Blue-Eyed Breather

"When someone is going through a storm, your silent presence is more powerful than a million empty words." Can anyone else relate to the quote above? I know I can. In the midst of some of my deepest, darkest storms, I have not been comforted with flowery words that I know have little substance behind them. No, what comforts me most when words seem inadequate is the still, quiet presence of other people beside me. It's those people, the ones that choose to stick by my side when life has never seemed so dark, who I know care deeply for me. I was reading Job 1-2 in the Bible today. In those chapters, Satan came to the Lord and asked permission to harm Job emotionally and then physically to try and get him to sin. The Lord grants permission but refuses to allow Satan to kill Job. Satan destroys his livestock and his children and covered Job in painful sores all over his body. And yet, he did not sin against God; he maintained his integrity. Towards the end of Job 2, his thr...

I stumbled across this blog post today, and I felt like I needed to share it. To the mommas (and daddys) of chronically ill children, thank you.  By Lexi (link below) To the Momma of a Chronically and Critically Ill Child, I’ve seen you in those hospital rooms. I’ve seen you hand your child off to surgeons, not knowing if you would ever get to hold them again with a beating heart. I’ve seen you pray, hope, and hold on to faith with a sheer will that would put most to shame. I’ve seen you hold your babies with tears streaming down your face because this kind of sickness isn’t the kind that just comes and goes, this is the kind where no one can assure you that your child is going to be okay. You are brave. You are strong. You are loving. You fight for your children when they can’t fight for themselves. You hope for them and you stay positive for them, and then run to the bathroom just to cry in the stall where they can’t see. You research and talk to doctors and talk to other parents...

The first week of my last semester is finished. I know I've said this a lot, but boy, time flies!! I was thinking today about how I came to declare my major--speech pathology. It's been a crazy ride, but I wouldn't changed a second of it. Care to join me on a walk down memory lane?  When I was a freshman, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. My major was literally undecided. There were too many things I enjoyed and too many subjects I loved learning. In high school, I did well in all my classes; there wasn't really one subject I liked more than the rest. Learning in general came easily to me. My first semester of freshman year I went to career counseling to try and get some guidance of how my personality and my interests could possibly turn into a career path. I got many different possible options, but for some reason, speech pathology stood out to me. I had no idea what a speech pathologist actually did, but I started googling it that night. I found out that...

My biggest pet peeve is probably when someone says they understand the pain or frustrations or problems I'm having in life. Naturally, people want to be empathetic. They want to identify with another however they can, and sometimes the words, "I understand" just spill out. I know I've been guilty of that before. But truly, when someone uses those two words in an utterance, I cringe on the inside.  Two weeks ago, I was scheduled to have a pulmonary embolization. I got to the hospital at 12:00pm for what I thought was supposed to be a 1:00pm surgery. However, after I registered for my surgery and was sent to imaging, the nurse told me that in their system, I was scheduled for a CT scan to check for a blood clot--the exact opposite of the problem I was having with lung bleeds. Now, needless to say, I was not a happy camper. I hadn't eaten or had anything to drink since 10pm the previous night. I was weak and tired. I was nervous about having to have the procedure. An...

If you've ever kept up with college football, you've probably heard of the Cotton Bowl. It's definitely one of the best bowl games played at the end of the season, especially for a Texas team, playing on our turf and defending our territory. Baylor had the opportunity to represent the Big 12 as the number 5 team in the nation in the Cotton Bowl today against the number 8 team, Michigan State. I was able to attend the game in Dallas at Jerry World (aka AT&T Stadium), and boy, was it an experience! For starters, the stadium is huge, and I've never seen a jumbotron that ginormous before. Both the Baylor and Michigan State crowds represented well in numbers. I was surrounded by thousands of crazy, screaming football fans, and I loved it.  Baylor played great. Our offense showed up big time. Bryce Petty threw some amazing passes and set Cotton Bowl records left and right. KD Cannon set a record for most receiving yards for a true freshman. Our defense had some great ...