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.
The Smiths
Monday, August 31, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
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.
:)
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.
:)
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Epic Fail
I am failing in my attempted 40-day commitment. I feel pretty trashy about it. I am very busy and it irritates me that I am letting that get in the way since that's exactly why I decided to make this commitment, because I was letting myself "be too busy" to spend time with the Lord. I figured if I made this sort of commitment for 40 days it would at least form the daily habit of being with the Lord instead of my current when I can habit. I don't want to fit God in, I want Him to be the priority.
I also recently made the official call to stay living in the apartment complex I currently inhabit. My fiance and I decided we would just move into a bigger place within that complex (a loft to be exact). So, seeing as I will be there for at least another year, I caved and bought the key fob that lets me into the clubhouse anytime I want. Basically this means I have access to the gym now whenever I'd like. I've had the key for several days and have yet to use it early in the morning as I'd intended. Rats. I'm failing on all counts.
Not to mention a biological failure that I am pretty irritated about. Shortcomings annoy me.
I also recently made the official call to stay living in the apartment complex I currently inhabit. My fiance and I decided we would just move into a bigger place within that complex (a loft to be exact). So, seeing as I will be there for at least another year, I caved and bought the key fob that lets me into the clubhouse anytime I want. Basically this means I have access to the gym now whenever I'd like. I've had the key for several days and have yet to use it early in the morning as I'd intended. Rats. I'm failing on all counts.
Not to mention a biological failure that I am pretty irritated about. Shortcomings annoy me.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Few and Far Between
When I first started this blog I felt like I had SOOOOOO much to say. About Love and Christ and the Bible in general. Since my last post so much has changed and I've gotten very busy. My boyfriend of 10 months asked me to marry him and being that I'm head over heals in love with the boy I said yes. I've spent the last month and a half frantically trying to plan a wedding for October 25th of this year. It's fast, I know, but I have always wanted to get married in October, we're both settled and know who we are and love the Lord and there just didn't seem to be a lot of reason to wait around for a long time. I know I am supposed to spend the rest of my life with this man, I cry when I think about how tailor made to me God created him. So why wait?
I still feel like I have so much to say. I'm growing in ways I'm so excited about, but I'm also regressing in areas and that scares me.
I have had at least two meltdowns in the last week. Both have passed fairly quickly. In the middle of the last one I called my friend who was also mid panic attack. We laughed and talked about how silly we both are. We panic at the same thing over and over. Not that we panic at the same thought, but we both have something that makes us panic no matter where we are or how far we've come in our lives. I told her that it is simply the enemy hitting me at the exact right moment and then letting my mind get carried away which I do all on my own.
It started very simply. My fiance had just gotten back from a trip with the youth group and he had three days to move. I wanted to bring him the dinner of his choosing and help him pack when I got done with work. He wouldn't pick between the friggin Lou Malnatti's and chinese food! I had one of those Visa gift card things for like $25 and figured I'd treat us since we're trying to save for the wedding and that is basically like not spending money. It's extra! But he wouldn't pick. And when he called me to let me know he was on his way home I was asleep. He told me I didn't need to come and I said I wanted to and he said I was sleeping and I said it was fine and we got snippy and fought and I hung up on him. He text me and said something snarky about me being in a bad mood and I said that yeah I was because I hadn't seen him for five days (we had both been out of town) and didn't care that I was tired I wanted to see him. So he ended up coming to my house and bought ME chinese food and we watched Spanglish. It was nice. Right up until he left and took my converter box with him. It had stopped working and he was convinced it was the box but I fought him saying that though I believed it was most likely the box, I would like to test it before I just up and spend $40 on a new one. We squabbled and though we resolved it before he went home, it just ended the night on a sour note.
And as I sat on my porch the panic set in. This is why you're not supposed to get married. Remember? You are not cut out to be a wife. You are not capable of loving someone enough. You are not good enough. For most of my life I have struggled with this thought process. That I was not good enough to be a wife, to let someone love me, or to love someone, and that through my inadequacies and insecurities I would inevitably hurt the person. The Lord has done an amazing work in me and I don't feel that way anymore (most of the time). But when I panic and leave that foothold wide open, man.
It's a wonderful thing to have someone who is on a similar part of the walk as you. Edit. its a lovely thing to have a healthy someone who is on a similar part of the walk as you. My friend and I laughed because the basic problem of my fiance and I is that we both are so focused on making the other happy that we end up fighting. He actually probably worded it best. Mid fight he sighed and said "I think maybe we've both been grown ups on our own for too long. Neither of us knows how to let the other do things for them." And he's right. Which is a pretty stupid problem to have if I can say so. Since then we have agreed to work on it. He is going to not steal my joy by denying me opportunities to spoil him and treat him simply because he wants my life to be easy and complication free, and I am going to work on the same.
This most recent panic got me to thinking about how easily the devil seems to get to know us. And how quickly. And the most frightening part - how easy we seem to follow him down the rabbit hole. While I was on the phone with my friend I said to her "The rational, spiritual part of me knows what this is. I am in a good place right now. I am in the best place with the Lord of my entire life. I am happy. I am so happy. And I know what this is, an attack to try and get me to sabotage it. I know what it is but I still can't help but let it throw me." How sad that I knew the truth and essentially ignored it and just went for the panic. Sigh. I guess I'm not as far as I'd thought.
In other news I have made a commitment to spend an hour a day with the Lord for 40 consecutive days. This means that if I am at day 23 and I skip a day and fail, the I don't just tack a day on at the end. I start over. I hadn't thought that was extreme until someone said that it seemed so a little. But I told them that what was the point of committing to 40 consecutive days if I just give myself an out if I don't follow through? I want to take this commitment seriously. And I've already started a small list of things I'd like to work on during this time. One of which is discipline (part of why I'm being so strict about the 40 days being consecutive). I started Saturday but literally fell asleep in my recliner Sunday morning mid Proverb, thus I am starting again today.
That's all. I'll be back more frequently. There are some thoughts I need to organize regarding hellfire and brimstone and the concept ransom.
I still feel like I have so much to say. I'm growing in ways I'm so excited about, but I'm also regressing in areas and that scares me.
I have had at least two meltdowns in the last week. Both have passed fairly quickly. In the middle of the last one I called my friend who was also mid panic attack. We laughed and talked about how silly we both are. We panic at the same thing over and over. Not that we panic at the same thought, but we both have something that makes us panic no matter where we are or how far we've come in our lives. I told her that it is simply the enemy hitting me at the exact right moment and then letting my mind get carried away which I do all on my own.
It started very simply. My fiance had just gotten back from a trip with the youth group and he had three days to move. I wanted to bring him the dinner of his choosing and help him pack when I got done with work. He wouldn't pick between the friggin Lou Malnatti's and chinese food! I had one of those Visa gift card things for like $25 and figured I'd treat us since we're trying to save for the wedding and that is basically like not spending money. It's extra! But he wouldn't pick. And when he called me to let me know he was on his way home I was asleep. He told me I didn't need to come and I said I wanted to and he said I was sleeping and I said it was fine and we got snippy and fought and I hung up on him. He text me and said something snarky about me being in a bad mood and I said that yeah I was because I hadn't seen him for five days (we had both been out of town) and didn't care that I was tired I wanted to see him. So he ended up coming to my house and bought ME chinese food and we watched Spanglish. It was nice. Right up until he left and took my converter box with him. It had stopped working and he was convinced it was the box but I fought him saying that though I believed it was most likely the box, I would like to test it before I just up and spend $40 on a new one. We squabbled and though we resolved it before he went home, it just ended the night on a sour note.
And as I sat on my porch the panic set in. This is why you're not supposed to get married. Remember? You are not cut out to be a wife. You are not capable of loving someone enough. You are not good enough. For most of my life I have struggled with this thought process. That I was not good enough to be a wife, to let someone love me, or to love someone, and that through my inadequacies and insecurities I would inevitably hurt the person. The Lord has done an amazing work in me and I don't feel that way anymore (most of the time). But when I panic and leave that foothold wide open, man.
It's a wonderful thing to have someone who is on a similar part of the walk as you. Edit. its a lovely thing to have a healthy someone who is on a similar part of the walk as you. My friend and I laughed because the basic problem of my fiance and I is that we both are so focused on making the other happy that we end up fighting. He actually probably worded it best. Mid fight he sighed and said "I think maybe we've both been grown ups on our own for too long. Neither of us knows how to let the other do things for them." And he's right. Which is a pretty stupid problem to have if I can say so. Since then we have agreed to work on it. He is going to not steal my joy by denying me opportunities to spoil him and treat him simply because he wants my life to be easy and complication free, and I am going to work on the same.
This most recent panic got me to thinking about how easily the devil seems to get to know us. And how quickly. And the most frightening part - how easy we seem to follow him down the rabbit hole. While I was on the phone with my friend I said to her "The rational, spiritual part of me knows what this is. I am in a good place right now. I am in the best place with the Lord of my entire life. I am happy. I am so happy. And I know what this is, an attack to try and get me to sabotage it. I know what it is but I still can't help but let it throw me." How sad that I knew the truth and essentially ignored it and just went for the panic. Sigh. I guess I'm not as far as I'd thought.
In other news I have made a commitment to spend an hour a day with the Lord for 40 consecutive days. This means that if I am at day 23 and I skip a day and fail, the I don't just tack a day on at the end. I start over. I hadn't thought that was extreme until someone said that it seemed so a little. But I told them that what was the point of committing to 40 consecutive days if I just give myself an out if I don't follow through? I want to take this commitment seriously. And I've already started a small list of things I'd like to work on during this time. One of which is discipline (part of why I'm being so strict about the 40 days being consecutive). I started Saturday but literally fell asleep in my recliner Sunday morning mid Proverb, thus I am starting again today.
That's all. I'll be back more frequently. There are some thoughts I need to organize regarding hellfire and brimstone and the concept ransom.
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