Love you for a thousand years

I almost feel like I had forgotten how to relax. This weekend I rediscovered the luxury of it though, and I am super thrilled about it. I have a movie on pause right now, "One Day". I plan on finishing it in a few minutes. I rearranged the living room for the hot season (couch blocks air conditioner unit in the winter.)

I have dove into the wedding planning this week. I question if I want to wear a long veil or a short one. The more I think about it the more a long veil calls my name. I don't know! It's so difficult deciding how I will remember the most important day of my life and what I want myself to look like.... At least I know I will like how my groom and my dress will look. I am thinking about booking our honeymoon cruise tomorrow. <3 The downfall is Thanksgiving will be spent on the open seas away from family. However, we can go all out for Christmas!!! Hopefully Carnival will have Turkey or Ham and some sort of dressing. If not I will like 007 some of my mom's. ;)

I only have 53 days of school work left and 57 days until I walk. I counted these all by hand. I like that I can count the numbers of days until I graduate. I tear up at the thought of finishing something that I started so long ago. School has been a journey for me and I have grown up with it. When I quit in 2008, it felt WRONG afterwards. I thought I would feel relief, but I really felt pain and confusion. I realize now God just wanted to steer my path of education a different way. Because of quitting school, I wound up at CCS where I found my love for kids. Oh, I am sure I have blogged this same story. Sorry. I just get overwhelmed thinking about how God shaped my path in life. I feel like all of the worst things in my life, were all the best things...the turn in my road that lead me to a better destination than I ever could have chosen for myself. Thank you, God. Thank you for driving my car and allowing me to be the passenger. Thank you for merging my road with Trav's and having scenic routes that say "College Graduate" "Teacher" "Happiness" on the side. Lord, I can never never never never thank you for leading me to these things that will allow me to make a difference in the world.

I've been thinking a lot about having children. I have never felt ready until now. I feel like Travis and I will be great parents and our house will be filled with love. We want to wait until we've been married about a year to start trying, but I'm sure God will make it happen whenever it was meant to happen. He has a way of changing my planned route in life for the better. I smile thinking about what it will be like to have a mini version of Travis and I put together. I ponder what he/she will look like and how they will light up our world.

However, first comes the marriage! I imagine the day of will go by so quickly, but I know I remember it for a lifetime. Someone chose ME to spend the rest of their life with. Travis LOVES ME and knows EVERYTHING about me (the good and the bad). How blessed am I that he still chooses me knowing all that ;). He is an amazing man and I know I am meant to be his wife. It feels right when we are around each other. It always has. I feel like I am with a family member or closest friend (like Meg) when he's around...but better because there is romance too!

Anyways, I am about to curl up and watch this movie. Enough blabbling for me.

Waiting to Exhale

I found the title of the album that I am listening to appropriate... First of all, it's me digging through my childhood memories after the loss of Whitney Houston Saturday. Jennifer's first CD was the "Waiting to Exhale Soundtrack". So I still love all of the songs of Whitney's on there. I do not support her drug usage, but I do support the talent of her musical gift. I also support how music can bring you back to a certain time of your life. I can remember using our brand new cd player in our room to jam out. Every time a guy broke our hearts Jen and I would jam out to her music. I also chose the title, "Waiting to Exhale" because I feel like I am holding my breath to make it through school. I am just waiting to exhale and breathe regularly. I am ready to have a life. 97 days until I walk across the stage! I need to work on my invitations!! Megan took a pretty sweet picture I can use. I may do that to de-stress myself!

<3 On other news, Valentine's is coming up. I honestly think it's more of a day to remind single people they are single and I hate that there is a day that makes people feel lonely. I spent lots of Valentine's crying or feeling lonely, but remember this my friends the Lord has a plan. I like how JoAnna put it the other day, Valentine's day can be a day to express your love to EVERYONE you love, not just a significant other. I have no clue what I am getting Travis, I've got his card, but I like to get him something every year he can use (no guy wants a stuffed animal at 32). I am thankful for the love of God, Travis, my family, and my best friends. I sure am blessed.

I've done math all weekend. I've got my grade up to a 86%. I think I can handle that, because it's not looking any better! lol I never thought I'd say, "This B will have to do!" LOL, but with Math I can!! I have pushed my brain to limits I NEVER knew it could reach.

I found out I am teaching next year, super excited about that. I have learned from so many great teachers. I look forward to it. I will do lots of precious moments things in my room, I think?? I'm not sure yet.

Anyways sleep for me. Psychology test tomorrow followed by a little more math!

"When you have friends to wish you well, you'll find a point when you will exhale."--Whitney Houston

You Must Think I'm Strong--My Revelation

"You must think I'm strong to give me what I'm going through, well forgive me forgive me if I'm wrong, but this looks like more than I can do-- on my own. I know that I'm not strong enough to be everything that I'm supposed to be. I give up, I'm not strong enough. Hands of mercy won't you cover me, Lord I'm asking you to be strong enough for the both of us. "

I've heard this song a billion times, especially at nap time with our pre-k children, and I realized that listening to it tonight that I realize it's speaking to me. I'm stressed, I pray for good grades while being full time in school, to be a good full time employee, a good fiance, to be a good family member.. I'm tired and weak. Yes, totally worse things could happen, and I am blessed they aren't happening. However, I feel like I've reached my physical and mental capacity lately. Thank God for his strength, but I've got to be willing to let go of my will and let him share his strength and cover me.

I am now going to strive to praise him better in the midst of my personal storms.

Thank God for people in my life who positively influence me. I have a new desire to be better and to trust your guidance better.

I can't wait to start my life with Travis and I want to do it with a hopeful and God-filled attitude about life. I love him and I praise God for giving me a guy who I can lean on and talk about early problems with.

Overall--I'm stressed about school and....

I have to take the pressure off myself and allow God in me and to realize my shoulders don't carry any weight alone.

Christian Judgement :) And I am a Christian

Deep breath...here we go...


Ahhh... Friday night.. I made it through EXTREME sickness on Wednesday...and I have warm pajamas on after a nice long bath. My homework is all turned in and I have a night to just watch t.v.! I didn't even get to do this on the two week break from work. Thank you Jesus, you know I needed a break.

Speaking of Jesus, I want to point something out that I see CONSTANTLY from fellow Christians, some I even call friends (and we're all guilty of it, but I've worked on changing it and now I really want to speak my mind on it. Get ready. I'm pouring it out today.

We judge each other as humans about the smallest things, body, wealth, health, who they are dating,...etc....I'm guilty. It shouldn't happen! I am working to change that.

However I want to point out that as Christians, we should make it a MISSION not to judge someone's faith. We judge one another and gossip if someone sins, we disassociate ourselves immediately from those people and "cast them out" from our "Christian click" and say we do not approve of their "sinful ways". I see not approving them, but are you accepting them and saying, "I am praying for you!" Are you giving them joy they need in their life? Or are you turning the other cheek to avoid a "sticky situation". It is one thing to not condone an action, but another thing to not treat the person EXACTLY the way you would someone else. If you treat them differently, it should only be with more love and encouragement.

Why would a person who is a non believer or back slid from their faith want to reach out to God who's people on earth give judging eyes and turn their heads? We live in the real world. A world with broken marriages, drugs, hate, and babies (yes, babies before marriage!) And let me MAKE THIS CLEAR I am NOT PREGNANT or condoning any of the worldly things listed nor downing any of them, just stating their mere existence. They were the examples I could think of). I am just saying, unless someone reaches out with a smile, a warm and humble invitation to church, and just treat them like a REAL person they probably will never turn to God or see the error of their ways. In that case are you doing you job as a Christian.

One of the most influential women in my life, who I rarely get to see with me living out of town, but dearly love is Marcelle Crow. She preaches in the jails of Monroe. She speaks kindness to the homeless, the addicts, the ladies who sale their bodies, and she teaches them the word. They have had rough times, some have done drugs, some have had pre-marital sex and had kids, and lived rough lives. She prays for them even before they are ready to pray for themselves. Are we doing this by saying, "I don't support that?" Are we loving people who need it the most? I understand that everyone does not have the time to do all the amazing things this woman of God does, but we can do the EXACT same thing for our friends who make a mistake. We can pray for them, maybe they made a mistake and sinned. Maybe they were not raised in church like many of us? But that does make them any less worthy of God's love or ours!

Please ask yourself, is your opinion a Christian based one as you claim, or a personally based one?

Now, hear me out, I understand if you want to go with the right crowd to bring yourself up and not down. This is fine, but often prayer requests turn to gossip with shaking heads and people just say "Oh, I don't approve of this because I heard they did this (WHAT A SIN)!? Oh MY!!" Well guess what, we are ALL sinners. We will all be judged, the one perfect man has ascended into Heaven.

That's my soap box, and if you seem offended, the post is supposed to be based on my Christian opinion of who I am, and I am quite frankly tired of keeping my mouth shut to make people get along with me. I want to be Christina, a girl with my own thoughts and opinions and I want to free myself from others judgements. I am judged all the time, but I have grown into a woman who God made me. If you feel attacked, don't. It's towards society as a general and this post has been in the making since i was a teenager. I woke up with this thought on my mind ALL day, and was afraid to post it. But I am realizing God speaks to me most in my dreams, my thoughts that don't go away need to be said. So here you go ....

I love you all, no matter what you do and I will always be your friends even if you slip of back slide. I am not perfect and I realize you are not either. I love you for your imperfections. I pray for you and wish your life the best of happiness and I hope in the tough times you do turn to God. He loves you no matter what.

Oh and if you need some scripture to back me up on judging here ya go:



Luke 6:37 "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.

Luke 6:41 "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

John 8:7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."

Romans 2:1 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.

Romans 14:10 You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat.

Romans 14:13 Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way.

1 Corinthians 4:5 Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.

James 4:11 Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it.

Cleaning up my documents:

While cleaning up my documents I found my poems from my advanced creative writing class: They were kind of dark, but it was my theme!


Flight

The storm blows in with a fierce north wind,
Grey smoke pours out of chimneys into the bleak winter day.
Yet there alone stands one home whose red fires have long since turned to ash,
Cold wind and silence dance among the dirty floors.

Once the fires did burn brightly and the warmth encompassed the house.
Once was the chirping of birds like a beautiful song on the radio.
Yet as it may the birds grew up to fly away to their new nests to create new songs,
Each flap, flutter, and flight a piece of their symphony left also.

The windows now filled with dust was once their escape,
Once a comfortable space to perch and to dream
Daring to go out into the green branches that kissed the sky,
Ready to start a whole new chapter of life.

The windows opened all too soon.
The sun shined in its panes so bright.
A hesitation lingered in the air like the sweet scent of the first bloomed rose,
A moment occurred and the bird wandered if it shall ever take flight?

A smell of pollen lingered in the spring air
Bees buzzed excited with the scent.
Surely there was no better time to fly?
It closed its eyes, spread its wings, and took a leap into the unknown.

Soaring into the world to discover such grand, green, gigantic trees
Who hold their hands out to hold a soul even just for a while.
Every branch holds a new adventure to take on,
The earth a playground.

Love, marriage, a child in a glorious nest,
Life was now perfect and complete.
The view of colored flowers and green grass below was beautiful,
But not as beautiful as its own unique creation.

A furious storm shook the tree violently.
The branch broke and snapped into two,
Surely it did not take the nestling?
An empty heap of straw was found.

Small, black feathers blew with the wind,


(No Stanza break)
They floated slowly down like a deflated balloon.
Only memories remained now,
Mother Nature took their precious baby.

The weather did get better,
But the sad and heartbroken birds never did.
Depression tore the small family a part,
She was left to face the cruel world alone.

Oh the black robin fights to get back home,
Back to the nest that kept her warm for so long.
To hear the music of her childhood,
Yet as it may, the window was closed and nothing remained.

The house where she hummed her first tune gave way to time,
How she longed for the past.
And the robin made her last flight and hummed its last song,
For winter had come at last.

Christina Marie Gordon




Distance

We are birds that watch the world from a distance,
Yet we see better than the souls roaming on the ground.
They do not take the time to carefully observe situations;
There are better things in their lives to be found.

We remember a scream, a cry from the grey home every night,
The crack of a whip that was never made for humans.
We wished we could take the small four-year-old boy with us to fly,
A flight to rescue him from the cruelty that his parents relinquished.

Surely, the neighbors could hear the nightly beating occur,
His burden was too heavy for some to bear.
They were too busy building the perfect nest to notice such pain,
Pretending that nothing was happening.
Ignoring the situation at hand always seemed easier.

We flew above like eagles bravely watching over him at school.
The teachers said his behavior was unacceptable,
He was the small boy with glasses too large for his small frame.
If they only knew what he went through at home,
They would have been quicker to love rather than judge.

The attention he always demanded was cries of help,
They called him a problem child who interrupted a perfect day.
He showed his frustration through violence,
Bruises and bite marks on others was how he was defined.

One stormy night after a bad note from school,
The punishment went too far.
The thunder was louder than his cries,
And with one blow to the head the little boy died.

They found him with his glasses broken;
The neighbors told the cops they never heard a thing.
They shivered with the cold north front making way;

(No Stanza break)
Winter air filled what should have been a warm spring.

The flowers turned down their heads to cry,
Their petals turned brown and their roots rot in the ground.
The green grass lost its soft texture;
There was only death to be found.

The teachers all seemed so shocked;
They pretended to have no clue at all.
Yet the signs were always there in his actions,
In his angry pictures hanging on the walls.

Oh how we as birds did hum a sad tune,
As they laid that boy to rest.
We made our home amongst the dark cemetery;
The crooked tree with branches like claws holds our nest.

Let this be a lesson,
That distance can be good.
People need to take the time to step back and see,
And take actions as they should.

-Christina Gordon

My lucky ENGAGEMENT SHoes!!

I am marrying my best friend and I mean it 100%.

It is so funny that this blog was called the searching years. How I have grown and my searching has turned into fun and exciting adventures. I could absolutely squeal in excitement right now.

The story of how he proposed...the story I'll tell my children :)

I was getting ready at his house and I was already wearing my purple vera wang dress and grey sweater getting ready for church in Monroe for the Christmas Eve service. I went ahead and gave him his North-face jacket early (per his request) so he could look nice at church. I was drying my wet hair and he came in with a huge bag. I just knew since I was drying my hair and not ready it'd just be the sonuk's that I asked for. (He had already told me I was not getting a ring until income tax). So as I reached my hands in I felt my shoes. As I pulled them out I seen the Zales box sticking out of one. Everything past this is a blur. We were both so nervous! I know I said, "No way!" He dropped to one knee and asked me to be his wife for life!" He swears it didn't rhyme like this, but I am pretty sure it did. And I am pretty sure I wouldn't change how he said it ever because it makes it so special to me. I like the dork, knees buckled and dropped down next to him and shook nervously as he put my ring on my finger. Then we both just hugged...like a million second hug. I was so excited. I didn't cry yet---that came after the hugging. Then I started my 1,000 phone calls. :) Those are the most expensive shoes ever ;).

I'm wearing those shoes under my wedding dress! That may seem tacky, but it would tie in our engagement so perfectly!!!

Mark my words, we will be the couple that lasts. I am prepared for rough and smooth waters, our relationship is a steady rock.

It is God's promise to one another and I want to be a great girlfriend.. I mean wife!! OMG I so have to get used to it.

Love the future--Christina Gordon Roberts!!

Quiet inside my mind

The feeling of accomplishment. The feeling of seeing 10/10 on a screen. I read online the other day that saying going to school online is actually just as challenging as being in class if not more challenging. The fact people say it is "easier" is a myth. I have to self discipline myself to do my assignments and teach them to myself. I would love to have a professor just lecture to me again because I am a highly auditory learner. If you think the tests are easier--wrong--you don't have time to flip through your notes as people think. You have to know it. Random tid-bit, but the thing on yahoo homepage made me want to share. Gosh I hate the commercial of the girl singing, "Get connected for free at ed-u-cation connect-ion". I think it makes going to school online look so juvenile. I did take a test in my pj's earlier though?? LOL Maybe I should get up on that commercial and sing.

I am loving Christmas Unit at work! Our room is quite festive. I bought some more stickers and Christmas cards for the kids to write in tonight. I love my students--all of them--past and present. I love this time of the year, they are attached to us and predictable. We are attached to them too. I can tell you exactly what they will ask, and I know that my beautiful blonde haired "real cheerleader" and sweet Curstan will be following me around helping me prepare art in the morning. I know that Riley J. and Connor will be building the tallest building ever with cardboard blocks, and we'll have to stop sweet Koltin from doing a dive into them to be the "bulldozer". I have learned the twins voices apart and I have learned that Peyton is our ladies man. I can keep going, I love them all. I think I should make a journal just of my children after I graduate, so I can truly remember them 40 years from now.

I went to my first Tech shin dig tonight to be inducted to Golden Key Honour Society. I am pretty excited about it, a lot of opportunities to serve the community and get scholarships. I really liked how the lead speaker put it, we should feel honored not that we got in, but in the work we've put into our academics. He said, "I know to be top 15% of your class means a lot of sacrifices at a young age. Today it pays off and it will pay off in your future if you always are a seeker of knowledge. Learning never stops." I felt like he was speaking to me. I know my sacrifices of fun get togethers, sleep, and even time away from those I love the most. I know it helps build me stronger and will make me a good teacher, wife, and mother one day. I always want to be better for others. I want to unlock the potential others have inside of them. The way my family encouraged me to seek my potential.

On a side note: ULM=Camo TECH=Polo

On a side note note: Do not wear clubbing dresses to prestigious events, use the brains you used to get into the society to dress appropriately. Respect yourselves and your body.

Travis and I will be heading to Dallas Friday night, looking forward to the mini road trip. We'll be meeting up with his parents and staying with his brother and Sam to watch Quinton graduate. I am so proud of him, I know the work that goes into it.

I love John Mayer's "Quiet".... love it.

Anyways, I need to head to sleep. I think tomorrow we may make snow globes!!! I'm pretty pumped no joke.