42k on November 26th. November 27th I only wrote 3,000 words due to my schedule and being completely brain fried, but I didn't feel bad about it since the race against time was getting less intense. November 28th was the day I finally reached the 50,000 word mark. I had resolved that I would finish it that day rather than finish it the next day which was going to be very busy. I wrote and wrote and wrote, and by the end of the day I had a purple winner's bar.

Getting the purple bar took a little doing though. For some reason, the NaNo word count validator took away a thousand words or so. Due to that little detail, I stayed up even later than I wanted to, trying to get those last thousand words done. I also discovered that Google Docs has a 'select all' button, and I don't have to highlight all the text myself. Boy, was THAT a lifesaver!

So, long story short (funny, this story is already longer than I thought it would be), I won NaNo. It was the last thing I expected to do, especially this year, but it showed me that God has different plans than my own sometimes. And that sometimes, what we think is impossible isn't so impossible.

NaNo is a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but it's taught me some great lessons about writing, about life, and about the God who strengthens me to do all things.

I totally can't wait for next year! :)

Our God is in control!! He hasn't taken His eye off His children in Haiti. He's holding every one of us. We just have to trust Him.

My mom was telling me about the devastation in Haiti, and especially about what's been going on at an orphanage/outreach we support there, called For His Glory. Things aren't looking good, and the situation seemed even worse than I had thought. I felt so helpless... and sorrow overwhelmed me. What could I possibly do? Praying seemed futile at this point, although I knew that was the best thing I could do. Honestly, I wanted to ship my whole family and I out to Haiti!

Then I watched this video (above). The pictures of all the adorable children made me smile, but it almost made me more sad. But as I watched more, I heard the Steven Curtis Chapman song in the background. The lyrics really stood out to me - "Our God is in control."

I realized it isn't up to us to save Haiti. Our God is still watching over Haiti. He hasn't abandoned them. He knows. And He's taking care of all of us... we just can't see it yet. We just have to trust Him... because He knows what He's doing.

So in your prayers and efforts to help, just know that there's more going on here that we can't see. God has a plan, far beyond anything we can understand. He will take care of the people of Haiti. He is taking care of them far better than mere humans ever could. Surrender everything to Him... because He can handle it. He's got it all under control.

Thanks for all of your prayers! This time I have some good news....

As you know, *Muffin* was admitted to the hospital last night, and my mom & I went to go see her. It was really intense when we got there, because she was getting checked by a pediatrician, and was really upset. When babies have croupe, they have this unnerving barky sound to their cough.... No offense, but they sound kind of like a seal! It was really rather scary for me, because I had not expected that. Right when we got there, *Muffin* reached out to Mom, which really tugged at our heartstrings. Even though she was struggling, she was still our *Muffin*!

Mom held her the whole time we were there. That freed up her mom to go home and get the things they needed to spend the night at the hospital. It was also *Muffin*'s dad's birthday, but he didn't mind. It was rather neat to see.

While we were there it seemed she improved. She got more peaceful while Mom was holding her, and when we left she was sleeping on her Momma. :)

As of today, we found out that she is going to be released from the hospital this morning. That is a great relief to hear, because at least she is stable and doing better. If you would like to pray still, just pray for *Muffin* to get better, as well as her mom, dad, and grandma to have peace.

BTW, *Muffin* is not her real name. :o)

Thanks for praying everyone! I really appreciate it!

In His Love,

I would like to ask you all to pray for our baby that we watch part-time, 9-month-old *Muffin* (aka "A Strange Creature Indeed"). She has croup and is at the hospital right now, because she is having trouble breathing. It is possibly because of pneumonia, too. We are all pretty worried, especially me. She is such a sweet thing and we've all grown to love her. Please join me and my family in prayer.... And I'll try to keep you posted. :(

In His Love,
Kylie

Update @ 5:40 PM MST! ~ *Muffin* is going to be admitted to the hospital overnight. She's seen a doctor, but he's not a pediatrician and isn't really sure what's wrong. She's waiting to see one now. The good news is that her oxygen level is staying in the 90s, she's just struggling to keep it that way. From what I understand, they want to keep her in the hospital to monitor her. We might go down to see her. Please continue to pray for her, as well as her great grand-father who had a mild stroke... I don't know any other details. Thanks for praying, everyone! I'll update later....

For a long time I have wanted a guitar. I think it originated with a dream I had, and ever since I wanted one. Unfortunately, we aren't able to afford one, or even rent one. For a long time it was just a dream. Until this week...

I was getting ready for bed when Mom asked me how much money I had in my "guitar fund", which was my meager bit of money I was saving. I knew something was up, and I asked why. She said that someone was selling a guitar for $50. I immediately came upstairs, and Dad read the description of it to me (someone had posted it online). It was an accoustic Fender, that came with a soft case, a stand, and an instructional DVD.

I was only $10 short, so Mom & Dad said that I could pay them back. It was too late to call the seller of the guitar, so we sent her an e-mail and then decided to call her in the morning.

Thankfully, we were the first ones who responded, and so we arranged for us to pick it up Thursday, which is yesterday. I am so thrilled to have a guitar now, and have already learned a couple of chords. It did need tuning, but Dad and I figured out how to do that this morning. The only problem is we think the neck might be bent and is causing one of the strings to touch one of the frets and sound weird. We've been keeping it in a room with a humidifier to see if that will help, and if it doesn't we might have it looked at.

I am very thankful for this blessing. God has truly answered my prayers! He is so good.

I was trying to get a picture up but it wasn't working, so I'll try to get one up soon.

~Kylie

Edit: Here are a couple pictures:





My apologies to dial-up users!