Most Worthy

Over the past week God has been showing me area's in my life that need to change. When God does this he usually shows me several times through many different sources. (I must be hard headed!)

Sunday night my pastor preached on giving God praise. The theme scripture was from Psalms 119: 64, "Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous judgments." The sermon was good . . . but I didn't realize it was for me. I am not unthankful . . . I praise Him. Oh how wrong my attitude was!

Later in the week, the daily devotion I receive in my mail was on thankfulness. Part of it read: "God doesn’t owe us anything and He doesn’t have to bless us. But He has! For the gift of salvation alone we should praise God each day. But He has given us so much more."

Then I read an article at Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. And yes, it was on being thankful even when things aren't going your way. It finally sunk in. I have been so unthankful! We can never thank and praise him enough. He is always worthy of continual praise from every living creature. Not even seven times a day will do Him justice! How ashamed I am for not praising Him as much as I should have! God sent His Son, Jesus, to die for my sins and make a way for me to go to heaven, He traded my insecurities for His peace, my brokenness for his fulfilment, my sorrow with His joy, my filthiness for His righteousness, and my troubles for his light burden. God has given me the most wonderful family, friends, and church. I have a home, a car, a job. . . that's a lot more than most people! I have every reason to praise him seven times a day and more! What a shame it is that I haven't.

"The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him." Psalms 28:7

Random Picture

Hands with a purpose

"Be of One Mind . . ."

I have been kindly awarded the "Kindred Spirit Award" by Lindsay and Sara! Thank you both! Your blogs have been an encouragement to me as well. Since you have both received this award already, I thought I would pass it on to my sister in Christ, Margaret at Margaret's blog. I receive a blessing from your blog every time I read it! Keep up the honesty!Here are the guidelines.

". . . Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you." 2 Corinthians 13:11

Emotional . . .

In a few weeks I will be going to Pennsylvania for an eight day trip with some friends from my church. Already I am thinking about what I need and want to bring. I don't want to pack too light, because after all, I will be gone for eight whole days! Of course their are some necessary items that I will need - such as clothes and washing things - that will defiantly go in my suitcase. But then their are some other things that I could go with out . . . yet I am inclined to take them just because! Things that I might think I need, yet they might just be more weight to carry around. They might also get in the way when it comes to how much space I have for souvenirs!

In life we carry around a lot of things. I'm not talking about physical luggage. I'm talking about emotional luggage. Feelings are often more heavy than any item you could fit in the biggest suitcase. Feelings of hurt, anger, regret, fear, and grief. There are also feelings of happiness, confidence, peace, and love that will make our journey in life so much more enjoyable and glorifying to God. But the question is . . . what emotions are we going to hang on to for the rest of our life time? I'm afraid we don't spend as much time thinking about this as we do thinking about what to bring on our vacation.

What kind of luggage are you going to carry with you into your marriage? There are some people who think that once they are married their spouse can help them out with their troubles. This may be the case, but think about the strain that it might put on them if they feel it is their duty to help them overcome their burdens. Read the following example by Max Lucado*, but in my owns words.

The groom walks down the isle about to marry the woman he loves. In his arms he carries luggage of gilt, anger, arrogance, and insecurities. As he stands at the alter about to say his vows he thinks, "Finally a woman who will help me carry all my burdens. She's so strong, so stable, so . . ."

Now the bride is walking down the isle. She is very excited to be getting married to the man she's always dreamed of, yet her mind goes back to the bags she is carrying. Loneliness, disappointments, and hurt. She thinks about what is about to happen. "Just a few more minutes and I'll be married. So long discouragement and worry. I wont be seeing you anymore. He's going to fix me."

Does this sound familiar? Do you see the problem? Their are both expecting the other to work miracles that only God can do. If two people are carrying heavy burdens, how can they help carry even more? Marriage is about giving everything of yourself to your spouse. This will be hard if all we can think about is what we are going to get and how we are going to benefit from the marriage. One would be very disappointed to find out that our spouse cannot take away all of our burdens.

So what is the answer? Are we to carry our burdensome luggage on our own? No. Even though our husband may not be strong enough to carry our load, our Lord is always able to take our burdens away. He is the one we need to go to when we realize that our luggage of harsh emotions is too much for us to bare. Don't be loaded down with emotions that only keep you from living more freely. Let God carry your luggage!

*Disclaimer: I have not read much of Max Lucado's writings so I am not sure if they are doctrinally sound. I do know some of his beliefs are not the same as mine.

It's Rodeo Time!

This weekend we went to a rodeo in a near by town. It was Phillip and Amy's first, and a very good one too!

On the way!

Bethany, Amy & Mama.

Bethany in the stable.

It was hard to get good pictures from the top of the bleehers!

This one is a little blury, but I still like it!

This is one of my favorites! [Phillip]

I tried to get a picture of my dad, but it didn't come out.

To Hunger and Thirst After Righteousness

I just read Sara's latest post, a very thought provoking message by Charles Spurgeon. Even though the devotion was about breaking forth into singing during hard times, my attention was drawn to another message. ". . .we must hunger and thirst after righteousness, and pant for the day of full redemption. Dear reader, this day open your heart wide, and God will fill it. Groan within yourself for higher degrees of consecration, and your Lord will grant them to you, for He is able to do exceeding abundantly above what we ask, or even think." I believe I would have to say I felt convicted. Do I really hunger and thirst after righteousness? Do I want to be filled by God more than anything else?

Spurgeon's words do not sound selfish in the very least. If I don't strongly desire to be closer and closer to God then I am selfish. Selfish because I want to do things my way, have the kind of fun I want to have, and because I don't want to take the time to stay at Jesus' feet and learn more of Him.

If only we could all truthfully pray the words that David prayed, "O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is." Psalms 63:1

Traveling Back to Bible Times

This summer our churches' theme for Vacation Bible School was The Holy Land. The whole week was so much fun for everyone! Bethany and I helped out while Phillip and Amy traveled around "Jerusalem". I hope this long post does not bore you, but to do a half decent job of describing it requires a long post.


The City
A numerous amount of people from our church helped out in so many ways. The first thing that had to be done was the decorating. In one week our gym was turned into the city of Jerusalem as it was in the time that Jesus lived. It was amazing! In the city were the tribes of Israel, the gathering place, the synagogue, and the market place.

The Tribes
Instead of having groups by ages or grades, we divided the kids of all ages into "tribes". Unfortunately, we did not have enough to have 12, so we only had 8. The tribe leaders lead them around to different places in the city, and taught them about Jesus during "tribe time." Some tribes had their "home" set up in the rooms adjoining the gym or in the other buildings, while others were in tents outside.


The Gathering Place
This is where the day starts and ends. First we gather together and make two big circles for the traditional singing and dancing. One inner ring, and one outer ring. After we sang, we collected money for a missionary. While the children were in the gathering place they would be interupted by people from the village who heard some news of Jesus. These people (actually from our church) would perform a skit, then leave to go about their daily activities.


The Synagogue
This is where the children learned about the old testament way of worshiping God and how the boys and men started learning about the scriptures at a very young age. During their time in Synagogue, the children wrote letters in Hebrew, and sometimes made coordinating crafts.


The Market Place
This was my favorite spot to be! The church bought brown tents and set them up side by side with curtains or brown paper sheets in between to make them their own individual shop. It looked like an actual market place! On one side we had the basket making shop, the weaving shop where they made bread cloths, an instrument shop where they made little flutes, and the pottery shop where the children could make clay bowls. On the other side of the street was the carpenters shop where they made wooden spinning tops, the jewelry shop, the bakery where you could always find fresh bread and dips along with fruits of all kinds, and the farmers market where nuts and "wine" was given out. Down an alley you would find a candy shop filled with all sorts of goodies, and across from them was the herb and spice shop where two ladies showed the kids real herbs and spices. This was the busiest place to be!

The whole week was a lot of fun! I was so glad I helped out and can't wait to help out again next year!

::Here we are doing our serious pose. We don't know if they would have smiled in pictures or not because we don't have any to look at!::