Amazed By Grace

My perfectionism has a malfunction....

2013-05-16T15:07:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking on this idea of perfectionism a lot these days. Maybe it's because since my disease flared up this year, I have been challenged to the very core of my being to give it up.....at least my idea of perfection, and open up to what God's idea is. I'm a work in progress, daily, moment by moment, continually seeking and needing of His amazing grace. I wanted to share what I'm learning so far as I've seeked God's view.

"Do not conform any longer to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is-His good, pleasing, and perfect will." Romans 12:2

How do I NOT conform to this world, have my mind be transformed and then be renewed?

1) "Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

For many years this verse has got me. Although I can say I pray continually, the joyful and the thankful parts have been a struggle. The world even encourages bitterness and ungratefulness. But, over the course of the last 3 months, God has been training me in this spiritual discipline. Giving thanks and rejoicing over the small and the big things in my life. Being thankful puts us in a place of humbleness. Thanksgiving allows us to see how God loves us, that He is in all things, and a heart full of thanks quickly replaces a poopy attitude with a renewed joyfilled heart, even if the mess is still there. At the risk of shocking you all, I declared in a testimony a few sundays ago at church, that I am thankful for crohn's disease. WHAT?!?! The very disease that tries to steal my joy has actually caused me to learn to be thankful everyday all day and I write them down. Overcoming this struggle and learning to have a heart of thanks has transformed my life as well as my mind.

2) "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you are called to peace. And be thankful." Colossians 3:15

There's that be thankful thing again! :) Peace....in a house with 7 children who seem to be set on mass destruction!? Peace....with a whirlwind life of shopping, errands, diapers, bottles, foster parent duties, ministry, play dates, and house chores. HAHAHAHAHAHA
I'm willing to admit that I like things in order...my husband calls it OCD. Samuel calls it Hulk Mom. I sometimes, ok, often get this idea in my mind that if my house is neat, if my day is on schedule, and if my kids are walking around in complete obedience...only then am I a good mom. So therefore I begin barking orders, shuffling kids this way and that. Clean clean clean. GO GO GO MOVE MOVE MOVE! At the end of the day I have nothing good to offer my family...just tired stressed out wife, and mom that just wants to go to bed. No peace. HELLO reality check, and HELLO pride. Pride is a peace destroyer! This is totally not God's plan, but yet how many of us battle this everyday? As I've been sick God has worked hard on this pride of mine.

"Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me" Psalm 51:12

This verse has been a prayer for me daily. God's desire is not in the look of my home, I have 7 kids, its going to get messy...its OK! Sometimes I need to just rest for health's sake, or dare I say it, JOIN the chaos! God's desire is not that my kids act perfect. I mess up, chances are if I can't even stay obedient a lot of times, what makes me think they are going to have it all figured out. So, I love, I train, and I pray continually, offer grace, and ask for forgiveness often. God's desire is that I have joy and peace, and to offer up a willing heart that is open to whatever...A WILLING HEART is all I got to bring to this party, and He will sustain me and show me the way to peace. Did I mention I have to pray and fight this battle daily!? As I type, I can tell you my living room is a disaster zone, there is the 3rd load of laundry of the day to be folded still in the dryer, and dishes in the sink...and I think there is a dried sticky patch of juice that I stepped in on my way to the couch. I chose peace this time. I needed to rest and my blog has been calling my name for days. I feel like I should be cleaning or something, but it will all be there later, my sweet husband will help, and why pick up toys when the babies will toss them all out as soon as they wake up again? :) Right now I'm enjoying the little bit of quiet. Peace CAN be found in this crazy life of mine, if I'm willing.

3) " But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of this world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world, and the despised things--and the things that are not--to nullify the things that are." 1 Corinthians 1:27-28

God loves to use the broken and messed up. If you read your Bible you will see that all the "greats" had issues. Moses was a murderer, and had a speech problem, David was a small boy when he fought Goliath, and also lusted after another man's wife. Do I need to list Paul and Peter's issues? Everyone God used had drama. Romans 5:8-9 says "Although He [Jesus] was a son, he learned obedience from what He suffered and once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him..." Jesus had to suffer just like all of us, and when He overcame, He became the bridge of Salvation to bring us back to God.
My point?
If we are spending so much time focusing on all that is wrong with us, and our circumstances. Trying to fix them or hide them, we will miss God's perfect work in our imperfect lives. All we can do is humbly offer our brokeness and let Him do what He does. I am learning slowly but surely that God has a point and purpose to all the messed up things in my life. I've seen some pretty amazing things come from heartache and failures, but I had to close my eyes and look through God's.

I'm still learning. But, I can tell you I got it down that I am completly dependent on a God that is perfect and able to refine me to be perfectly for Him and His Glory the way He sees it.

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,' declares the LORD. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8-9

SUMMER TIME=INTENTIONAL GROWING! Summer 2013 planning starts...NOW!

2013-04-16T14:34:00.000-07:00

Several summers ago, God led me to begin using the extra time with my kids as opportunity to be even more intentional. Intentional with spending more time together, intentional with boredom busters, and even more intentional about getting to know Him better, and grow my family on a sure foundation. Of course, learning about Jesus is a year round thing in these parts, but summertime is full of even more opportunitie that can either be filled with boredom and mindless clutter, like video games, TV, ect. OR it can be filled with active fun. I want my kids to be active, use their minds, and explore the world around them, and even more, I want them to be active followers of Christ planted with a sure foundation that will go with them when they leave the nest.
As I have been praying this year on how to spend this summer, things on my heart have been:

1) My kids are getting older I have a PRE-TEEN now! I KNOW!!!! But I also have toddlers still. How can I keep everyone excited and engaged at the same time.

2)This world is getting crazy, and more and more I see it sinking it's claws into young people and not letting them go. What spiritual disciplines can I teach my kids that will help them stand firm in their faith and also show the world Jesus is a better way....something they need now and as grown-ups.

3) What does God want to teach US and how can we learn and grow together.?

I feel like God answered those questions by saying, "Teach them how to GIVE, TRUST, and REFILL. Give more of our time, talents, and treasure. Step further out of our comfort zones. Teach about trusting that when we give of ourselves and our worldly riches that God will restore, renew, and refill us with more....more of better things. Things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Fruit of the Spirit that keep us sure footed and charged up in a draining unsecure world and at the same time fulfilling our purpose as Christians...being a light to the world.

I'm excited about how God has showed me to do this. This summer is going to be a time of growth for everyone in this family! Everyone from the biggest to the littlest will be involved in the planning and doing! (Well, the babies will be doing more of just being cute and tagging along!) So here's the plan: We will have 3 containers.

GIVE OF OURSELVES: (time, talent, and money)

Based on the scripture:

"In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." Matthew 3:16

This jar will be full of ideas of random acts of kindness. Things that we can do for each other and others to shine our light and show the love of Jesus. When I got this idea, I was having a hard time myself as a stay at home mom, asking God what can I do? Assuming that there is this "BIG" thing I'm supposed to be doing and haven't figured out yet. God has reminded me that even the littlest acts of love make a huge impact for the Kingdom. As a family we are spending the upcoming weeks before summer filling our jar with ideas. Examples so far are: clean the park, clean up a neighbors yard, do someone else's chores, give someone a grocery gift card at the grocery store, do something nice for your brothers, sisters, mom, or dad, buy a homeless person new shoes, make cards for people who can't come to church, get well cards for people in hospital, help at the church food pantry, serve at the homeless shelter, clean up around our church neighborhood....you get the idea. I also want to teach them along with myself, to become more accustomed to watching and listening for "DIVINE APPOINTMENTS", meaning I want us to become more aware of the many times God may be asking us to do that one little thing right then and there for someone. The plan is to use this jar weekly, and as needed for boredom busters. We will pick a slip of paper out and do that act of kindness. We may get to many in one week, or some things may take one week for one. Either way, along with all the normal summer fun, I don't think we will have any boredom problems. I want to keep this jar around forever, so we will keep the slips in there and add any new ideas as they come.

TITHES: Learning to trust God with all parts of our lives, even money!

Based on the Scripture:

"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house. Test Me in this,' says the LORD Almighty, 'and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it." Malachi 3:10

Although many people know what it means to tithe, it is often one of the spiritual disciplines either skipped or not taken seriously by many. Even Joe and I were not regular tithers in our early Christian walk. Fear, was part of the blame, and selfishness was probably a close second. Fear that we might not have enough, and selfishness to think of other things we could use the money to get. When we were convicted of this and began to tithe regularly, we can testify that we have seen the floodgates open in more ways than one. We grew in our faith and we see the blessing of what God can do with what we give back to Him. I want my kids to get this early, so we will have a Jesus jar. In our family we all get an allowance or fun money as a reward for our work/chores, even Joe and myself. Money for coffee, special treats, dollar store, ect. Starting probably before summer, because why not, we will all be giving back to Jesus some of our allowance/fun money. Weekly when we get "payed" we will put what we feel led to give in our Jesus jar. I will probably suggest to them at least 10%, but I also want to give God room to use His power to work in us. I will not be surprised to see that some weeks someone ends up putting all of their money in. But, I already know that a couple of my kids are going to struggle with this time of learning. My prayer is that God will teach them now to trust Him, soften their hearts to be a cheerful giver, and open their eyes to the blessing of what God will do with what is already His to begin with. We will decide as a family what to do with our tithe, we can either save for a large amount and give it to help orphans, homeless, ect. or we might decide to use it to do things in our random acts of kindness jar. We will also be keeping our jar around long after summer! :)

REFILLING: God's Word is a precious treasure...when we find it we must fill our heart with it!

Based on the Scriptures:

"I have hidden Your word in my heart that I might not sin against You. Psalm 119:11

"The Kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field." Matthew 13:44

As we learn to pour out of ourselves, I think it will be wise to teach the importance of refilling ourselves with what matters. God's Word is a powerful gift given to us for this very purpose. It's health food for your soul! If you forget to put the healthy stuff in you will feel depleated fast! Writing and hiding God's word on our hearts is probably the best thing ever. Scripture has the power to strengthen, encourage, convict, and give answers all at the same time. I began scripture memory when Joe and I were at seminary and it's drawn me into a deeper relationship with my God, not to mention those moments when I need it most, the perfect word I need to hear gets drawn out of my heart by the Spirit to pick me up and set me straight. I wish I could say I do this with my kids all the time, but I don't. This will be my learning to be more intentional lesson for the summer. It's my job to show them and teach them this important discipline that will give them a lifetime of help. Joe and I our filling up our treasure box with scriptures to memorize. We will set a easy goal of one scripture a week that we will pull out to memorize together. I also plan on keeping our treasure box full for years to come.

I'm so super excited! Summer starts for us May 22nd, so I got some preparing to do! I will share throughout the summer how things are going as often as I can. If you want to join in, I would love the company! We can share ideas, and help encourage each other and keep accountable on our intentional spiritual growing during precious summers we have with our littles! SUMMER IS ALMOST HERE! YIPPY SKIPPY! :)

Nothing Is Wasted...

2013-04-04T11:13:00.000-07:00

An interesting thought, right? Looking right outside our doors at a broken world, or looking in on our own life during a struggle, its hard to grasp God's promise that everything will be made new. As I have continued to struggle with my health this past year, I am not proud to admit I have been in some pretty low and dark places. Fighting a constant battle between the Truth that is written in my heart, and the darkness of lies that call out, saying how much easier it would be to die, or "If God loved you, He would heal you." Thanks satan for those little darts, so fun. Some days I really am amazed that I woke up again....because I couldn't see how my body could take much more. Waking up and getting life done, nothing short of a miracle if you could see the picture of damage to my insides, and my dwindling body. I live with a fear that the very next moment could be a painfilled, throwing up, lame moment that triggers for no apparent reason, other than that my body likes to torture itself for an unforseen amount of time. Could be an hour, could be days. While I have learned to swallow my pride and let others help me on occassion, I struggle often silently. I'm still learning! ;)
It wasn't until one night when I was sitting on my floor with my husband after our kids were in bed. It was a particularly bad day, and I was a mess to put it lightly. I was tired of fighting and tired of living life like this. Not knowing if I was going to have a good day or bad, and whether I was going to survive this or die! I was telling Joe, that it wasn't God's power to heal or His love that I was doubting, it was the doubt that I had in myself on how I would react if God says "NO" to healing. My reaction to the reality of that at 33, when I am supposed to be in my prime, I'm at my worst. Wrestling with God on the logic of it all. How could He call me to be and do all He has called me to, if I am to be like this? In my heart knowing that heaven is perfect, but my human nature is screaming, "I'm not ready to die and especially not like this!" I warned you...DARK MOMENTS! (Sorry to disappoint you if you thought I always have it together...pastor's wives are human too!) The Spirit spoke through my husband that night. "You ARE wrestling with God, and you need to give up. Not die, but give up your fear of failure, and trust that God will guide you through to respond the right way no matter what His answer is." GIVE UP!???? I don't give up...I am a fighter, stubborn to the core. Good qualities for some areas of life, but not when it comes to a power struggle between God and myself....AND what if I don't like His answer?!!!!

The process of giving up started for me by continually reminding myself of things I can be thankful for everyday. So everyday I writed down all I am thankful and joyful for. Little by little I began to feel my grip of struggle easing. In this process I also got off my meds that were causing horrible problems to my body, and felt led to go on a pretty dramatic cleansing/fasting diet. Called the Maker's Diet.
On Easter Sunday, which let me tell you, being the Pastor's family with 7 kids....4 of them girls, and a breakfast dish all needing to be ready for sunrise service.......well it ain't pretty. Thankful for our Risen Savior, yes indeed, but by the end of the day when we got home... I felt exhausted and burned out. I layed in my chair as K-Love played in the back ground,and a song came on that spoke down deep. The chorus is simple.

Nothing is wasted.
Nothing is wasted.
Nothing is wasted.
In the hands of our Redeemer, nothing is wasted.

caterpillars get their day of beauty too!

I felt peace for the first time in months....a grip of understanding that seems like a novel Christian thought, but for the first time I was able to grab a hold of it and really, really believe it. That all my struggling, and all the pain and unfairness in this broken world will not be without redemption.

"He has made EVERYTHING beautiful in it's time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end."
Ecclesiastes 3:11
Even a cactus be pretty when its flowers bloom!

This scripture is a promise, that nothing is wasted, though we can't fathom the reasoning, nor at times see any of the good that can come out of a mess. I have finally gave up my wrestling match with God. He wins! Through this struggle I finally get it...I get that He will train my heart to respond appropriately. I WILL look for reasons to rejoice EVERYDAY, and I WILL trust that nothing is wasted.

P.S I have been on my diet for 1 week now, and I praise God for extended moments without pain or throwing up that are increasing daily! Healing and Redemption. Everything from last summer is falling off me, but my heart is renewed....I can trade in my old clothes and get new ones at my favorite trendy second hand store Other Mothers!! Because nothing is wasted.

Livin' life...and pondering the moments in my heart

2013-03-14T21:43:00.000-07:00

"Great are the works of the LORD; they are pondered by all who delight in them." Psalm 111:2

Livin' life these days is busy. VERY busy! Crazy and beautiful all at once. We are in the middle of spring break here in NM, and I have been blessed to spend these precious days with my husband and our seven kiddos. There have been many reflective moments this week as I see God doing His work in my life. Our family is not like many other families. Since we became foster/adoptive parents we have grown from 6 to 9 in a little over a year. There have been many challenges along the way, but I see in these swift passing moments of life, glimpses of the blessing this calling is. My life is full of craziness, but as I sit and think about it, I can't think of anything I would change. Well, I would prefer to not have crohn's disease, but even in that I think we all can agree that God is beyond bigger. I'm still alive despite reason, so GO GOD! I've been thinking back to about 2 years ago when I layed out every possible excuse I could come up with about how being foster/adoptive parents might not work for us....God shot down every single one. I think the biggest lesson I have learned during this journey, is that there are no excuses. Seriously, none! There is either obedience or disobedience to the calling God puts in our hearts. From finances to health, God has proved that if we just follow He will provide, sustain, and move the mountain if need be.

So many moments to ponder in my heart...

There have been moments when the oldest of our foster daughters(who will be officially becoming Eastman soon!!!!) comes up and says, "You my mommy!" and "wuv vu too!" Other moments when I see the 2 babies overcoming so many challenges because of developmental delays due to the rough starts in life they have had. Oh, and I can't tell you how much joy it brings my soul to see my four oldest children actively participating in the lives of their new siblings. Did I mention also, my husband, who everyday amazes me at how much he can love. To see someone who could barely hold a baby when our first son was born....to now changing poopy diapers right and left with a couple of kids wrestling around his leg. He is my truly the best tag team partner ever!

This calling has allowed our whole family to learn real love and sometimes sacrafice it takes to live out that love. A love that knows no barriers, and doesn't care about what the world thinks is normal. Love that is crazy, and lessons of that love teach us that God's love for us is even crazier than we can even imagine. All this, makes me so thankful that our excuses became dust in the wind. It's not always easy to live my life, but it has become easier to trust that His way is perfect and His grace is amazing.

Learning to trust El Roi, God who sees.

2013-02-26T13:51:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, I think that we underestimate the need to be real with each other. That's one of the reasons I blog. Real life is hard, its hard for me, it's hard for you, and hard for the people all around us. Do you ever just want to throw yourself down and say. "I'm done!" Well, I have. I've allowed myself to day dream about how much easier life could be if... (There are too many if's for me to list..lol) The point is that sometimes we get to the end of ourselves, and through a limited point of view we try to find a way out. I get tired, and frustrated sometimes....OK, often, and Satan then begins to dangle the fantasy of an easier life if I just stop doing this or that. Funny how its always the things God has asked me to do...weird. ;) I want to see the end or even better be out of the hard part all together. I can relate to Moses when he tells God in Exodus 5:32, "Is this why you sent me?" You and I can struggle to see the point of all the crazy. But, God has clear vision and all knowing power. Sometimes he gives relief, but often times the answer is to stay in the mess because He sees the whole plan.

God led me to the story of Hagar today in Genesis 16. Hagar was slave to Abram's wife Sarai. (Later these two become Abraham and Sarah) Sarai, in weakness, decides to take the plan into her own hands about how to build her family, gives Hagar to Abraham in hopes to build a family through her. Hagar of course becomes pregnant, and was not happy about it. "When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress."(vs4) Sarai gets all emotinal too, and we see a big ol' drama fit, that ends with Hagar fleeing away from Sarai. So she ran and ran, until she could run no more, and an angel of the Lord finds her laying by a spring. He says:
"Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are going?" She says, "I'm running away....." (Vs 7-8)

In other words, "I'm done!" Then, the angel says in verse 9:

"Go back to your mistress, and submit to her. The angel added, I will increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count."

Hagar was pregnant with a son, Ishmael, which we read more about later in scripture and know that God makes him into a great nation. Anyways, we see here in Hagar's story that God doesn't say, "Oh you poor sweet girl you, it's ok, you were right to run away." Nope, instead He says, "Go back." He telling her to go back because only there can Hagar learn that there is more to the plan. She can't see the future, but God can, and He is telling her that He sees the future for her. We see a similar theme in the story of Moses, when God tells him to go back to Egypt, in Peter's story when he tries fight the plan of Jesus arrest and death, in Paul's story, when he seems to be always stuck in jail, and yes even Jesus has His moments, when He is in the garden praying before His death, and on the cross when He asks God why He has forsaken Him. It's not written in there, but in all these stories there is the underlying implications of God saying, " Just trust me and hang in there, I see the plans." Do you hear God saying, "Can you just trust me? Can you just get up and take just one more step, and when you get to that one, take another and endure for me." That's what he is telling Hagar. Hagar obeys and at the end of this story we see God's name, El Roi, revealed, which means "God who sees". God saw Hagar and her future. He also sees you, me, and our futures. Life gets so hard, right?! We want the fire to cool down, we want rest....we yell out sometimes, well I do, "I'm done God, I'm done!" We lay out prayers for mercy, but instead we find ourselves still in the struggle...and God says, "Will you? Will you just take one step more for me, come on, now I SEE the plan.....Will you trust me?" It's a hard choice to say, "yes...YES Father I will stay in this lameness...I guess!" So, Lord I pray, that if the plan is for us to stay or go back like Hagar, when life is hard, that You will give us strength to endure, and grace that carries us to see what You see in our lives. Amen
This song has spoke to me a lot lately -----> I'm Worn xoxo

I challenge you....to a Love Match!

2013-02-05T12:23:00.000-08:00

It seems appropriate to talk about love around this time of year. After all, Valentine's Day is next week, and pink hearts, fuzzy love bears, and chocolate is everywhere to remind us. But, I must tell you that God has been teaching me so much of His love for weeks now. How his love for us goes hand in hand with His grace, and if I am truly accepting of that grace, I should be exhorted to pour it right back out into the hurting world around me. Have you really accepted grace?! It's an honest question right? Many of us have said the prayed the words, or have had an emotional moment with God, praying for Him to enter our hearts and give us salvation. But, have you truly accepted that you are who you are for a purpose, and that there is nothing you can do to be separated from God's love. (See Romans 8:35-39)You can choose not to accept it, but His love is everlasting, unfailing, and never gives up. It covers any mess up you can ever achieve, and He can even use that mess for His glory! In fact, if you are truly acceptiong of this love, you should be compelled to love more, and forgive more because you have been loved much and forgiven much! AND, guess what, the more you give out love, the MORE God will pour out His blessings on you. Does that mean in order to earn God's love we have to do things? No way! BUT...if you want to recieve the fullness of that love, and really see how much He can bless your socks off, you should definetly want to love more!

I was reading in 1 Chronicles 17 the other day, and have been thinking about it a lot. In my opinion, it is a great example of God showing how much bigger His love is for us, than ours can ever be for Him. We see in the beginning of this chapter, David, who is now the king of God's people, and has declared to God that he is going to build God a temple. He wants to do this, because he feels so blessed, but feels bad at the same time. "Here I am, living in a palace of cedar, while the ark of the covenant of the Lord is under a tent." (vs. 1) So, he decided on building a great temple for God to dwell. Pretty good thing to want to do I think. David loves God and wants to give back. God's response is awesome. He tells Nathan, a prophet, to go tell David His message about this idea. God says, "I took you from the pasture and from following the flock, to be ruler over my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name like the names of the greatest men of the earth." (Vs 7-8) If that wasn't enough!!!! God says in later verses: "I declare to you that the Lord will build a house for YOU: When your days are over and you go to be with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. I will never take my love away from him, as I took it away from your predecessor,[Saul]. I will set him over my house and my kingdom forever; his throne will be established forever." (Vs10b-14) I read this and immediately thought, here is David being so thankful, and trying to find a way he can show God love and thanks in return, and then we see God in a way saying, "Oh yeah, well that's great David, but guess what you will not build me a house, I will build YOU a house through one of your heirs that will be better and last forever! Hahahahaha, beat that!" It like God was enjoying this...a Love Match between Himself and David, in which David has no chance of winning, but it's a good try! We also know that this heir is Jesus, King of Kings! God's ulitmate love gift! His son Jesus sent to die for us, and His throne is established in heaven for all eternity, and He is waiting to bring us all into His presence to co-rule with Him! We definetly can't beat that kind of love! The rest of chapter 17 is David's humble prayer of thanks and acknowledging that there is no one like God. Awesome!
So, I'm challeged. I want to love more because I have been loved so much. Some say that I do enough, but there is no such thing! When God's love is involved enough is never enough! There is always more ways to love. We show thanks and love to God, by offering grace and love to the world! There are so many ways we can do that. I was challenged recently, by reading this mom's great ideas R.A.K. There are so many other ways that we can pour out love. The possibilities are endless, and each of us have unique gifts and talents to utilize! Imagine with me, a world full of people doing random acts of kindness! It's do-able and it starts with us! So, I ask...what ideas can you bring to this Love Match! Bring your "A" game friends, cause God is waiting to show you up!

Training to run with those horses!

2013-01-14T14:02:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year....14 days later! Oh, I miss this...me, my thoughts, and my computer. But, such is life with 7 kids, and 4 of them being 3 and under. Life is still busy, but amazing. I still find myself lost in a beautiful mess of life. Thinking about how much I have learned and accomplished during my walk with God, and still realizing how much more there is to achieve. Wondering if I am maybe just beginning to scratch the surface. On New Year's Eve I reflected on 2012. My thoughts to God were...."Holy cow, I can't believe we made it to the last day of the year!" 2012 was a challenging year for our family, many changes, blended together with several trials. We were stretched, it was hard. As I prayed, I sit hoping for a lighter 2013. Rest. But, yet as I closed out 2012 in prayer, I heard God's words in my heart..."If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in the safe country, how will you manage the thickets..." Jeremiah 12:5 Obviously, God sees something in me that I have yet to make sense of. I am a woman of logic and reason, and yet I am in complete confusion with my Maker. When I woke up to greet January 1, 2013, during my time with God, I opened my heart to seek His direction for this New Year. The words were simple, a scripture that I know by heart, but suddenly for the first time I saw them not just as a comfort, but as a challenge.
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your path straight." Proverbs 3:5-6

In those words I knew in my heart, that 2013 is sure to be "crazy", with a challenge to let go of even more logic and myself, then I did last year. Look at that scripture up there again....it is easier read then done. When you desire to live a life of complete surrender to God's will, why would it be easy? To find yourself in a place that you can absolutely trust and acknowledge that God's hand is in all things.....EVEN the bad. Sure, Satan has his going, but God is there too. Using the pain, bitterness, strife, and nastiness of life, that at the moment seem so far off the scale of glorifying, to shape us. To make us strong enough to run with the horses. To bring about more than we think we are, because God knows how brilliantly made we are. We are His own work after all. He sat over each of us, in deep thought. Developing plans and desiring to know us in deep ways. Ways that sometimes, only the trials of life can bring about. I see a challenge in Proverbs 3: 5-6. A challenge that will be hard and will take discipline, saturation of prayer, and much humility. As I closed out 2012, I absolutely felt in weakness, the desire to not struggle anymore. So many times, in 2012 did I cry. Now, in the beginning of 2013, I know there will be struggles...I already see the beginnings of a few. My human desire is to hide from it all. I will be forced to die to my own logic even more. Do you realize how hard it is to trust God in life? To trust Him beyond reason, when you are fighting the hard things. My fighting consist of illness, seeing brokeness of children in foster care, ministering along side my husband to an area that is so dark and lost, that all you can do is cry. Then, the biggest fight of all....is looking in my children's eyes as we talk about how they perceive it all. Teaching them to faithfully trust that God is in all of this mess with us and praying at night they believed me! I have had to see the sadness and fear in my children's eye as they have watched me struggle with my disease. "Mommy, are you going to die?" Talk about heartache, followed closely with an angry glare up at God, that I'm even in that moment! I want to protect them from all hurt, and yet God tells me to teach them REAL faith, and so we struggle with them, and seek out truth together. It's the good fight. I am learning Tae Kwon Do, it takes a lot of training, but nothing compares to the training of the fight to trust God in all things, beyond reason....to let God show that He can take me to higher heights, and by His strength and abundant grace, I WILL run with those darn horses! Oh, man is 2013 going to be another crazy one!?? Here's to trusting even more......

Seeking and Finding...Answering the Santa question!

2012-12-11T10:23:00.001-08:00

I hope that the hustle and bustle of this time of year hasn't bogged you down too much. My hustle and bustle revolves around my now SEVEN little ones. It's amazing how much can change in a few weeks! But, admist this busy time of life, my husband and I welcome the questions our children bring. I believe without questions, there will be no seeking, and without seeking, there will certainly be no finding. The Bible says,

"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you." Jeremiah 29:13-14a

My husband, Joe and I believe this about all questions, that truth can be found in the seeking. We also teach this to our children. There are lots of questions!!! To the curious mind of a child, the world is a big place, with so much to filter through. What is right? Which should I choose? Why? Why? Why? As our kids get older, the questions get more intense and require more research and seeking. The uncensored world has brought the need for much wisdom seeking for our curious kids! With that said, I remind you, that it is our job and calling as parents to teach our children. To answer their questions, and not only that, we need to help them research all sides of the question. This gives them, as well as yourself, the power and the wisdom to choose to believe what you believe, why you believe that, and the resources to have the proof to back your belief up. In our home, for the big questions, we always begin our research with the Bible. Then we move on to other resources to gather up as much on it as we can. Truth will always reveal itself. We have chosen, because of seeking and finding, that God is real, that His word is truth, and therefore anything we encounter in our seeking should be brought and compared to His wisdom, which will reveal the real truth.
With that being said, I would like to dive into questions that gets asked to me a lot this time of year. The questions is, Do we do the whole Santa Claus thing in our house and do my kids believe in Santa? My kids are curious themselves and have already asked us, "Is Santa real?" So, like with all big questions, we began to seek. We read our Bible, and we researched online.

Together we found this:

Who is Santa Claus and is he real?
There was nothing about Santa in the Bible, obviously, but we do know that Santa Claus is St. Nicholas. So we looked up information on him. We found a very awesome discovery about Nicholas, on the website: www.stnicholascenter.org. We learned that St. Nicholas was born into wealth, and when his parents died he chose to live his life following Jesus. He used all his inheritance and spent all his days serving those in need. He gave of himself, striving to be the hands and feet of Jesus. He was persecuted and even thrown in prison for his beliefs.
We came to the conclusion that "Santa" aka St. Nicholas, obviously was not the big guy in a red suit, but was a man who spent his life following the truth that he found as a child. He doesn't have magic powers, or watch us when we sleep....( Creepy!) LOL But, in our Bibles, we found that there is One who knows when we are sleeping or awake, bad or good, and He is always in town. GOD!!!!

"O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down, you are familiar with all my ways." Psalm 139:1-3

So, to answer the question on how we do Christmas in our house. No, we do not do the whole Santa thing, but we do spend our days, not only around Christmas, but all year, trying to be like Jesus to the world around us, just like St. Nick did. Some may argue that we have took the wonder of Christmas from our children and spoiled their fun. Well, I can tell you there is plenty of fun and wonder in our home, and Christmas morning is far from boring and even further from just the wrapped gifts! 1) we have 7 kids....whats boring about that! 2) We spend this time of year focusing on Jesus' birth and what that means for us. We celebrate Advent, and several years ago, when we only had 3( weird) we took an idea that I got from a sweet friend, shout out to Karissa K., and tweaked it to fit us. Instead of Santa Claus, we secretly assign each one of our kids as a part of the the story of Jesus' birth. This year we have seven so we have: Angels, wisemen, shepherds, star, gold, frankinsense, and myrrh. All the presents are wrapped under the tree before Christmas with those names on them. When the kids look under the tree to "snoop" it is fun to hear them try to guess who might be who, and which present might be theirs! None of the kids know who they are until Christmas morning, after we read the story, when they find in their filled stockings a card with a clue to who they are. So, 2 things happen during this time of year for us, 1) I don't have to worry about keeping presents hidden, and 2) my kids are focused on Jesus' birth, with days filled with Advent scriptures, bringing family discussions and closeness. We are not focused on what lies under the tree, but on the reason why we give and get. My kids spend more time arguing over who's turn it is to light the advent candles and read the scripture, than they do looking at presents under the tree. We are a family who is seeking and praise God for the truth we find!!

Darion and Daddy last Christmas 2011

Baby changes everything!

2012-11-28T11:12:00.001-08:00

"All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 'The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel'--which means, "God with us." Matthew 1:22-23

How does the saying go? A baby changes everything! Well that's true in this house, hence the fact I have not posted in awhile. LOL My days have been busy with all the duties required to raise my super six, but the littlest takes up most of my once free time. But, she has given me a little break, taking a long nap. I guess she knew I really wanted to share something today! ;)

Baby changes everything! The birth of Jesus changed the course of history for all. He is Jesus....Immanuel..."God with us." It's not that I don't know this everyday, but truth be told, I have been having a rough time lately....well come to think of it, it has been a pretty rough year! Although, I am greatful for so much this year, I have battled a constant war in my mind and heart. A spiritual war. This war is between my faith and trust in Jesus, against Satan's plot to destroy it with his wounding arrows. Arrows of sadness, self-pity, anger, and whispers of defeat, and thoughts of "I don't want to anymore!" This year has been a real growing time for me. I have seen God's fatihfulness through it all, and He gives me moments of really getting it. For instance, I was driving around running errands recently, and a Christmas song, "Immanuel", came on the radio. I had a rough morning, the busy task of getting all 6 ready for their days, plus all my chores, was weighing on me. I was tired, even though I am doing way better than I was a few months ago. FYI: I just earned my next belt in Tae Kwon Do! WOOT WOOT! However, I still can't seem to get enough nourishment into my body to keep up with the energy demands of some days. Then of course there are the really hard days! Sickness can take it's toll on a whole family, I can see the burden on them as they watch me struggle. Nonetheless, Immanuel, my favorite Christmas song was on...so I of course was belting it out at the top of my lungs with the girls. Then, enter the Holy Spirit, my heart melted, then the tears. "Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel...." It wasn't just the well known fact that the birth of Jesus brings hope and salvation, but the fact that God chooses to be with us. Immanuel, God with us....God with me. He is with me in all my moments, good and bad. I took that moment and ran with it! Over the last week, when life gets tough, I say it out loud..."IMMANUEL", God is with me! It may still be hard, but peace comes over my heart, freeing the anger or pity party that wants to set in. One night Joe and I, in the middle of running between bathrooms and bedrooms giving baths, and cleaning as we went, found ourselves laying in the middle of the girl's room on our backs. "How have we made it this far and keep on going?" The only answer is, "Immanuel!" He came to this world not only to save us, but to walk along side of us. I feel that sometimes He is literaly dragging me by my hand, as I whine like a 2 year old, but regardless, I'm getting there. So, my friends, no matter what season you're in, join my family as we are reminded, that a baby changes everything. The birth of Jesus, changed our fate, and walking with Him daily, gives us the power to do all we are called to do. We are not alone in our days and that same hope that must have been felt by Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and wisemen is our hope today and everyday! Rejoice in Immanuel!

Crazy enough...to believe the Promises.

2012-10-24T13:05:00.001-07:00

Our Pumpkin Patch Grew!

Wow! It's has been a whirlwind in the Eastman house. We have joyfully accepted a long term placement of a sweet one month old girl, Baby A. We got 5 calls that weekend from CYFD asking for help! FOUR times I had to say no, and it breaks my heart, but I am trusting those 4 other sweet little girls were placed in good foster homes too. When I said yes for Baby A, there was a lot of emotions...fear being one, and a manic texting conversation with my husband, as he was in class teaching at the time. Taking a placement is a big deal for our age range, not just for obvious reason, but also because if reunification with birth family is not possible, then adoption into our family becomes the plan. Sometimes, like with one of our placements a few weeks ago, it is just for 48 hours while an investigation is held, but most of the time it is long term. The bottom line came down to, "It will be crazy, but this is what we do!" As I drove to the hospital for my overnight stay with a little tiny baby who had been there her whole life. I listened desperately for a word of peace from God. As you know, I have not been in the best of health, I already have 5 kids, and we are a super busy Pastor's family. Not to mention, I listed the fact that we will have to take 2 vehicles everywhere we go together as a family,(praying for a big van! LOL) and our house is getting smaller by the second! But, His Word came to my heart,
"I called you, you are my servant; I have chosen you and not rejected you. So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand." Isaiah 41:9-10.
I clung to that promise as I spent the night in the NICU caring for a sweet baby, who despite a traumatic entrance into the world, was here and is becoming healthier by the second! I clang to the promise the next day as the hospital staff let me walk out of the hospital sleep deprived with a bundle of cuteness. I remember thinking a lot of times, "this is nuts!" But, here we are. The last couple of weeks have been full. I have been mostly healthy, I have good and bad days as to be expected, but my last doctors appointment was great. We are seeing amazing improvements, and the doctor is confident I will be able to go into full remission! Also, as you can imagine, we make quite the scene when we come in. We are not a quiet family who can just slip in the back. We are ALWAYS noticed. We are not the norm, and we draw a lot of attention. Along the way, I have been encouraged by so many people, but have also been discouraged by others. "Are you gluttoned for punishment?" "Do you think you can handle this, with your health and all?" "That's all you need, is one more kid, aren't you busy enough!" I am also learning that when I talk about being a foster parent and try to recruit new families, it is like sharing the gospel. People already have an excuse or an idea of what they think of it and quickly want to change the subject. (I know not everyone is called to do this, but if you have even the slightest interest PLEASE at least look into it...I can get you all the info you need. There are SO MANY kids who need your love!)
One busy morning, in my sleep deprived state, I had let some of those comments sink in. I asked myself, "Are we crazy?" "Is this too much?" "Maybe we should have waited until I was healthier." "Scheduling is going to be even busier!" "I'm tired!" (Picture me with whiny face now)Thankfully, God gave me a moment to see my life through His eyes, because mine was obviously being skewed. I was sitting at the table feeding Baby A her bottle, my husband was off to work, and my other 5 were eating breakfast in our small cozy kitchen. It was loud because they were excited about the school day ahead, but they were happy. Smiles all around! We have everything we need and then some to share! I was flooded with joy as I saw how blessed I am. My heart was thankful as God reminded me of this crazy promise:
"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse,...'Test me in this', says the Lord Almighty, 'and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it." Malachi 3:10
My husband Joe and I are crazy. We are crazy enough to believe in what God has promised. We are crazy enough to read our Bibles, and try our best to do what it says. Crazy enough to know that when we mess up there is mercy, and forgiveness when we repent. We are crazy enough to believe that when God said, "Serve!" He didn't mean serve when everything lines up perfect, and all is comfortable for you. I am crazy enough to believe that God's grace is big enough to cover up my many shortcomings. Crazy enough to believe His love will still cover this home, even if instead of dusting the 5 inches of dust on my bookshelf, I am sitting on my booty blogging with chips and salsa. Crazy enough to have 6 kids right now, and if God gives us more space, I am crazy enough to take more if that is His will for us. I am far from perfect, there is so much I still struggle with in this world, but I hope that when you see my life, you see what God is doing through me, not by my power, but ONLY by His. I am only a foolish crazy girl willing to believe that God can use me to bring Glory to His name. I am also crazy enough to believe that YOU have the ability to let go and be crazy too. Whatever it is! God can use you to do that thing that is on your heart, that seems like madness. You just have to be crazy enough to "test him" and give all of the tithe(YOURSELF), and see what happens. If you allow yourself to look at your life through God's eyes, you will see that being crazy is just peachy! Be crazy enough to believe!
"Now all glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish ifinitely more than we might ask or think." Ephesians 3:20 (NLT)

UpDaTe...Climbing this mountain!

2012-10-04T13:04:00.001-07:00

It's been a little while hasn't it? I have to tell you that it has been a rough couple weeks! I spent the first week on my medication feeling like I was in the worst first trimester of pregnancy ever. I was SO nauseous and tired. Smells made me sick, and the only thing that was even a little appetizing to me was mashed potatoes! WEIRD! Anyway, I started taking the medication at night before bed so I can sleep through most of the nausea, and since it makes me tired, well it works out! :) My latest blood test are showing that the medication, which is called 6MP, is metabilizing in my body correctly and not attacking my liver or kidneys right now. SO PRAISE THE LORD!! The bad news is that I am still severely malnourished, and anemic. My body is just not absorbing nutrients, so please continue to pray. I also went through gluten withdrawal, which I didn't know existed! It was not pretty. It is pretty similar to a drug addict going through rehab. I itched, ran fevers, and was pretty much crazy! But, thankfully I am over that, and being gluten free is turning out not so bad. I am seeing improvements each day, but like yesterday, there are still some REALLLLLLY hard days, when I am just too sick! All I can say is that God is amazing. I am a miracle, because I keep trucking along! God has been so good to show me His love. He has worked through so many of you with encouraging text messages, Facebook notes, letters and cards in the mail, meals for my family, and so much more! I cherish your prayers for me! I even got an opportunity to use this whole mess to glorify God, when I gave a testimony last sunday in church on how I define joy and keep it! More God given proof, that even this mess has purpose in God's plan. I know that God is at work, because I am feeling it and seeing it. I am able to do all I need to do, and have been having some really great days, not to mention great opportunities to share my faith. It has been hard to be slowed down, but at the same time I see that God is using my new slowness to show me beautiful things, in my children, my marriage, and myself. GOD IS SO GOOD!!! My strongwilled nature has still caused me to set some big goals, and leaning on the grace and strength of God, I am shooting for them. Since, my doctor thought I should be dead and all, I thought it would be fun to compete in a Tae Kwon Do tournament in November. Now, don't get too excited, I am not going to be doing any fighting....yet! I will be competing in the forms competition. I want to win a trophy, but mostly I want to prove that my trust in God can help me overcome. I am just happy that I CAN do this! Have I mentioned in this blog that GOD IS GOOD!?? Thank you for your love and prayers! I can't wait to be on top of this current mountain with all of you who have come along side of me!

"But as for me, I will ALWAYS have hope. I will praise you more and more. My mouth will tell of Your righteousness, of Your salvation all day long, though I know not its measure." Psalm 71:14-15

Prayer Request and a Little Reminder of What Faith Can Do!

2012-09-18T14:40:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I had a doctor's appointment for my crohn's disease. It was a pretty discouraging appointment, and I had to make a pretty tough decision as far as treatment goes. My doctor pretty much just walked in with my file and recent test results and said, "You should be dead, at the very least screaming in intense pain! You must be one tough woman, because according to what I have in my file here, I don't even know how you walked into my office asking everyone how their day is going, let alone take care of a family." According to my latest x-rays and blood work, I am in acute active crohn's disease, and my whole small intestine is basically nonfunctioning, because of eroisions and swelling, and all kinds of other mess. My blood work showed severe malnourishment, and my latest scale reading showed a 12 pound weight loss, but here I am! I had know idea how sick I was. I mean I feel bad, but still, I only occaisonally have a moment where I think I'm dying and reach for my pain meds. My doctor told me my high threshold for pain, and strongwilled personality must be what is helping me tolerate this disease so well, but unfortunately it has put me at high risk for having major complications if I don't get back into remission. I was once able to control my disease with diet, but this recent attack has caused so much trauma that my best option is taking meds along with all kinds of special supplements, and enzymes. Honestly, taking the medication for this disease scares me. Some of the possible side effects are just trading one illness for another. I also learned I am gluten intolerant, which calls for an even more strict diet. The plus side is that the medication I will be taking has a high success rate for crohn's disease patients, the down side, it will only work if my body tolerates it. I have to take it for a week and then get a blood test to see if my body is working with it or against it. If it doesn't work, then I go to meds with worse side effects, not to mention I would have to go to the hospital to get injections and more blood test all the time! PLEASE PRAY FOR THIS MEDICINE TO WORK! Pray that all the vitamin supplements absorb like they are suppose to, and that remission comes soon!
So, this morning I set down with my pills, and all my special vitamin supplements. I was reading the dreaded paper that comes with your medicine from the pharmacy with all the warnings. Big mistake! I then suddenly had a moment, a complete breakdown, compiled with fear and anger. As tears came, I for whatever reason began to think of sunflowers. I love sunflowers. They are my favorite flower. They are so happy! I decided in order to take my mind off of my medicine drama, that I would look up facts about sunflowers on my phone. I don't know why I would do that! Blame my husband and his need for useless knowledge rubbing off on me. Anyway, I wanted to share this fact, and how God spoke to me through His creation.

"The default direction of the sunflower head is to point east towards the sunrise. During the day motor cells in the sunflower stem tilt the flower bud to try and recieve a maximum of sunlight. By evening, the sunflower head is pointing west towards sunset. This causes the sunflower to basically trace a 180 degree arc, tracking the sun's position throughout the day, from horizon to horizon, sunrise to sunset. Overnight, the sunflower will reset to it's original eastward positioning and wait for morning, ready to follow the sun's path once again." - sunflowerguide.com

AWESOME, right?! My walk with God is like that sunflower. I am alive because God sustains me. I constantly repeat Philippians 4:13 throughout my day, which states: "I can do everything through Him who gives me strength." I lay down and sleep in God's grace, and wake up to follow Him all over again the next day. I have many faults, but God's grace covers me. I find my hope in His presence in my life and long to be closer to Him. I want to follow where He goes. I am a walking proof that one can defy the odds of weakness, because I depend on His strength to get me through the day. Because of His promises I don't have to be discouraged. I have had too many lessons of faith to not trust God with my current situation. I needed that reminder today and I am thankful God is creative in how He shows me Himself. To God be the Glory!

Thanks for praying with me for my health to recover!

Jesus in Disguise

2012-09-14T10:51:00.000-07:00

"SLOW DOWN!!!"
"Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things..." Psalm 119:18

Like most women, I am busy. I am constantly on the go, go, go. I rarely sit, and if I do I am usually still doing something. I rush, hurry, and scurry. I am a task oriented looney! I make list for my day, and hyper-focusly busy myself to check off my to-dos. I sometimes go to bed at night, exhausted of course, but also feeling like I've missed something. I feel like I miss so many divine opportunities, because I am so busy, or I am expecting some big thing to jump out in front of me, as a sign for what I am supposed to be doing with my day. Or I spend time trying to seek the purpose to some of the obstacles that come my way. On the drive to take the kids to school this morning, God spoke to me through a song, JESUS IN DISGUISE. (Did you listen to it? It's a good song!) As the 5 and I sang along, I felt God impress upon my heart that I needed to slow down because in my rushing through life I miss His work and opportunities set up for me. So, as we did our before school prayer, I asked for our eyes to be opened, so that we could see Jesus working in our day and for the discipline to follow. The moment the Amen came out of my mouth, we barreled out the door, and rumble down the sidewalk like herd of wild animals. The conversation in my head looked a little something like this: "I thought you were going to slow down"...... "I will slow down, but I have to get these kids dropped off first." (The bell rings, I give out goodbye hugs and kisses to the three boys, chat with a teacher for a moment, put one baby girl on my hip, and grab the other by the hand.) "Slow down!"..... "I will when I get home." (Chloe stumbles in our hurried walk, because my legs move faster than hers. We stop, I see another mom whose son is in Samuel's Kindergarten class, I quickly say hi, and proceed to hurry along back to our vehicle) "SLOW DOWN!" (Chloe stops to pick up a rock) "OK, I guess we are stopping!" (END OF HEAD CONVERSATION, hahaha) I stop, as I wait on Chloe, the other mom who is walking the same direction as us comes up. I see she is wearing a Chicago Bears jacket, we are Bears fans as well, so I say, "Too bad our Bears lost last night!" We laugh, and begin to chat. They just moved here from Chicago. She is a busy mom too, she shares her busy schedule for the day. We get to our vehicles that are parked right next to each other, we chatted for a few more minutes and then went on with our day. As I drove home, I heard God say, "see". This was what was set up by Him for my morning. This woman, who is busy like me, but new to our city and school needs a friend. I could see the joy she had, to just have someone to talk to! I thanked God, and put my new friend on my prayer list. I know God has a plan for this new relationship. A door has been opened, and I would have missed it without slowing down. As I folded the laundry on my table and watched the girls play, I finally realized how much God has been trying to slow me down. I have been struggling with my sickness alot lately, but I still push through. I am so tired by the end of the day, that I hardly have anything left to enjoy my husband, or even the down time with my kids. Dear Lord, I see that you have been trying to slow me down, because I am missing Jesus in the small things of my life. The precious moments, the hugs, the stories, or an opportunity to help a new friend. I need your help to do the things I got to do, but also take a moment to stop and "SEE". Please help me, as I struggle with "super woman syndrome" and open my eyes wide as I can to recognize Jesus in disguise! Amen!

Just do the Work!

2012-09-05T12:39:00.001-07:00

"It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; He enables me to stand on the heights." Psalm 18:32-33

I don't know about you, but I am learning that you can read your Bible, and you can go to church, but actually doing what the Bible says and putting into practice the wisdom you may have experienced in a church service is hard. Lip service is what God would call it when we don't put into practice the things He has called us to do. We can have an emotional moment with God, set determined goals to change or to do something, but then 5 seconds later, how many of us start a list of excuses leaving us right in the same spot in our walks with Christ? I've had my share of these moments, even just recently as I have been faced with how challenging it can be at times to do the tasks God has called me and my family to. I start to question God on my qualifications, I complain that its too difficult, or emotinally draining. The list can go on and on with excuses on how I think that the plan is not working the right way. This morning I had a moment with God as I spent some time just laying it all out with Him. I was expecting to open my Bible and find a peaceful verse that would make me feel better about my whining. Instead this is what I got:

"Consider now, for the LORD has chosen you to build a temple as a sanctuary. Be strong and do the work!" 1 Chronicles 28:10

As I thought on this verse I wrote it in my journal to look like this:

"Consider now, for the LORD has chosen you to_________________. Be strong and do the work!"

I filled the blank with my own personal callings God has given me. Boy, did it hit my heart with conviction on that last part! I felt like I heard God saying, "Stop whining and just do what I called you to do!" Convicting, and peace bringing at the same time. Not only did God remind me that He wants more of me than lip service, but it brought confirmation that God has chosen me for the things I am doing. God wants me to stretch beyond the comforts though, to do what the Bible says and walk by faith, even when it is hard. JUST DO THE WORK!!! Not, just say I want to serve, but actually jump in and do the work without even glancing at the temptation to give up when it gets hard. As I prayed, I asked God for endurance, rather than for a change in the pace or circumstance. For strength to trust in His calling on my life and for patience to wait to see the finished task!

Can Joy and Suffering co-exist?....A testomony

2012-08-21T14:22:00.000-07:00

Setting my heart on REJOICE! Working to REJOICE ALWAYS!

I am thankful to say that I have made it out of the pit. Well, that's how I felt anyway. A pit of struggle, pain, hunger, pain, saddness, pain, anger, pain, humilty, pain, surrendering, pain, love, pain, and joy. How can love and joy be present in such a dark pit? I questioned this a lot over the last couple of months as my health went from bad to worse. After being pretty healthy with Crohn's Disease for 4 years, here I was feeling it's torturous grasp on my life again, with whispers from Satan telling me how much easier death would be and how completly useless I was in my state. I questioned, I fought, and I cried everyday. Begging for mercy, and struggling because I thought I was being a weak Christian. I even laughed outloud in church one sunday when God spoke to me through my husband's sermon. "Consider it a privaledge when you suffer!" Joe said. Haha, I laughed, looking straight at Joe because I knew he and God had conversed about me during the writing of this sermon. I thought, "Lord, the only reason I am even able to make it here is because of narcotic pain killers, how is that a privaledge!" I thought of scripture from the apostle Paul, proclaiming we must rejoice in all things. To be joyful!.... What!!!???.... TO BE JOYFUL and CONTENT in all circumstances!! I cried in church that day, wondering how in the world can this be a time to rejoice!? But, I suddenly realized that even in my state of suffering, that I could have joy. Because the opportunity suffering brings is closeness to God. In suffering I get a chance to see that God's grace is enough, that I can persevere. In that place of weakness, which is where He wants me, I can see that His strength can help me overcome fears, pain, and the task he has called me to, despite my present state. I can be angry and joyful, I can be sad and joyful, I can be in intense pain, and still REJOICE! Why!? Because we have been given a chance to get closer to God! I am convinced that joy is not a feeling, it is a gift. It is the presence of God in my life. When I chose Jesus, He came to dwell in my heart. His presence as the Holy Spirit living in me, is always at peace. It is my human nature, that tends to act the opposite. All things can be taken from me, but Jesus will never leave me. He is with me forever. I am joyful because when I am suffering I can call out to God and He hears me. Proof enough that I am not insane to believe in Him. Suffering causes us to call out more, to stretch our faith farther than we thought it could go, and at the end we realize He is faithful. As I struggled, I found myself in constant dialogue with God for a couple of reasons, 1) I have, at the very least come to know this while walking with God: that I need Him everyday, but more so when I am weak, and 2) I wanted answers. I wanted Him to make sense of all this for me. I would like to share a little of my daily conversations with God during my sick time. These are part of some of the entries from my prayer journal from these past weeks. My questions and statements to God and His answers.

God, life is hard right now, how can I do all you have called me to do if I am sick all day?

"But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me." 2 Corinthians 12:9

I am afraid of the pain.

"I tell you my friends, do not be afraid of those who [or what] kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after killing of the body, has the power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you fear Him. Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs on your head are numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows." Luke 12:4-7 [emphasis added]

God reminded me that the only thing I should fear is Him. He is the only one who has the real power to destroy me completly, but He loves me and will take care of me.

It's too hard Lord, I can't do this again. I will fall, I got nothing..it's going to defeat me this time. Satan's attack is relentless...he speaks things that in my heart I know are false, but to my mind that is engulfed in the struggle, sound so true.

"If you make the Most High your dwelling place-even the Lord, who is my refuge-then no harm will come near your tent. For He will command His angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways, they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. You will tread upon the lion and the cobra. You will trample the great lion and the serpant. 'Because [you] love me,' says the Lord, 'I will rescue [you]. I will protect [you] for [you] acknowledge my name. [You] will call upon Me and I will answer [you]. I will be with [you] in trouble. I will deliver[you] and honor[you] with long life will I satisfy [you] and show [you] My salvation." Psalm 91:9-16 [emphasis added]

God brought peace this day. I had really been struggling. Satan had found a place to attack, and he was ruthless! I was sinking, and so I called out for help. Thankful!

It's too much....God please help me!!

"When I said, 'my foot is slipping,' Your love, O Lord, supported me, When anxiety was great within me, Your consolation brought joy to my soul." Psalm 94:18-19

God's love can give strength I didn't know I had. He can bring help and rest not only through Himself, but by also working in the lives of others He uses to help and encourage me in my time of need. I got lots of help and encouragement from friends this day.

My family needs me God, and here I am useless. How is this Glorifying to You? You call me to serve and yet I am pretty much useless! Is this your plan for me? How is this good....how is a sick and weak woman useful to you or to anyone!?( I was having an angry day this day!)

"I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn deserts into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs. I will put in the desert the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive. I will set pines in the wasteland. The fir and the cypress together. So that people may see and know, may consider and understand, that the hand of the Lord has done this, that the Holy One of Israel has created it." Isaiah 41:18-20

You should also know that the night before I had this conversation with God, I had a dream that I was picking tomatoes out of my garden. I saw a dead tomato plant, so I pulled it out of the ground and threw it aside. Later, I looked over and saw that it still had tomatoes growing on it, so I decided I would pick them and let them ripen on my window shelf. Instead, someone came along and put the plant back into the ground, and it grew huge and became a huge pear tree, with lots of delicious pears! God made his point very clear this day! He's not done with me yet!

And this last scripture just came to me out of the blue one day:

"Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many I tell you, will try to enter and not ne able to." Luke 13:24

Fight the good fight...run my race....persevere....suffering gives me an opportunity to grow. I have a purpose in this life, and it is all wrapped around being closer to God. To do whatever it takes to enter the narrow door. The race is hard, and suffering is a given, but I will be joyful that it all brings me to Him. I am not happy to be sick, but I am joyful, because God is in this mess with me. Joy exists with suffering, and though it makes no sense, it will push me to the top of this mountain...and the mountains to follow....oh yes, I know that I will have many more opportunities to have joy. Someone remind me to look back at this when I get all whiny! LOL ;)

God is L-O-V-E!!!!

2012-08-09T12:01:00.000-07:00

Well here we are! The LAST week of summer vacation! I can't believe we start school on Monday, I am even more in shock that I will have a 4th grader, a 2nd grader, and a Kindergartener. Time. Flies. As we anticipate the new year, I have prayed that the things I have tried to write on my kid's heart will stick. Even as a Pastor's wife, I have no guarantee that all of my littles will choose Jesus, but I am commanded in the Bible to train, and to bind God's word to their heart, hands, and mind. It is a hard thing....parenting! Especially when the world is trying to clutch its claws into our kids. I trust in the faith. I have given them over to the One who LOVES them even MORE! Love is our last attribute! This summer has been a joy as always, and we learned so much!!

Our Bible Memory Verse

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son; that whoever believes in Him, shall not perish, but have eternal life."

What We Talked About and My Thoughts:
We talked about the verse that everyone knows, I think we sometimes let the realness of John 3:16 set in. That's an out of this world big kind of love. A love that only God could accomplish.
We talked more about what love means and what it should look like. We also talked about the fact that God not only loves us, he has also called us to love too. Not the mushy gooshy love suff, but real love, which is serving as Jesus served, acts of kindness as Jesus showed, and when needed humilty so our pride does not cause others to stumble. Jesus humbled himself all the way to the cross for us! When we live a life of Biblical love, then the world will see God. It starts in our home and should spread outward to others around us. So we looked at this Scripture and talked about it:

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows god. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his Love is made complete in us.
^.
^{¹³This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. ¹⁶And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. ¹⁷This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. ¹⁸There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

¹⁹We love because he first loved us. ²⁰Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. ²¹And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister." 1 John 4:7-21

Our Project:
In my blog about my plans for the summer I mentioned that our family does a mission project during the summer. This year we chose to make a care package for someone in the military stationed overseas. We put all the items we collected and letters we made into a box. I still have some cookies to make, but I am waiting until shipping day so they will be as fresh as possible. As we made our letters and pictures, we talked about love. We talked about God's love for us, a soldier's love for all of us to fight for our freedoms, and how we should show love to them in appreciation. To be greatful and to pray daily for those who fight for us. We called this project: LOVE-IN-THE-BOX.}

MORE VACATION PICTURES!!!

God is: Just and Merciful

2012-08-02T14:39:00.001-07:00

I combined two attributes over these last 2 weeks. I really felt like I needed to talk about both God's right to be just and His great mercy together. I also am posting a few pictures of our vacation. We only have ONE MORE attribute left!!!! Summer vacation is almost over! :(

Bible Memory Verses:

For Just: "The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the Lord are sure and altogether righteous." Psalm 19:9

For Merciful: "He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far as he removed our transgressions from us." Psalm 103:10-12

What We Talked About:

I asked them to think about the world and their knowledge of the Bible. Then I asked them if they thought God was fair/just.

We talked about how sin destroyed the world so all the pain that we have seen or heard about since the first sin, is exactly what God said would happen.

We talked about that the price of sin is death, so we all deserve to die because we are all sinners. That it is God right to determine what the consequences should be. He demands justice and he declares the penalty before the fall, so we do not have a right to argue with God's justice.

We then talked about God's mercy. Justice called for death for our sins, but since God is also merciful, He sent Jesus to die for all of us. There is still death, because there has to be, but if we take God's gift of mercy and grace, then it is not our blood that will pay. The blood that Christ poured out on our behalf on the cross covers all of our sins. If we choose Jesus....then we are saved from the justice we deserve. Hallelujah!

OUR PROJECT:
We didn't really have a project for just, we just watched the Prince of Egypt and read the story of Moses in Exodus. (My kids are HUGE fans of Moses' story!) It always brings up questions on whether or not God is fair.

For Mercy we drew pictures to express what God's mercy means. The cross was the picture of choice for most of them. My nephews were with us when we did this project so their picture are here too. Psalm 103 really touched their heart and mine as well, especially vs 11-12. Then the fact that David wrote this Psalm looooooooonnnnnnnnggggg before Jesus, shows that God's plan of mercy and redemption have been at work long before it was finished. :)

MY THOUGHTS:

Some questions the kids brought up:
Why did God kill the first born of Egypt in Exodus?
Why do so many bad things happen if God is fair?
Why did Jesus die if He didn't do anything bad?

My answer to all of these questions: SIN. Sin broke the world, and we are living in our consequences. I told them that God told Eve that death would happen if she ate the forbidden fruit. God can't lie, so we have death and destruction just like He promised would happen. It is because of us that the world is bad, not God. God has always been Holy and good. Remember when we discussed God being IMMUTABLE!? But God in His great love and mercy can make all things work for good we see that in our lives and in the stories of the Bible. We also know if we read our Bibles, that God has promised that one day, there will be a new heaven and a new earth. All things will be made new and God's Kingdom will stand. As I think about God's right to be just, I am even more thankful for His mercy. He didn't have to pay my price, but He did. He did it because his love is higher than heaven is from earth, and my sins have been removed further than the east is from the west. Psalm 103:11-12 is the Cross put into words......Jesus died because He loves us eternally. Amazed by grace and mercy friends, aren't you!?

Some vacation fun: 1) 4 of 5 of the kids at the lake at sunset. 2) a picture of all 7 of us that I can actually post because you can't see faces! It is a shadow picture taken at the science spectrum in Lubbock, Tx . 3) This is how you roast marshmallows when you live in a drought, because building a fire will get you arrested! HAHAHA 4) a picture of me proving to Kaiden I could climb the rock wall too. I got mad skills LOL! I will post more pictures on future blogs. Maybe soon I will get to post some of EVERYONE! ;)

Celebrating Samo!!

2012-07-29T15:23:00.002-07:00

Hi friends! We made it back from vacation! I will catch up the blog on the Attributes of God next week, but I wanted to take time to make a special post about my Samuel Isaac!! We call him Samo around these parts, and he just turned the BIG 5 yesterday!!

Samuel means asked of God and Isaac means laughter. He fits his name well in both aspects! We literally begged God for Samuel. I started getting sick right before I got pregnant with Samo. Less than a year before that I had a traumatizing miscarriage. As my pregnancy with Samo progressed I got sicker and sicker. All I could do was lay Samuel's life in God's hands. I begged God to keep him healthy even if it meant taking my health. I lost 60 pounds during that pregnancy. Despite reason, Samuel was born a perfect 7 pounder with not one health issue! God's work indeed! Since that day my sweet boy has been the laughter of my heart. He makes me smile everyday with his SamoISMS. He is strong-willed to the core and truly believes he can and will accomplish anything he sets his mind to. He starts Kindergarten in 2 weeks!! My heart aches a little with this growing process, but at the same time I can't help but marvel at who God has made him to be. He is strong, but there are those days when he just wants to be near to mommy. He is the most adventurous of our 5. He is a daredevil supreme and makes my heart jump at some of the things he does. He loves everything cowboy and hasd decided that when he grows up he WILL be a cowboy with a pet gorrilla, and teach people about Jesus. Funny right!?!? I love him so much and I am so thankful God blessed me to be Samo's mom. Life would certainly be dull, and I would have never realized a few important things like: "Penguins can't BBQ!" and "God must have really long ears since He hears us all the way from heaven!" ( 2 of my favorite SamoISMS!) Love my Big 5 year old!

Holy

2012-07-19T06:08:00.000-07:00

This week we learned that God is Holy. I also wanted to let you know that we are leaving for our family vacation today! Please lift our family up as we travel and pray for us to have a time of rest. Also, pray that we can enjoy the extra time together and that we come back refreshed, well as refreshed as you can be traveling with 5 kids. HAHAHA! We will continue our journey on the attributes of God while we travel and will be talking about God is Just.

GOD IS HOLY!!

OUR MEMORY VERSE:
"... Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD Almighty, the whole earth is filled with His Glory." Isaiah 6:3

WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT:

-God is Holy, which means everything He does and is, is pure and without sin. The complete opposite of us. As humans, we are all born as sinners...unclean!

-Because we are un-Holy, we need help to be close to God because He can't be near that which is unclean.
- God sent Jesus to die for us, to be the perfect sacrafice for all sin. He is Holy. When we enter into a relationship with Jesus, He enters our hearts. After that moment, when God looks at us He no longer sees our sin, He now sees Jesus, who is Holy. This IS the ONLY way we can enter into a relationship with God.

OUR PROJECT:
We washed our super beyond dirty SUV inside and out! Seriously, did I mention it was dirty? I wish I would have took a before picture, especially of the inside...but I was scatter brained, and it would have just embarrased me! LOL We went to the carwash that you stay inside your vehicle while it washes. I don't know about your kids, but mine are easily amused, they LOVE the carwash. As we set in the carwash, we talked about how unclean our hearts can be, especially when we struggle with sin. We need Jesus to come in and clean our heart and redeem us. God is always Holy, but we are not.
We will always need to repent and allow the Holy Spirit to work that unholiness out of us.

So shiny!!

MY THOUGHTS:
First, I am thankful, because I know that I am undeserving. I am thankful that I have a Holy God who stands alone, and even more thankful that through Jesus, I was given a gift of redemption, so that when judgement comes I am not alone as a broken messed up sinner, but I will stand with my redeemer, who is Holy and will speak on my behalf. I also looked up scriptures about holiness:

" There is no one holy like the LORD; there is no one like You; There is no Rock like our God." 1 Samuel 2:2

God stands alone in Holiness. He is our Rock, and while we can never be perfect like Him, He will carry us and work with us through our uncleanliness once we enter into a relationship with Him.

"Do not call conspiracy everything that these people call conspiracy; do not fear what they fear, and do not dread it. The Lord Almighty is the one you are to reguard as holy, he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread, and He will be a sanctuary." Isaiah 8:12-13

If you are a believer, you should be living different than the world does. The world fears things we shouldn't. Morals we choose to live by, the world lives complete opposite. The world justifies sin and shows no desire nor need to repent. The world does not respect or rever the Most Holy. As Christians, we should be the complete opposite.

"But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written, 'Be holy, because I am holy." 1 Peter 1:15

Well, doesn't get much clearer than that. We are called to live a holy life. It begins when we give our life to Jesus, and ends when we enter the Kingdom of Heaven. We are to seek to be like Jesus, and be eternally greatful for God's amazing grace.

Sovereign

2012-07-12T16:59:00.002-07:00

My Father, God, is the King of Kings!!!!

This week we learned that God is Sovereign, which means He is King of everything and He rules over all of us and His plans are perfect.

Bible Memory Verse:
"The Lord has established His throne in heaven, and His Kingdom rules over all." Psalm 103:19

What We Talked About:

God is King over everyone and every place.

I asked the question, "If God is King and the Bible says we are children of God( see verses that follow that I shared with them) what does that make us?" PRINCES AND PRINCESSES!!!! This seemed to be the focus of where we took the lesson. God is King of Kings and adopts us to be His children when we become followers of Jesus, which makes us princes and princesses allowing us to become heirs to His kingdom.

Verses I shared with them and we talked about what each one meant:

"And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints of the Kingdom of Light." Colossians 1:10-12

"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!"
1 John 3:1a

"Now if we are children than we are heirs-heirs of God and coheirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may share in His Glory" Romans 8:17

"Yet to all who recieve Him, to those who believe in His name, He gave the right to be children of God-" John 1:12a

" Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir." Galations 4: 6-7

Our Project:
Just the fact that we are children of the King of Kings is project enough! So we spent the week reminding ourselves of that and discussing how children of a king should act. We should not be selfish and spoiled, but be in practice to rule someday. We should set good examples to those around us. We should most importantly rejoice that God has chosen to love us as His own and has made us a place in His Kingdom to co-rule with Jesus! For fun, I took them to Burger King to have lunch and we got BK crowns. We wore them as we played on the playland. (OPPORTUNITY TO PRACTICE GOOD PRINCE AND PRINCESS BEHAVIOR!!!! Hahahaha) Here's some pictures of our fun day! P.S Sweet Baby E. had a really cute picture with her crown, wish I could post it but because of legal risk I can't! Maybe someday soon I can!!!

Check out these cute princes and princess!

MY THOUGHTS:
I'm just happy! I am humbled and honored that God has adopted me. He sees me as His child and He loves me and took time to think of plans for me. He guides me in my choices, disciplines me in my disobedience, and rejoices in my good choices to Honor Him. When I told the kids that since God is King, and we are His children that makes us princes and princesses, each one of them got a look of just pure joy and they just looked so proud. I am proud to know Jesus, and proud to be a child of God. A thought that has crossed my mind over and over this week is this: I deserve nothing and yet I have everything because I have chosen Jesus! Thankful to be adopted! We jammed out to this Third Day song called this week. Follow this link if you would like to check out the video. Children of God

OMNIPRESENT

2012-07-05T10:07:00.002-07:00

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July! I am so thankful for the freedoms I have and for those who risk it all to protect that freedom! This week we continued on our journey and learned that God is omnipresent. This means God is everywhere.

Our Bible Memory Verse:
"Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? Psalm 139:7

What We Talked about:
-God can be in a lot of places at once.
-God is with us wherever we are even if we think we are alone.
-When we are scared we can know God is with us.
-God is with each member of our family even when we are apart from each other.
-We can't see God, but we can know He is there because we see His work all around us. We hear Him in our hearts and He we see Him working in our lives.
-I asked them to answer the questions David the writer of the above Psalm asked. Answer: Nowhere...there is nowhere we can hide or go that is out of God's presence.

OUR PROJECTS:

So fun to see this hanging on the wall! I don't think we missed anyone, we didn't know some of your exact places so we just marked the country.

I got a giant map of the world, and we found all the places where we have friends and family. Some of our friends are missionaries in far off lands, others are here in the states. Some have not yet chosen to follow Christ, but if we know you, then you are represented on this map and even if you don't know us personally if you are reading this blog then you probably know someone we know, which by my terms makes us friends too LOL :). We pray for you and love all of you! We have seen God do amazing work in all of your lives. The kids and I talked about how God is doing great work here in our church in New Mexico, and at the very same time He is in China, Russia, France, Africa, North Carolina, California, Texas, Alaska, ECT... ECT.... ECT doing great works too. We talked about some of the work God has been doing in all the places and also how we could continue to pray for God to be glorified and to watch over those we love. Then we prayed for all of you together holding hands around our big map.

Patriotic wind chimes

Since it is 4th of July week, I had to throw a patriotic craft in! We made patriotic wind chimes and tied it together with our theme of God's omnipresence. All of my kids have asked why we can't see God if He is there. We talked about that even if we can't see God physically, we can see His power at work all around us. When He moves in someones life we have prayed for we see it. When He works in our family we see it. When we see answers to prayers, miracles, and all of creation, we see God. Just like the wind, we can't see it, but we can feel it, and see it move things like our wind chimes. We talked about how if we come to a moment where we feel like God is not there, to look around and He will show us Himself.

My Thoughts:
I've been a Christian now for 11 years, a wife for 11 years, 4 of those years I have been a Pastor's wife, and I been a mom for almost 10 years. I've been a lot of places during this time, physically and spiritually. From the very beginning of my walk with Him, God has placed these 2 scriptures as a promise in my heart:

"Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9

"Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, 'This is the way; walk in it." Isaiah 30:21

These promises have always guided my journey and I have seen God faithful to these words. No matter where we have been we have seen God work and take care of us. Does't mean it's always been easy, but He has always walked us, maybe even dragged us through to the next step! I can confim that even in the darkest of places I have been, even if that place has been within my own heart...He is there. I can remember a time when I was so angry, I screamed out in sorrow, "I love you God, but I can't even talk to you right now!" I wanted to hide from His presence because I hurt so bad, and being in His presence meant dealing with that. But, God never left me, in fact He said, "I'll be sitting right here when you're ready to deal with this, I will not leave you alone, and whether you want to hold onto me right now or not I will not let go of you." Like the answer to the questions in Psalm 139:7....There is NOWHERE I can go to get out of the presence of God even in dark times He is there. He has walked me through valleys and on mountains. I know that whatever lies before me, He will be there.

Another thing that God's omnipresence helps me remember is that He is with those I love even when I am not. When my kids are away from me He is with them, when Joe is gone, He is with him. When my friends and family from miles and miles away are hurting as I pray for them, I know He is with them. God is everywhere!!

our wind chimes hanging outside

God is: Immutable

2012-06-28T17:13:00.001-07:00

Kaiden has officially become a big kid! This is him and me getting ready to ride the Cliff Hanger at a recent trip to Cliff's! No more kiddie rides for this guy! Growing too fast! P.S I think my stomach may still be at the top of this thing! LOL

I think some of the fun of our summer journey is all the new words we are learning! Immutable means unchanging or unable to be changed. God is immutable!

Bible Memory Verse:

" I the LORD do not change." Malachi 3:6a

What we talked about:

-God can never change who He is, meaning in the simplest way, He will always be everything we have learned about Him so far: eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, truth, immutable. Plus some other things we will be looking at later this summer like; love, holy, merciful, omnipresent, sovereign,and just.

- We talked about the story of Moses when God called him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. Moses asked God, what he should call Him to the Israelites. God says, "I AM WHO I AM, This is what you are to say to the Israelites; I AM has sent me to you." (Exodus 3:13-14) God is who He is, and has always been. He has always been the Father. The one who loves us and knows us, and He has never changed that. He was there at the begining and He will be there at the end.

-God will never change His character, but He can change us and the circumstances around us. He can use any method He desires to produce the outcome neccesary for His glory, but who He is, is still the same.

-If God never changes, this means He will never stop loving us, He will always be there, and we can trust Him because He is constant.

OUR PROJECT:

Play-doh, rocks, and more painting! As we played with the play-doh and the rocks I talked to the kids about how we are like the play-doh and God is like the rocks. You can form play-doh into different things. You can destroy it and it can dry up and get hard. It's changeable. The rock is a rock. We can beat it and squeeze it, but it's still a rock it can't be changed to be anything other than a rock. Of course, my smarty pants older son had to point out the fact that, yes rocks do change over time with weather, and machines can crush them, and we are going to paint them, so they are eventually different. (Me rolling my eyes, and taking a deep breath) "OK Kaiden, you're right, the rock can be changed, but just humor me for the sake of illustrating my point here sheeesh!" For our purpose with the rock, nothing we could do that day in our kitchen could change that rock, we could change the color, but it was still a rock. God can change His methods to accomplish His plans, but He will not change His character...He is "I AM WHO I AM" forever! Something Darion pointed out was that we could attach the play-doh to the rock, and the rock could change the play-doh when we used it as a tool....think about that for a minute, if we are the play-doh and God is the rock! We are meant to cling to God and let God change us!! I loved watching them really think about God being immutable!

My Thoughts:

God's immutability to me means a lot! It's comforting to know that no matter how much I mess up or how crazy everything is around me, God is still God. He still loves me and carries me. His power will always win, and nothing I can do or anyone else can do will ever change the end outcome. God wins, all things will be made new, and I will be at Heaven's banquet table someday! WOOT! :) It has been a rough week for me. Distractions, discouragment, and stress. The unchanging wisdom and love God has for me put this verse in my heart and I have meditated on it often this week:

" Do not fear [MEL], do not let your hands go limp. The LORD your God is with you, He is mighty to save, He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:17

Isn't that just such a beautiful and encouraging scripture. God will never change that He delights in us, and His love brings peace in the craziest of times, and I my heart just overflows when I think that in my craziness, God is singing over me. He will never leave me in my crazy alone. I AM will never change, and I am clinging to Him knowing He will never lose me even if I get turned around in this messed up world.

God is:Truth

2012-06-21T15:13:00.000-07:00

Thought you might enjoy a picture of everyday life in the Eastman house. Here are 3 of my kids being goofy as usual! Never a dull moment in our home! Love it!

This week on our attributes of God journey, we look at God is Truth!

Our Bible Memory Verse:
"For the word of the LORD is right and true; He is faithful in all He does." Psalm 33:4

What we talked about:

-Everything God says is 100% true.

-God's promises are true.

-God is faithful...we can base all our hope on Him because He has never not been there for us.

-We can always trust God to know what is best for us, even if we don't always agree with the plan right away! ;)

-Every story in the Bible is true.

-We talked about different ways God has proved to be faithful to our family.

Our Project:

We painted this week! In this house you never really know how a painting project is going to go, ( Hello, 5 kids and paint!) but this time it went really well, and I think our end result is adorable and colorful just like them! We made a painting to go on our living room wall. We all agreed that our Bible verse is a good reminder to see everyday!

My thoughts:

TRUTH, is what keeps me going. It what having a relationship with a Living God is based on. If you can't believe God, then, you are lost. God IS faithful in all He does. It's good to keep a journal, if you don't already. It helps you keep a record of God's faithfulness. His Word is living and I can't emphasize enough the importance of have a daily dose of the Good Book for my well being. In times of struggle I can go to the Father and lay it all down. He speaks His truth down deep into my heart and reminds me of His faithfulness not only in Scripture, but through records of my life journey. He has never let me down and has ALWAYS kept His promises. When I struggle to see things His way, he steadies my heart with Truth and gives me strength to endure. Sometimes when darkness tries to loom over us, we have to cling to those promises. We all have those days when there is a moment by moment need to remind ourselves of God's truth and faithfulness, and keep our hearts centered on Hope that is REAL. Our enemy, Satan has made it his purpose and goal to distract us from Truth and suck hope away from us to bring us down. Stay strong friends and keep fighting the good fight!

"You, dear children are from God and have overcome them, because the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world." 1 John 4:4

God is: Omnipotent

2012-06-14T10:31:00.000-07:00

We are back in the swing of a regular scheldule now that VBS is over. Out VBS motto this year was Awesome God! Amazing Power! So, I thought it would be great to solidify the stories they heard last week with learning that God is OMNIPOTENT, meaning He is all-powerful, this week!

Our Memory verse:

" Ah Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you." Jeremiah 32:17

What We Talked About:
We reminded ourselves of 2 stories in the Bible we learned at VBS that illustrate God's Amazing Power.

Joshua Chapter 3 & 4 The story about the Iraelites crossing the Jordan--- God can stop a river.

Daniel Chapter 6: Story of Daniel being thrown in the Lion's Den---God can shut a lion's mouth!

Then we also talked about one of my favorites.

Joshua 10: 1-15 Joshua leads an army against the kings of the Amorites, the kings of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon who had all joined forces. God promised success...Joshua prayed an awesome prayer...God delivered! ----God can stop the sun.

Our Projects: ( We had 2 this week!!!)
It just so happens we live near a piece of the Rocky Moutains. Here in New Mexico, we call them the Sandias. We took a trip to the mountains this week for a family day. We went all the way to the top and as we drove up we talked about God being so powerful that He made these huge mountains and since we were so high we talked about God being ruler of Heaven as well. As we looked down on our city from the top of the mountain we talked about how God loves each and every person down there. He rules over all we can see, whether or not people choose to acknowledge that. Some day they will. Please pray for Albuquerque and surrounding areas and especially for those of us called to minister here. There are about 1 million people who live in this space and only about 9% are Christians. In other words we still got a lot of work to do! It sure is beautiful from on top of a mountain though. :)

This is what the Lord says, "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be? Has not My hand made all these things, and so they came into being?" Isaiah 66:1-2

Our second project was making a "sun" with our hands. We did this to illustrate the story in Joshua when God made the sun stand still. If you remember a few weeks ago we had a solar eclipse, so we talked about how we could not even look at the sun because it would burn our eyes. We also talked about how without sunscreen on, too much time in the sun would burn our skin. YET, God stopped it for one whole day! Even the sun is no match to the power of God! We combined the story in Joshua and our Bible memory verse to come up with a pretty catchy motto: "If God can stop the sun, then nothing is too hard for Him!"

My thoughts:

When I hear the stories in the Bible I am amazed. Sometimes I'm jealous that I didn't get to see the sun stop, or get to be trapped with lions who got their mouths shut. Maybe you are someone that hears the stories, and think "wow that's great, but what does it have to do with me?" OR maybe you don't even believe those things happened. I have felt this week that God really wanted me to share some testimonies of how He has shown His power to me.

I may not have seen the sun stop or lion's mouths shut, but I have had many moments in my life where the presence of God has been so overwhelming and powerful over me that I felt like I could touch Him. I've been overwhelmed to the point of tears because the power was too great and humbling. To explain God's power to you is almost impossible. You have to experience it first hand. I can tell you what I can wrap around for sure, and that is, that God is God. Here's my best way of describing the miniscule amount of knowledge I have of God's power.

He is so powerful that He gave us all freewill to make our own choices. When we uses that freewill to sin and make foolish choices, God finds a way to make it all into good. His power through Jesus Christ even conquered our sins. I've experienced God's power through the Holy Spirit first hand when at the age of 21, God came fiercly into my life to overcome my pride and destructive lifestyle, and brought me into a fully commited with reckless abandon relationship with Him. Here I am 11 years later a Pastor's wife. God completly destroyed that person I was 11 years ago. I am amazed and overwhelmed of who I am today. I've seen and experienced many miracles. Been on some front row seats to see His power work in awesome ways to accomplish His obvious will for others. One such example: Almost a year and half ago, I was up early sitting with God praying. With overwhelming presence I felt the calling on my heart that we were to begin an adoption journey. In my weakness and pride I immediately went into all the obstacles that stood in our way to accomplish that. Can't tell you how many times I've been told, "Who are you?" by God, and this was one of those times. He put the memory verse we have been learning this week into my heart that morning, and told me to start praying for a little girl. Almost a year later, she was at our door. Foster -adoption was not the plan I had thought, but it was God's plan. Because He has used His power to take something ugly and make it beautiful, I've got to see a sweet precious little girl playing in her room all by herself singing "Jesus loves me" as she bangs on her toy xylophone. Something she probably would have never even heard in her life before God interceded. Also very awesome that I got to experience that moment. God has the power to manipulate life for His Glory and it's absolutely humbling when He calls you to be part of that. When God moves, you can't help but follow just to see what will happen. His power is something to be feared and awed. He is beyond our thoughts and even our sight. He can do as He pleases. To experience God's power is a very big deal. It's a faith step to ask Him to reveal His power to you. When you ask Him, just be prepared and know the journey will be amazing, scary, sometimes painful, out of your comfort zone, and just plain awesome. To see God's power means humbling to His will and not our own....then just hang on! This is just a little piece of the story of how God has portrayed His power in my life. I am challenged and moved everyday to trust that, If God can stop the sun, then nothing is to hard for Him!

Omniscient

2012-06-07T13:27:00.000-07:00

It has been quite the week so far! We are having so much fun in VBS learning all about the Awesome power God has, and here at home we are learning that God is omniscient. Omniscient means God sees and knows everything!

Our memory verse:

"O Lord, you have searched me and know me. You know when I sit and when I rise, you percieve my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; You are familiar with all my ways." Psalm 139:1-3

What we talked about together:

-God sees us everywhere, we can't hide from him.

-God knows all about us, the good and the bad...AND He still loves us!

-God sees our joys and the things that bring hurt...and He cares about all of it.

-We are never alone.

-God knows our past, He knows our today, and He knows our future.
FUNNY MOMENT---> My boys all realized pretty much at the same time..."God sees us when we are naked and when we go to the bathroom!" I pretty much lost the focus of the discussion after that little discovery because of the giggles. I LOVE my kids, they seem to leave no thought un-said!

Our Project:
How could painting the windows not be fun!! I had to find a simple project because we have had a busy VBS week. It was a challenge to find a project to portray Gods power to see and know all things. Painting our windows is what I came up with. It was fun and we talked about how God can see us as we live our life just as clear as we can see through windows. The whole universe is like a window to God and there is nowhere we can escape His knowlege or view. He is always thinking of us and searching our hearts. We also thought about how we can't see and know things like God, because like with the paint our eyes and our heart sometimes get covered. That is when our trust comes in. We can't see and know all things, but we can know an Awesome God who has that power.

My Thoughts:
As I think about what it means that God can see and know everything about me, I first think of how unsettling that is. I know that God is there and sees all my shortcomings and sin from my past, present and my future. He knows the dark places I've been, the struggles. I am humbled as I have read and re-read Psalm 139 this week. This brings about my second thought: God can see all of me and yet He still loves me! He loves me because when He looks at me, He sees HIS creation, created in HIS image. Genesis 1:27 says, "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." God loves His creation and I am His child. But even more, since I have accepted Jesus as my Savior, God sees His son, Jesus, who died so that I could have life. I am a new creation, and this month marks 11 years since I made my decision to follow Jesus! God is going to see every little time I mess up, but when I say I am sorry, He will blot it out as if it were never there. My third thought is...God knows and sees everything! He knows when I am struggling and sends the help I need. He rejoices in my faithfulness and good choices. He convicts my heart to bring me back when I fall short. I can't hide my burdens from Him, and He longs to carry them for me. It is overwhelming to be loved so much! I love the way the Message Bible version puts Psalm 139:1-18

"1 God, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand. 2 I'm an open book to you; even from a distance, you know what I'm thinking. 3 You know when I leave and when I get back; I'm never out of your sight. 4 You know everything I'm going to say before I start the first sentence. 5 I look behind me and you're there, then up ahead and you're there, too - your reassuring presence, coming and going. 6 This is too much, too wonderful - I can't take it all in! 7 Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit? to be out of your sight? 8 If I climb to the sky, you're there! If I go underground, you're there! 9 If I flew on morning's wings to the far western horizon, 10 You'd find me in a minute - you're already there waiting! 11 Then I said to myself, "Oh, he even sees me in the dark! At night I'm immersed in the light!" 12 It's a fact: darkness isn't dark to you; night and day, darkness and light, they're all the same to you. 13 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother's womb. 14 I thank you, High God - you're breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration - what a creation! 15 You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. 16 Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, The days of my life all prepared before I'd even lived one day. 17 Your thoughts - how rare, how beautiful! God, I'll never comprehend them! 18 I couldn't even begin to count them - any more than I could count the sand of the sea. Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you."

Here is a song I thought you would enjoy as you think about what it means in your life to have a God who knows and loves you in ways so amazing. WOW!
http://youtu.be/CC8puwexBBo