Early Halloween

Ok, so Halloween isn't our favorite "holiday", but I saw this and thought it was too funny. So, happy Halloween (early) I guess!

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Starring our family and my sister Lindsey.

Cousins' Sleep-over

This weekend we took care of our niece while her parents went out of town. Josie LOVED having her cousin spend the night. We decided one fun activity would be to make up a story and then act it out.

Kate and Jo dictated a very creative fair tale while I wrote it down (literally every word). Then we recruited Wesley to join in the fun. He was such a good sport! The following clip is the result of a wonderful effort put forth by the whole family (except for Caleb who was sleeping). Enjoy!

Something Dear to Me

I love podcasts. One of my favs is the one from a college ministry that I was very faithful in attending while in college called Breakaway. When I was a freshman it celebrated 10 years of God's faithfulness. Today it will celebrate its first meeting of its 20th anniversary of reaching the college students at Texas A&M University. It was very special to me then and possibly even more so now. Here is a video of the amazing history of this special ministry.

The History of Breakaway from Breakaway Ministries on Vimeo.

A Conversation I'll Never Forget

The other day it hit me. It's fall(ish) and school is starting. I was all of a sudden reminded of how much I loved my days at Texas A&M and especially the fall semester. I was telling my husband this and he said it was probably because that was when we actually had a decent football team. As much as that might be true, I think there is something more.

I thought those four years were tough on many levels, but the hardest was to be away from the young man I would marry (who was at Baylor). I see now that they were not quite as hard as I made them out to be (well except for A&P I and II) and I now feel deeply how special they were to me. I made amazing friends, had a blast staying up late, hanging out at Sweet Eugene's (even though I didn't like coffee), making Sonic runs with my roomies....I could go on forever.

Like most of us I have some regrets about college. I see how God allowed me to be more independent in my journey with Him while forcing me to make my own choices about where He fit in my life. But thankfully in His grace He never let me go too far.

Probably most of all, I wish now I would have worked harder to make the most of those years. I was lazy and selfish. I spent my free time in front of a television watching "A Wedding Story" on TLC and wishing the years would speed up so I could get married. I would try to finagle my schedule to see how fast I could get out of school while still taking a pretty easy course load. (I really think I was a moron.) With that genius attitude, I made the first "F" of my life in Physiology (in the Vet school).

I wish I would have given more of myself in service and would have starved the desire to be comfortable instead of nurturing it. Although I attended church in college, I waited to get involved in my church until my senior year, and even then it was not as much as I could have been. (And really it was only because my friend Julie was super involved. I relied on her waaaaaaaaay too much--sorry Jules!) I couldn't allow myself to do too much because I wanted to devote weekends to seeing Wesley.

I was in Bible studies and I am thankful He showed me grace and still allowed me to learn from them. I went to the BSM, Breakaway, and even Bible Study Fellowship, and as wonderful as those resources were I was prideful about the knowledge I had.

I will never forget a conversation I had with my friend Amy one day at the bus stop after our volleyball class. She said she was tired of being a "fat Christian". She said all that she had done during her time at A&M was go to church and Bible study expecting to get fed. The problem was, she was well fed, but never exercised her faith. That summer she would go on a life changing mission trip to Turkey where she would meet her future husband. They now serve overseas together--living their lives together teaching others about Christ.

That conversation has never left me, but it didn't quite impact me at the time the way it does today. You would have thought I would have caught on a little more since I was a Kinesiology major. I mean, that's pretty basic fitness education. You take in more calories than you burn=overweight and in spiritual terms that means stagnate.

Since then, I feel like there have been a few seasons in my life where God was trying to make up for the time I lost there. I guess you could say He's been pushing me so He can redeem that time. I know I mustn't dwell in regrets, but learn from them and encourage others not to make the same mistakes. I've shared this with the girls in the college Bible study I used to lead at our church here. I encouraged them to make the most of their time and spend it on what really matters.

I don't know why I felt like I needed to confess all that, but maybe it will encourage you to "exercise" a little from time to time. Here's what I find myself clinging to whenever I start to worry that I've blown it:

Philippians 3:12-14, "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

My Latest Source of Joy

I'll be completely honest. I've had a rough last couple of weeks. I'll write a post about that later because I want to be completely upfront with you about our lives. I never want to pretend that we've got it all together and that I only post the good stuff.

But before I do that, I want to share with you something that God used yesterday at church to bring a much needed laugh. It was the kind that you laugh so hard your face hurts. What made it even better was it was a laugh shared by my church family. There's nothing like laughing with good friends that you love dearly.

This video was made by the Worship Pastor at our church. He is so talented and we are so thankful that God brought him to us, but don't get any ideas about stealing him from us! It is encouraging people to join a small group or what we call a "Life Group" within our church. I hope you enjoy this. (You will probably have to turn off the music at the bottom to hear it completely.)

And the joke about the coffee...that's because people always make fun of/complain about the coffee we serve in the foyer....and yet, people still drink it.

Not Cooperating

Wesley looks in the rear-view mirror of the van to see Josie nodding off to sleep.

Just as her eyes close Josie grimaces and cries, "My eyes aren't cooperating!"

Poor thing! She said it over and over, but to no avail. She was sound asleep within moments.

Trash to Treasure

Recently, a friend introduced me to a new blog called http://thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com/ . I am hooked! The girl who writes this blog is so creative! She shops at Good Will looking for things that have potential to be beautiful objects in her home. So, my friend and I have been inspired.

Yesterday we went to Good Will to hunt for our own treasures. I came home with 12 or 13 items for $25. Today I began my restoration process. Armed with my trusty spray paint and craft paints I began, and within MOMENTS I had brand new treasures. Here are a few of today's projects.

Hallelujah for this stuff!

Check this out! This cheap looking plastic tray cost me 99 cents.

Now look at my snazzy black tray.

I posted these in B&W because my candles and stones don't match...they were all I had in my craft box, but you get the idea.

This one is my favorite. I forgot to take a before picture because I was so excited to get started. It was very plain/boring wood. I painted it a metallic-blackish/brown and then painted "mailbox" on the top. Fun, huh?

I saw this statue and thought, "yuck!" But then tried to open my mind and thought it might look good in a different color. For less than two dollars I figured it wasn't much of a risk.

I painted it the same color that I painted the mailbox. What do you think?

So, this next project wasn't really from the Good Will store, but I thought it was fun. I picked this stuff up at the craft store the other day and whipped this baby out in about 10 minutes while I was making dinner. I have since improved it and have greater plans for future hanging-candle-lantern thingies.

I couldn't help but be reminded about how God restores us when the world has thrown us to the trash pile. 1 Peter 5:10 says, "And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast."

I like to think I'm "restoring" these objects to be something beautiful and more useful than before, but the difference in my attempts at restoration and the restoration that takes place when God works on us (besides spray paint) is that God makes us COMPLETELY NEW. He makes us beautiful and gives us the most important purpose in the universe--to reflect His beauty.

One more thought. If I receive so much joy and pleasure from restoring these little odds and ends, how much more joy and pleasure does our Lord have as he works on you and me? I get so anxious and excited as I wait for one coat of paint to dry before I put on another one or to paint words on. I wonder how excited he gets in between "coats". One thing is for sure. He promised He'd finish the job.

"Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus,"

Philippians 1:6