Asheville, Tennessee.... wait...

Sigh. Let me tell you about today, because it was perfect. More so because it didn't start out that way.

I bet that most of you ladies, and maybe some of you guys know what it is like to wake up some mornings feeling blah. Like G-R-U-M-P-Y. That was me this morning. So here is the story about how Jesus helped me out today.

We got up nice and early this morning (ahem, some earlier than others, Mr. 6:30am) so we could get to work on our mega paper due in a few weeks. As I said, the morning for me was gross- I felt mean, and irritable. Not good. Clay and I try to have some good Jesus time every morning, but this morning, I felt absolutely starved for the word. You know how you just know the day is going to be horrible unless Jesus intervenes and changes you? So I spent some time with him and basically begged him to redeem my day. Totally desperate.

So.... did he do it? Looking back I can say that he totally DID!! I didn't realize it until a few minutes ago, but the day was awesome! And I managed not to have to apologize to most of the world for crummy behavior due to a bad mood.

We worked on our paper for about 4 hours. It is all about Belgium- just good research to get us ready to LIVE there. Then it was time to go to Asheville, which I keep confusing with Nashville, but that is not important. We needed to do some interviews with people from another culture, so we decided to make it fun by heading to a fun town to find people. Here we are:

We went with Rich and Michelle Baker from California. They just got married 10 days before CIT started, and are super fun. Here they are being newlyweds...

Pretty Asheville church...

Here Rich is trying to convince us to talk to the international people he saw. It was very awkward...

Here is just a fun picture. Creepy yet perfect.

So, the day was hugely productive in that we made some serious headway on our paper, did our cultural interviews with some cool new friends in a funky new town, ate nachos AND sushi for dinner at 2 different restaurants, and laughed the whole day.

Tell me if that isn't Jesus doing one of the things he does best- answering the prayers of his children when we turn to him for help, and showing that a day lived through his spirit blows the socks of a day we try to control ourselves. Hurray!