Here I am...where are YOU?

Well, hey there, folks!! I'm not sure what the method to this madness is, quite actually...but Becky, being the victim of the past few posts, asked that I put a few photos of myself on here. Quite honestly, there are just not that many of me over the years. I have gone thru some pretty funky stages in my life...downright frumpy ones especially. And while I'm not that much better now, I do have moments and glimmers of put-togetheredness. I went thru the "jumper" phase, ya know those awful dresses with shirts underneath, plaid or embroidered, quilted, blech..I had lots of those. I went thru the cut off sweat phase, where I would just change up the t-shirt that i wore with my "fancies" (as B. and I called them). This top pic is more recently. Mel took it in the summer of 2006. crazy, crazy. The second pic is from 1993, when David and I were very newly married and the hardness of life hadn't set in yet. We were so young and naive then. #3 is from my 21st birthday, less than a month after my wedding...I can't get over how young I look. Check out our little basement apartment, we didn't even have a ceiling, it was just the floor above...I'm bumming myself out tonight. I was on the cusp of life, those 5 kids were just waiting to spring forth from my womb. And look how old I am now(almost 35, ack)...#4 is at one of my wedding dress fittings. I wish I felt as honored back then as I do now, to have worn G'ma's dress, to have my sis and mom with me pretty much all the time. Young and stupid! O to be young again. kinda. not really.
All of this to say, Life is Beautiful. You have a choice to make it wonderful or to make it awful. Some people in my life are making bad choices. At the expense of others. Life is a gift...Choose JOY!! CHOOSE JOY! joy doesn't mean you will always be "happy" or "in love, gushy, happy, warm"...it means you have made a commitment. Refiner's fire. you come out more beautiful in the end.
Ok, well, chew on that. I could so totally go on here but I'm getting all verklempt. I'm so thankful to the Lord Jesus Christ for the trials AND joys He has brought me (and my family of 7) through. Praise the Lord for faithfulness, His and ours. Praise the Lord for His mercy, for it endures forever. Good night.