connecting the puzzle pieces...

"Grace Winter. Gulf Coast Community Care. Go ahead and contact Sue Turnbeau regarding pursuing your senior internship there." 

           Ahhhhh! I received my 450 hour internship placement for my last semester of my undergraduate studies NEXT SEMESTER!!!!!! cant believe its almost done! When my professor was handing out little slips of paper with our placements, i was so nervous and excited. When i read what was on the paper, i threw my hands up in pure release of anxiety. I think i let go of the deepest of deep breathes i could have mustered.

         The easiest way to explain Gulf Coast Community Care is to say that they are basically DCF (Department of Children and Families). They do foster care, adoptions, home visits, court visits, groups, interventions, ect. They serve in many different areas and I am eager to learn the field from the front lines and getting experience in so many areas. They are based in Mulberry and serve Polk, Hardee, and Highlands counties.

          The interesting thing is that my first semester at SEU, one of my classes required i do a 40 hr field observation where i had to shadow in an agency and it was Gulf Coast! When the semester was over, my supervisor said, "So, youre coming back for your senior internship, right?!" I laughed and replied with a "we'll see". 

          Now, here we are, a year a half later and im going back for my senior internship! i cant believe it! I am majority thanking the Lord for what he has done by setting my path in front of me from the very beginning and guiding me every step of the way. And now, of course, my mind cant help but fast forward and want to plan everything in my life for the next year (at least) from marriage to a job to where i'll live and grad school. I can't help but hope that ill get offered a job when its all said and done. But hey, the Lord is faithful and i choose to trust. I have to...if not ill go even crazier than i feel that i already am...

          

                                             taking a moment to celebrate in the midst of complete solicitude,

                                                                                                               the human grace.

Warrior Dash!

hate is great.

hate is great. it is mighty and powerful. it can destroy families and nations...it can even kill. hate is fueled by many different pumps but the results still destroy. however when i survey the damage that hate has caused, i know that love is more powerful than hate. and if hate has the power to kill, than i know that love is stronger than death. and if love can conquer the death that hate causes, than i choose to love. and not just to be nice and pass it off for love, but a strong, abandoned love that is stronger then the jaws of death that hate throws us to. i will walk the way of the one who loves me and shows me the way to love. I choose the way of sacrifice. sacrificial love that saved me i choose to love others that they may be saved from the death that seems stronger than the love that they may have never encountered. love worth encountering. love worth sacrificing for. love worth dying for. love worth living for.

-written two years ago.

here goes somethin'...

       The thought of a blog has always lingered in my mind, but the action behind those thoughts have lingered even farther behind. When i was younger i kept so many journals i could have started my own little library; however, about two years ago i just kinda...stopped. In the midst of my non-journaling, i managed to notice, much to my encouragement, that those around me were beginning to journal. i realized that three years in a row, i had inspired one person a year to start journalling. And from this discovery, i thought, that if i could inspire one person a year to journal, and those people inspired others from their own inspiration, how many people have been inspired and enjoyed the pleasure of life just a little bit more because of the great trickle effect of inspiration.
     
And so here i am at the beginning of this blogging journey that went a little something like this: I was sitting and bouncing some thoughts off a very dear friend of mine, a friend who is a constant well spring of great quotes, thoughts, and inspirational conversations, and at the conclusion she affirmed me of my thoughts and my pursuit for answers even though those endeavors will assuredly produce only more questions. She also encouraged me to type these thoughts on a word document to record these thoughts and get them out in front of me. Ill do her one better...ill start a blog. She said something to the effect that the thoughts that we have need to be shared...and i agree with her. We all have a striking similarity...we are extremely and flawfully humans. We have incredible needs for interactions and inspirations and the thoughts we have are crucial to those things that connect us with those around us. However, we keep our mouths shut due to embarrassingly uncountable, unspoken, and body freezing fear of ______, _________, and ___________.

You are human. and your words deserve to be heard, but more importantly, those around you need to be listened to. Share. Listen. even when you think you need to rush... slow down. breathe. grasp the moments and slow them down by being present in the moment. because you are a human. and they are a human. an individual human. and that individual human is doing some form of looking, searching, and asking questions, and one day, without even knowing it, you may be that human that causes them to halt their schedule of daily zombie routines and remember that that person, indeed, is a human...and its ok to smile, cry, laugh, yell, and to be. an incredible human.

Thank you to all those who have, will, and continue to constantly inspire a simple human like myself. Much gratitude for reading and i hope that the cycle of inspiration continues to roll.

continuing to be inspired,
human Grace.