As the title suggests, yes I know I’m posting this quite a bit later than my usual schedule. What I mean is, I meant to do this last Tuesday. There is a perfectly good explanation for this, and it comes with a few updates as well! I’ve started a new job, picked up a side gig, committed to a pretty sick ministry, and I’ve even written my first song of this summer. Before I begin with all that fun stuff, I’m afraid I have some pretty somber news that I would like to finally share.

Loss and Grief

This is a picture of Pepper, my family’s puppy. Well, she was three, so I guess she wasn’t a puppy anymore, but she was our baby. Last Tuesday, I planned to come home from work, change my clothes, and then make a blog post for my supporters. Everything changed when our sweet, healthy and happy puppy was killed.

I came home, and Pepper jumped up into my arms, as she always did. I held her and played with her, as I always did. Then, I put her down and went to the garage to change out of my scrubs. In that five minutes, the door was opened and Pepper slipped out and ran into the street to be hit by a car that didn’t even see or feel her.

She died quickly, so the only suffering was the emotional pain my family is dealing with. Linus, her dad and best friend, is really grieving. He was full of energy and super playful, but now he just sits. He’ll even visit the spot in the backyard where she’s buried.

While I am dealing with mourning, I still find comfort and joy in the Lord. This goes to show how much I’ve grown in the past few years. Then, something like this would completely shut me down. I would turn to any outside thing for comfort, but only find temporary distraction and feel even more empty. Now, when life turns on a dime, my first thought is to pray. While I was crying in the first half hour after the tragedy, I cried out to God. He lead me to sit down with my family and debrief the incident all together. He is my strength and my source of joy even when I’m sad and grieving.

Entering My Teacher Era

Full disclosure, that is NOT me in the picture. I may have gotten a little tan in Hawaii, but this is a stock image from the internet that (again) does not have me.

Now that that’s out of the way, I’m really excited about this job and I’m loving it so far! I went directly from teaching at foundation school in Kona to teaching at a Christian daycare here.

These four year olds are crazy, but it’s nothing I wasn’t ready for. I love loving on them and pouring into them, but also training them by being firm fair and consistent. There is one kid who has quite a big temper. This one will throw tantrums, hit, kick, and even bite. I’ve really been working with [kid] and trying to help find other ways to feel better. Today, there was an improvement. [kid] had stolen a toy that another one brought from home. The other wanted it back, but [kid] was refusing and very upset. After trying to reason with [kid], I finally had to gently take the toy. It was a struggle, and [kid] put their mouth on my hand to bite. What happened next? In the heat of the moment [kid] reconsidered it and decided not to bite my hand! This seems small to most people, because normally a four year old is out of the biting stage. This particular one isn’t, so this was a big deal. I said, “thank you so much for not biting me! That was a good choice to stop!…now please give me the toy.”

The Promise

The promise is a musical about Jesus’s life, ministry, death, and resurrection. It runs every year in the spring, fall, and now winter. Since I’m going to be home for a while, and I have experience in musical theatre, I’ve prayed and decided to join the tech crew for this coming season. I’m ready to make this my mission field for the time that I’m here in Glen Rose. I’m ready to help share the gospel in a way that I already love doing.

My New Song

My final update, I’ve written another worship song! It’s called “This Song”, and the verses are about worshipping Him just because I can. He gave me the ability to, so I will. He put the song in my mouth, so I’ll sing it out. The chorus is about the Most High stooping down low to save little ol’ me. I’ve already posted a video of me singing and playing this on my social media pages, so please check it out if you haven’t! My instagram is @gracehyphengigi , my facebook is Grace Alison, and my missions page (facebook) is Gigi-with-a-message.

This post was like three times as long as usual, but it’s full of good stuff! Thank you for reading and following along with me. As always, thank you for supporting me in prayer and I love you all. God told me to tell you that He loves you, too.

love, Gigi