Thoughts of the preceding week.....

I have been writing some blog entries on myspace, and decided that I might copy them to this blog for those of you who haven't seen them. If you are on my myspace, then you can skip this one.:)

Hallelujah
Current mood: ecstatic


I am really excited about our new church and what it is doing. In some ways it is similar to the visionof my old church. We are to be kindgdom focused. The church today is becoming irrelevant. It is becoming a building, and an empty building at that. This church and its pastors are calling us to a new exciting adventure. If we are the body.....why aren't his hands reaching? That is the question. Our purpose (as many of our generation knows) is not to sit on a pew on Sunday mornings. Our purpose is to let Christ work through us to redeem the world. Our purpose is to reflect Christ. Our purpose is to meet needs of hurting and hungry people.

One thing I love about this....we not only become aware of the needs of the world. we become aware of the needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ. How can we be and effective body, if I am a hand and never have even met my foot? We support each other. We are a community. People are looking for an authentic, real, supportive place to be. The family is breaking down in our society. We as the church need/ MUST be that family to each other! When we are loving each other, and also loving others outside our doors...regardless of whether they are going to come to our church or take our beliefs....Christ will be revealed! When we allow the glory of God to shine through us!!!!!!!!my goodness....the rocks will cry out, and the whole world will sing of HIS greatness.

People are looking for this. They are longing for this. A place that is real. A place where love is real, and is there regardless of who I am, or what I have done.

We are also looking at our spiritual gifts, and the diversity of the body...which I think is really cool. We can be ministers of Christ in the way God has designed us. He has given each of us a gift, and made us stewards of a precious grace that we can give to another. It is a grace that is unique....It is not mine....I am just its steward, and God can work powerfully through me when I allow him to use it.

My gift is exhortation. Encouragement. I look at people and desire to lift them up, and help them to realize how special they are. I look for practical ways to help others be successful. I come up with plans. Doing this through the power of God energizes me. This doesn't mean I am service oriented. I try sometimes to help in this way, and should, but my strength is not stepping in and doing the work to lift someone else up.....

I took several tests (for those interested I could give the website) which are supposed to help you figure out your spiritual gift. With this and the input of several people who know me well, I have come to this conclusion.

One of the tests I took included many things that I wasn't familiar with as the main categories of spiritual gifts that you find in Romans 12 and I Corinthians 12 which was the main place I had studied this before. (One of the gifts was exorcism...my husband said he wanted this gift and has been practicing on the cat....haha..j/k) This test said that my top gift was music...go figure..and my second one was faith.

The gift of Faith is the belief that God is going to fufill all his promises, and it is in no way shaken by circumstances, or situation. This seems powerful to me that is appeared so high on my list. Perhaps part of this is the gift God has given me of cheerfulness, and contentment...positive thinking Pollyanna. I think that there is some of this in me although I have never thought of this as a spiritual gift of faith.

As I go through this process, and this bible study it makes me so grateful to God. I am amazed once more at the awesomeness of God and how he gives us these tools and little pieces of grace to blow this world wide open with the glory of God. Hallelujah!!!!!!!!! Hallelujah! God is so holy, and so worthy, and so beyond my description and words to proclaim. Hallelujah. do you hear it? Do you hear the Hallelujah? Pass it on.

Have a happy thanksgiving. Thank God for not giving up on our mess of a humanity. Thanks be to God for not giving up on me, and you.

love,

sweet t







Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Pregnant
Current mood: sympathetic


Well, we had a bomb threat today, but I am not going to write about that. Instead I think I will write about a tour I took on Sunday. It was a tour of a Pregnancy Center. First of all....no, I am not pregnant. But the place was really cool. It is a place where women can go who don't have money to buy pregnancy tests, or many other things for their babies. They deal with a lot of teenagers, and low income families. If they find out from the pregnancy test that they are pregnant, they get a gift bag which has a baby book, a diaper, and several other things which help stress the fact from now on you are a mom. It doesn't start in 9 months. It starts now.

They also counsel the young ladies in their options--adoption, etc., and give them information. They are a christian pro-life organization, but they don't judge, and if the girl is interested in abortion they give her some information about it--nothing graphic--they don't believe in scaring them into the right decision, but rather what will happen if/when they make that choice. They do refferals for doctors and adoptions, but not for abortions.

They also have a program that they girls can basically do for two years. They take a course on parenting, and caring for themselves and the baby, and when they do this they earn "mommy bucks" They can use this pretend money to pick out anything they want in the baby store. Anything from diapers, to clothes for mother and baby..to high chairs and cribs (when they have them.) They can also earn more "mommy bucks" if daddy shows up to take the courses with them.

This leads me to their immense needs. They hardly have enough supplies to help them keep up with the needs...

They can give out the diapers, blankets, etc......WHEN they have the diapers donated by local chruches and people.

They have the ability to also give free ultrasounds for the first trimester(sp?).......WHEN they have the volunteer nurses. Right now they can only do four appointments a week.

They can give the free pregnancy tests, and counseling.....WHEN they have the volunteer staff to help.

I think they are doing such a wonderful thing here. The volunteer program has an extensive application and training process, but what a ministry for those who have the time to help.

If you know of any one who is interested.....doctors, nurses, volunteers, to give only an hour or two a week, .......it is so important.....I went in to their supply room, and they had about two packages of diapers left ...they are almost out...God help them.





p.s. They have also had people donate their services in cool ways....a photographer donated her time and services to take professional pictures of babies for the mommies and families.....pictures they could never have afforded on their own.....how exciting that whatever we do can be used to uplift, and help someone else carry the load. To whom much is given, much is required. .....






Saturday, November 18, 2006

Pumpkin Pie, and meow-meow
Current mood: mischievous


My husband asks me why I never blog anymore. The answer is quite complicated. I could not say just one thing has kept me from writing. The thing that I love so much. Suffice it to say, today I am not teaching violin lessons and so I have a few minutes to spend collecting my thoughts, and reminicising(sp?) about bygone days and times. I seem to have so many things on my plate these days. It is not like last year, or really like any preceding year in my adult life. I am not stressed out with too much to do at my job, or feel like I can't handle the things in my life, but my life seems to be very full. I can't really complain about that. It is a very good life. I am enjoying this time, and first year with my husband, as next year he will start back to school, and I am not really sure how that is going to look yet. By that I mean, I do not know that we will have the glorious evenings and hours we do now to spend time together....so I take every moment I can to be with him, and enjoy this first year. It's amazing that it is nearly six months now.

When he is at school, and work in the next couple of years I will have plenty of time to blog, and play soccer, and continue some of those personal hobbies and loves. Or so I say that now.:)

Next week is Thanksgiving. I love this time of year. Most of you who read this probably know this, and are thinking oh no! Here she goes again. I love the warmth of the Christmas season. I love the memories. I love the cheesy feel good movies, and I love making my house cozy, and cooking those feel good foods. Pies, and hams, and potatoes, and all those foods that make you nostalgic and full. I love christmas music....YES! I do! That is just who I am, and those of you who love me will have to deal with it.

My husband says that we will have NO christmas music this year. Well, first you must know that any time he says NO adamantly he is not being totally serious. ....especially since that tatic just makes me more stubborn....so....chrismtas music will be played with a compromise.....maybe not 24 hours a day.... but I will not forego the makings of my favorite time of the year completely..:)

He also said yesterday that he wants to feed meow-meow to the next door neighbor cat. hmmmmmm....guess not on that one too.:)

So...for those of you like me out there who have you head in the clouds, and your feet on the ground.....i wish you a lovely day.

For those of you who aren't like me.....eat some pumpkin pie, or listen to your guilty pleasure song. What you feel for that moment is worth a million smiles.

later,

sweet t









Monday, November 13, 2006

From me to you, to the world...
Current mood: hopeful


The issue is not simply one of getting power, but becoming aware of how we use the power we have, and then developing the expertise to make an impact on our communties for good. The Church is a sleeping giant. What a powerful witness we could be if the parts of the body came to a new awarness of the power that is at work within and among us!

James A. Forbes



Today I have been thinking of this idea of power. I was reading a blog recently that was going on and on about men and women's power in relationships, and men's apparent weakness when it comes to visual stimulation....who's right? Do women really have power in their relationships, or is it still as if we were in the 19th century? Have men lost their power, and identity as men?

I think this is perhaps a silly question. I think the truth is that both individuals give up their power to each other and to God--this is what vunerability is about, and in doing so, they both can receive power that is beyond their imagination--not because of who they are, but because of what they are willing to sacrifice. When both persons of a couple are willing to do this.....we gain the a speck of the vision of the kingdom.

On a larger level, if we did the same with the world, sacrificing ourselves at the feet of civilization....God could move mountains, and redeem the entirety of mankind. What a vision! The Lion and the Lamb. truly, wordsworth, and coleridge...THIS must be the definition of sublime.