I just wanted to let you know YES I am still alive!
Over the last few months life has been hectic to say the least AND. I had a major finger infection!
ICK!
But hubby is now done with school AND has passed! He will receive his diploma some time in mid June AND the two oldest children will be done with school within the next week and a half….at that point I will return to my normal blogging schedule. But have no fear I have a huge list of fun things to talk to you about AND there are going to be some new stuff around here as well.
We will refer to it as BLOGGY SPRING CLEANING!
So if you will just bear with me and we will see you soon
Mark Hal, lead singer of the band Casting Crowns paints a beautiful picture of what Thriving looks like! Like the tree on the front cover Mark challenges every single believer to grow deep in your faith, but it’s only when you have that deep ness that you can then reach out and give from those roots!
Reaching out as Mark states “is the way we sow the world we belong to Jesus”
I would be lying if I said this is an easy read! Not that is horribly written or biblically unsound, BUT, that it challenges cut to the inner struggles we all face! Each chapter takes some working through.
One of my most favorite quotes from the entire book (and there are Soooooo many gems) comes right from Chapter 3 Unknowns
The more I looked at Scripture the more I found broken people rather than whole people-people like Moses, David,Peter, and Mary. I see how the weak overcome the strong. The poor have an easier time getting into heaven, than the rich. Everything the world calls success I didn’t find in the Word, and I learned that God takes you just as you are.
When you finally get your brain wrapped around that one statement, your perspective changes, and so does your life! This book gets five stars! It’s challenging to the core, but the amount of growth it invokes is amazing!
Every animal…..there were a few that I held an even deeper fondness for, are you ready for this?
Whales
Dolphins
Frogs
Turtles
Lizards
Koalas
Pandas
Moneys (specifically Chimpanzees)
I still have a major dream to swim with Dolphins. I loved the series Voyage of the Mimi! I wanted to be a Marine Biologist! I loved Biology…..and science in general. My interest was made even deeper by a trip to inner harbor Maryland! AMAZING! That’s where I met Taz in my first Dolphin show! (Yes I had just completed 7th or 8th grade and I can still remember the dolphins name but not what year of school I had finished!)
But until in college had never been to a zoo! My now hubby took me to my first one! And on our honey moon we went to 6!!!!
I am simply amazed by God’s creation!
I have been to major zoos all over the east coast, you could say it’s kind of a hobby! But at some point (not really sure when exactly) but God changed my heart from working with animals to working with people. I know exactly when I wanted to be a pastors wife, but that took 2 1/2 years of college! Truth be told that’s when I said yes to God, but I had really been wrestling with it for almost 5 1/2 years. It started with a love for serving…I did everything. I laugh at what I did as a teenager, if I was asked I did it!
Then came a missions oppertunity. I had never ever left the country before…..and this, this was huge! I so desperately wanted to be a missionary and I did for 6 AMAZING weeks! And then I came home and suffered what is called reverse culture shock. Add culture shock as I moved into a girls dorm 10 days later ( I was a Tom boy!). I just wanted to go back AND FAST!
But that’s not what God had planned! He closed doors to return! I was very sad! Then came a really awesome inner city kids ministry! This country girl felt strangely at home. I attached myself to youth ministry,. But that slowly morphed, though it is still a favorite that wasn’t what God wanted. Then came along this guy, now I’m not one of those girls who said sure I will be a pastors wife BECAUSE. You are going to be a pastor. God brought us together both not wanting to be in a pastoral position, but both of us, yielding to God’s plan for our lives. And then through our friendship God brought us to a place of wanting to serve Him in Pastoral ministry. Though it took me a little longer because when I figured out that my friend was “the one” I ran. I tried to get my roommate interested in him…..I didn’t want to get hurt again!
But you can’t get very far when God is holding the back of your shirt! AND ta-Da here I am….Pastor’s wife!
Most people in the world around me look at Sunday as a day off, a time to relax. Not so for us! But we knew that as we accepted the call to be a pastors family so long ago! Simplicity is what we try to embrace every Sunday
But for THAT. Very reason is why I don’t blog on Sundays! On any given day of the week it is less stressful. So that being said while ALMOST ALL of my amazing blogging friends either wrote yesterday or had a blog post already set up to post, I have chosen to write the day after. As we reflected on Christ pretty much all week….as we celebrated Passover, then to Good Friday then all through the weekend, the one thing I cherished most was SIMPLICITY! And isn’t that so true about the gospel.
I think it struck the most yesterday as the two youngest and I waited in my husbands office while everyone was at sunrise service held at a local lake! Little bean is finishing up his first year as an AWANA Cubbie, and one of their first verse they learn is “God loved us and sent his Son”. Pure and simple! So as we sat in there he pulled book after book off of my husbands shelves and said…..”God loved us and sent His Son”. Every book said that according to him! But those books all predominantly carried that message. That was THE. Message of the day. It ends in a victory over the grave. It ends with Jesus fulfilling prophecies
One man was sent to seek and save the lost! He was born in a manger…….lived his life with one passion……died for that passion…….had victory over death for that passion…..And lives! That passion is US! We are the reason He came, lived, died…and rose again!
No Easter bunny
No candy
No baskets
No eggs
No planting jelly beans
No new outfits
No toys…….
These things aren’t bad….not at all.
But are they robbing us of the simplicity?
We do some of the things above. I’m not saying we shouldn’t . I am saying that we in all of our humanness complicate things. We are called to be like children….simple faith. I picture little bean sitting on Jesus’ knee saying with promise filled eyes “God loved us and sent His Son”
