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These are (quite) a few of my favorite things

1. Knowing that my maker is my husband- the Lord almighty is his name. (Isaiah 54) He protects me, guards me, provides for me, tenderly loves me and will never leave me. I am no longer to call Him my Master, but my Husband. (Hosea 2:16)

2. Babies. Most everything about them, namely how they are squishy and drooly and don't have any teeth. I like how they smell most of the time too!

3. To get clean after being really dirty

4. Gerbera Daisies

5. How my family opens the garage door for me when they hear me pull in the drive way

6. Grandparents

7. Music and ears to hear it

8. A full tank of gas

9. Having all my dishes washed

10. Sunday afternoon naps

11. The sign for "Glorious Trinity"

12. Maple trees in the fall right after the leaves start falling to the ground

13. A cup of Jasmine tea with a friend

14. Family Housing

15. How my mom gets SO EXCITED at the possibility of snow (she does a snow dance. really.)

16. The friendship I have with my sisters

17. My new digital camera

18. The Blog

19. Text Messaging

20. Analogies

21. Laughing so hard there is no sound

22. Hitting a really solid backhand

23. The grocery store

24. Smell-good candles

25. The sound of an acoustic guitar

26. Seeing how people from other countries worship our Lord

27. Getting to sleep before midnight

28. Praying on my knees

29. Childrens books

30. The word: serendipity

31. My laptop

32. Mittens

Grannie, get your gun...

You always hear about how men have this "sense of adventure" thing that they have to satisfy in their life. There have been books written about it... Well, I have a hypothesis. I think that women also have a longing for battle and adventure that cries deep inside them. A desire to seek and conquer. Now some, I know, may have trouble thinking about women in this way, but I have good reason to think this. At 5:03a.m. on Friday the 26th of November, the biggest sales day of the year, my grandma, two aunts, step mom, sister and I (six determined women) were standing in the electronics aisle of walmart. We had read about a deal on digital cameras in the walmart insert in the paper and decided to divise a plan and go for it. So my grandma came and woke us up at 4:15 and by 4:45 we were on the road. Oh yes, that is A.M. I was a little doubtful that there would be any people crazy enough to wake up to go to WALMART at such wee hours of the morning, and as we passed by the K-mart parking lot, we saw a few cars, maybe five or so, and I felt very foolish. As we crested the hill to where the mecca of walmart stood, to my amazement, the entire town of Monroe was parked in the parking lot, complete with campers and RV's, dedicated shoppers who refused to miss out on the best deals of the season. Our adrenaline started pumping. We saw the challenge that lie before. Our first obstacle: We couldn't find a parking place. Oh, but we were prepared. My aunt drove us to the front, let us out and we took off. Grandma grabbed a buggy and said she'd catch up with us, the rest of us took off in a bee line for the electronics isle. Well, if you don't know, the secret to finding a good deal is to see what all the other people have in THEIR buggies. So as we are running through the store, squeezing by the masses of people that were gathered therein, we were taking note of the miscelaneous items they had collected. Apparently, they were giving away TV's, cause everybody in the store was bumping around wih one in their cart! Not just little ones, but 20 and 27 inch! They were throwing dvd players in their buggies like they were candy! Once we reached our base, the electronics section, we decided to divide and conquer. We sent Aunt Sherri and Ashley to check out the deals on the TV's while I went to the DVD section and hunted for the CD players that I was seeing in every buggy. On the way to find the TV's Ashley saw the queen shopper. She was equipped, E-QUIPPED. She had on her sweatshirt and a hat, a fanny pack that had six walkie talkies clipped on, along with her cell phone. Woman on a mission. Since Walmart must have figured that people weren't going to be buying groceries at 5:00 in the morning, there were hair dyers, TV's, can openers, and irons in the milk section. We'd run by someone and say, "hey where'd ya get that..." and they'd holla back over their shoulder.."produce aisle!" Hilarious.
Oh the sense of accomplishment we had when at 6:00, they opened the electronics counter, and WE claimed four of the 48 digital cameras that were being offered that morning at an oh-so-beautiful sale price. Needless to say, we came out with more than we intended. We caught sale fever and definately fell into some peer pressure induced purchases, but as we checked out and headed for the door, there was a glow of victory upon us, and we knew we were champions. We went, we shopped, we conquered.

4:38 a.m. Women on a mission. -Grandmama, Mrs. J, Ash, Aunt Missy and Jess. (aunt sherri was taking the picture)

5:03a.m. Electronics aisle, Walmart. - Ash, Mrs. J and Aunt missy.

know why you do what you do.

I know I have already blogged about communion before, but today we read a couple of questions and answers from the Heidelberg Catechism that I think are worthy of sharing.

Question 75: How does the Lord's supper remind you and assure you that you share in Christ's one sacrifice on the cross and in all his gifts?

Answer: In this way: Christ has commanded me and all believers to eat this broken bread and to drink this cup. With this command he gave this promise: First, as surely as I see with my eyes the bread broken for me and the cup given to me, so surely his body was offered and broken for me and his blood poured out for me on the corss. Second, as surely as I receive from the hand of the one who serves, and taste with my mouth the bread and cup, given me as sure signs of Christ's body and blood, so surely he nourishes and refreshes my soul for eternal life.

Question 76: What does your eating the bread and drinking the cup of the Lord's supper mean?

Answer: It means that I accept with a believing heart the entire suffering and death of Christ and, by believing, receive forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
But it means more.
Through the Holy Spirit, who lives both in Christ and in us, we are united to Christ as a body is united to its head. And so, although he is in heaven and we are on earth, we are flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone; and we forever live on and are governed by one Spirit, as members of our body are by one soul.

oh to live what I believe...

The body of Christ is such an amazing beautiful thing. I am completely in awe of God's completeness and perfection in working through the collection of believers called "the church." Tonight I went to a house church in family housing. Here I thought God had placed me out there to reach the nations, but tonight the nations reached me.

Olivia and Gilbert are from Cameroon, Africa. Every Friday night, they have worship and praise and prayer and Bible study and teaching right in their living room. They have three little girls, Shiloh (4), Precious and Praise (twins, age 2). During the whole time I was there they were jumping up and down singing praise songs and shouting hallelujah! It was one of those things that makes your heart say mmm!

I guess I saw tonight for the first time in my life, exactly what I want my life to look like. I have never met a couple that I would really say I would want to model my life after- but tonight I did. These two people love the Lord so deeply and passionately independently of one another that the combination of them is extraordinarily powerful. It is really an amazing thing to witness. They live their life like God is really real and really hears their prayers and like Jesus really did die for them and like they should do something about all of that, namely praise Him and let the knowledge of Him permeate everything about their existence.

I want so very badly to glorify God. To know Him intimately and surely. To tell people about him. To make my life count for more than an oxygen conduit. Olivia said to me that for every step I take toward the Lord, he takes a hundred toward me. She said that as much as I want to glorify Him, He was me to glorify Him even more. She reminded me about Zacheus. How he was short, and he knew he wouldn't get to see Jesus past the crowd, so the climbed up in a tree in order to see Jesus better. Jesus saw his heart and its desire to seek, and what did Jesus do? He walked over to Zacheus up in that tree and said, I am coming to YOUR HOUSE for supper tonight. Zacheus took a step and Jesus ran to Him. I love that Jesus reads hearts. I'm not real good with words sometimes, so it works out good..

Layne and I were talking the other night ago and came up with this analogy, so I am giving credit where credit is due.. I didn't come up with it on my own...
Sometimes, in life, there are waiters walking around with plates of Hors D'ouvres.. they walk past and your head turns and you rubber neck- sayin, "mmm, that looks GOOD, can I have one of those.. " Little do we realize that there is a chef in the kitchen who knows what we like and love and knows it even better than we do, and he is preparing a beautiful gourmet exquisite dish specifically for us and he will come before us and presenting the work of his hands and say, "this is for you." I would like to avoid filling up on Hors D'ouvres so that when the main dish comes, I'll be good and hungry cause everybody knows food always tastes better when you're hungry...

Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart...
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied...

Correction: Indiana AND Arizona and Hawaii :)

Ok, so while sitting around one afternoon, Ben Franklin made a mental note that it was getting dark sooner. After rolling it around in his brain a bit, he decided, "I KNOW, let's change time! We'll just change the clocks to where the read an hour earlier than they do now." And the rest of the world listened to him. Except Indiana. This, to me, is quite astounding.

Charleston!

wow, you can definately tell I am not in school. Three straight days of blogging. This is a record! I am sitting in a computer lab at Charleston Southern. Kelli's in class and I went in there for a bit, but decided I'd scoot out since, after all, why should a girl sit in class when she doesn't have to?!

This place is hilarious. It's a Christian college and you can definately tell. When we walked in the class, the professor hugged us. All the girls talk about is marriage and they all have bling blings on their left hands. I guess there is something to be said for going to a Christian school.. you're a whole lot more likely to come out of it with an MRS degree.... :) Wonder why that is?

home sweet home

Oh how I love to be home. My dad can straight up GRILL some grub and throw Mrs. J's fixin's in there, and you get some mmm mmm good food! Tonight we had grilled shrimp fettucini alfredo. Whoa. I do not think other families eat like we do. I hope I will when I have my own.

My dad and ash and I washed all our cars today. That was funny cause I was in charge of the water sprayer and I kept getting my dad wet and he kept talkin all big like he was gonna do something about it, but mostly I know he just liked us being there. Man, I'm blessed!

I got to visit with my mama jama today. I went by her office and got to see her in action. She is incredible. She's in charge of her whole office and has so much to juggle, but she does it all so good. She's great with people. Whenever I walk in, she always makes me feel important and stops everything else to visit with me. Again, blessed!

I am headed to Charleston tomorrow! Yay! I am going to visit some friends I haven't seen in a long time and I am PUMPED about it. Also, I'll be attending my first ever, teacher conference. Yes, I am old.

I got my fingernails painted yesterday. I love to get my fingernails painted. Not the manacure kind, but just polished. It makes me feel somewhat like a princess... kinda like, the ultimate luxury... I like talking to the, as I was informed they are called yesterday, professional nail technitions. When I am home I go with Mrs. J. to "Creative Nails." There is a man there named Paul. His name isn't really Paul, he vietnamese, but that's what he asks me to call Him, so I do. He always remembers me and the things we talked about last time I was there. I wish my memory was that good. Yesterday we talked about how $20 would last a man in vietnam a month and here in America we don't think a thing about spending a hundred dollars in a day. He told me I should travel more. I agree.

Nothing too profound here, mostly just to say, if you haven't done so in a while, go call your family. You didn't get to pick em, but isn't by chance that they are yours and you are theirs. Invest.

Where's your hiding place?

In the movie "Hidalgo" there is a really good part. The basic storyline is that there is this cowboy who ends up taking his mustang, Hidalgo across the ocean to race in this really long trek across the desert to win some money. They go on for days and days riding through the hot sun and lots of sand and they face all sorts of obstacles and challenges. At one point in the movie, they are riding along and they see the other guys in the race come zooming past, galloping along full speed ahead. The cowboy says, "whoa there boys, it's a long way to Damascus" (Damascus was where the finish line was...) Soon as he says that he turns and looks and there is this huge tidal wave of sand creeping towards him. It's like a WALL of sand and wind and it blocks out the sun and it is steadily picking up speed and headed right for them... He starts bookin it. There are remants of an old city just ahead and Hidalgo and the cowboy gallop through the archway of a door just in time to avoid the wall of wind and sand that comes crashing all around them.

When I saw that part of the movie, it made me think about the wrath of God. The wrath of God is coming. Colossians 3 has some things to say about that. Sometimes I forget about or choose not to think about the fact that it really is coming. What is the wrath of God anyway? Maybe if you grew up around church talky people you'd say it is because of sin. This is true. But why? And why should we care? Vs. 5 says "because of these...sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire and greed, which is idolarty... the wrath is of God is coming."

Sin is like cancer. Cancer can't just BE, it has to be in someone. Just like cancer makes us sick, so does sin. It makes us so sick, and just like cancer, a lot of times we can't see it even if we are just eaten alive with it. God hates sin so much. He promises to erradicate the world of it. He is that good. He will come once and for all and he will wipe it all out. Since sin can only exist in people and God is good enough to destroy it, you know the rest..

Here's another story:
back in the day, there used to be these wagon trains that would travel west across the prairies. There'd be a few families that would have everything they owned, all their livestock and children and everything and they'd group together and make the trip west for land. The prairies are made up of grass that stretches for miles and miles... lots of times there won't be any trees or bushes or anything around. Sometimes, lightening would strike the dry grasses and start a fire in the prairie. If the fire started behind the wagon train, the wind would sweep it along the land, consuming everything as it blazed along. The families would be desperate for somewhere to hide. They had no hope for survival otherwise. But in the grassland, there was no place of refuge. At some point they figured out if they went ahead a ways and lit another fire in the grass, the wind would carry the flame ahead of them. They could stand in the place that was already burned and the fire from the lightening would have nothing more to burn. It would still approach them, but they'd be safe.

Vs. 3 says, "...your life is now hidden with Christ in God."
God's wrath is coming. Like the fire sweeping through the prarie, we have no place to hide. In his mercy and love, the fire of God's wrath has been lit before us and consumed the land that is Jesus. He was burned for us. We can go forth and stand on Him, knowing full well the wrath is coming, assured there is nothing left to burn. We are safe in Him.

God desires the perfect world he made too much to leave it cancer eaten. Jesus asks us to give him our cancer eaten body in exchange for his healthy perfect one. God destroys the cancer in His own precious son and in the process destroys His son.

He gives us shelter from the sand storm that is God's wrath.

Oh to live in light of this...

and if you think you don't need a hiding place:
Isaiah 28:14-19
Isaiah 8:14 *footnote from my Bible: "either the Lord is the cornerstone of our lives or he is a rock over which we shall fall"