Finally free.

Been wanting to post this for awhile...

About three years ago, my world began spinning out of control.  After finishing my student teaching in May 2010, I was excited to start my first "real" job as an autism teacher.  In short, this job was not at all what I expected.  Most teachers would agree that the first year of teaching is difficult regardless of the circumstances, and I was prepared for that.  I was not prepared to come home with bruises from being kicked or from dodging desks being thrown at me.  I wasn't prepared to be called horrible names and to be told "I hate you" so many times a day.  I wasn't prepared to be defeated by 5-10 year-olds.

By December, I was crying at the end of every day, getting physically sick on Sunday nights when thinking about going back to work on Monday, and ready to quit.  So I did what any frustrated female teacher would do in such a situation: tried to get pregnant.  

January passed, then February, March, April, and May, and somehow that school year was over.  I told my principal that I would not be returning the following year, even though I was unsure of what I would do next.  And I still wasn't pregnant.  

After about eight months of trying, I decided to go to the doctor.  Everything checked out fine on my end, so I encouraged my husband to go to his doctor.  He went, and the findings for him were not so good.  He would need surgery to correct an issue, and our chances of the surgery working were a toss-up.  We decided to go ahead and try the procedure, and the results left us in a worse situation than before.  

By this time, I had become a very bitter and cynical individual.  I hated my husband for not being able to give me the one thing that I wanted most in the world.  I hated my church because I was involved in so many activities but constantly felt as though I was encouraged to pull myself up by my bootstraps and continue trying to pour from an empty cup. Mostly, though, I hated God because I was breaking and He didn't seem to care.  In fact, I wasn't even sure that He existed.  Every day when I woke up, the whole world felt dark.  

The darkness continued for months and months.  When I look back over those months that turned into years, there are three specific things that God used to rescue me.

The first was when I came to City Pres in April 2012.  I'm not sure what even got me through the doors, to be honest, because by that point, I was crying every time my husband dragged me to church with him. I walked in and sat down on a back pew, arms crossed and heart hard.  Then Doug (the pastor) spoke some of the same words that we hear every week when we first come in.  "Welcome to City Pres.  We're glad you're here.  Some of you may be excited to be here and some may not be.  Wherever you are, we invite you to worship with us.  And if you just need a place to rest, please rest in Christ today."  I remember tears streaming down my face when I heard those words.  Rest.  I had been waiting for someone to tell me it was okay to do that for years.  

The second piece of rescue was Jeremiah 6:16, which I providentially found on my parents' refrigerator when I went home to visit.  "Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls."  Moments of darkness can easily turn into moments of weakness, and I often felt tempted during those months to do crazy things which could ruin my life.  In those moments, I remembered Jeremiah 6:16 and my grandpa, who had truly shown me what it meant to follow the ancient paths when nothing else made sense.  I knew I wanted rest, so I held on to those precious words.

Finally, a story from the Jesus Storybook Bible really rang true to me.  I was hardly reading my bible at all during that time, but this children's book was something I could actually process.  The story is at the very beginning of the book, about Adam and Eve in the garden.  Adam and Eve sinned and ran away from God.  But even in their wandering, God loved them so much that he went and found them.  Maybe I was not lost forever.    

Those three things are unquestionably significant in my story of rescue, but the final straw was when I went to a different doctor in August 2012.  He ran some additional tests, and then the unthinkable happened.  Suddenly, I couldn't hate and blame my husband anymore for not being pregnant.  It was me, too.  I was broken.

In the past months since that gut-wrenching news, God has broken me so that he could make me whole.  I've had surgery, and my issues were corrected, but not before all my pride in myself and my controlling nature were completely shattered.  My love for my husband was restored because I had come to understand his hurt in a very real way.  God took away the things that I wanted the most in order to give me what I needed the most: himself.

Our daughter, Piper Anna, was born on June 28, 2013.  I did not give birth to her in the traditional way.  We adopted our baby girl through an agency here in Oklahoma City.  This is not the way I had imagined my story of rescue ending.  It's better.

Through adoption, I have already seen grace in so many ways that I wouldn't have been able to otherwise.  A huge way is through our many friends and family members.  Adoption is not a cheap or an easy process, yet, because of our community, we have never felt more loved or supported.  I see birth parents differently.  Piper's other mom and dad are true heroes in my book, and I hope that one day our daughter knows how blessed she is to have four parents who love her instead of just two.  And ultimately, as you've probably heard before, adoption is a beautiful picture of what God has done for us as his children. It is incomprehensible to me that, before the foundations of the earth, He chose me to be a part of his family, too, even though there is nothing good in me.  Because of adoption, I feel like I am understanding the vastness of God's love for the first time in my life.

After meeting the birth parents of our daughter, our case worker told us something.  Baby Girl's birth father had a dad who was absent for most of his life.  What Conner does remember of his dad is that he was a very harsh man and a hypocritical Christian.  As you can imagine, Conner's heart has been hardened from years of the misrepresentation of Christianity that he received from his mostly absent father.  As Conner walked out the doors of the agency after meeting us that day, he gave our case worker a huge hug and whispered in her ear, "God knew."      

God knew.  On Conner's end and especially on mine, God has known all along.  Here I stand, two-and-a-half years after my original plan to have children, and my hands are empty of everything I held before.  Nothing is at all how I had predicted, and yet I'm so thankful for this beautiful story by the Author who knows what is best for me.  In the end, I have learned that the perfect job, the perfect church (which, by the way, doesn't exist), and all of the perfect biological or adopted children in the world will not bring me true happiness, because that is always and only found in Christ.  When I look at Piper, I realize that I am finally free.  But the precious gift of my daughter is not my freedom- He is.

"You can have all this world, but give me Jesus."

Rain.

(This post was originally written for my church's blog.  You can find that here.)

It's Wednesday morning, and I'm listening to the rain pour from our rooftop for the third day in a row.  Once again, I've missed my small window of opportunity for an early run, but since a July thunderstorm in Oklahoma is always preferable to the heat, I'm not upset.  The dishes are done, the laundry is washed and folded, lesson plans for tutoring are finished, and my daughter is asleep in her swing.  So I curl up on the couch to listen to the steady rhythm of the drops pitter-pattering on the glass windows, and I thank God for the rain.

When my husband and I first got married four years ago, he prayed for hardships.  He didn't do so because he is glutton for punishment, but because he knew that trials would make us stronger in our faith and in our marriage.  I always hated those prayers, partly because I like my life to be easy, but also because I knew that God would hear my husband...and He would answer.

He did answer, and not at all in the way I wanted.  Had my husband realized what the future held for us as he prayed, he might not have asked for the trials.  We've shed so many tears together in the last three years as we have endured tough jobs, the death of loved ones, and infertility.  The rain has fallen in torrents, and we both have come to the end of ourselves.

I think that's what God intended for us all along- to reach the place where we died, along with our naive hopes and selfish plans, and He was all that was left.

You see, we all forget God on the sunny days.  We expect the sun to rise every morning, yet we fail to thank Him that it does.  When all is well and our lives are filled with blessings, our thoughts begin to turn into, "Look what I've done" and "Everything is going exactly according to my plan."  Then Jesus, in his kindness, sends the rain to remind us that our life is not our own but His.

For the past two days, after the rain has subsided, a rainbow has shone brightly in the sky.  I see it faintly again this morning, and I am reminded of the simple truth that rainbows only come after the rain.  Rain brings the beauty of a rainbow into existence.  Today, as I look at my adopted daughter and work at a job that I love, I am reminded that those things are even more beautiful because of the many days when the sun did not shine.  I've prayed for prosperity, but because He loves me, God sent hardships.  "His blessings have come through raindrops and His healing through tears."  And finally, I'm thankful for that.  He has not let me forget Him.

"The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit." -Psalm 34:18

I got married young.

Today is my fourth wedding anniversary.  Here in Oklahoma and where I'm from in Texas, marrying young really isn't that unusual.  But when I meet people from out-of-state and tell them how long I've been hitched, I get bewildered looks.  "Wow, were you like, 12, when you got married?!"  (It probably doesn't help that I'm 25 and I still look like I'm in high school.)  "Ugh, don't you feel so tied down?"  Some people don't even try to put it delicately.  "I'm sorry, but that is just too young."

Everyone seems to have an opinion about what age is too young for marriage.  I don't think there is a right or wrong age.  (Sometimes 18-year-olds are more mature than 30-year-olds.)  I'm pro-marriage in general, so whether you're young or old, I say go for it. I had just turned 21 when I walked the aisle, and my now-husband was 23.  For us, those were the perfect ages.

We didn't rush into our marriage.  We had dated for three years, and we just knew the time was right.  I'd like to offer a few reasons why, for us, marrying young was the best thing we could have done.

1.  Sex.  In light of our culture today, I realize that our decision to save sex for marriage is rare and probably weird to many, but it was important to us.  And let's be honest, three years is a long stinkin' time to wait for sex.  The solution?  Get married and have as much sex as we wanted.

2.  We knew that we would never really be ready.  There are always more goals to accomplish, more places to travel, and more items to cross off the bucket list.  If we waited until the "right time" to get married, we probably never would have.  There is no "right time."  We didn't throw caution to the wind, but we also knew that we couldn't delay our decision until our uncertainty was 100 percent gone, because that day would never come.

3.  Our commitment to love each other, regardless of the situation, has held us together.  When we were dating, we always had the choice to break up if things weren't going well (and we almost did on multiple occasions!).  Now that we are married and divorce is not an option, we can do nothing but work through trials, arguments, and annoyances.  Because we promised to love, we deal with circumstances as they come instead of allowing those circumstances to break us.

4.  We could have spent forever searching for the perfect person and never found him or her.  I am not naive enough to believe that I am the perfect wife for my husband, and neither is he the perfect husband for me.  We are both seriously flawed.  We fight.  We make each other angry.  He leaves his dirty clothes on the dresser.  I get my shave gel all over the shower.  He doesn't wash his dishes after lunch.  I eat the last piece of cake without asking.  He farts too much.  I fart too much.  Another man might not annoy me in the same ways, but he would annoy me nonetheless.  I didn't marry Andrew because he is the perfect man for me; Andrew is the perfect man for me because I married him.

5.  We do more fun things because we are married, not less.  "Life as we knew it" didn't end when we said "I do;" it truly was just beginning.  We are bumps on logs without each other.  Living together allows us to open up our home to others more often.  Having combined incomes lets us travel more.  We never have to worry about finding dates to weddings, parties, etc.  We shoot guns, see movies, play board games, watch car races, go hiking, run marathons, attend concerts and sporting events, look at Christmas lights, work at camps, hang out at the zoo, and the list goes on.  We do those things because they are more fun with a best friend than alone.  I would never hike in the Wichita Mountains without my guy blazing the trails and warning me about rattlesnakes.

6.  Burdens are cut in half when someone shares them with you.  The last four years have not been without heartache, but Andrew has helped me through everything.  He cannot remove the circumstances, but he can listen and encourage me during them.  My first year of teaching, surgeries, and loss of loved ones have all been easier because my husband has carried part of the load.

7.  We have become more independent because we are married.  This seems counter-intuitive, but hear me out.  There is nothing wrong with living with one's parents or with having roommates, but being married has allowed us to make more decisions on our own than if we had continued with our separate living situations.  "With great power comes great responsibility," but I actually enjoy being able to pay our own bills, own a home, have separate health insurance from my parents, and plan our meals.  We are our own separate family unit, and we wouldn't have it another way.

8.  I'm not the first person to say this, but we get to grow old together and grow up together.  We spent our first year of marriage in a dumpy duplex that backed up to a high school parking lot, we drove an old car with a huge dent in the side, I was still finishing school, and we budgeted like crazy just to make ends meet.  But we were happy.  I guess what I'm trying to say is this: Marriage doesn't require a huge savings account, perfect jobs, or a fancy house.  It requires two people who are committed to making it work.  Our story may look much different in twenty years, but the main characters will always be the same.

I got married at 21, and I have no regrets.  

    

Update

I tweeted about this a few days ago, but considering the fact that my Twitter account literally has 12 followers, I'm guessing you're not one of the lucky few who read it.

"If you need a little excitement in your life, just decide to adopt.  I promise you'll never be bored."

That has been my story over the past few weeks.  I've experienced just about every emotion under the sun, but boredom certainly hasn't been one of them.

The most consistent emotions have been anticipation and happiness.  I've been praying to be a mom for well over two years, and it's finally going to happen.  Having friends and family who are enthusiastic has made me look forward to this occasion even more. 

Another consistent emotion has been love.  There was a point in time, about a week ago, when I was fairly convinced that the adoption was going to disrupt.  Birth Mom was supposed to meet with our case worker, and she didn't show up.  Our case worker couldn't get in contact with her for days.  I felt sick.  (Thankfully, everything is fine.)  In those unsettling few days, I realized for the first time how much I already love our child.   

I've also been scared.  Birth Mom can still change her mind.  Yikes.

I've felt selfish.  I don't like giving up my sleep for any reason, and I will miss being able to basically do whatever I want, whenever I want to do it.  The days of being "young and wild and free" will soon be over.  Small prices to pay for a new family member, I know.

Every day, I am heartbroken for Birth Mom.  Her life story is tragic, and I don't think she has even gone through the worst of it yet.  I think about her as she is going to her doctor's appointments, feeling our baby kick inside her stomach, and working all kinds of crazy hours.  I think about her achy back and swelling feet, and I cry because I can't imagine enduring all of that to not only make her baby's life better, but ours, too.  I've never prayed for a single person so much in my life.  

I've felt guilty.  We get to be in the delivery room when Baby is born.  I was initially overjoyed when we found out about this, but I immediately started thinking about the implications of it.  While Birth Mom experiences the most excruciating pain of her life in labor and then does the hardest thing she will ever have to do by handing Baby over to us, I'll be in zero pain, looking into the eyes of the greatest blessing we could possibly receive.  When I told a friend that I would probably feel a huge wave of guilt as I hold our baby for the first time, she just said, "Then don't.  Guilt is a waste of your time.  You haven't done anything wrong."  Those were some of the most helpful words I have heard in awhile.

I've felt sad.  As overjoyed as I am to get to bring home this child, a big part of me still hopes that we will be able to have biological children one day.  Last week, we got back the final results from a surgery that took place a year ago.  (The doctor told us that re-testing a year after the operation would yield the most realistic view of our future.  If you're wondering about this part of our story, just private message me.  I don't mind talking about it- just not on the blog.)  Nothing has changed; our chances of conceiving naturally are still slim to none.  I burst into tears when the nurse called.  And then I immediately felt guilty again for being upset.  (Gotta remember that thing about guilt being a waste of time!).  Here's the thing: The sadness doesn't at all take away from my joy in getting to bring home a baby soon.  But the Facebook pregnancy announcements and biological baby showers will probably always poke at my heart, at least just a little.  It's no one's fault; that's just how it is.  I think that the desire to reproduce is inherent in almost every woman, so I am sure that while I'll be the happiest adoptive momma and all of our children will be loved equally, a sense of loss will always be present.

In the midst of all of these emotions, though, I have felt an overwhelming sense of peace.  If you know me at all, you know that I stress out about, well, mostly everything.  But I'm not stressing out about this.  On my wedding day, I was the calmest I have ever been in my life.  I knew that everything else could go wrong, and I would still be married at the end of the day.  I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that spending forever with him was the right thing.  Today I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this adoption is absolutely the right thing.  "It is well with my soul."

It is at about this time in a woman's pregnancy when she starts posting "baby bump" pictures.  This is how a baby bump looks when you're adopting.  Laugh or be confused or think I'm ridiculous; I'm really not sure which to do either.  :) 

Bursting at the seams.

My blog has been silent for awhile, in part because I stopped blogging for the company with whom I have been working for the past few months.  The extra money was great, but I'm a big believer in writing from your heart instead of writing about topics which don't interest you at all (which was the case in about 90% of the blogs I had to compose).  That's one reason.

The other reason why I haven't been blogging as much lately is because there is so much in regards to the adoption that we are not allowed to post on social media.  I'm going crazy over here.  I process everything through the words that I write.  So, I'm going to attempt to catch you up to speed on this unpredictable life without revealing anything about the baby's or birth parents' identity.  Ugh.

We are just waiting for Baby to come home.  I can't tell you when it will be here or what the gender is, although I can tell you if you ask me directly.  (In that case, you'll probably wish you hadn't asked because then I won't stop talking about it.)

***

I got the phone call that we had been chosen while I was at work one day.  Oddly, the whole situation went down exactly as I had envisioned it, yet I was still so shocked that I could hardly speak.  I remember the secretary at the front desk telling me that I had a phone call and realizing, about halfway through the conversation, what was occurring on the other end of the line.  She looked at me while I was still on the phone and then shouted to the rest of the office, "It's happening!"  Fellow teachers gathered around as I made a few more mumbled comments to our case worker.  I hung up the phone and promptly burst into tears (happy ones, of course).  My friends were in tears, too, because they have watched this journey from start to finish.  After hugs all around, people started to ask, "Is it a boy or a girl?"  I was so dumbfounded that I had forgotten to check.

In the weeks since that surreal day, we have met Baby's birth parents.  I can't disclose much more about that except that they are incredible people.  I would like to say that if I was put in their situation, I would make the same selfless choice that they are making, but I'm not sure that I would.  Abortion absolutely has its ramifications on a woman's body (emotionally and physically), but I think it is, in some ways, an easier choice. It's easier than throwing up all day every day for the first five months of a pregnancy, easier than carrying a baby for nine months and then looking it in the eye only to say goodbye when it is born, easier than knowing, for the rest of your life, that the child you birthed is calling someone else "Mommy."  I know that lots of people will disagree with me on all of that (and I pray that I don't sound demeaning to anyone reading this who has had an abortion).  I didn't really understand it either until I met these people and realized that adoption is not a choice that they made once and then it was over.  This is a choice that they're having to make again and again when they wake up every morning.  That kind of decision requires a degree of strength that I can't comprehend because I'm not sure that I possess it.

I hate the terms "accidental" and "mistake" when referring to unplanned pregnancies.  I also hate when others look at people like us, who are currently unable to give birth to biological children, and say things like, "Oh, how unfortunate."  None of this has been a mistake, and we are certainly not unfortunate (although those have not been my thoughts from the beginning).  Adoption is a beautiful example of God taking all of the seemingly broken pieces of two separate puzzles and fitting them together to create one perfect picture of grace.  There are some days when I still can't believe that this story is happening to us, and those are the days when I realize that I've never been so thankful for having all of my plans dumped upside down.

A reflection on the past year (or really the last three)

I've had this countdown in our kitchen since there were 25 days of school left, but it is mostly there because I am so excited about sleeping and not working 55+ hours per week.  There are days when I can't wait to erase the "1" on the board and change it to a big zero.  As the time has ticked away, though, a huge part of me has dreaded "the end" and saying goodbye.

I say "the end" because this is the end of my public school teaching career for awhile.  I am taking a leave of absence and instead of being a full-time special education teacher for our local district next year, I'll be teaching half-day Pre-K at a private school.  I'm looking forward to my new job, but I have felt a calling toward public schools, special education, and "being a teacher" (AKA pouring every moment of my time and every ounce of energy into my work) for so long that I feel somewhat lost in knowing how to define myself now.

The decision about next year's job was an incredibly difficult one, but in light of having a new baby on the way, I had to make the best choice for our little family.  I'm such a planner.  I literally had sat down and made a list of pros and cons for every job option, weighing each of them heavily and slowly eliminating the ones that didn't seem practical.  In the midst of my list-making and realism, my husband stopped me one night and asked, "But what do you want to do?"

I didn't know.

What I really wanted was this: To be a full-time teacher and a full-time momma and be the best there is at both of those and love both of them and never get tired of either.  (I'm tired just wrapping my head around all of that as I write!)  God bless you moms of babies and toddlers who continue teaching well and somehow manage to raise wonderful children; I don't know how you do it.

People often look at teachers and think that we have the easiest job.  Summers off?  Leaving work at 3:00 every day?  Reading the newspaper behind a desk?  To all of that, here's what I have to say: Classrooms and lesson plans don't magically appear, ready to go, on the first day of school.  I can count on two hands the number of times I have left work at 3:00.  And sitting behind a desk reading for pleasure?  Please.  I barely have time to go to the bathroom.  

During my first year of teaching, my hair fell out, I threw up on Sunday nights at the thought of returning to work on Monday, and I was skinnier than I've ever been.  Rock bottom was when my husband came up to visit me at lunch one day and found me eating in a dark, tiny closet next to my room because it was the only place and the only time during the day when, for just ten minutes, I could hear myself think.  When Spring Break came, my aide and I went dancing down the halls, thrilled for a short break.  But when May 25th, this date that we had been anticipating since December, finally appeared, I hugged my last student tightly as he got on the bus...and then I put my head down on a table in my classroom and bawled.

Part of that was just an emotional release that I had held inside all year.  I think that most of it, though, was realizing that what I did day in and day out mattered, and that, amid the paperwork and temper tantrums, I was immensely blessed to be a teacher.  I loved those kids, and, as much as we had gone head to head about computer time or spelling words, I would miss them and would do all of it again in a heartbeat.

There are little victories that I see when no one else does, and there are a few words that can change everything.  These are the moments when I've stopped and thanked God for sending the small blessings which keep every teacher going.

Twice this year, I hugged my students a little tighter and truly understood the significance of my job.  Once was following the Sandy Hook shooting; the other was this past week as the tornado just down the road obliterated two elementary schools.  On the news, teachers have been called "heroes" in these circumstances, and they should certainly be recognized for saving their students' lives.  But really, we are all just doing our job.  And there's no other way we would have it.  

I've had so many other "lasts" this week, but the final one is here- the last day of school.  We'll play games, have a picnic, sign yearbooks, and give big hugs.  I'll wish them all a happy summer, and they'll run out the doors with huge grins on their faces.  I'll have a huge grin on my face, too, but I'll also have tears in my eyes- tears because I have come to love my students beyond what I ever thought I could, and because I feel so very thankful for this beautiful life that I've been given the past three years.

"This is still the place that we all call home."

I'm supposed to be writing for the other blog on which I am a guest blogger, but all I can think about is Moore, Oklahoma.

***

We had all of our students in the designated "safe rooms" as the sirens started going off outside.  No matter how many times we conduct tornado drills at school, no one is ever prepared for the real thing.  Students were in tears, heads buried in their teachers' stomachs.  Parents frantically tried to check out their children and beat the storm home.  In the safe rooms, teachers read books aloud to ears that were only moderately listening.

After an hour or so, the teachers ran out of tricks, and the storm ran out of strength.  It had just missed us by about three miles.  I work on the north end of Norman, and the tornado was, at one point, forecasted to run straight down our road.  As parents walked their children out the doors and to the safety of their homes, I noticed everyone holding their loved ones a little closer.  Meanwhile, I worried about our own little one, who lives inside of Birth Mom's belly somewhere in the OKC area.  In the words of my friend, Katherine, "I'm sure this is just the start of a lifetime of worrying about your little ones."  (Baby and Birth Mom are fine, by the way.)

I came home to a house without power, Internet, and cable, so I didn't fully understand the devastation that had occurred just north of us until I saw pictures hours later...and slowly started receiving those sickening text messages from friends:

"We are fine.  House is gone."

***

Then, suddenly, it didn't matter that the laundry wasn't folded, that I had missed my workout, and that there were dishes piled in the sink.  It didn't even matter that my husband's car had gotten slammed with golf-ball-sized hail in the storm while he was at work.  In that moment, I was simultaneously thankful beyond measure and infinitely heartbroken.  Tragedies truly have a way of putting "the urgent" in perspective.

I can't imagine what it must be like to have every conceivable blessing in one moment and have it all taken away in the next.  I felt guilty for going on with my normal life today when, just a couple of miles away, so many couldn't.  Tornadoes are part of ordinary life in Oklahoma during the springtime, but no one ever expects this.  The news reporters said over and over, "This is the worst case scenario."  

In viewing the rubble and utter destruction over the past day, I have been reduced to tears at times.  Even so, I have never been prouder to be an Oklahoman.

I was born in Texas but came here seven years ago to begin college at the University of Oklahoma.  This place is my home now, and I can honestly say that in all my life, I have never met kinder Americans than the ones who live here.

Every state has its faults, but Oklahoma is still defined by people who say "Yes ma'am," who understand hospitality, who recite the Pledge of Allegiance in school and who, most importantly, help each other in times of need.

I remember going to New Orleans about two years after Hurricane Katrina hit.  The lower ninth ward still looked, in places, as though it hadn't been touched.  Everyone had taken care of themselves and left.  The cleanup here will take months, I am sure, but not for lack of effort by local people stepping up to contribute.  Target was picked clean of diapers and bottled water today because so many people had already bought those supplies to donate.  The Red Cross had to turn away volunteers from three different sessions.  Our gym's weight room was filled with truckloads of items to be taken to the local shelter.

Everyone is doing something.  That's just how Oklahomans are.  When tragedy strikes, people step in.

I'll close with this story that I heard from a friend:

A woman and her husband huddled in a closet with their three babies as the tornado drew closer and closer to their house.  They cried, panicked, and prayed to Jesus as loud as they could to save them.  When the storm had passed, all five family members walked out of the only room still standing in the house, without a scratch.  Beams had pierced through the walls of the closet and all.  The only thing left on a wall?  A cross that says, "Faith."  

At the end of the day, after all of the volunteers have left and the donations have dwindled, that is all we have to hold us together.