and i jumped...

friday has always been one of my favorite days. it is the setting of the end of the week & the dawning of the weekend. it often is a day that has its own schedule & requirements, but yet is the perfect mixture of work & fun.

this friday is a day that i am so thankful for.

on my way to meet a friend at rick's bakery i got a phone call from the ogle family. they called to tell me i would do great on my test & that they loved me. if you don't get to ever spend time with a 4 & 2 year old, you should find a way to make that happen. tenney & sully teach me a lot by the simplicity of their love. it is safe to say that those boys are two of my favorite people & their parents as well. i hung up the phone so grateful and humbled for friends who love me so well & bless me so often.

i ate breakfast with my dear friend emmy. we caught up on each other's lives. we were honest. we laughed and we lived an hour of life together. it was so good for my soul. emmy's friendship continuously teaches me the depth of this quote:

"there isn't much better in this life than finding a way to spend a few hours in conversation with people you respect and love. you have to carve this time out of your life because you aren't really living without it."

emmy & i have to work hard to carve time out, but it is so good everytime we do. she's a heartsister & i am thankful for her story.

after breakfast i crammed a little bit more for my test & met my lil' brother and his girlfriend for a quick lunch at chickfila before the NCE.

at 1:30 i was scheduled to take the exam that is the cumulative test to the last three years of my education. the anxiety that i possessed was slightly embarrassing, but i passed & i could not be more grateful. in fact, when the lady gave me a thumbs up sign i literally jumped up & down. i might have looked like a 5 year old, but that's okay because that's kind of how the joy felt.

the day continued with little glimpses of joy & i thought about how i should probably jump a little more due to the goodness that God lavishes on me. sometimes days are long & circumstances of life are heavy, but other times He is so faithful to give us pure examples of how His burden is light. those glimpses help the other times a little easier to handle.

my heart is SO thankful for friends who love me so much more than i deserve, for a family who will celebrate with me in all things, for friends who will laugh with me, and for a brain capable of learning & recalling information in order to pass the NCE. and because of these things i have a lot of joy and i jumped :)

He is good & does good.