Man I couldn't be more excited right now!!! O.k., yes, a lot is going on in my life right now but I just found out some CRAZY AMAZING news that knocked my socks off! Well, o.k., I didn't have any socks on at the time, but it did make me jump up in the air, and run around my house in CRAZY EXCITEMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Let me give you a little background information first. Back in July of last year I started reading a book called, "Radical: Taking Your Faith Back From The American Dream." And while some of you may not like the sound of this, it was TOTALLY LIFE CHANGING for me. NEVER have I been more hungry for the WORD OF GOD than after reading that book!!!! Seriously, with every paragraph I had to say," Ouch and Amen!"----- I LOVED IT!!! Most people do not probably like such books that bring such conviction but I certainly do! Because when we have TRUE repentance in our lives, it brings us closer to God, and we experience less resistance in our walk with Christ. James 4:6 says, " God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble."
As we all know, pride comes in many different forms and David Platt,author of Radical and one of my favorite speakers, points this out in the American Dream. Don't get me wrong, he's not saying that setting goals is a bad thing, but self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and self confidence is. Because it EXALTS SELF and causes us to be LESS DEPENDENT ON THE HOLY SPIRIT. But I'm not going to try to sum this all up for you. Please, read it for your self, and see what God would speak to you concerning your own life, and weaknesses, and where you can be more DEPENDENT UPON HIM!!!
Then I read another book by one of my favorite speakers Francis Chan. His book that I read was called, "The Forgotten God: The Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit." Man I loved this book too!!! It also has been LIFE CHANGING for me!!! Again, it has caused me to be SO HUNGRY FOR THE WORD OF GOD!!! He talks about the importance of the Holy Spirit in our lives and with out Him we live powerless christian lives. Now, He's not talking about powerless as being not speaking in tongues, prophecy etc.(the typical things people talk about when talking about the Holy Spirit). Powerless as in not living our lives in REAL FAITH and REAL DEPENDENCE upon the Lord!!! REAL DEPENDENCE as in doing things that go beyond our natural talents and gifts. Moving beyond our comfort zones and really knowing the voice of God and doing what He says. His writing is so simple and conversational, anyone would love to read this book! He doesn't pretend to be a know it all about the Holy Spirit, none of us can fully wrap our minds around or explain exactly who God is, but rather he talks about the importance of knowing what God's Word says about who the Holy Spirit is. Also, understanding that we can quench the Spirit of God in our lives, and we can know how much we are filled with the Spirit of God by examining the "fruit of the Spirit" in our lives. I encourage you, if you feel resistance in your walk with Christ, or you feel like life is not turning out the way you want it, or you lack a hunger for Christ and His Word, please read these two books. I promise you they will be life changing!!!
After reading these two books, I told Adam," Man, David Platt and Francis Chan seem to be moving in the same direction. They both are talking about the importance of relying on the Holy Spirit, and how the American Church is pretty far from that. I think it would be AWESOME if these guys came together!!!"But Francis Chan was out in California at the time and David Platt is in Birmingham Alabama." I guess that would be far fetched," I told Adam.
Well guess what!?!?!?!?!
I just read off of Francis Chan's blog that him and David Platt are working TOGETHER on a discipleship project!!! Boda Bing! Booyah!!! Man this is gonna be awesome!!!
I can't wait to hear all that God will do through this!!! And I pray that Adam and I, and the unforseen church in Richmond Hill will be a part of this discipleship and the great commission movement!!!
I know I haven't talked about the church plant in Richmond Hill on my blog yet, but I will soon! God has really begun confirming our step of obedience and we are really excited!! It doesn't mean that we still don't struggle with the fear, but we are fearing less and trusting more!!
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
Pure JOY!!!
My baby princess is 1! I just can't believe it! This girl has brought nothing but pure JOY to this family! Noah and Myah absolutely adore her! They shower her with kisses and hugs all through out the day! They were so happy to celebrate with her on her big day! I just had to go all out with the princess accessories :) She had bananas and cheerios for breakfast.
She had full control of the t.v. in the morning watching a Baby Einstein video. She didn't sit still much, but did growl and squeal at the movie from time to time!?!
I bought a cookie cake and that girl could of cared less about the candle. She straight up reached for a handful of icing!
She loved it and cried when it was all gone! :) Oh how we are so blessed to have Leah Hope apart of our family!
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Laugh... Just Laugh!
Today was one of those days that you look back and think, "What in the world happened?" Somethings happened this morning that will be left untold. Let's just say I am thankful to the Lord for his protection!
Today was supposed to be an organized day, productive with grocery shopping. Well, it just didn't happen.The goal was to leave around 10:00a.m. but there were many things that prevented it. I looked out the window this morning thinking it was going to be a nice warm day again. So the kids had been dressed according to my weather prediction. I walked out the door and realized it was too windy for t-shirts and flip flops. So I went back in and changed the kids.
Then I get the girls in the car and realize Noah has no shoes on. So we search the house high and low with no luck. Since the other easy slip on shoes have dog poo on them, or knowing our neighborhood it is probably cat poo, we retreat to the cowboy boots. But who wants to wear a shark t-shirt and cowboy boots? So we grab a navy blue polo and out the door we run.
It is 11:00 now and I know that the kids are not going to last through our hour and a half grocery run between Publix and WalMart. So I decide to head to the nearest fast food joint. Zaxby's was the winner, and my mom and sister joined me. It was fun hanging out with all the kiddos, and we beat the rush hour lunch traffic. I began thinking to myself," This might be a nice and productive day after all." Then it was time to head out to the car. I fumbled for my keys looking desperately in the diaper bag. PLEASE NO! I head out to the van with the 15mph wind blowing my wavy hair straight, and there the keys were, sitting in the chair in the back of the van. And guess what? We have no spare key! None. Natta. Zero!
My sister gave me a look as if she was thinking to herself, "Whose the blonde now!?!" Stupid, I know. But the mistake had been made, and now I needed to figure out how to get into my car. My sister pulls some family in-law strings, and they tell us a cop will be there soon. Meanwhile, all of my kids are hanging out in my mom's SUV. Myah says she has to go potty, so we head back into Zackbys, kill a tree (lots of tissue paper on the toilet for my girl's princess hiny to sit on) and head back out to the car. Noah says he has to go the bathroom, so we head back into Zaxbys (but spare another tree... thank the Lord).
Noah and I return back to the car, and my mom informs me, " Myah went #2 in her underwear." WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! I just took her to the bathroom!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sure enough, my newly potty trained girl had PEEUED in her underwear! Yes, I said PEEUED! It stunk ,and I was SO not happy that I had to climb in the back of my mom's car, with no windows cracked for fresh air, and change my girl's poo filled underwear!!! Thankfully my mom had a spare grocery bag in the car and I threw it away, underwear and all, into the Zaxbys outside trash can. I'm sure whoever had to dump it this evening had some unpleasant words for me. Whoops!
The cop arrives and saves me from any more natural disasters. We get back in the car, Leah is screaming for a bottle, and I decided to postpone the grocery shopping due to the fact that it was now nap time. My mom and sister screech out of the parking lot, o.k. maybe not that fast but it sure seemed like it, and I realize that while going through the diaper bag to search for the keys, my wallet, and Leah's formula are in my mom's car. I grab my phone to ask my mom to come back, but the battery just died. No signal. Natta. Zero!
Which leaves me with only one thing left to do, I drive all the way to my mom's house on the other side of town to retrieve the formula for my screaming baby, and my wallet, in case any cop pulled me over for a DUI (driving under the influence of stupidity that is!).
We had now added another thirty minutes to our agonizing day and thankfully the kids were easy going in taking their naps. I called my husband to inform him of our obstacle filled day and he says," Baby! You need to get back into the bed and start your day all over!" I couldn't agree more, but my afternoon needed to be spent in preparing for our early dinner so that I could head back out to tackle the defeated grocery shopping journey.
So after dinner, we all left to grocery shop. We all went in WalMart, and I bought duplicates so as to not have to go back for awhile. And then I was able to go in Publix ALL BY MYSELF, but the sad thing is that I was too tired to enjoy it!
I must say that I managed NOT to scream at anyone today and kept my cool!
I hope your day was better than mine! And I hope that you can laugh at me... I mean with me!!!
Today was supposed to be an organized day, productive with grocery shopping. Well, it just didn't happen.The goal was to leave around 10:00a.m. but there were many things that prevented it. I looked out the window this morning thinking it was going to be a nice warm day again. So the kids had been dressed according to my weather prediction. I walked out the door and realized it was too windy for t-shirts and flip flops. So I went back in and changed the kids.
Then I get the girls in the car and realize Noah has no shoes on. So we search the house high and low with no luck. Since the other easy slip on shoes have dog poo on them, or knowing our neighborhood it is probably cat poo, we retreat to the cowboy boots. But who wants to wear a shark t-shirt and cowboy boots? So we grab a navy blue polo and out the door we run.
It is 11:00 now and I know that the kids are not going to last through our hour and a half grocery run between Publix and WalMart. So I decide to head to the nearest fast food joint. Zaxby's was the winner, and my mom and sister joined me. It was fun hanging out with all the kiddos, and we beat the rush hour lunch traffic. I began thinking to myself," This might be a nice and productive day after all." Then it was time to head out to the car. I fumbled for my keys looking desperately in the diaper bag. PLEASE NO! I head out to the van with the 15mph wind blowing my wavy hair straight, and there the keys were, sitting in the chair in the back of the van. And guess what? We have no spare key! None. Natta. Zero!
My sister gave me a look as if she was thinking to herself, "Whose the blonde now!?!" Stupid, I know. But the mistake had been made, and now I needed to figure out how to get into my car. My sister pulls some family in-law strings, and they tell us a cop will be there soon. Meanwhile, all of my kids are hanging out in my mom's SUV. Myah says she has to go potty, so we head back into Zackbys, kill a tree (lots of tissue paper on the toilet for my girl's princess hiny to sit on) and head back out to the car. Noah says he has to go the bathroom, so we head back into Zaxbys (but spare another tree... thank the Lord).
Noah and I return back to the car, and my mom informs me, " Myah went #2 in her underwear." WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! I just took her to the bathroom!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sure enough, my newly potty trained girl had PEEUED in her underwear! Yes, I said PEEUED! It stunk ,and I was SO not happy that I had to climb in the back of my mom's car, with no windows cracked for fresh air, and change my girl's poo filled underwear!!! Thankfully my mom had a spare grocery bag in the car and I threw it away, underwear and all, into the Zaxbys outside trash can. I'm sure whoever had to dump it this evening had some unpleasant words for me. Whoops!
The cop arrives and saves me from any more natural disasters. We get back in the car, Leah is screaming for a bottle, and I decided to postpone the grocery shopping due to the fact that it was now nap time. My mom and sister screech out of the parking lot, o.k. maybe not that fast but it sure seemed like it, and I realize that while going through the diaper bag to search for the keys, my wallet, and Leah's formula are in my mom's car. I grab my phone to ask my mom to come back, but the battery just died. No signal. Natta. Zero!
Which leaves me with only one thing left to do, I drive all the way to my mom's house on the other side of town to retrieve the formula for my screaming baby, and my wallet, in case any cop pulled me over for a DUI (driving under the influence of stupidity that is!).
We had now added another thirty minutes to our agonizing day and thankfully the kids were easy going in taking their naps. I called my husband to inform him of our obstacle filled day and he says," Baby! You need to get back into the bed and start your day all over!" I couldn't agree more, but my afternoon needed to be spent in preparing for our early dinner so that I could head back out to tackle the defeated grocery shopping journey.
So after dinner, we all left to grocery shop. We all went in WalMart, and I bought duplicates so as to not have to go back for awhile. And then I was able to go in Publix ALL BY MYSELF, but the sad thing is that I was too tired to enjoy it!
I must say that I managed NOT to scream at anyone today and kept my cool!
I hope your day was better than mine! And I hope that you can laugh at me... I mean with me!!!
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