oh strep throat

You mean and terrible thing.

I do not care for you stopping by and taking residency in my throat.

These little white spots make me feel so yucky.

I loathe you strep throat.

I really really do.

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…..

I miss my hair..

here.

I really enjoyed this cut and color

I need to make a decision what I want to do next

black and white affair

The Royal - Habachy Designs - Interior Design
Originally uploaded by Habachy Designs

this is beyond fabulous. I want these chairs. and even the black brick wall isn't all that shabby:)

Things I'd like to do..

I love this gray chair and the whole decor of the room.  Gray is in a lot of our color schemes for the house remodel project.  Oh the house remodeling project. As a new year is in place I am constantly finding myself wanting to make changes, wanting to stick to my goals.  With that comes just small, fun, and simple things I want to do. Such as:

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.

Meet Salem

After volunteering at the Animal Shelter I met this precious, submissive, uniquely colored dog named "Pookie" at the time.  I worked with one of the shelter workers on socializing her and doing some training with her.  I felt drawn to her and something in my gut said "I will rescue this girl".

So needless to say after talking my husband into adding a 3rd dog to the pack, and making preparations (filling out adoption papers, paying fees, picking her up from the vet, going through gradual pack introductions due to spay surgery), she is making her transition nicely into 6940. 

I introduce to you: Salem Hawk

Unwelcomed snow days

Today marks day 3 of no school. Another day lost for testing. Another day to make up. Another day of stir craziness. I love snow don't get me wrong. But when it starts robbing our school calendar of school days I become a little agitated. Sadly I cannot say I have been overly productive during my time off. I actually at times haven't known what to do with myself. The following list is how I have been spending my 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.

CHRISTmas break begins

Friday the 17th, was the last day of school for teachers and students for 2 weeks. I must say being a teacher does have it's perks. 2 weeks off for Christmas break, summers off, etc. I am looking forward to CHRISTmas break and I hope that it travels by slowly giving me time to enjoy and embrace each moment.

So far this weekend I have been doing a lot of the following:

1) drinking tea: particularly RUssian tea (oh so good)

2) reading books (currently I am reading VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER so that my hubby can take me to see the movie sometime this week)

3)picking back up on journaling

I plan to continue to spend more time doing these things and less time wasting on the internet.

I also have been picking up some orders with oh.lovelyoil (more so by word of mouth) which has been keeping me busy. I am not complaining by any means.

This is also the first year EVER that I will be out of town on Christmas.  We (David, me , and his family) are driving up to Indiana on Christmas Eve morning to spend time with his grandmother and uncle.  The whole process was rather emotional for me at first because I honestly just wanted to be at home for Christmas. But the Lord and supportive parents and the husband all helped me to realize that it's going to be okay. 

Looking forward to the next 2 weeks off of work.

Celebrating love, the birth of our Savior, down time, friends, family, and simply doing nothing.

The CHRISTmas trees

Christmas tree number 1

White tree

Color Scheme: purples, silver, teal/blue

Simply divine

new ornament

the infamous KEY ornament I just had to have at Garden Ridge

perfect addition to Tree number 1



Chritmas tree number 2 is petite and traditional.

golds, reds, and greens

Got new red bows for it this year

full length shot

so I have this thing for bird cages. So I had to get one for the tree.

Michaels find for 1.00 can't beat that

Tree number 3 is new this year and a work in progress. I have more ornaments on it now and presents are consuming it. More pictures later