peeling off layers.

As a fair warning, this is a lengthy post. But mainly because I am quoting a section of a book. But don't be intimidated by the words...they aren't all mine...but they ARE worth reading.

one of my favorite books is "Redeeming Love" by Francine Rivers. It basically is the story of Hosea, but in fictional form. The book is fantastic, but there is once scene in the book that particularly grabs me every time. I've read the book at least three times and each time this scene makes me cry.

Quick recap...
Angel is a former prostitute who ended up married to this amazing, godly man named Michael.
Even though he loved her unconditionally, provided for her and never gave her any reason to leave, she kept abandoning him and going back to her old lifestyle. each time he went after her and brought her home and forgave her. Finally on her third time of running away, Michael doesn't go after her, because he realizes she must WANT to come back on her own. Angel decides that there might be something to this God that Michael has a relationship with. Instead of going to prostitution again, she actually starts a house for former prostitutes and teaches them skills so they can get new jobs and earn a respectable living.

But then she realizes she loves Michael and wants him to know of the change in her life.

So she goes home. And this is where my favorite scene takes place.

Angel could see Michael working in the field. She was so full of conflicting emotions she could hardly bear it. Self-doubt, self-hatred, struggling pride, and fear. all the things that had sent her running so long ago, and some that had kept her from going to him before now. She couldn't allow them to stop her again...With trembling hands she removed the trappings of the world. She dropped her shawl and took off the woolen jacket...she unhooked her skirt and let it slide...to the ground. She stepped out of it. Without faltering, she walked toward him...With each garment she removed and dropped, she cast away anger, fear and her blindness to the multitudes of joy in life, her own desperate pride. She had one single, abiding purpose: to show Michael she loved him, and she peeled away the layers of pride one by one until she was humbled by her own nakedness...As she came close...all her carefully planned words fled. So many words to say a simple heartfelt thing: I love you and I'm sorry. She could not even speak....Weeping, Angel sank to her knees. Hot tears fell on his boots. She wiped them away with her hair. She bent over, heartbroken, and put her hands on his feet. "Oh...I'm sorry..."
She felt his hand on her head. "My love," he said. He took hold of her and drew her up again...[his eyes] were wet like hers, but filled with light.
"I hoped you would come home someday."
(Redeeming Love: pgs 459-461)

I have felt like this not too long ago. Wanting so bad to come back to my One Love after doing something stupid and messing up. Feeling guilty, and yet loving Him so much, I can't stand to be apart from Him any more. I worry if He'll really want me back. Maybe I waited too long...maybe he has given up hope that I'll ever come back. But I knew what I needed to do.
This imagery of peeling off the layers and the trappings of pride, fear and doubt is so powerful to me. I need to come before him with nothing. Naked and vulnerable, kneeling at his feet, completely at His mercy.

I had heard the stories of the prodigal son...but when it came to me and my mess-ups, doubt filled my mind.

But when I fell to His feet, unable to articulate everything I had practiced in the mirror...he gently lifted me up and with tears in his loving eyes, said how much he hoped I would come home someday.

and he forgave me.

I am so unworthy of this kind of love.

and he has never failed to show it to me, even when I lose hope for myself.

My constant prayer is that I can come before my God...having peeled off the layers of my heart and exposing the hidden corners that represent shame and fear and guilt. He will do the healing, and will ALWAYS take me back.

two is better than one.

So I know I should be updating you all on Mexico...but first things first.

Math is so very simple. you know...1+1=2. always.

so when you take this:




and add it to this...






you obviously get this....





hehe, which manifests itself as this...





Aren't they just so cute!?

So this post is an announcement that one of my best friends, date-night partner, cool-car driver, deep-darkie confidant and cousin is getting married.

Jonathan could not have picked a better girl. Or should I say...God could not have picked a better girl for Jonathan =)
Kali is beautiful, smart, a pioneer and loves Jesus with all her heart. I am so very excited. And as sad as I am not to be the main girl in Jon's life anymore, I couldn't ask for anyone better to replace me than Kali ;)

love you both. blessings as you start out this new season of your life!

mexico, te veo pronto!

See that? It's a flag.
of a country.
that I will soon be in.
one of my favoritest countries in the whole wide world.

That's right, it is time once again for our annual trip to Magdalena de Kino, Mexico.
I have been to Magdalena close to 16 times in the past five-ish years. Six of those times have been the past consecutive Thanksgivings. It has become a tradition for my family to go down to Mexico and spend the week working, cooking and serving Thanksgiving dinner to 300 people (give or take a few). I love it so much.

Plus my friend Katie lives down there and owns the cutest little coffee shop which I wrote about here. I am excited to see her again and drink some yummy drinks and eat a yummy baked good.

Please keep us in your prayers. Not only for everyone's safe travels down there, but also for the week, and CVE (the orphanage) as well. we have a powerful Enemy who would like nothing more than to thwart the work of God going on in the lives of all associated with this place.
But God is able and faithful to protect the hearts, minds and bodies of His children. Also pray for the townspeople that we will be serving. Pray that our light of Christ can shine brightly as we just do something as simple as share a meal together.

And with that, my blog-readers, I sign off for a week. I shall be sure and post many pictures and whatnot when I get back!

adios muchachos!

All is right in the world.

Well...at least for right now.

My day started out so nice. I got to sleep in and take my time getting ready. Then I went to my cousin's house to babysit her two girls. They were just going down for their naps when I got there, so I was able to spend some time doing my Bible study on Esther. When that was finished I even got in an episode of House =) Then we had fun eating macaroni (childhood staple) and playing various games.

I was watching them sort some toys at one point and saw little A's pants and it was so cute, I just had to take a picture!

Baby got sag.


Here is a face picture though. She gets this wild, happy grin on her face and you really can't help but smile too! (oh and she has a bit of bed-hair going on, as this picture was taken post-nap)

She is about 15 months and today, for some reason, she had this fascination with my iPhone. Granted, the lock screen picture is that cute one of her napping. So she would just push the power button and giggle and point and squeal. And she would not relinquish it. She'd hold it up to her ear and walk around pretending to have a conversation.

I heard a few words from her today: Daddy, mine, yours, more, please and I think she said my name. It was so cute because she is still not really talking, but she grunts and makes noises with a random intelligible word thrown in here or there.

*sigh* I know I write about these girls a lot. But they're just so cute and I watch them pretty frequently!

On another note, today was a BIG DAY for me and my main man, Simon.
As you all might remember, me and Simon got in a bit of a tussle with a lil' Honda civic. Simon survived the encounter with relatively minor injuries. But it still made me really sad he was damaged.
We did some shopping around at various truck-doctors and found one who would fix him up and wasn't too expensive (vehicle health-care these days, I tell ya...so expensive.)

They helped me out, found the right parts and had him fixed up in just a few days. Efficient and a good deal. Really more than I could have asked for. (I would recommend them to anyone in the area. B&K auto body.)

So here is Simon's before picture. =(






And...drumroll please!





Here he is looking all nice and new! brand new side panel and a nice new bumper.
I'm so happy my boy is all fixed up!

Then tonight was Bible study on Esther. So good. perfect way to wrap up the evening!

See? overall today was a fantastic day! I can't wait to see what God has in store for me tomorrow!

collector of my tears.

being home schooled, I had many wonderful opportunities to go on these fantastic field trips that most kids didn't get to go on. One of my favorites was to this museum called "The Holy Land Exhibition." It was this old house that had rooms of artifacts, maps and imported goods from the Holy Land that this man collected. there were a few people dressed in clothing from Jesus' time and they told about the culture surrounding the various Bible stories we know and love.

One of the little artifacts that I remember clearly was this little clay jar. it resembled more of a vase and looked something like this:


The woman who had on traditional Jewish clothing picked up this vase and would say, "This jar was for collecting tears. if someone died, they would take this jar, hold it up to their eye and let their tears fall into it. Then they would seal it up and bury it with their loved one as a reminder of how much they cared for that person."

I have this picture of her demonstrating it very clearly in my mind.

Today in church, we read Psalm 56. David wrote this psalm when he was taken by his enemies, the Philistines. It talks about him trusting God even when his enemies are around him and he feels oppressed. verse 8 caught my attention:

You have kept count of my tossings;
put my tears in your bottle.
Are they not in your book?

This imagery that David paints here is so precious to me. There are many times I feel as though my unsettled thoughts or tears can just happen and go unnoticed. But God keeps count of my tossings...and he puts my tears in his bottle. He holds each one and puts it in a jar because they are sacred, meaningful and important to him. the pain, healing, joy or sorrow that it represents in my life all gets held safely in his bottle and is recorded in his book.

for some reason, that is so comforting to me.

verses 9-11 show the confidence David had in God, because he knew that God could be trusted with his tossings and tears:

Then my enemies will turn back
in the day when I call.
This I know, that God is for me.
In God, whose word I praise,
in the LORD, whose word I praise,
in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.
What can man do to me?

I want this confidence. I want to trust my tears are in God's bottle and that he cares about them and what they mean for me. I want to believe and have faith that the God in whose Word I praise, is for me. Man cannot do anything to me.
I think about all the things that have made me cry involving other people:
slicing words.
a broken heart.
a spiteful and hateful spirit.
misunderstandings.
snubbing and loneliness.

but I shall not limit my life, afraid that these things might happen again. No situation will cause me to run with my tail between my legs. I won't become jaded and cynical. I won't become mistrusting and suspicious. I won't need to feel neglected or mistreated or forgotten.
Because I trust in God. Because he holds my tears in his bottle. and writes about them in his book. not only are they remembered, but they are cherished and cared for.

nothing in particular, everything in general.

So I've been collecting pics on my iPhone and so I decided to do a random post of all the happenings of my life as of late. Sorry I haven't really done any sort of deep/spiritual post lately. I'll do it soon enough, don't worry =)

And this post will be a lot about children. I seriously babysit 2-5 times weekly.

This is me and Sasha. She is my cousin's daughter. It is my first time babysitting her and her little brother. But they were SO good! such sweet kids. We spent most of our time at the park, which they loved.



This is Fischer. He has the greatest facial expressions. And he looks just like his Daddy, Kurt. He was just happy to sit in the swing and look all around and drool.



Not sure if this is a new nick-name or not, but Sash started calling Fischer "Fish-Stick" at the park...so we called him that the rest of the day. her little pigtails are just SO CUTE.



Thursday night, I went out to Simi Valley with my cousin Bec and her two daughters (who I have written posts about before). We went to watch my other cousins Justin and Seth play in their marching band at the football game.
J really enjoyed the feature of my phone that allowed us to take pics of ourselves from the front-camera.


There's the marching band that my cousins are playing it. It was so well done!



J&A using the awesome iPhone feature.



This is the marching band in their perfect line!



This is me and Callum and Nathan (who is my cousin). they are that fun age of 7...just too many exciting times and its tempting to always want to smooch their cute lil cheeks. (unfortunately they don't always appreciate that!)



The other day I was babysitting Bec's daughters, and this is how I found little A when I went to go check on her. I just love her little pigtail off the top of her head and her little tush up in the air!



One of the newer little girls I babysit. She is four, very into gymnastics (hence the leotard), loves talking about anything and everything. Her name is Graham. She has a little sister Piper, but she was sleeping the whole time I was there.



Random piece of trivia. my dog eats raw pumpkin. even slightly old, wilty pumpkin. GROSS. But our pumpkins kept disappearing from the table and I found her eating one in the yard. hopefully it doesn't kill her.



This year was my Grammy's 81st birthday. I love these family times. We all squeeze in the dining room of whatever house we're at, we sing, laugh, talk, eat and it's just so wonderful. and loud. the children run, yell, hide, touch EVERYTHING and screech. But I would never trade these memories for anything. Happy birthday Grammy! I love you!



This is my job description.
I could seriously wake up everyday and do this for a really, really long time.



And since we're speaking of work, this is the collection of gangster belt-buckles we have confiscated and that sit on our wall side-board. I should take a pic of the hats we confiscate...I think we have close to 20.



this is just a random picture of a car I saw driving on the 110 the other day. it made me laugh...It was slow traffic, so I was stopped at the time of the picture taking, for those of you who are concerned with my safety.


And I'll leave you all with that. I am actually headed out to go babysitting again! And you'll probably end up seeing those pictures!

Blessings on your weekend!

fall.fellowship.friends.

So California only has two churches from the Apostolic Christian denomination. Many people from the mid-west don't really understand the distance between these two churches...or that california is a state that is 770 miles from top to bottom. So when you visit Sacramento, chances are, we won't be seeing you in church in Altadena on Sunday...just sayin'.

So the two churches are Altadena and San Diego. We are roughly two hours apart and our attendees have known each other the better part of our lives. But crazy thing is, we don't see each other all that often. Living in Southern California is awesome...and time-consuming. we all have our own fast-paced lives and months pass before we see each other.

But this past year...drumroll please...

we decided to change that.

That's right. San Diego and Altadena are combining forces and actually spending monthly time together. We hang out, do Bible Studies, sing, eat and generally just bond. It is so much fun!

This past weekend, us Altadenans went down to San Diego (last month they came up here) and this is what the weekend became.

Saturday morning, Jonathan, Andrew, Joseph, Aly, Leslie (Aly's former roommate from Biola) and myself all packed up in my family's trusty white astro van and headed down to the southern most parts of southern california. (seriously...it was so far south that we could see Mexico from a tall building).


This is me and Britt Wag in Seaport Villiage. we had yummy Greek food. Me and her are very similar in that we are both talkative, social and generally free spirits. She is one of my bosom friends.




Here is part of our group mingling after lunch in Seaport Villiage. It was a gorgeous day...cool, crisp, clear and pleasant in the sunshine.





Then we walked over to this fantastic aircraft carrier. (I cannot quite remember the name...but it is a HUGE water-craft and had probably a dozen different kinds of aircraft parked on the top.)





Then we climbed to the top of this really tall Hyatt Hotel or something...(40 floors) and looked out the lounge windows at the top. they overlooked the ocean, harbor and downtown San Diego. SO beautiful.





This was the other side. See the little mountains in the distance? that's Mexico. i love Mexico. just a random tidbit of Suzy trivia for you.





After checking out the awesome views, a few of us decided to walk down instead of taking the elevator (remember, 40 flights of stairs). And then everyone else (well except for a few softies) decided to walk down too. It was loud, echo-y and made for a great calf work-out.





Our next stop was Point Loma and the lighthouse/tidepools there. It was beeeeeautiful!




The California Coastline. It really is a beautiful state. Whether or not you want to admit it.





This is me and Breana. She is getting married. But she graced us with her presence anyway. good to know the engaged folks can still have fun ;) It was a bit bright out, hence the squinty-ness.





This is Linda. She just looked so movie-star-ish that I had to post this picture. When we were little, people used to say we looked so much alike. We never could really see it.





These are some of the girls from the group. (L-R: Kassandra, Linda, Me, Brittney and Breana)
Yes...I know I'm the shortest. It tends to happen a lot. But these girls really are such sweethearts. I love them a lot and really enjoy spending time with them.





Group Shot!

Overall the weekend was such a blast! I love spending time with all of these kids. Even though I've known most of them my whole life, I feel like we've really bonded these last few hang-out times. And even though Breana is getting married and moving to Bluffton (!?) and I'm moving to Minnesota, I hope that we can all stay good life-long friends.

My church denomination provides a unique fellowship that I have not really seen anywhere else. I LOVE that we can capitalize on it and really benefit from it.

Shameless Advertising

Needs:

Your Need: The holidays are fast approaching and you need to get out and buy those Christmas gifts. Or maybe you just want a lunch out with your friends. Or maybe you need a date night with your husband. Or there is a work Christmas party. All of these are best accomplished sans kids. Now I know you love them...But I also know you need some time without them.

My Need: I have been unable to get a job for the short amount of time I am in California before I move mid-January. And I have this Auntie complex that flares up and can only be taken care of by kids. The combination of loving kids and having a lot of free time (and bills) means we could probably work out a killer deal that benefits us both. really is a win-win.

Experience:

I have been doing child-care of some form since I was 11 years old and was hopping over the back wall to watch the neighbor's son for a few hours in the afternoon. I am willing to watch kids ages...well any age, really. No child is too difficult (trust me, I've had some winners). I am not scared by late nights or early mornings. I change diapers, do bottles, make food, play outside, watch tv, rock the babies, sing, bathtime...pretty much everything but nursing.

FAQ:

1. what do you charge?: well...that is always a subject I don't like talking about. It's like...am I telling you how valuable i think my time/services are? Or am I telling you how much I think you should be valuing your kids and their child care. So I'll just let you pay me what you think is appropriate/what i deserve/what your kids deserve. =)
2. what if I don't have kids/already have a babysitter and this post is useless to me: Well I'm sure you know someone with kids or without a babysitter. soo....maybe you should pass this on to them! If you know I'm trustworthy, then you can put in a good word ;)
3. do you drive? Yes I do. And even though the pictures from previous posts might make you think otherwise, I CAN get there in one piece (my truck, maybe not so much). I have driven all the way from Claremont to Moorpark to South Bay to do babysitting. That is a pretty wide net, just fyi.
4. um what if I'm a babysitter and you're trying to steal my business: I'm not trying to steal your business. but as competitors, we must remember that our primary goal is to bring a service to our client. so if you are unavailable, you can refer them to me for a one-time deal. If they choose my services over yours next time? well...that can't be helped. =)
5. would you ever come become a permanent nanny for my family? even if we live in another state? well it's been known to happen before. but you'd have a tough time topping the pretty sweet deal I'm getting. i mean...she IS my niece. =)

Contact:

If this piques your interest at all, feel free to contact me. my generic email address is: suzanneklotzle@gmail.com. then we can do the whole number exchange thing. I would love to help you out during this busy time of the year!

Picture this. let your mind go there.

Scenario 1: You're walking through a bustling Target...searching for the perfect gift. you are able to move with ease and make your decisions quickly. there are no hands touching all the displays. No child-left-behind at the talking barbie aisle. No, "Mommy I want this one pleeeease can we just buy this one today, pleeeease!?" The next three stops will be made with just as much ease..no car seats, no head counts, no potty stops. and you think in the back of your mind, "ahh the kids are safe and happy. So glad Suzy has no life and could come over short notice."

Scenario 2: You and your Husband are out at a candle-lit dinner. All the food is on the table, and not on the floor. There is not a plastic sippy-cup in sight. You are being looked at with envy by the other tables for your lovely relationship, instead of disgust because your child keeps yelling. You look at the clock and it says 8:30, which means the night has just begun instead of needing to rush home for bedtimes. you shoot a quick text to your trusty babysitter, "Hey we'll be back a little late...we're going for coffee and dessert." (both of which are foreign words to your dining-out vocabularies).

I know you want this. YOU know you want this. your spouse wants this. it is a worthy investment.

Shameless Advertising at its best =)