Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Kiara Laura
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Seeking for Wisdom 02
Monday, July 25, 2011
make time..find the time..
this has been the first summer where I haven't worked at the daycare (summer camp). After 5 years of teaching and working each summer 30 to 40 hours, I felt like this summer I would just hang out and relax, enjoy the time I had on my hands...read, craft, create, do nothing.
I have to admit. I found myself with too much time on my hands. All my family and friends were at work so there was limited hang out availability. I was able to read, to rest, to relax, to do nothing....but I became restless. I became ready to explode with action and an outlet for something. Then it came up that my in law's needed some help working at their furniture store. I would only be working 2 days a week and get to work those days with my husband. I've never sold furniture in my life and it def. forced me to step out of my teaching is life comfort zone. But it's been good to have something to do. It's been good to be uncomfortable.
God's been speaking to me about comfort zones. How dangerous it can be if we remain, take refuge, and refuse to move out of our comfort zones. For comfort, familiarity, can breed complacency. I'm leaning how to see God in the uncomfortable places. In those things that scratch and provoke me (not in a bad way). For it's in our moments of un-comfort that God requires us to step up, rely on Him, trust solely on Him, believe that He will meet us.
I also have came to the revelation through my reflections on time this summer that:
1) Idle time is no good. No friend. It leaves for idle thoughts and an open door for the enemy to step in and start whispering lies.
2) Time management is key. I have also learned that I enjoy having a schedule and following it.
3). Letting God invade my time and wreck my "schedules" is well worth it, no matter how big of a fit I pitch.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Seeking for Wisdom 01
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Beach Wedding
Monday, June 27, 2011
Father's Day highlights
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Happy Spring Break
I am planning to finish organizing/spring cleaning. Today I was able to clean the house and I organized the master bathroom cabinets under the sink as well as my nightstand. There are still some rooms/spaces that loom over my head but they will have to wait.
I am super excited because Mega Thrift is having a 50% off the entire store sale tomorrow and I will totally be there when the doors open. :)
PS: did I mention that it flurried yesterday here in Winston Salem, North Carolina. Yes it's true. and it's been cold. Now that is not springish at all.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
oh strep throat
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Sent
:lately (for months actually) I have been struggling with church, what the church has become, and what’s going on within churches that it has gripped me in a way I’ve never experience before. A way I have wrestled with and tried to understand. It’s taken me awhile but I’m finally at a uncomfortable place where I can recognize it and deal with it.
Bottom line is this: I am not satisfied and I know it’s time for the church to AWAKE. Not just my local church home but I’m referring to the BODY as a whole….it’s many members…it’s entire entity. I am not satisfied with settling and doing/living the bare minimum. I do not attend church to watch musicians give concerts, I attend church expecting the spirit of the Lord to be ushered in. I go to worship, to press in, to let God’s spirit have it’s way so that His will can be fulfilled. Not man’s agenda or good ideas. I do not like routine services where everything is expected. I do not like when we compromise the Holy Spirit. I also am not satisfied with the lack of preaching and taking the good news out into the streets.
How reassuring to know that I am not alone in my un-satisfaction and that there are other people out there with the same irritations and frustrations. And while I went through the various stages of not knowing what to do about all this, of wanting to change but not channeling my efforts in the right directions, God has slowly began speaking to me and my attitude has changed. I am no longer frustrated to the point where I just sit back and watch it happen, my fight instinct has started to arise and bubble within me. And now that it’s here I should have known it would have been coupled with the fight/the opposition.
For you see for the first time in a long time, I was ready to go to church. Not to see if things would be different, not to see friends and family or check out the musicians, but because something in my spirit had changed. An urgency was there. I was excited again. This morning everything went wacky (woke up later than the alarm was intended for, our 2 year old lab peed in her crate and in the floor and she never has accidents, the enemy had me feeling my husband was against me, my bath water was cold, and I didn’t have time to get ready due to all these set backs and delays) and left me feeling smothered by lowly feelings that I had no motivation to fight back from this attack. I gave up.
I was really feeling down on myself for allowing the enemy to get one over on me that I just began to weep and cry. Praise God for speaking through my husband who encouraged me. He basically conveyed “yeah okay Jennie so you messed up, you gave up and didn’t fight, but God’s still here in this room this very second. You might not have made it to church but you can still fight here.” I was so encouraged and that sense of being a failure evaporated.
So I picked up a bible study at Lifeway last week called SENT: Living the Missional Nature of the Church by Ed Stetzer. So this morning I started to read the introduction and it was confirmed that this study did not leap out of the shelves for no reason.
Here are a few snippets from the introduction that really stuck out to me:
“Missional is an important word because it doesn’t describe what we do as Christ-followers; it describes who we are as Christ-followers”
“By definition the church is a body of believers sent into the world. But many churches, particularly in the United States, seem to have developed a more stationary identidy, requiring the world to come to them to receive the healing, redemption, and salvation promised through Christ”
He went on to explain it’s like we’ve planted our feet within our comfortable church walls and said ‘come to us” instead of us going out and MOVING OUR FEET and saying to the world hey “we’re coming”
“The Holy Spirit is awakening the idea in us that any church that does not affect real change in it’s community, country, and the world is severely neglecting it’s true purpose”
So if you share in my feelings, or have ever felt like this before I truly believe things are getting ready to change. And you, the general reader can be a part of the change..the movement. So don’t feel bad in your dis-satisfaction. You shouldn’t. Because there’s more. We weren’t called to settle.
So Get Going…..
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
black and white affair
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Things I'd like to do..
1) Continue reading lots of books. I haven't set a number yet. I think I will go with 100. I want that to be a mixture of novels as well as Christian growth/tool books. With the internet and Kindles and all the other technological innovations it's taken the excitement out of simply sitting down on the couch with a blanket and reading a book (being able to dog ear the pages, doodle in the margins, let the dogs drool on it).
2). Stay faithful in my journey to reading the Bible in a year. Today marks day 27 since the first of the year and I have had 27 days in a row of being disciplined to get in the word. It's been a beautiful thing thus far.
3) Find the motivation from above to apply to getting on the treadmill and utilizing my equipment as well as walking the dogs. Time management. Must make time.
4) Journal. I'm feel this comes up a lot and I know it's because i havne't been doing it but it's a part of me. It's something I've always done. I just need to remember how again.
Happy Thursday all.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Meet Salem
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Unwelcomed snow days
1) Going to bed later than usual (school nights I am a grandma: bed between 9:30/10- snow days bed: 12:30 M). and getting to sleep in til 8 (beats 5:50 am)
2) Watching the X Men trilogy with my husband. EAch night we watched one. I am ready for 4. Will there be 4?
3) Working on a hair bow holder. Pink/White and Zebra print as well as listing a few things in the shop
4) Gradual socialization with Salem to the crew (yes we got a new dog) will blog more about her later
5) drinking coffee in large quantities
6) playing with the pups in the snow
7) napping
8) reading
9) I did do some teacher related things today such as grade a gazillion papers and look at how butchered my lesson plans are for this week.
10). Started a new devotional with my husband.
Praying that we get back to school tomorrow. Scrapers: get busy. Sun: melt away the snow/ice.