Brave Heart, Brave Soul. She who is brave is free.

Today started out as every other day does in the Olachia home, busy. I'm up , followed by Johnny and then the kids. Breakfast goes on the table, clothes are laid out, backpacks readied, hair and teeth brushed, kisses all around and then all three of my boys head out the door in three different directions leaving me to tend to the chaos behind. Slowly I pick up the dropped clothes around the house, wash up the morning ( sometimes the left overs too) dishes, make the beds, and start the laundry. This is where my story begins today, in the laundry room, stuffing dirty clothes into our washer. I was caught off guard when I felt my heart skip a beat. What was so overwhelming, well it was a simple object, a beloved and prized possession I often push aside during my daily chores but today as my eyes caught sight of my husband Johnny's old, time-worn, dilapidated,crumbling, shabby, worn out, UT baseball cap sitting on the dryer I found my heart pounding strong in his absence, long

Sometimes life just starts falling apart and no matter how hard you try to super glue or chase your life around with a hot glue gun, your life is still going to end up shattered on the floor. Plain and simple our lives are going to crack one way or another. Without a shadow of a doubt,  each of us are going to face the darkness and end up falling to pieces despite our best attempts at keeping it together! I like to think of these moments like eggs, cracked, broken and scrambled inside the frying pan. No matter how hard I try, or how much time I spend trying to appear I have it all together, the truth is I am very human and because of this one word I am imperfect. I spend many days racing around like a crazy woman. Goodness knows I may even have one of those famous Lisa Lampanelli break down moments as she often does on the Celebrity Apprentice. Without even realizing how we look or how insane we may be acting we all have those breakdown moments surrounded by complete mayhem from tim

My life was made new this last weekend, on Palm Sunday. How was this done? Well, at age 38, almost 35 years after I first said yes to the Lord, I re- surrendered my life fully and completely to His unconditional love. Easy right? Um, not so much. That is until I decided I was through running.  Sunday night, I was baptized, along side of my youngest Micah. I stepped into the horse troth ( yes you heard me right) eager to let go of the past, of my frailties and insecurities and ready to allow all my grief to be washed away.  I surely didn't see it coming last April but when the Lord walked our family through the doors of Thrive in 2011 He put a plan in motion. He cleared the dust, swept out the closets,that is of course after allowing a wrecking ball to collide with the front door of our lives to make a way inside. Everything we had come to know as church was suddenly and pleasantly pleasantly tossed out the window and as a family we began finding our way back home, to a place whe