Praise God

Today I am grateful for...

+ Beautiful, sunny, breezy days
+ Podcast Bible studies
+ Window screens
+ iWeb (Haha! It's a love-hate relationship.)
+ MPS mail system
+ Amazing clients
+ Amazing mentors!!
+ Karen Hampton--she keeps me rooted in God's word and how He calls us to live.
+ Movies with weddings in them. Totally fun. HAHAHA. (Recent one: When In Rome)
+ Yahoo Messenger because I get to talk to my dad, and bestie, Bliss. LOL

A Purpose Driven Life

I read The Purpose Driven life back in 2005, when I first acknowledged the need for Jesus in my life. My favorite part of the entire thing was in the end, you got to write a "Life Purpose Statement." You get to 'declare your major' in life. (Haha!) I was going to reread the entire book, but I started flipping through it and decided to just skim through it.

Rick Warren suggests that most people struggle with three basic issues: identity, importance, and impact. Who am I? Do I matter? What is my place in life?

Of the three, I think I've struggled with the third most of all. I am pretty sure I've always had a strong sense of self, I know that my life and what I do is important, to someone, somewhere, but the... impact. The impact is where I always question myself. What is my place in life?

I am dealing with the question now.

I am at a place where I am deciding what to do in the future. Where to finish college, what major, what career to pursue, etc. It's very strange, that there is such a debate going on in my mind.

On the one hand, all I want to do is teach God's word. I want to raise babies and teach God's word to women. How do I do that!? Just do it, right Nike? Haha.

Then there is what I've been trained for, what I've been conditioned for, I need to get a degree in something that will lead to a lucrative career, and I should work, make money and save money, be financially secure, etc.

Is it wrong for me to simply say, "I don't care?"

Matthew 6:33 says, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."

I truly believe that DJ and I can be blessed either way, whether I become a teacher, join the Air Force, just just sit at home--if we seek His will and prioritize His purpose first, we will be blessed. So what do I do? I want to just trust God.

It's just a very entertaining debate between what the world has told me to hold in high regard, and what I feel like the Word of God has told me to hold in high regard.

Interesting.

What are your struggles with what the world has told you to believe?

&& Because a post is always better with something to look at. This is the sky in Germany. I love sights like this because--how can you deny that God exists!? Beautiful.

Pictures like this make really... renew my sense of hope and enjoyment in the security of my future. ;)

Praise God

Today I am grateful for:

+ Crema Catalana. (Creme Brulee)
+ Pslam 91. Reminds me that God's got DJ's back.
+ The internet.
+ How Lucy has matured and learned how to hold it. LOL.
+ The Hospitality House.
+ The very fact that I have 5 bibles in my house.
+ The way my parents raised me.
+ My in-laws.
+ My straight hair. (It's a hot commodity for all the curly-haired.)
+ The Army (Yeah, it sucks some days, but without it, I wouldn't be who I am and where I am today.)

Neighborhood watch?

So I was online talking to my brother-in-law and I got a Skype message. Skype SPAM! (I HATE Skype Spam!) And I usually don't think anything of it, it's always an invitation to go see sexy pictures and webcams. This, however, THIS made me so mad. Because I take marriage SO seriously. (I am marriage's biggest cheearleader.)



What kind of world is this becoming?? I know it gets worse, I know it could be worse. I remember back in California, we went to Hollywood to eat some Roscoes and there was a billboard that made me do a double take, "Life's shrot. Have an affair." ARE YOU SERIOUS?! It kills me. KILLS me to see people around me complain, and cry, and leave their marriages because it wasn't what they envisioned, or what they wanted. As a military wife, we see SO MUCH marital drama. I've gone through marital drama! But the difference between the two was: Jesus.

My marriage and the decisions that we make are not fueled by what we envision for our marriage. Because what GOD envisions for our marriage is so much more than what we could want. I kind of feel like I am talking these big Christian phrases and no one will take me seriously, or maybe they think I take it too seriosuly?

But my response: I DON'T CARE. Someone has to start caring, someone needs to start standing up for marriage. When there is crime in the area, neighbors get together and start watching each other's backs, posessions, etc. I want to start a neighborhood watch for marriage!!

Author Gary Thomas poses this qusetion, "What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy??" Not to say that marriage doesn't make us happy, but the ultimate goal is to be holy, happiness is just a byproduct. What are some examples of being holy?? Unconditional love. Unconditional RESPECT. (Oh, whoa, whoa, ladies, can we say that we respect our men unconditionally!? Nuts!) True forgiveness. Fidelity. Financial trust in God. Provision.

The relationship of a husband and wife is the same as the relationship Jesus has with the church. Would it be fair to say that our marriages reflect where we are in our relationship with God?! I could confess to that. The times when I felt sad, neglected, alone, etc. those were the times when I realized that THAT is what JESUS felt about ME. When I was pining after DJ's presence in my life (but the Army wanted him elsewhere), Jesus was yearning for fellowship with ME. When I asked angrily, "What about me!?!" Jesus cried out to ME!

When I refuse to offer up my respect to DJ. I refuse it to Jesus. When I roll my eyes in annoyance... I am rollng my eyes to God's command for 'wives to respect your husbands.' When I come up with excuses for my behavior, when I try to justify why I just said what I said to DJ, I am trying to reason with God, "I know it's wrong, but you didn't hear how he..." There are no BUTS in Christ.

Forgiveness! ONE of my biggest issues, and DJ said something that convicted me, he asked, "Why do you dwell on all the negative things? Stop living in the past, stop bringing all the bad things back. Jesus won't bring it back up." SO CONVICTING. Women, we do these things!! Haha!! We have amazing memories. And we can keep lists, long, long lists of "You should have done...Remember when you...That one tme you..." 1) Have you forgiven him? 2) When you did, do you continue to bring it back up!? Because that's not true forgiveness. Trust me, this is something that I have struggled with. Now that DJ is in Afghanistan... the opportunity to slip back into that habit is limited, but I am praying that I can CHANGE that, I can learn and practice REAL and TRUE forgiveness.

In our everyday life ladies... how can we learn to be Excellent Wives*? How can we be that 'virtuous wife' that Proverbs 31 speaks of? How do we live a life according to our calling to be saints?

Notice that I did not ask, "How can we change our husbands?" I cannot do anything to change my husband, and it's not my place to. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to convict, to move, to work in our lives--and so the Holy Spirit will take care of it, my call is to be a saint, to belong to Jesus Christ. I am to obey God's statutes, live the Gospel.

Matthew 7:1-5, "Why do you notice the speck in your brother's eye when you've got a log in your own eye!? ...First take the log out of your own eye so you can see clearly the speck in your brother's." (That was my paraphrase, please go and keep me in check.) We have logs. Giant logs. And we should be concerned about that. YOUR log. What are your logs? How can we get rid of them??

*The Excellent Wife is a great book to pick up. It is a biblical view on the role of the Wife in a marriage. I read it maybe a month into dating DJ. (Because when I asked him in week 3 what his intentions were for us he answered, "I want to be your first love and your last love. Whether that means now till forever, or if that means now and later on, I am going to be yours. And you're going to be mine." Whoa. Right!? Haha, my mind was blown, this boy is nuts! Haha!! But I wanted to know what that meant, I picked up this book, just becaues it was red... and it seemed interesting, I thought, "I want to be a good Christian girlfirend. So... a good girlfriend is a wife! LOL! HAHAH, I know, I don't understand the logic either, but... hey, I married the man, and here we are! Haha.)


Let's start a neighbor hood watch for our marriages. Keep each other encouraged. Keep each other accountable to the Word of God. Keep each other focused on the race: Jesus.

Excuse me. Can you please STOP dissing my God?

"Can you honestly say Jesus Christ is your LORD? That you are his servant?"
--OR ARE YOU A LIAR??

I am listening to an older podcast from Cornerstone Simi Valley and Francis Chan is asking this question. THE question. And doens't it sound like one of those questions you've heard so many times?? And the answer is either: "Yeah, obviously." Or, "No, I don't believe in Jesus."

At last week's Club Beyond talk, a student was asking about respect and how hard it was to respect someone who didn't respect you, I blurted out, "Then you pray about it and Jesus will take care of it, he can change your heart." And he turned and looked at his friend, laughed and muttered, "I don't believe in Jesus." And laughed a laugh that was like, "What's he got to do with it anyway?

I was SO angry.
(Then sad.)

I am not mad when people don't acknowledge Jesus as their LORD. I am mad and offended when people think that MY LORD and MY GOD is not capable of changing such small and minute things. When people take it out of GOD's hands and into their own, and they say things like, "I have done EVERYTHING I can." It angers me to see someone who is resting in their OWN ability to change their circumstances. My question is, "WHAT HAS GOD DONE??"


If Jesus is truly my Lord, I fear nothing. I am his servant. I serve him. I am his slave. I feel like tehre are a lot of people who don't take that relationship seriously enough. LORD. MASTER. I follow him. I worship him. I serve him. He doesn't serve me. He doesn't cater to me.

IT'S NOT ABOUT ME.

I have loved how God has broken me and built back up.I love how he has allowed me to suffer when I have. & How he has used every single thing in my life to show me a little more about who he is and how he works in our world, in my life, how he is still alive and working actively today.

I have learned and loved finding JOY in my suffering.
HOW?? Why?? Are you nuts!? Haha!

Because it is NOT about me. It is not about what I want. How I feel. When I want things to happen. It is about GOD and HIS plan, and HIS purpose, HIS will, it's HIS universe, HIS earth, and HIS story.

I am a supporting actress in a movie about Jesus.
So, in what ways can I act and live in a way that showcases the role of Jesus, my Christ, in this movie?? How do I serve my LORD? What more can I do?

If he says forgive, will I forgive?
If he says speak up, will I speak up?
When he says stand firm, will I sway?
When he says respect, will I ask, "But what if..."
When he says rejoice, will I give him a list of reasons why I can't?

Please stop dissing my God by telling me, yourself, others, that your problems are too big for God to handle. Stop dissing the God that raised Jesus from the grave. Stop dissing the God that created the universe. Stop dissing the Jesus that 'for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.' Stop dissing the Jesus that walked on water. Stop dissing my LORD. Stop dissing my GOD. Stop telling yourself that God isn't alive and working right now, today, in your life. LET HIM DO WHAT HE DOES BEST. Because you can't do anything better than he can.