I don't know about you, but it's pretty easy for me to get in a rut and forget what I'm thankful for. I was in one of these ruts, and it took a Lowe's discount card to get me out of it. That story will come at the end, but for now I'd like to share a few things I'm thankful for this week.
Last weekend Matt and I went to visit my sister, brother in law, nephews, and mother. We were having a very late Christmas celebration. One sad thing about the trip was that we were taking Carol with us to drop her off with my sister and brother in law. No, Carol is not a dog...she's a boat. My dad fishes in Corpus Christi Bay, and got a new bay boat a few years ago. When he got the new one, he let Matt and me borrow the Carolina Skiff...Carol. It's a little fiberglass boat that can fit four people. It has one seat in front and a cooler behind the steering wheel that can be sat upon. It has a "big" front platform that two people can stand on and one can cast a fishing pole from. It is an amazing boat, and Matt and I have many fond memories of taking it out on Lake Fort Phantom and Lake Brownwood. However, we no longer have much time to take it out since we are preparing to leave, and we need the space in our garage to get things organized. It is time for my sister's family to make some memories on it. We are glad they will enjoy it, but we are really sad to see it go! However, that leads to the first thing I'm thankful for--that my dad let us borrow the boat.
Like I mentioned earlier, my mom was in Bastrop with us this weekend. My mom loves her family, and she always wants to take us out to eat. It gives her joy to treat people to a meal, and not all parents are that giving and hospitable. I am thankful for that.
On Saturday night my uncle came to Bastrop from Houston and spent the night with us as well. We played a domino game for a few hours, and while it got a little crazy it was fun. I am thankful that I got to play a game with my family...even though it was a little intense at times! I'm also thankful that my sister and her family are geographically closer to us now.
Fast forward to today; I'm pretty stuck in that rut I mentioned earlier. It has been a good week, we've gotten a few really good things done. Last night our teammate Gregory came over and we spent some time catching up, reading God's Word, and praying together. Yet with all that, I still felt blah. This morning I woke up not feeling good. The beginning of a sore throat, stuffy head, and a general feeling of not being well swept over me. I went to work, and my dear friend Sherry helped me catch up on filing. Don't tell anyone, but I had filing from 2008 that had not been done...our secret! I am thankful that she helped me with that, it took us at least an hour and a half to do it together. I am also thankful that my boss was so willing to let me go home at lunch and not come back for the rest of the day. She's a great boss. Although I thought about how those things at work were really nice today, I still wasn't as thankful for them as I should have been.
I came home at lunch to Matt heating up soup that we ate together. I was thankful that he got that started for us. It hit the spot when I was not feeling well. I laid on the couch for the rest of the day, and really didn't get up and start moving around until about 5:30. I got up and took Bane to the mailbox before it got too dark, and that's when it happened. Let me catch you up on the history for this to make a little more sense. About a month ago our bathroom sink started to drip. Matt and I are fully capable of fixing it, but the problem is that we have a new faucet in our vanity that we are going to put in when we get our new vanity for the bathroom. We have been putting the bathroom renovation off because if you've been to our house you'll notice that we still don't have two cabinets painted white. We've had all white cabinets but two for at least four months now...it's ridiculous. Anyway, all that to say we don't want to fix a leaky faucet when we're just going to replace it soon. We've been catching the water that's dripping and have been very creative in what we've used it for, but to be honest it's starting to get out of hand. I mentioned the fact that it is about to drive me crazy to Matt and he suggested that we go get the vanity this Saturday and do the bathroom. I agreed. The only thing that I'm not looking forward to is spending the money to buy it. We still have some money on a Lowe's gift card, but it will not cover the entire expense. We have had strange medical bills this month that we've had to pay, so spending more money on something out of the ordinary does not excite me.
And back to this evening when I got the mail. We got this random card in the mail from Lowe's for $10 off a purchase of $50 or more, amazing! $10 is not exactly going to pay for the vanity, but it was amazing how God decided to bless us with that little bit of help. I'm so thankful that He drops blessing in our laps when we need them most. As I was sharing my thanks with God, all the other things that I should be thankful for started flooding my mind. Our teammate Gregory got a job today, and that is something to be very thankful for. I then started to think back, and all the other things I listed above came to me. God used a Lowe's gift card, of all things, to get me out of a rut. He's pretty awesome.
28 January 2010
18 January 2010
Three day weekend!
On Friday night our team, along with another team and some soon to be interns, attended a "Reformation workshop/dinner". To many the word reformation does not mean much, but some of you reading this know exactly what I'm talking about. Some of you are smiling and some of you are cringing! My background/heritage/whatever you want to call it is the Church of Christ. Some people call it a denomination, and others will fight until they are blue in the face that it is not. That conversation might have its time, but that time is not now. What I want to share are the three points that the leader of the evening shared with us, and then a few thoughts of my own. The professor who led the evening's discussion is a reformation history guru, and he encouraged us to "be about these three things that the Church of Christ wanted to be about":
-the desire to know and be conformed to God's will
-the unity of all those striving to follow Christ
-the sharing of the good news of Jesus
I was surrounded by a lot of college kids fresh out of high school on Friday nigh, and I could sense the cynicism in the room. All some of them wanted to do was bash the people from our Church of Christ past who haven't lived up to the standards of achieving these three goals. I have a feeling I know quite a few adults who would do the same thing...come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I have done the same thing. Funny how that works! This leads to my greatest epiphany of the night: some of satan's most powerful work is being done in Christians not loving one another. We talked a little about this on Friday, and it really stuck with me. Before Jesus died he prayed that his followers would love one another so that the world would know they belonged to him. Satan probably sits back and smirks when we as Christians have more negative to say about one another than positive. If we can't get along with people who have the single greatest thing in the universe in common with us, then I can imagine people who don't yet believe in Jesus don't think they have a chance of being really loved and respected by Christians. Think about it.
Saturday I spent some time making phone calls to more of the people we sent fundraising packets out to. It's easy for me to get discouraged about calling people, because can we be honest and admit that asking for money is not the funnest thing in the world to do? I think what discourages me the most is having people show so little interest in what we're doing, which to me equates to them not caring about the people of Ipswich. Big leap, I know, but it's still how I feel. I also get bothered because even as early on as when I was a college student, I was giving money to help missionaries. It was often not much, but it was consistent, given with love, and bundled up in prayer. That's all we ask for; a few people who are willing to give a little on a consistent basis and cover it in prayer. I continue to pray for God to provide those people, and do not allow satan to discourage me.
Sunday and today were spent both cleaning up around the house and enjoying fun/spontaneous moments with my husband and dog. Back to work tomorrow, it's been a great three day weekend.
-the desire to know and be conformed to God's will
-the unity of all those striving to follow Christ
-the sharing of the good news of Jesus
I was surrounded by a lot of college kids fresh out of high school on Friday nigh, and I could sense the cynicism in the room. All some of them wanted to do was bash the people from our Church of Christ past who haven't lived up to the standards of achieving these three goals. I have a feeling I know quite a few adults who would do the same thing...come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I have done the same thing. Funny how that works! This leads to my greatest epiphany of the night: some of satan's most powerful work is being done in Christians not loving one another. We talked a little about this on Friday, and it really stuck with me. Before Jesus died he prayed that his followers would love one another so that the world would know they belonged to him. Satan probably sits back and smirks when we as Christians have more negative to say about one another than positive. If we can't get along with people who have the single greatest thing in the universe in common with us, then I can imagine people who don't yet believe in Jesus don't think they have a chance of being really loved and respected by Christians. Think about it.
Saturday I spent some time making phone calls to more of the people we sent fundraising packets out to. It's easy for me to get discouraged about calling people, because can we be honest and admit that asking for money is not the funnest thing in the world to do? I think what discourages me the most is having people show so little interest in what we're doing, which to me equates to them not caring about the people of Ipswich. Big leap, I know, but it's still how I feel. I also get bothered because even as early on as when I was a college student, I was giving money to help missionaries. It was often not much, but it was consistent, given with love, and bundled up in prayer. That's all we ask for; a few people who are willing to give a little on a consistent basis and cover it in prayer. I continue to pray for God to provide those people, and do not allow satan to discourage me.
Sunday and today were spent both cleaning up around the house and enjoying fun/spontaneous moments with my husband and dog. Back to work tomorrow, it's been a great three day weekend.
06 January 2010
passion
What are you passionate about? Have you ever allowed yourself to take a deep breath and plunge into that scary yet exciting place where you explore what it is that makes you tick? A few weeks ago our team was part of a module (weekend retreat) where we talked about this very thing...and tonight God brought it all together like some beautiful masterpiece.
There are a few things that I am really passionate about. One is that I become and remain a woman of faithfulness, confidence, and good character to my husband, other family, co workers, friends, and strangers. My reputation as being someone that people can come to and trust is very important to me. I am also passionate about martial arts, self defense and kickboxing to be more specific. I won't lie, I really like to punch and be punched in a controlled situation...and I like to be trained to know that I can still punch and be punched in a serious, dangerous, and uncontrolled situation. Another part of that passion for the martial arts is instilling confidence and strength in others, especially women.
Another, and hopefully forever the greatest, passion I have is seeing people who seem to have very little in common share the greatest thing ever in common...salvation in a relationship with Jesus. Tonight I gathered with a bunch of people who for the most part look like me, WASPS. Yes, I am remembering a term I learned in a university sociology class: White Anglo Saxon Protestant. Besides our age, there was not much difference in the people seated around me when I went to sing songs of praise to God and listen to people reflect on his Word tonight. Don't get me wrong, it was a very encouraging and thought provoking evening where God's people gathered to give Him glory, so it was amazing. All I'm saying is that we were a group of people with very similar backgrounds and life circumstances. Toward the end of the evening was when things really started to get exciting. There is a large group of refugees in Abilene from the Bhutan/Nepal region, and members of our church are helping them out with various day to day activities. One of the married couples decided to be baptized tonight, so many of the refugees came to celebrate with them and see what the baptism thing was all about. A preacher from Clyde (a very small town near Abilene) also came to celebrate with us...did I mention he is from India and converted from the Hindu religion? Amazing! People from other churches around the city who have connections to the refugees also came to celebrate the baptism. So here we are, tall people and short people, light people and dark people, people who have known Jesus for many years and others who don't know if they want anything to do with Him, and people from other denominations (what a concept) watching this couple participate in the death, resurrection, and eternal life of Christ. It was amazing! As the couple went back to get changed we sang some songs. After singing through the few "planned" songs, we started singing others that just came to the leader. We sang Our God is an Awesome God, and it's like the whole gathering just came alive! You could see people clapping, moving around, really enjoying the fact that our God is awesome. It was exhilarating and beautiful. It welled up passion within me. It reminded me that this is what God will have me be a part of in Australia, participating with people who seem so very different as they realize that we have all been made in the image of God. I felt like I was looking into my future, and it was amazing.
I would really like to hear what you are passionate about. Please leave a comment and share your thoughts with me!
There are a few things that I am really passionate about. One is that I become and remain a woman of faithfulness, confidence, and good character to my husband, other family, co workers, friends, and strangers. My reputation as being someone that people can come to and trust is very important to me. I am also passionate about martial arts, self defense and kickboxing to be more specific. I won't lie, I really like to punch and be punched in a controlled situation...and I like to be trained to know that I can still punch and be punched in a serious, dangerous, and uncontrolled situation. Another part of that passion for the martial arts is instilling confidence and strength in others, especially women.
Another, and hopefully forever the greatest, passion I have is seeing people who seem to have very little in common share the greatest thing ever in common...salvation in a relationship with Jesus. Tonight I gathered with a bunch of people who for the most part look like me, WASPS. Yes, I am remembering a term I learned in a university sociology class: White Anglo Saxon Protestant. Besides our age, there was not much difference in the people seated around me when I went to sing songs of praise to God and listen to people reflect on his Word tonight. Don't get me wrong, it was a very encouraging and thought provoking evening where God's people gathered to give Him glory, so it was amazing. All I'm saying is that we were a group of people with very similar backgrounds and life circumstances. Toward the end of the evening was when things really started to get exciting. There is a large group of refugees in Abilene from the Bhutan/Nepal region, and members of our church are helping them out with various day to day activities. One of the married couples decided to be baptized tonight, so many of the refugees came to celebrate with them and see what the baptism thing was all about. A preacher from Clyde (a very small town near Abilene) also came to celebrate with us...did I mention he is from India and converted from the Hindu religion? Amazing! People from other churches around the city who have connections to the refugees also came to celebrate the baptism. So here we are, tall people and short people, light people and dark people, people who have known Jesus for many years and others who don't know if they want anything to do with Him, and people from other denominations (what a concept) watching this couple participate in the death, resurrection, and eternal life of Christ. It was amazing! As the couple went back to get changed we sang some songs. After singing through the few "planned" songs, we started singing others that just came to the leader. We sang Our God is an Awesome God, and it's like the whole gathering just came alive! You could see people clapping, moving around, really enjoying the fact that our God is awesome. It was exhilarating and beautiful. It welled up passion within me. It reminded me that this is what God will have me be a part of in Australia, participating with people who seem so very different as they realize that we have all been made in the image of God. I felt like I was looking into my future, and it was amazing.
I would really like to hear what you are passionate about. Please leave a comment and share your thoughts with me!
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