Our Christmas!!

I love giving my kids gifts. I love seeing there excitement and the sparkle in their eye when they receive that gift they've been asking for. I LOVE IT!!!! But, what I love more is that my kids are so thankful. I am not sure what we did to raise them this way. I don't know if it was teaching them to say "thank you". I don't know if it was teaching them that when people give you gifts, it is an act of love and they should be very grateful. I have no idea but what I do know is that I love how they were excited about every little thing and hugged and thanked everyone for every gift. I was so proud of Katelyn this Christmas because she even said to me that she would give up her Electric Scooter if she could see family members she hadn't seen in awhile. I saw how "stuff" didn't matter to her as much this year and I am so happy to see her little heart growing like that. We had a great Christmas and even though my dad was missing this year, I think he was honored by how much we loved on each other this year. I missed seeing him laugh when the kids did funny things and I missed buying him a gift. I know he had an amazing Christmas in heaven with His Savior and I will cling to that picture to get me through the first's. I thought I'd share some cute pictures of the kids opening presents and having fun.

                                           GUESS WHO GOT DRUMS?????

                                          He really is a drummer!!!! Loved them!!!

                                          Sissy even got in on the "rock" action

Katelyn got an Electric scooter that she loved and we snapped some pictures of her enjoying that.

I loved seeing my kids enjoying fun stuff. It makes me think of when our Heavenly Father blesses us sometimes with things we want. He loves to give us good gifts and I am sure it brings Him pleasure.

Merry Christmas!!

I just wanted to write and wish all of my friends and family a very Merry Christmas. We have so many that read this blog from far away and we are so glad we get to have this to share our family with you. This Christmas is so different because of so many changes. This will be my first Christmas without my dad and this is the first Christmas that Josh is not a pastor at a church. Now, the first difference is going to make this holiday sad but still praising the Lord. The second difference, I am actually loving.

For 10 years, Josh has been a pastor in a church so Christmas was a busy time. He was always gone to this special service and that special meeting. He would have youth parties and be gone so much even during this holiday. This year, not being a pastor, my husband has been home. We have had family worship times with a new book Josh bought for the kids. We have sung and made a gingerbread house. We even got the garage organized(that was NOT FUN). We have had fun at Christmas parties and having people over for dinner. We painted Katelyn's room, TOGETHER, as part of her Christmas. We have also had moments of driving each other crazy...hehe. With all that said, as much as my husband loved being a pastor and pouring into teenagers every chance he could, I am glad to have him home for this Christmas. Even with him working at his "normal" job, he has been home and I am so thankful to God for this amazing Christmas to not be busy "doing", but just spending time together worshipping the KING!!! I have no idea what next Christmas will look like but this Christmas, I am having so much fun with my family.

I pray that each of you take moments to remember what God did during this time. Sending His son to die, rise from the dead, and save us from ourselves is what this time means to me. I am so thankful that a Savior came for me when I deserved nothing. I pray that you have an amazing Christmas and wonderful New Year.

Things I Learned from Survivor!

I have always been a huge Survivor fan. There really are no shows that I get excited to watch or that make an effort to watch every week. I don't know what it is. It may be the fact that people are having live on an island with nothing and seem to make it to the end. It may be watching people from all walks of life coming together to live together and play a game. It may be the way you think one person will win and it ends up being someone you never thought. Or, it may be the challenges that I love to watch and how hard they are for people who are not eating and sleeping very well. This last season was a little different though.

This last season was filled with "religious people" or they called themselves " Christians". I am not their judge but the fruit is right there on the screen for we to see. I was kind of in awe of some of them that claimed the name of Christ, they even prayed constantly in large groups and even prayed for God to tell them " who to vote off", which I found funny because that meant they could blame their choices and backstabbing on " God's will". As I watched, I couldn't help but think that this was a perfect social experiment of Christians and the world. They claimed honor and integrity because they had personal relationships with Jesus. Then, they would curse and lie in the next breath. WOW, sound like the real world or what? It was a perfect display of how we can act sometimes. One player even admitted that he was willing to lay his honor aside in order to get to the end of the game. REALLY?? I see so many Christians laying aside everything they believe and know is true in order to "make it". I did it. As a teenager, I was "good" but still had times when I laid aside what I knew was God's calling on my life in order "to make it". I was quickly brought back to a place of repentance before ever leaving high school. THANK GOD!! I remember that feeling of feeling torn between right and wrong. It was so hard. I still have a hard time of laying aside my flesh and living by the Holy Spirit. The world is inviting at times but I have come to a place where what man thinks is fading. The more I learn and study about my Savior, I can't help but want my life to glorify Him. It is so hard to do that because I am sinful and walk in the flesh quite often. But, I know this: I don't want to have a Survivor mentality. I don't want to do whatever it takes to "make it", because that means laying aside what I know is truth. I don't want people to see me, I want them to see Jesus as all cost. Even if it means to the world I look like "I'm losing", I know in order to gain true, eternal LIFE, I must lose my life. Hollywood probably never thought by making Survivor, they would teach me to live closer to my Savior at all costs. God will be glorified in all things.

Let's Be Real Ladies!

I came across this blog and I just loved it. I loved it because my heart is for women to know their personal calling that God has made on their lives. I loved being part of a group of ladies when we met every Friday morning. We had mornings when we didn't even get to the study because we other concerns going on in our lives that we needed to talk about. I loved knowing I would have 2 hours of the Holy Spirit leading conversation where it needed to go for that day. I miss this time and I hope that God will lead my back to it one day. Lately, I am craved speaking to ladies about the things that they feel called to by God. But, I have had moments when I spoke about hard issues and deep Biblical truths, and was quickly hushed or the topic was changed very quickly. Those times made me very sad. Not sad because I had to stop talking but sad because we, Christians, don't want to talk about hard things, sad things, sinful things, and personal struggles. We like the cookie cutter look we portray and that makes me sad. Anyone who knows me knows I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve. I have no problem discussing issues, big or small. I thought I would share this article for Christian women that are leading in women's ministries, ladies Bible studies, etc. Get ready, this isn't easy to read. It wasn't for me:

Dear Women's Ministry:

The world can give me cute cupcake designs and decorating tips, scrapbooking parties, casserole recipes, and other ways to pass the time. But truly, with my respect and love, may I be honest? If I wanted to learn how to decorate cupcakes, I would take a class in it. If I wanted to be educated on strategies for decorating my home inexpensively from Winners, I would just, you know, go to Winners. Or Pinterest.

But I'm here with you now because I want what the world cannot give me. We're choking on cutesy things and crafty bits, safe lady topics, and if one more person says that modest is hottest with a straight face, I may throw up. We are hungry for authenticity and vulnerability, not churchified life hacks from lady magazines. Some of us are drowning, suffocating, dying of thirst for want of the cold water of real community. We're trying really hard--after all, we keep showing up to your lady events, and we leave feeling just a bit empty. It's just more of the same every time.

The women of our world aren't looking for a safe place to cry about housework and ooh-and-ahhh over centerpieces. We're not all mothers, some of us work outside the home, some of us have kids, and others don't or won't or can't. Is womanhood only about wifehood and motherhood? What about those among us that are not wives and mothers? We're not all in the same season of life. We are - or should be - diverse image bearers of a Divine God!

We need Jesus. We are seeking deep spirituality. We are seeking fellow travelers. We are hungry for true community, a place to tell our stories and listen to another, to love well. But above all, point me to Jesus--not to the sale at the mall.

You know what I would have liked instead of decorating tips or a new recipe? I would have liked to pray together. I would have liked the women of the church to share their stories or wisdom with one another, no more celebrity speakers, please just hand the microphone to that lady over there that brought the apples. I would love to wrestle with some questions that don't have a one-paragraph answer in your study guide. I would like to do a Bible study that does not have pink or flowers on the cover. I would have liked to sign up to bring a meal for our elderly or drop off some clothes for a new baby or be informed about issues in our city where we can make space for God. I would like to organize and prioritize, to rabble-rouse and disturb the peace of the rest of the world on behalf of justice, truth, beauty, and love. I'd love to hear the prophetic voice of women in our church.

Please, may we be the place to detox from the world - its values, its entertainment, its priorities, its focus on appearances and materialism and consumerism?

So here is my suggestion: Please stop treating women's ministry like a Safe Club for the Little Ladies to Play Church.

We are smart. We are brave. We want to change the world. We run marathons to benefit our sisters, not so that we can lose weight. We have more to offer to the church than our mad decorating skills. I look around, and I can see that these women can offer strategic leadership, wisdom, counsel, and even, yes, teaching. We want to give and serve and make a difference. We want to be challenged. We want to read books and talk politics, theology, and current events. We want to wrestle through our theology. We want to listen to each other. We want to worship, we want to intercede for our sisters and weep with those who weep, rejoice with those that rejoice, to create life and art and justice with intention.

Let's be a community of women, gathered together to live more whole-heartedly, to sharpen, challenge, love, and inspire one another to then scatter back out to our worlds bearing the mandate to be women that love. Idelette McVicker wrote: 

Let us RISE to the questions of our time.

Let us SPEAK to the injustices in our world.

Let us MOVE the mountains of fear and intimidation.

Let us SHOUT down the walls that separate and divide.

Let us FILL the Earth with the fragrance of Love.

Let us be women who Love.

I'll bring the cupcakes next time (although they likely won't look as cute). 

Share this:

NO GIFTS!!!

My husband and I were having a conversation about some gifts we had left to buy. He informed me that he wanted to eventually go from buying gifts for people to giving money to missional things in their names. I was immediately like, " um, No". My husband continued to not understand why I would not want to give money to a child who needs food or have Bibles printed in different languages. That was not what I was saying. My heart is torn because I love seeing people open gifts I have gotten them. I love making things for people and maybe giving them something they have never seen. I love that feeling of giving. I still would want to give money to missional things but I also love buying small gifts for the people we love.

With all that said. I thought about my reaction some more and realized; giving money to an organization who is sending Bibles all over the world or helping people build a church in a desolate country, IS AN AMAZING GIFT. I can't be there to see a child get there dinner, a family get chickens to help feed their family, or a tribe get a Bible in their language. BUT, can you imagine what that would be like? Watching people open gifts with that magnitude. Some of them never having gotten anything given to them. I realized that watching the people I love open gifts was wonderful and still could happen but watching them open a card telling them that in their name, THEY FED A FAMILY, that is speechless. I am so glad I married a man that sees the importance of this type of giving. He always bring me back to what is good and what is necessary. I love him all the more. My heart is being shaped and molded into what God wants and that hurts most of the time. Learning something new can be hard sometimes. I do not like change and changing Christmas the way I've always done it will take some time.

So, in the years to come we are moving from buying needless gifts to making more gifts and donating money to needs that are necessary in the name of the one's we love. Thank you to my hubby for being the spiritual leader in our home and making these decisions. God knew I needed you!!!!

Diligence....

Katelyn and I are doing 10 weeks of Character studies for our Bible time. The first week is on Diligence. It is great because each day has a different passage out of the Bible that helps learn the meaning of the character trait. Today's lesson showed me something I never noticed. We read the story of Jonah. I know, I know, we've all read that story a million times and know exactly what happens: Jonah gets swallowed by  a whale( actually a big fish) because he did not listen to God. There was a little part I had missed though. In the beginning of the story, Jonah is on a ship trying to flee from God, which cracks me up. Flee from God??? Really?? Anyway, as the storm violently threw the ship back and forth, the ship's crew began to question why this was happening to them. They cast lots to see whose fault it was and the lot fell on Jonah. Jonah admitted earlier that he was running from God. Now, he told them his God was the God who created the wind and sea. The ship's crew was immediately in fear of this God. They began to realize that this God must be the true God. "At this the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to Him.~ Jonah 1:16. Did you catch that??? EVEN IN JONAH'S DISOBEDIENCE, GOD WAS GLORIFIED!!! I had never paid close attention to that small verse. Even though Jonah was on the ship because he was disobeying, God still was glorified because these men feared Him and made vows to Him. They had realized the God that Jonah believed in was the true God. See, I would have thought opposite. I always feel that the more I disobey, the more people do not see Jesus. Guess what?? GOD CAN BE GLORIFIED WITHOUT YOUR HELP!!! WOW!!! That's humbling. Even in the midst of Jonah's disobedience, these men saw God and feared Him. he proved that He was in control of even the storm and could calm it if He wanted to.

I look at this two ways. Number 1: I see that God is bigger than I have ever been taught He is. He can do more than just what He does through me. Even when I mess up, say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, or flat out disobey, HE WILL BE GLORIFIED IN SOME WAY!!! Number 2: HE WANTS TO USE ME!!! God wanted to use Jonah. God could save Ninevah by Himself if he wanted to but He wanted to use Jonah more than Jonah could see. I think sometimes He just wants to see if we will obey and also that we grow and learn in being used. When Jonah repented and said He would go, God gave Him a second chance and because Jonah obeyed, Ninevah was spared. I pray everyday that even in my imperfections and sometimes disobedience, that God would be glorified. I also pray that when He wants to use me, I GO!!!! I surrender it all, give it all up, put all my "stuff" aside, give up my wants and desires,  lay my fear aside, put man's opinion of me out of my mind and follow the one true God who gives life.

Another Birthday!!!!

I can't believe I am about to have another birthday!! I still feel like I'm in my twenties, newly married and living on faith. This past year has been the hardest yet! Losing my dad and Josh and I  completely surrendering and walking in faith has deemed this a trying year. This time last year, I would have never imagined that all these things that have happened would have happened. Sometimes it still feels like a dream I will wake from and all will be the same. God had other plans. He already knew what I would go through, what my family would go through. He was in control from the beginning and is even now. I pray that this next year is full of miracles, rest, and worship of Him. I pray that I become a better wife, mom, daughter, sister and friend. I pray that I see my children's hearts grow in love for their Savior, family, and others. I pray for a refining fire to ignite my soul and create an urgency to see the lost saved. I pray that my family sees God do amazing things through our obedience in church planting. I pray that my daughter continues to excel at schooling but more than anything that her heart is constantly moving to the things of God. I pray that my entire family will feel God's peace as we journey without my amazing dad in the years we have left. Lastly, I pray for total surrender to the life God has called me to.

Thank you Lord for another year.