Thankful

My adorable husband and my adorable cat.

Who jumps into my fridge every time I open the door

COFFEE

Crayons. Perhaps the most magical thing ever.

Pretty tattoos (even if my husband doesn't like it and doesn't want me to get it)
(it's on her foot, by the way)

{pretty} cupcakes

My BEAUTIFUL ninja turtles apron (and the fact that my adorable husband
has a matching ninja turtles grill apron, hehe)

And this man (John Mark McMillan) who beautifully sings a song called
How He Loves Us which you can hear HERE.



:)

More Thanks

My cute husband AND Jimmy the Groundhog (stupid Punxatawny Phil)

My cute husband AND the CARNIVAL!! I love the fair. It's my favorite part of summer.

Fireworks

The color pink. I don't even care. LOVE it.

ARTS AND CRAFTS AND MOD-PODGE!!

Chocolate cake. Any cake really. (and pink frosting!!)

Office Supplies. 'Nuff said.

:)

Giving Thanks

For my incredible husband

And my wonderful family

And my gaggle of ridiculous and crazy friends

And for my kids

And to be quite honest with you: for face paint.

:)

I'm reading in Galatians and this morning this is what struck me: (ch.5, vs. 22-26) By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.

(sorry for green - in my notes I always write down verses in green to differentiate) (also this is from the New Revised Standard Version)

Something that has been on my heart for a very long time now is that I have lost my joyfulness. I tend to be a snarly, sarcastic, snotty, albeit funny, but kind of snarky and mean person. Though I'm sure some of that is just part of who I am, I know that a lot of it comes from being somewhat bitter and cynical. Okay, being a LOT bitter and cynical. I have spent the last couple months in my time with the Lord really asking for a renewed sense of joy, His joy. The truth is that the things that made me bitter and cynical were completely legit things. People suck. They can be ignorant and hard hearted and mean (this is ALL people, including Christians...sometimes especially Christians). The church can fail at being loving and supportive. You get your heart broken and your spirit crushed when you lose your image of how you thought THINGS WOULD BE. And it can make you bitter. And I let it. But worse, I let it keep me bitter. I let it make me compettive about weird things with people for no reason at all. I let it make me angry and somewhat conceited, like only I could possibly see these bad thigns in the world, everyone else was blind. In the last few months of taking this before the Lord I have learned a lot about myself and realized a lot of things about joy. And this morning I was reminded that bitterness is a fleshly thing, and joy is of the spirit. I started thinking about joy and the other "Fruits of the Spirit" and how that phrase is so often spoken without really thinking about it. Fruit. When the Bible talks about fruit it is talking about evidence. Fruit = proof. Fruit on a tree is proof that the tree is alive. Fruit in your life, Biblically speaking, is proof of your faith, of your aliveness (I know, I know) in the spirit. Before starting Galatians I was reading in James so I've been thinking a lot about fruit and proof and life the last month. Based on the snarky, sarcastic way I tend to be, I'm not really exhibiting any fruit, I'm not giving anyone any proof of the spirit of God that lives in me. Or at least I wasn't. The Lord is working on it. I have better days than others, it's a fight, man. Anytime you find an area you're slackin in (and don't lie, we all have tons) it's a fight to tear it down and let the Lord rebuild it. But it's happening. And I can feel it. Some days I need to help a little though. Make the decision to be joyful, do things (usually silly little things) that put a smile on my face and remind me of the beauty of the joy our Creator instills in us.

So today I decided to jump on the "I'm Thankful For" bandwagon. Because these things that I am thankful for bring me joy.

More to come.

I'M MARRIED!!!

Wow. The last few weeks have been a whirlwind adventure. Cheesy to say, I know, but true. Got married, went to the AG youth convention called Momentum. It was interesting. More than anything it made me question the lines we draw in denominations. The kids looked exactly like my kids, they looked exactly like the kids at Ascension. It made me irritated with the stigma I was taught as far as AG goes. I did have one moment where I was somewhat uncomfortable with what the speaker was talking about. It had so much emphasis on money...it was a good message, the idea that if God calls you to give $800 and all you have to your name is $830, you still give that $800 and you have faith that God will provide. But his stories always ended with the person who was faithful getting some sort of giant cash back reward thing. And that seemed...I don't know. Dangerous. You can't give expecting to get back, that takes away from the act of worship that giving is supposed to be. And sometimes, to be fair, you don't get a giant cash back reward. Sure God takes care of you, but it isn't always how you think it will be and it doesn't necessarily mean you'll recoup that $800 x 7.

All in all it was a good conference and I really enjoyed spending time there with my *husband* and spending time with Erica and Trinity and Bella.

Then was the honeymoon and it was beautiful and everything a honeymoon is supposed to be. I read Lamb on the plane there and while there and finished on the plane back. I forgot how much I love that book. I also started reading Velvet Elvis, by Rob Bell. I am enjoying it a lot so far. One of the last things I read was that when a rabbi was teaching his pupils and he would ask them to interpret the law and someone interpreted it badly the rabbi would respond "You have abolished the law" and when they did good he would say "You have fulfilled the law" and how one of the first things Jesus said of himself was "I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it" - and that struck me as so interesting.

I am currently reading in James. I started in Florida and thought that I had a commentary I could come home and supplement with but alas, alack, I do not. Thus I will have to look into buying one. Meanwhile I have been enjoying James. This morning I was reading about faith without works. My whole life I've sort of gotten the impression that you are either on Paul's side or on Jame's side. Either you believe Paul and you're saved by faith, or you believe Jame's and you're saved by works. I don't think this is true. I think that Jame's isn't saying that works save you, I think that James is saying that works are a symptom of your faith. If you have a real, genuine, ALIVE faith and belief in Christ and the Bible, an outgrowth of that will be your works. How could you NOT help the poor, and love the lost if you claim to be a Christian? I think that Jame's saying that if you have no works it is a symptom of your dead faith. If you love Christ you will follow his commandments which will lead to works. The whole point of loving Jesus is to obey him, to obey him you will have to feed the hungry, take care of the sick, love the lost, be generous to the poor, these are works, this is fruit, this is the natural outgrowth of your faith. Faith without works isn't dead because there are no works. There are no works because your faith is dead. Works and fruit are the evidence of that faith. They are not at odds with each other, FAITH VERSUS WORKS, works are an extension of your faith. You cannot have faith without developing works.

I am praying to have an alive and vibrant faith, full of fruit and works, not so much for my own name, but because I want to live a life pleasing to the Lord. I want to have works as small and mundane as being polite, and expressing love to the people in my everyday life that they might see Christ within me. I want to have the joy and love of the Lord shining through me in everything I do. That is what I want.

The end.

*James 2:14-26 is the reference I was basing this on.