rats.rats.rats.

Well. Though I was doing well (I had four days under my belt). I made a decision last night. I chose to not do an hour. I did about ten minutes, apologized to the Lord, and fell asleep hard. Yesterday was moving day, and though I'd anticipated moving day being relatively hassle free (being that I was only moving down the sidewalk), it was not. It was a pain. It was also sort of irritating. The very thing that had made it seem so simple ended up making me angry. The fact that I was going to all this trouble of packing things only to move them thirty feet and unpack them again seemed like an exercise in being dumb. The good news is that I am all moved in to the apartment I am going to share with my husband. :) Hehehe. Yay. The bad news is that at 11:05 I decided to start over today. I tried, I really did. But I knew I was just going to fall asleep mid devotional anyway and so I figured I'd have to start over today regardless. But still. I went to bed feeling like a failure.

In other news I'm speaking in frontline on Wednesday and I made my very first power point! Yay! I wish there was a way to post it on here, but oh well. I am speaking on having world awareness, and, just as importantly, community awareness. On the importance of following God's command that we take care of the poor, the needy, and the sick, both here in our own country, and also acorss seas. My power point is a little different than a lot of presentations that get shown for this type of message. I've always had a problem with the guilt tactic used to get people to act on this Biblical command. So although yes, I do have a few of the 'starving African children' pictures, I also have pictures of God's incredible creation, to illustrate what an awesome and powerful God He truly is. And how, in that infinate wisdom, He actually HAS provided for the peoples of the world. Us. We just need to follow through on it. And then I also have a lot of pictures of organizations like World Vision, YWAM, Samaritan's Purse, Feed My Starving Children, and Mission Possible and lots of church missions trips pictures to show that the church HAS heard that command and is being obedient. I hate walking away from these sorts of messages feeling like the church is failing. The truth is there are by no means ENOUGH people out there as missionaries or relief support, but at the same time, the universal CHURCH is working to save the lost and feed the poor. I don't want to guilt my kids into feeling like they're part of a failure. I want to inspire them to find any one of the hundreds of Christian organizations already out there making a difference, and help. I want them to walk away with the understanding that it doesn't take a life long committment, a million dollars, or a trip across sea's to help the needy. All it requires is obedience and a willingness to serve in any way you can, and there are more ways to serve where you're at than you know! Heck, even just doing a monthly food drive or volunteering at a soup kitchen or the food pantry! Any service is still service.

Anyway. That's what I'm going to talk about.

This Is The Day

YAY!!! This morning I got up at 6:30 and sat on my patio with a cup of coffee, my Bible, and my notebook and spent some time listening to the rain and being with the Lord. I'm annoyed that this is cause for celebration, it should be an everyday occurrence. I did not get my full hour in but I didn't anticipate I would. Instead I did a half hour this morning and plan to do a half hour before I go to sleep. This is not what I would prefer, but I need to start somewhere with this consecutive 40-day thing. Splitting my time is good for today. Tomorrow I will work on getting up at 6!!

One of the things I hope to in the next 40 days is work on some of the spiritual areas of my life that I need improvement on. One of which is my attitude. I wouldn't say I have a bad attitude necessarilly. But I can. To be more specific I have a selective GOOD attitude. I need to work on being a joyful spirit and testiment to the Lord everywhere to everyone. And so this morning Part of my prayer was asking the Lord to make me joyful and to give me a good attitude everywhere no matter what.

This morning has been rough. And I could feel myself getting annoyed and irritated. I found myself alone in my office working up a good resentment and realized I was humming. Turns out I was humming this:

This is the day, this is the day
that the Lord has made, that the Lord has made.
I will rejoice, I will rejoice
and be glad in it, and be glad in it.
This is the day that the Lord has made,
I will rejoice and be glad in it.
OH!
This is the day, this is the day
that the Lord-has-made.

I was like "Whaaaa??? This crappy, gray day where I am stuck at work (and it's going to be a humdinger of a work day!!). THIS is the day the Lord has made??! I will rejoice and be glad in it!?!?! UGH.!!!" But then I remembered what I had just (not three hours ago) been praying for. A better attitude. A joyful spirit. I started to laugh.

This IS the day that the Lord has made. Sometimes we just need to be reminded.

:)

Oi.

So. I am still failing. Life got so busy there for like a week. It looked like Aaron and I were going to be homeless, then things went through but not the way we'd anticipated, THEN, while helping at a garage sale, we found a house for rent and almost went for it, then we didn't, then we went to sign the lease for the apartment but it was a different apartment and it's ready whenever so I'm moving this week.

Crazy.

The house was beautiful. Beautiful. And it was both financially and geographically feasible. It just wasn't wise. We would've been fine but we would've had no bounce room. What if a car dies? What if one of us lands in the hospital? What if, God forbid, we follow the trend of oh so many young christian couples and i get pregnant in the first month of our marriage?! It was so pretty, and it had a full kitchen which i let myself get excited about. Little spoons and forks as the handles on the white cupboards and drawers, blue walls and tile. Full basement with a washer and a dryer. Stone patio in the front with a little stone wall about thigh high covered in rose bushes and lilacs over the trellis. Ivy climbing up the side of the brick. Ugh. I am a little heartsick. But we went into it saying we would not do it unless they came down like $200 in the rent. They came down $50 and we excused it away and it talked about all the reasons it was still a good bargain and a great idea. I think we both had us living in the house the second we walked in to see it. It was so cute. Seriously. It would've been so wonderful for it to have been our first home. ::sigh::

But after much prayer and deliberation we decided that God had already provided for us a wonderful opportunity to live somewhere we loved, that we were only now questioning because something better came along (aint it always the way?). We decided to stay with the loft apartment we were planning to lease and though I think we both felt very sad, we also felt peaceful about the decision. This was just better. But sad.

In other news I am speaking at Frontline next week and then again a few weeks after that. I don't know what I'll be speaking on. I have two ideas that I'd like to go after and see which God takes and turns into a real thing. The first is the idea of ransom. I hate to call Jesus a ransom, but we do use the phrase that He paid the ransom for us a lot. But I want to talk about what a ransom is and why it's paid, the love behind the payment. And then what happens when the person for whom the ransom has been paid chooses to stay in captivity. What an awful slap in the face it must be to the person paying the ransom. I.E. - when we live ignoring the sacrifice made by God the Father and Jesus His Son. The other thing I'd like to talk about is the idea of creating Ishmael. God promised Abraham a son and Abraham took it upon himself to create that son. He did that by sleeping with a woman not his wife, he created Ishmael, tried to fulfill God's promise, by cheating on Sarah. When we try to fulfill God's promises to us in our way and timing, are we cheating on God? These are just two ideas I am toying with.

I really need to take this 40 day commitment seriously or I need to stop trying.