Why Hello There

Lily Rose McGowen

Born June 28, 2011

6 lbs | 7 ozs | 20 inches

Today God blessed this world with a beautiful, healthy baby girl. Lily is the daughter, niece and granddaughter to some very dear friends. I can't praise the Father enough for Lily. She and her family are very special to me, but Lily is a little more.

A few months ago the preschool ministry began something called prayer partners. People who wanted to become a prayer partner were randomly placed with a family who are expecting. I signed up, knowing who I wanted, but excited to see who God placed me with. About a week later I got my envelope and read the names of my dear friends, the McGowen's. I thought it was so amazing that God gave me them to pray for and that I wanted them before I even knew who I had been placed with.

I've spent the last few months praying very specifically and consistently for Lily, her parents and her brother. Praise you, Father. You deserve all the glory and I am excited to see this little baby grow up to love and know her Father above.

Heavy Heart [2]

Whenever I seem to be stressed, heavy hearted, or tired of this world, I find myself missing this place almost more than I can bare.

I miss these faces.

I miss the beauty of simplicity of that place.

My heart aches for the love, heart and compassion you have.

La Represa, you forever have my heart,

and I miss you so much.

Mi Amigo

 I want to tell you a story. I've got to take you back to last summer. I was home from my first trip to the Dominican and my angst in waiting to go on another trip was almost more than I could handle. You can go back and read here about my feelings for the Dominican. I got the chance to go back and words cannot describe the happiness I felt. I got the information and attended a meeting and found out that it was the high school trip for the year. I was okay with that and was excited to serve alongside some people I didn't know. While on the trip, I met this guy:

Michael Clark.

All I had known about him before the trip was nothing that had me interested in being his friend. I thought he was young and that we nothing in common. After the first day back in my favorite place, something clicked with us. He came over to me while I was crying and told me that he knew how I felt and that I needed to stop...in a kind way, because even though he would never admit it, he would probably cry, too. 

We spent seven amazing, humbling, breathtaking days in La Represa. We talked about our shared love for that place, the people and how we both never wanted to leave. As the days went by, God showed me a new side of Michael. I saw a tender, God-glorying side that showed me the connection that we share for loving on people just as they are and sharing the love of Christ with them. 

Michael is an amazing person and although I am beyond envy, I am sharing this story to ask you to pray for him. He left a couple of days ago for the Dominican and is spending 6 weeks..yes, 6 weeks down there. I can feel the jealousy rise as I type, but I could not be more excited for him and for what God's doing in his life. So please pray for my dear friend. Pray for the groups he will work with as he is serving. Pray for the people in the communities as their lives are touched by Christ-followers and the Word of God. Pray that Christ is made big. I know that Michael is going to do great things while he is there. 

Especially if he teaches them how to play signs. 

And I can't wait to see my house he's building for me.

Name Change

As God has been changing me and working in my life I have come up with the thought of changing my blog name. It just seems like the right time.

 Avaeio meant 'Abbey' in greek. I loved it. I thought it was beautiful and unique. I thought it was perfect for my writings. I had blogged before and 'Abbey' just seemed so simple and underwhelming. I was in the middle of a lengthy journal entry the other night when I was just conversing with God and He told me that I shouldn't try to go out of my way to be different.

I am Abbey Grace. I am who He created me to be and I am who He says I am. I had gotten so drawn up in how I was looking to outsiders or people reading my posts that I forgot all that for a minute. I realized that something like a blog name is so insignificant that I shouldn't worry about it. And that's okay to be myself. Simple or complex, beautiful or ordinary, gifted or untalented, I am Abbey. So, abbeyghenley.blogspot it is.

I am proud of who I am and proud that I am who I am because of Christ.

Thank you for reading and please continue...hopefully the good stuff will keep coming!

Father's Day

Meet my Dad.

Timothy Henley.

He's a hard worker who has taught me a lot about work ethic.

He's strong and can do a lot of things I wish I could.

He's brave and takes care of my mom, brothers and I like a man should.

He's not perfect by any means but what means the most is that he tries.

He always has tried to provide for us as best he can.

He's always tried to be there for me when I've needed someone.

He's tried to be the best dad he possibly can.

I appreciate him more than he knows.

He is one cool dude.

 Dad, my prayer for you is that God captures your heart and chases after you like you chase after being the best dad you can become. I pray God shows you the value of what a godly father brings and that he grows you and shapes you into a child of God so that you can not only be my earthly father, but you can be my brother in Christ. It's the best thing you could ever do for your children and your wife.

I love you, Dad.

Happy Father's Day.

"I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”

 - 2 Corinthians 6:18

The Heart

This was my morning. I can't explain how God blessed my time this morning. It was a moment where everything I was hearing and reading in His Word hit me right where I needed it. I opened iTunes and looked through the recently added podcasts. I subscribe to many so there are always new ones coming up and no way I can see them all. I was looking through some new ones from Mars Hill and saw one titled the heart. I started listening and it felt like God was sitting across the table from me.

Before I get into why I chose that one, let me give you some insight to my life lately. I have many desires and things I am passionate about. A lot of things I desire are good and I believe that God gives us His desires for us. But then there are some desires that are completely sinful and conflicting with the desires of God. I've had a very hard time lately fighting against the ones that are not of God and choosing the lesser, the sinful desires rather than the desires of God within me that I am more passionate about.

When I saw the sermon titled The Heart, I didn't immediately think it was something I needed to hear. I was just moved to listen. Maybe that was God, maybe not, but either way I needed to hear it.

Mark Driscoll began to talk about the book of Proverbs and how the matter of the heart is very important to God. Jesus commands that "we love the Lord, our God, with all our heart" and that "those who are pure in heart are blessed for they shall see the Lord." He brought up two questions that opened my eyes to the topic of the heart. First, why do we sin? Romans 5:12-21 states we sin because of Adam and Eve, inheriting sin's nature and implications. Second, where is sin rooted? Sin is rooted in our heart. The heart is our center, and the essence of who we are. Proverbs 4:23 says, "keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flows the springs of life." Our heart is as a spring where life flows from. He continued to use the illustration of a spring flowing and began to talk about how we deal with the problem of sin coming from and being rooted in our heart.

All too often we try to fix the problem of sin or desiring sin with behavior modification. We try to change the problem and not change our heart; where the problem or the sin is rooted. It's like when someone realizes they eat too much. They see the problem, the sin, and instead of going to their heart to see why they do that, they go on a diet and stop eating too much. It seems like a fix, but what they've really done is exchange gluttony for pride. Modifying the behavior ultimately isn't the answer. We must go to the heart in order to change it.

Listening to this helped me to see that even though I am having these sinful desires that are my nature, I can change them by going to the source of it in my heart and seeing why and how to change it. It also gave me some insight into the heart that God gave me when I began following Him. The heart I have has a Lord, power, purpose, community and desires that all are from God. A heart that is in Christ is faithful, desires obedience, corrective, teachable, content, desires wisdom, cheerful, helpful, discerning, persuasive, humble, intelligent, beautiful and repents.

We all have deep desires and when God resides in our heart, we have desires. All too often we are told that desires are bad, but that's what religion says. Christ says that He will give you a new heart and new desires. Not only that, but He will also give us a passion to fulfill those desires. He also says we will have conflicting desires, but where we need to be different is seeing whether it's a desire of God for us. We need to begin to see where our sin is rooted and change our heart, not just revert the problem into another sin. Once we do that, we can see the desires that are from God and are deeper than the sinful ones and give them attention. Through that, our sinful nature desires are diminished. We've just got to get to the root. Get to the heart and work from there, for it's where life flows.

It's not that our passions are too strong,

 they are too weak 
and we are too easily pleased with lesser sinful desires

 rather than pursuing, with great passion, 

our greatest desires. 

-C.S. Lewis

Blue Chair

She sits there.

She wonders..waits...daydreams of what could be.

Or what was.

Or what is.

She waits to see what will happen. 

That blue chair holds her whole world.

The memories race through her thoughts.

She can't concentrate on one thing due to another.

Another emotion, fear or decision weighs on her heart.

"What do I do, Father?"

She repeats the question over and over.

But with much anticipation, there's no answer.

For now, she's in the checks and doesn't match the stripes.

She sits and she waits. 

She hopes and prays and doesn't let go...

...of what was,

what is,

or what could be.

Good Afternoon

 On Sunday afternoon my aunt asked if I could help paint some things for the women's ministry. I agreed and headed over, excited to dig into some art, but surprisingly found my cousin, Garrett, upset. I've written here about how sweet and dear of a child he is. He is sensitive and meek and loves everyone. He always wants a kiss and a hug. He is a sweetheart.

I tried to comfort him and got him to work on a masterpiece while I was working. He told me he was going to paint something from the west.

I was beginning the process of making wooden magnets, that also make great coasters. First step is to give them a basic coat of your base color. I painted both sides and the edge and gave them two coats.

He began working on the blue sky. According to him, this was the perfect shade of blue.

 My circles then got a perfectly pink flower and while still wet, I dabbed my finger in red and worked it in to the edges of each pedal for a color-blending effect.

Garrett began working on a boot. He is quite artistic and was very focused on the painting.

Once dry, the next step was giving the flowers a center. I like to add more than just a plain circle to give dimension and more real life effects. 

Garrett decided he was finally finished and as I taught him how to apply sealer, he also learned the best purpose for a hairdryer.

And... ta-da!!! The finished product titled: The West. He was so proud and seeing him enjoy something I love dearly made my day.

The circles got the final step of the word 'forgive' and a nice coat of sealer and were left to dry. I think the women at the luncheon loved these. They would brighten up any refrigerator. 

VBS | Big Apple Adventure [2]

This year's VBS held a lot of familiar things for me. I love the atmosphere of it. The kids, the crowds, the music...the chaos, the energy, the uniqueness...the stress, the work, and the reward. But this year God had a little surprise thrown in to the normal mix.

It was a different week because it's been my first as a staff member and not a volunteer. I wasn't spending the week being wonderfully smothered by children, but doing a lot of work and overseeing a lot of happenings. It's been something I knew came with the territory of my job and something I've been handling pretty well.

I was excited mid-week when we took the upcoming fifth graders (who will no longer be in our ministry after August) to Lanes, Trains and Automobiles. I was happily surprised to see that I was able to go and that a lot of my small group was going to be there. (Read more about them here). We all hopped on the bus and headed out.

It was nice to sit back and let them lead things for the afternoon. We went from laser tag, to bumper cars and then to bowling...which as you can see, was pretty interesting. But I didn't mind.

Our sweet little bowling game with 'normal' names shortly became this:

Not sure why mine never got changed. Hmm.

All in all we had a wonderful afternoon together, but I was exhausted. 

On Friday, I was hit with another surprise: graduation. I knew it was coming, but I guess God held my heart captive until He couldn't any longer. Because they're going into the youth next fall they spent their time at VBS with the youth. I knew they had a silly little graduation for them at the end of the week, but Friday morning my work load had decreased significantly and I saw people preparing them for graduation. I heard someone speak the words, "you are moving on from the children's ministry...", and my heart sank. In a moment I was overwhelmed with emotion, realizing what was happening. I tried to compose myself and get ready to be in there to support my girls...

But that's the thing. They are my girls. They've become my girls. I sat and wondered why I got so emotional, but that's why. God smacked my heart with this realization and I almost couldn't handle it. I made my way to the chapel and found a spot between my fellow mothers and my aunt.

One by one, their names were called and with tears rolling down my cheeks and my iPhone snapping picture after picture I screamed to the top of my lungs with pride for each and every single girl, dressed in their trash bag gown and paper plate hat.

 Just to give you an idea of how many pictures I took...

After it was over I found each and every one and took a picture with them. I am still in the process of letting God work on my heart and being able to trust him with what happens with our group and their lives individually. In that moment I was worried, but God showed me that He's got every single one of them wrapped up in His arms...right along with me. He gave me some peace and excitement of what's to come and I settled in enjoying the time God gives us together, whether it's a few more months or years to come. 

Because for now, there's still this gorgeous picture every single Sunday...

and I love, cherish, and adore every minute of it.

VBS | Big Apple Adventure [1]

Last week was our annual VBS at New Vision. A crazy theme, over 1,000 kids and about 300 workers for  one week...pure madness. Lots of work, planning, tiredness, and stress came down to this week and as crazy as it was, I loved every minute of it.

Every year I am excited to see what the theme is going to be. It's always a lot of fun and this year we went with this:

Big Apple Adventure! A week of connecting faith, love, trust and others with our life. Plus, it was centered around New York City. Who doesn't love that city? What was really cool is that all the offering that was given was sent to Gallery Church in NYC, to help promote what God is doing in their community. They offer many outreach programs and it's awesome to see how God is going to use the money for His glory.

I saw a different side of VBS this year, but overall, it was truly enjoyable and I loved it all. The music, the kids, everything...

"So faith comes from what is heard and what is heard 

comes from the message about Christ."

-Romans 10:17

Lifesaver

The past week was the longest I've had in a while. I talked to one of my best friends, whom I've wrote about before here, and she suggested a girls weekend to soothe the pain of hard work and being worn to the core.

After two days of the pool and a night out on the town to one of my favorites, Cabana, it was just what the doctor ordered:

Sleeping in.

Coming over with three or four bags.

Laying poolside until I can sweat no more.

Girl talk that can last for hours. 

Being late to dinner because of watching Sex in the City.

Three girls sharing one bathroom.

Laughing about everything and crying over anything.

They're my lifesavers.

Gift Bag No More

How many times have you gone shopping for a gift and in the shopping cart you placed a gift bag that costs more than you want to pay? How many of you buy the cheapest gift bag you can get away with buying? (That's me.) How many of you have a gift bag full of gift bags that will probably never be gifted again?

If you said yes to any of those questions, this post may be for you. I was recently shopping for a little boy's birthday gift. After finding the gift I wanted to purchase I went to get a card and a gift bag. I found a reasonable card and began looking through gift bags, in the hopes of only going one store. I looked for about ten minutes and the cheapest one I could find was $4. I just couldn't spend that on a small gift bag, so I got in line to check out, annoyed that I had to make another stop.

As I was in line, in front of me stood a rack with recyclable bags. The light bulb came on! Why not buy a reusable bag, that's cute and useful, and save money, too? I got this bag for $1.99.

It was just as cute as a gift bag, if not cuter, perfect for a boy and fit everything perfectly. It made me happy to give it and know that it won't be tucked away in a closet, broken or thrown away.

I later did some research on where to find more and found out that you can find practically any bag you want- any shape, size, color, pattern, print and price.

I found this adorable classic Dick and Jane print bag. It would be perfect for a baby shower or baby gift. You can check it and more out here.

I found another website called Baggu Bags, that creates all types of bags out of recycled cotton. You should look at them. They have so many that I quickly fell in love with. Especially anything in this green stripe.

I also found a lot of bags being made out of recycled goods and the proceeds went to help a cause. This gorgeous lunch-size bag goes to help give employment to women in third world countries. You can see and more here.

In a world where you can find so much that is made to help our world, why not buy something like this?