FaItH.

Hebrews 11 talks all about faith; the very first verse of the chapter gives a definition of faith, "Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see." Then there is verse 6 which reads as follows, "And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him." The rest of the chapter goes on to talk about numerous times throughout the Bible where faith saves peoples lives. It was a neat little chapter to read which held my oh-so-tired mind this evening. It sort of had me thinking about the amount of faith I have in God.....I do have faith, but there are doubts that creep in my mind from time to time....these doubts creep in for a few reasons: 1. because there are so many skeptical people in our world that are always countering every claim of God that it allows some doubt to creep in if one is not careful & 2. I am such a logical and decently intelligent person that I start to think that it all needs to make perfect sense to me in order for me to have faith. About 5 years ago I was talking to a non-Christian friend about God and he said something that made complete and perfect sense....he said, "I think it totally makes sense to have a God that allows things to happen that we can't understand because why would I want to serve a God that was only just as smart as me, what would be the point." I believe that's a great way to look at things. As a human I tend to want everything to make sense to me, but then what would be the point of having and serving a God? I need to truly accept the following: (Isaiah 55:9) "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts then your thoughts." That's all for tonight. My God our Father give you grace and peace.

Givin stuff to God....

No, these headbands are not what I was referring to in the title of this blog.... I just wanted to include a pic to show people my latest love in the fashion world!! I love, LOVE these headbands with the chunks of felt with all types of beads, sequens and pearls glued on them. I have been told that they are at a last season thing; however, I have to kindly disagree beause the ones I saw out last season were more like flowers and peacock feathers and things of that nature....which I did venture into the flower ones, but didn't like them nearly as much as I love these ones!! Just sayin...:o).....
So now referring to my title...."givin stuff to God,"....I'm not talking about stuff like money, time, or any other material thing....I'm talking stuff like issues or difficult situations going on in my life. I was thinking about how it doesn't even make sense of why I have such a hard time doing it. If I am in a tough situation or have issues bothering me why do I want to keep them?? Shouldn't I be glad that someone would like to take over these issues/situations for me??  Perhaps it's because I am a take charge type of person that always thinks I can fix everything or at least make it better. Or maybe it's just that I like to help and give so much that I feel like that should be enough to fix things. I dunno where the root of it all is, but all I know is that I need to change it. I should be glad that I have a God who loves to help me in all situations, especially poopy ones! I mean seriously it's not like God's trying to take my cute bejeweled headands....it's more like he wants my broken one from last season. (I don't know if that made sense to anyone, but it did in my head, so I'm leavin it!) So anyways....basically today there was something bugging me and it was making me pretty upset and the one thing that made me feel better was when I prayed about the issue with Malaki before he went to bed, (the issue has nothing to do w/him BTW).....but there was just something about praying out loud that gave me a peace and made me feel so much better! I must do that more often.
On a different note....I am no longer the owner of a Titan, Floyd traded it in this weekend for an Altima which is quite nice. Floyd ran some kind of cost analysis & said it was better to do this.....I don't ask questions, I just remind him his whole career is about financial analysis and forecasting so I trust him. I also trusted his judgment on the car because I never saw it til he came home with it in the dark and I had to leave with the car 15 min. later to meet some friends. The car is very nice looking and fancy by my standards, (which are probably not that high). :o) OK, must head to bed now so I can start of the week right!
May God our Father give you grace and peace.

Hope. Love. Encourage.

Hebrews 10:23-25 "Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near."

This scripture sounds familiar so I am sure that I have heard it in a sermon before or in between snoozing in my college New Testament class :o) (sorry Dr. Smith), but I REALLY liked reading it myself. This scripture clearly lays out how we should function....have hope, love one another, & encourage one another. As I mentioned in a previous post part of this challenge our pastor gave us was to do an hour of service for the church each week. I have been teaching preschool Sunday School twice a month, but the thought of doing that every week is not too exciting to me. It's not that I don't like it....it's just difficult to schedule around my two little kids (because it's hard to teach with them both in there) and then also I teach all week already! I got the pleasure of sitting near that most fantastic woman on my first flight to Indy last weekend and she gave me what I believe may be the perfect idea for my "service". At her church they have a program called "Loving Pens," they get a list of people from their pastor who could use a card in the mail that week and the people in this group write a loving and encouraging message to them from the church. Immediately when the lady told me about this I thought it was perfect for me! I already like to do things like this for friends and family. Doing this as my service also has more flexibility which means it won't pull me away from my kids even more than my everyday work schedule. I have yet to pitch the idea to my pastor, but I thought I would shoot him an email tomorrow and hope he likes the idea. The verse above tells me that I need to be doing more of these types of things. I know I am busy with work and family, but I know there are still things I could cut out of my life to have more room for these other more important tasks that God has layed before me.

 Today I did officially buy a ticket home for fall break, (which is only in about 2 weeks), since I won't be home at all over the holidays. I am very excited to go, but probably not half as excited as Malaki. We went to Target tonight to buy him a small rolling suitcase because I think he is big enough to roll his own carrry-on & save Mommy some $ by not checking a bag! :o) Jaylee also got the most darling hoodie from Target so she is also ready to head to the midwest as well! Well my eyes are burning, I better head to bed!

May God our Father give you grace and peace.

Im not dead...

So I know it's been forever since I have written a blog and this one probably shouldn't even count as one, but I just wanted to say I am alive!.....just recovering from my trip home. The trip home seemed to fly by so fast, but it was so nice to see my family even if for just a brief time like that. The trip home was good all around because I came home ok with being home. Confused? Well....what I mean by that is that I really enjoyed visiting, but I was ok with coming home and knowing that Scottsdale is my home. Do I know that I will be here forever? No, but I am ok with it being my home for however long. Does it mean I don't miss home? No, but I just realize that this is where I am supposed to be. I realized that I love my family--which makes me love the midwest, but if I sit around Scottsdale constantly wishing I were somewhere else than I am not fulfilling my purpose God has for me in Scottsdale. I need to live in the present and seek God's will for me in the here and now! I need to be living intentionally, if that makes any sense to anyone besides myself. ;o) I am still extremely tired from my trip & the choas of being back at home & work so I need to head to bed. I will really try to get a good one in tomorrow.
May the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.

No Hiding...

It's really late so this will be a short one, but I wanted to post real quick anyway because I wanted to share a verse the I read yesterday....Hebrews 4:13 "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God . Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable." I really liked this one because I think a lot of times I work so hard to present myself in a certain way so that I please or don't offend other people and not that it's a horrible thing, because social skills are a good thing :o) but I need to realize tand remember hat God is the only one that I am accountable to. Although others judgments and opinions can hurt in the moment, they ultimately hold no baring over my fate; therefore, I should waste no time trying to hide anything about myself from them. By caring so much about how others view me, I am actually allowing them to have power over me when they should not. Also, no type of persona I put on will fool God....he knows everything about me...the good...the bad....and the worse. I have heard some people say that if they question something they are doing they think about what their Mom or Dad would say about it....while that may be helpful, I ought to be thinking what would God say if I had a conversation with him about this. Sometimes I am not sure what God what say about different situations, but I am working on my relationship with him and finding the truth daily.
On a lighter note, I went to my friends house tonight to eat some pizza & watch ANTM and it was a great time. Ki came & met her little doggy which was iffy at first, but they were the best of friends by the time we left. : o) Off to bed I go, hope everyone has a great Thursday!

it's official.

So it's official that I now have to go to the Bible study I mentioned yesterday.....cuz ya know, I was thinking of going & then my pastor had to go ahead & email me today asking if I would join that very one I was thinking of....think that was a little sign....soooo I committed. The Bible study goes from 7:00-8:15, but I told him I would need to leave right at 8:00 since that one hour would fulfil the hour of Bible study that was suggested as part of our challenge....of course I was kidding, but I don't know him all that well, so I hope he got my sense of humor. :o) Anyways I am actually kind of excited to start because he is encouraging a lot of the other "youngish" people that go to our church to attend it so perhaps I will meet some new friends as well. Floyd did say he would come some, but it will probably depend on our childcare situation.
So tonight I started reading Hebrews and the verse that caught my eye was the very last one that I read....2:18 "Since he himself has gone through suffering and testing, he is able to help us when we are being tested." I thought this was a nice reminder of how Jesus was just like us. Sometimes it's hard to imagine that because he certaintly isn't just like us now, but he was at one time. He went through several tests including the ultimate one and they were difficult! I think it's easy for us to think of him as being so superior that nothing must have ever been hard for him, but that's simply not true. If you read the whole Easter story he was basically begging God to let him out of dying on the cross and asking if there were any other way to do it....but as you know there wasn't another way, it needed to be done that way, so he did it! Now, I know my trials and tests are NOTHING compared to that one, so I really shouldn't get down....I should just look to him for help because he does know what it's like....he's been there, done that. That's all for today.
May the Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father give you grace and peace.

pruning...

This post tonight will probably be short and unedited because my internet is being just rediculous! This weekend was a good one...I spent time hangin with the kids since I will be out of town all of next weekend. It will be my first time even staying one night away from Jaylee! It's kinda sad, but I am still excited to go home and see family for a few days. Today our pastor was out of town so we had a substitute pastor which I normally hate cuz it's just really, really not the same. Today it still was far from the same and the sermon was pretty short, but it was good-- It touched on a subject that I think I mentioned just a week or two ago. The speaker was talking about how different plants need pruning in order for them to get more light and produce more fruit and basically the sermon lead to asking us what we needed to prune from our lives to be more fruitful. The pruning in our lives isn't always just cutting away things that are blatant sins, it's simply cutting out anything that's infringing upon our ability to carry out our lives for Him. I have been thinking about what that would be for me and I am sure that I will need to think more about it, but there are a few that are fairly obvious.....less tv & computer time. I actually don't watch much tv at all, but I really don't have time for any (at least on the week days) if I want to be able to be a good wife, mother, and also further God's kingdom. With TV I know there is one program I like to watch during the week so I may limit it to just that and with the computer I will probably just limit my time cuz once I get to surfing on there time flies right by and then later I am sitting there thinking why on earth was I on this thing so long! I would still like to blog on here, but that is something I do after the kids are in bed and I have done my devotions for the day. So that is where I plan to start things. Our regular pastor proposed a challenge to us last week which is the following: for 3 months he would like us to go to worship 1 hr. a week, go to a Bible study once a week, & the serve 1 hr. a week. I have never really done a Bible study before but I took a look at them to see if I could see myself fitting into one....well the obvious one would be the womens Bible study, but to be honest with you I kind of cringe when I think about meeing with so many women all at once! I know that sounds horrible, but it's true. I did however, find another one that looked good....it's just called the life of Jesus. The Bible study will talk about his life and how it affects us today. I think it sounds like it will piece some things together for me a little better. It starts next week, so I have another week to decide for sure. Well it's super late so I am going to cross my fingers & hope this posts & head to bed!