What I'm Loving

• I’m loving summer weather. Camping, hiking (Squaw Peak tomorrow!), BBQs, swimming, and less traffic on the 101. Summer is definitely my favorite season. Hopefully summer monsoons are coming soon!

• I’m loving watching God provide in so many ways as the countdown to camp changes from months to days. Also, I love watching how hard my Awana kids are working to raise money to go to camp.

• I’m loving where Soma is headed and what they have planned for the next twelve months. Soma meets every Sunday at 6:30 for anyone who wants to join me!

• I’m loving Pinterest. It’s addicting and inspiring. I’ve had to stop looking at it while I’m at work or I’d never accomplish anything. – “The build events are failing? Oh….”

•  I’m loving my chronological Bible. I’ve always found the Old Testament hard to read in comparison to the New Testament, but ever since I decided to read through it in chronological order I’ve been making good progress. I’m thinking about getting a NKJV chronological Bible now. I bought the NIV one because it was the only cheap one on Amazon at the time.

• I’m loving that the phone that I want is (hopefully) going to be released soon! Droid Bionic, please hurry up.

Life Reminders

In the last year or two I've spent a lot of mental time trying to figure out what living my life fully for God is supposed to look like. I've been everywhere from feeling convicted about my laziness to throwing myself into ministries that over-extended me.

Some things I've learned or been reminded of in the last year or so:
I didn't know my limits...or I wasn't willing to accept what my limits were.

If I do take a break from running myself into the ground I am a very lazy person.

I pray a lot more when I'm nearing my breaking point.

I fail about as often as I succeed...and that's probably OK because my ways aren't always His ways.

Satan doesn't want me to succeed...and whenever something reminds me of that it makes me a little bit happy because I know that I've got to be on the right path.

I'm not always driven by the right motives...but I'm learning how to change that.

I'm capable of way more than I ever thought I was.

I'm happiest when I'm serving others.


I'm definitely still learning and I'm sure I always will be. However, I can look back at where I was a year or two ago and look at where I am now and I can see where God has brought me and the work that He has done...and that is what it's really about. I'm looking forward to seeing what He has in store for me this coming year!

Fulfillment

"Our culture is constantly telling us to find our life; that we’re the center of our world, and as such, we need to take care of “me” first.

But when I’m the center of my world, my world becomes very small—because I’m the only person in it. When I try to find fulfillment in anything besides loving Christ and serving Him, I will only end up more frustrated and completely unfulfilled.

Now, don’t misunderstand. I think we as women should express our creativity, and even more importantly get sufficient rest. But the purpose of creativity should be to glorify God with our gifts, not to find “personal fulfillment,” and the goal of rest should be to strengthen us for service.

If we want “personal fulfillment" as women, we must not follow our culture’s prescription. Rather, we must lose our life for Christ's sake. Then, amazingly, we'll find that our world expands. We'll know the thrill of seeing the fruit of our sacrificial service in the lives of those around us."
-Carolyn Mahaney

Read the full blog post here

Divorce Is Not Part of God's Plan

I found out yesterday that my aunt and uncle are officially getting a divorce. I’ve been wondering if they would make this decision for a while now so the news didn’t really come as a shock but it still struck a nerve in me that I didn’t realize I still had. This aunt and uncle are the couple who are the closest thing to a second set of parents I’ve got and also a couple that I never thought would take this step. I could’ve predicted other family members getting divorces, but this one I just didn’t think would ever happen.

It’s days like yesterday that make me really think about my outlook on marriage and divorce and it’s hard not to become completely crippled by the statistics surrounding these things. You hear about the 50% divorce rate and how the Church is actually worse than the overall average. You hear about how children of divorce are more likely to end up divorced themselves. Now this last statistic doesn’t faze me as much since my parents’ divorce happened when I was 21 so I don’t consider myself to be a “child” of divorce.  Plus a statistic is just a statistic. Strangely enough, I almost feel like I’m going to enter a marriage with a better chance at success than some of my friends with married parents. I have no illusions of grandeur about marriage being easy or just working out. I think marriage is going to be amazing and, hopefully, the best relationship I ever have with another human being. But I also think that it’s going to be a lot of work and I know that I’m going into it with realistic expectations of what is going to be involved with making that marriage work. I have a huge desire to fight for my marriage and to make it work and I think that desire has come from watching so many marriages fail. I think a lot of people think that fighting for your marriage starts when problems arise. I think that fighting for your marriage starts the day you say “I do” and ultimately, it starts long before you get married. 

For a while after my parents’ divorce I feared that I would be scared of marriage and I spent a lot of time worrying that I was just going to eventually end up divorced like everyone else. I’ve realized recently that I have a much greater hope for my future than I have in the recent past. I have faith in a God who provides and I’m confident that he’ll give my future husband and me the strength to fight through whatever life throws our way.

Outside of my own perspective on the topic, I feel like our country is starting to wonder what the purpose of marriage is altogether. I think a lot of people are adopting the mindset of “If half of them are going to fail then why even bother having them to begin with?”. I’m expecting there to be a lot of changes in the way our government treats marriage in the future and I’m guessing a lot of it will be a snowball effect as the result of same gender marriages issues. Of course, as a Christian I know what the purpose of marriage is and I know what it represents. Are my children going to be able to piece together a positive view of marriage in the day and age that they grow up in? It scares me to think about that.

Love as distinct from "being in love" is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by the grace which both partners ask, and receive from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself.

-C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)