Never draw inside the lines.

In a conversation once with a friend, I blurted out how smart I thought my dad was, and how I wanted to be like him.  My friend inquired about what I meant, and I responded by telling him about my father, and the qualities that he has that make me admire him and aspire to be like him.  My dad is a very hard worker.  There is not a lazy bone in him.  The only time I have ever seen my dad sitting or lying down are times when he is resting.  Resting, not being lazy.  He is also very knowledgeable about everything across the board.  And if he is not knowledgeable about something and the concept grows to be something he might need to know, he will find sources to read and learn all about it until there is nothing he doesn't know about the subject.  I always feel confident when asking my dad a question that he will know the answer.

My dad is also a dreamer and a provider.  My mom said once that my dad had "vision".  That word always stuck with me since she said it, and looking back on my years growing up, it's very clear that my dad always had vision.  He is a business man and he runs all of his own businesses.  He was always dreaming and envisioning ideas of more things he could start up to accumulate more income for our family.  His dreaming and his provision went hand in hand.

Over the past (long) weekend, Jess and I flew up to Wyoming to visit Matt Huck.  Throughout our visit, Jess and I were constantly discovering how knowledgeable Matt is.  He taught us all about the economy of Wyoming and how it compares to Louisiana and other states; he taught us all about the effects of high altitude and how high and low altitudes affect your body and also the functions of everyday things.  We were always learning and he never made us feel stupid for not knowing these things.

We were also impressed with the vast tools, equipment, and supplies that Matt had invested in for camping and hiking.  Matt is a lover of nature and also adventure.  As a product of his hard work, he is able to invest in awesome-quality supplies to fulfill his backpacking and camping needs.  Matt is also very knowledgeable about all thing camping and backpacking related.  Every purchase he makes towards camping is wise and ensures his safety, all the while allows him to do all the high-risk adventuring he wants.

These are two people in my life that have my utmost admiration and respect, and both are due to their hard work and the way they are so learned about important things.  They both also have this certain spark, whether it's dreaming, envisioning, or adventuring.  The qualities that I admire in both of these people caused me to think about other things, like how I should surround myself with more people who possess these qualities, or how I should strive to have these qualities myself. 

No purpose to play.

I hate attention when it comes to music.  I really don’t prefer to be the center of attention in general, but especially pertaining to music.

While getting dressed this morning, my goal was to just throw something on to get out of the house as quickly as possible.  I sifted through some t-shirts and pulled out an old band t-shirt from probably my freshman or sophomore year of high school.  After putting it on, I began to reminisce about high school band and how much I enjoyed it.  I often get a surprised reaction when people find out I was in band in high school.  I was involved in band from the 6^th grade until my junior year.  My senior year, I just felt like I wasn’t supposed to be a part of the band anymore, so I stepped out of it.  This choice wasn’t easy.  During football season, I would still go to the games and sit in the stands with the band, and cry every time they went out onto the field at halftime.  Even though I wasn’t a part anymore, I was still so proud of them and I still loved everything about my experience in band.

I know God had planned for me not to be in band my senior year.  During this time, my time was more focused on piano (outside of band).  I had been in lessons since I was 7, and all my teachers always pushed me to go to competitions and festivals, etc.

My experience in performing music was never for leisure or just to play.  In band, I was always in a group so my clarinet was heard as part of the whole sound.  You couldn’t distinguish what I was playing from anyone else.  And also, I never played my clarinet outside of band performances or practice.  It wasn’t something fun for me to do just on my own.  In piano, I was always practicing for competitions, or just practicing to try to get to the next level of books.  My experience in playing the piano was really never for leisure or fun either.  Every once in a while I would come across a song or sheet music that I wanted to learn just to be able to play it, but I always had so many other things to learn that it seemed like a waste of time to learn something just for “fun”. 

I never had any trouble playing the piano in front of a set of judges or in front of a congregation at church.  But something that always bothered me was playing in front of friends or family or a small group of people.  When there was a piano in the room and people knew that I played, they would beg me to play something. “Just play something! Anything! It doesn’t matter, we just want to hear you play!”  I always refused.  I still will refuse.  Playing music without purpose or “just for fun” is something that is kind of lost to me.  It makes sense in my head to play for a football game, or for a competition, or for worship.  But playing just to play is hard for me to wrap my mind around, and makes me really uncomfortable. 

I have barely touched a piano since I was on the worship team at XA my sophomore year.  With no purpose to play, I just don’t play.  It is a complete shame that my musical life is so dry after so many years of investment in music.  I don’t know if I will ever have a change of mind in how I feel about performing, or if there will ever be opportunity again for purpose to play.  I have prayed for a long time that my musicality will not go to waste, and I’m still waiting for God to reveal more to me about that. 

A DIY project Johnna Thibodeaux would be proud of

I absolutely love DIY.  Moving into a new house has definitely enhanced that love and made it an obsession.  Pinterest.com has also reeled me in to the wonderfulness of doing things yourself.

I think I love DIY so much because I'm very cheap and love to be resourceful.  I keep a lot of things that I know I can use again, and I love giving older, unused things a new life.  Usually I don't have much reason or time for a big project, but now that summer school is out and I also need furniture for the house, my mom and I adventured with this challenge!

First, we took two beds from my grandparents' house that my mom and her sisters used when they were young.  The pictures will show only one of the beds, but we did both of them exactly the same.  This is the original headboard.

Second, we used a chemical called Zar Paint and Varnish remover to remove the varnish from the headboard.  Using a paintbrush, we painted the chemical all over the headboard, let it sit for about 10 minutes, and then used a scraping tool to scrape off all the varnish.  The result is the original wood.  We also removed the sliding doors to give the headboard a more open look.

Next, I simply primed the wood with Kiltz like you would when painting anything else.  I let it dry for abut 2 hours. 

 

Finally, I painted the headboard this light peach color!  It came out super adorable.  We redid the foot boards with the same process.  Natalie and I will both have one of these twin sized beds in our room.  It worked out that we had two of the same bed, since we will be sharing a room.

  

I'm super excited to put both of these in our room!  My mom and I also stained a kitchen table black that was once wood.  I didn't take picture of the step by step process but I will post a picture of the final product.  I look forward to endeavoring with other DIY projects, such as making hemp lantern lamps and anything else that sparks my interest! :)

His hands and feet

A few weeks ago, I asked joint lifegroup to pray for my home church in Lake Arthur.  They have been struggling for many years, especially since my generation of youth have graduated and moved away. 

Last month, my mom took a group of girls from the community to camp.  They went to Student Life Camp in Ruston, LA at Louisiana Tech, where I also went to camp at their age.  My mom came home with awesome stories about how these girls grew to know Jesus deeper, had salvation experiences, and even received visions and prophesies about the town and for each other.  My mom told me how on fire these girls are for God, and how they longed to be His hands and feet for the community. 

Today, I got to experience the amazingness of these girls for myself.  I spent the 4^th of July weekend in Lake Arthur, so today I was still here for the first day of my church’s annual Vacation Bible School.  Not many adults volunteered to help with the program (which has been one of the struggles in my church for many years), but this group of girls not only volunteered to help, but completely seized the opportunity and blew it out of the water.

My mom has been the director of VBS for the past 20 years and she says that this group of girls is the best VBS volunteers she has ever seen.  The girls blew my mind every second I was in their presence.  They were completely immersed in what they were doing, interacted with the children, and had so much genuine energy to give to this cause. 

I truly saw them as His hands and feet. 

My job for the day was to take pictures, which would normally require me to make rounds around the church and take pictures of all the different activities and age groups.  However, I found myself drawn to stay at the music station for the majority of the way.  The girls in charge of the music weren’t just doing the motions for the sake of doing the motions.  They were really WORSHIPPING.  With every age group that rotated in, the girls gave all they had to the children and also to God.  It was so amazing to see this in my home church.

I thank God so much for giving me the opportunity to see these girls in action.  I thank God for placing the girls in a struggling church and a fallen community.  I pray that these girls will be His hands and feet with their peers, at school, and to the ends of the earth.  They truly inspired me to be His hands and feet.  I know God has placed these girls together for them to make a difference where they are.

Girls, thank you for following God’s direction in your lives.  Thank you for submitting to His callings for all of you.  Watching you all today made my heart so happy.