Ok so I am crazy like that

So we have our next Chik Nite approaching so quickly. One of the things I have been looking for is a yummy cinnamon roll for all of the ladies to have that evening. The problem....well price. When you are going to have around 70 ladies and you are on a budget money suddenly becomes an issue right?
So I get the great idea that I will just make them.......
I didn't mention that it is 10:45 in the evening did I? So I go to Wal-Mart get the supplies come home make the cinnamon rolls and at 2 a.m. my batch of cinnamon rolls were finally done.
This is the life of a married woman with children. Staying up to make cinnamon rolls till 2 a.m. on a Friday night. I am pretty crazy like that!!
So I don't know why, but I just felt like I had to share that with you guys! LOL

REVIVAL

Every year at youth camp each kid comes of all different kinds.


You have the “Emo ones’

Then there are the “Jesus Freaks”


The first night the “Jesus Freaks" are down in the front just enjoying every word that comes out of that ministers mouth.

The others are sitting with arms crossed. They are determined that they are not going to change. That everyone here is just way off their rocker, but them no they are not going to leave different. They just came to eat the bad food, get no sleep and be away from the parents for the week. Then the last night something crazy happens every time……

From the Emo kid to the Jesus freaks be it 12 or 70 all hands are raised in the air and there is one thing that bonds us all……..


That is that we are so crazy in love with Jesus!!

I asked the Lord why this was…..Why? Every year these kids come and get fired up for God. Then by the next year they have totally forgotten what happened that week at camp.

The Lord showed me that there when they go home they aren’t being stirred up.

You see at camp you live in a bubble. Where everyone lives for Jesus unashamed. There is no bad music, no cussing, no awful t.v., backstabbing. They live in a totally pure environment.

This is why there is change in them. The people and leaders that they are surrounded with really live Jesus. This generation is so hungry to see people really live for Jesus. Not just half way serve the Lord.

When you are going to church on Sunday morning and then no more then get out of the door and you are cussing your kid out. What kind of message does that send to your kid? This is why kids are out trying drugs and getting drunk. They are looking for something to fill the void in their heart.

Why would your kid turn to Jesus to fill that void when you don’t?

Revival starts with us. When we start really living for the Lord that is when our children will follow suite. This is when change will happen in your kids!!


I know that this may step on some toes, but if it does then that means that it has an element of truth for you!

I love you girls! I really do! I just want us to think about the legacy that we are leaving behind. Which is our children.

Excedingly Abundantly

I am sitting here thinking and my heart is filled with so much joy. Today we had church as we do every Sunday morning. Our sanctuary was about 3/4 full!! That is so exciting we probably had about 10 visitors there!

We then went to eat came home put the kids down for a nap and took a quick one ourselves before the rest of our day began.

Then we went to our Youth Leaders meeting at 4. This was amazing. The presence of God was so think there as we worshiped! WOW! It was truely amazing!

After all of this we were off to Trendsetters which is our Bible Study groups on how to be a Proverbs 31 woman! This went ohh so well also!

God is so good to me in my life. I am so thankful for all that He is doing in our life. Our church is growing, and it is just so amazing to watch God's hand of blessing over all of our ministries and Pastor. The best part is to know that this is only the begining! We are about to see revival like never before! There is a turning of the tide in people.

There is a hunger that God is stiring up in the community to truely know Him. I am so excited. I have this HUGE expectation in my heart that He is going to do Excedingly Abundantly above all that I could ever ask or think!

I love you guys and look forward to posting again tomorrow :D

HAPPY

The Bible says that "The joy of the Lord is our strength". I love how it also says that "He will renew our strength like the eagles".

Let's think about the first verse first. I love how there is no time line on this verse. It doesn't say that when everything is great that He is our strength or even when everything is bad for that matter. I have learned that it is really not a challenge to be happy or to stay happy when everything is going your way.

When the kids awake in joyful dispositions, the house is in order, everything in general going your way. That is not hard to be happy. I have been so working on just being happy.

Just where I am. Not where I am going, or where I will be. BUT WHERE I AM.

Some days it is as though you are just going about your business and then BAM it hits somebody trying to take your peace. Be it a critical statement, a slow checker, or kids spilling a whole glass of orange juice on the nice carpet.

It is in those times that true character is tested I believe. What do you do when adversity heads your way. Do you put on a smile and go charging right back at it or do you let your feelings take over.

Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks is what the Bible says. When pressure is on you what is coming out? For me I never have a curse word come out, but I am trying so hard for peace to come out of me at all times. To not let my circumstances control how I will feel.

We can't be circumstantially happy. If we live our life this way then it will always be a roller coaster. This is not the way I want to be that is for sure. I want to be the same in crisis as I am in celebration.

Peaceful.

The second verse says that "He will renew our strength as the eagles. This means that God new that adversity would come our way. He knew there would be things that would come in and take away our joy which is also refered to as our strength.

When you don't have joy it makes doing the simplest of things so hard. God made us to enjoy our life. When I am full of joy I can clean toilets and be happy. When my joy is gone I can't even do the things I love with a smile.....

Why? Joy is our strength. God is the only true source of joy. That is why He says HE will renew our strength (joy). Everything else that makes you happy be it good news, a happy surprise or anything else is just temporary.

So what do you do to keep joyful you might ask me. Well it is easy. For me today I was happy this morning and BAM all of a sudden I could feel my joy being ripped from my finger tips. I got away for a moment and just put on a good praise song and worshiped God for a moment.....just like that I had my peace back.....Joy was back in my life.

Even as I type things there are things going on that are trying to steal my peace. Kids knocking over fans, fighting, making messes. To keep your peace is a choice that you and you alone can truly make.

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YFN 2008

Well we are back, and wow it was such an amazing week! God is so good every year. There is something that will just make you tear up when watching around 1,400 teens lifting their hands and praising God. It makes something inside of me say we need more of this!!!

There were so many miracles this week at camp! Two kids came that were borne deaf and during worship started hearing for the first time EVER!!!! This is so huge!
That is why God is the same yesterday today and forever! This means He is still willing to heal, we just need to receive it! What are your expectations when you go into worship? These kids got healed because the came with a heart that God was going to do something big for them that day!
While we were there we had Benny Perez prophesy over us that we will have a youth group of 800-1,200 teens!!! This is an amazing thing because there are 1,200 in our high school a lone! I am excited to see what God has in store this next year in our youth group!
I will post more as time allows. I am still trying to catch up right now!

UNPLUGGED

Well this week my husband and I are taking 15 kids to have their lives changed at Youth Camp. Not only is this a great time for them but for us also. It is a great time to be refreshed. The only thing that I am sad about is there is ABSOLUTELY no computer usage while there! Awhhhhh!

There are two things a girl needs in everyday life that is a cell phone and the other is a laptop! LOL

It will be good for me to have a life unplugged and just focus on Jesus. Who knows maybe I should do it a little more often......

So with that said, pray for our youth this week pray that their lives will be changed. I will look forward to telling you all of the funny things that happened this week as I am sure I will be up late Friday blogging!

Also Chik Nite is this Friday at our church at 7 p.m.! I hope any of you that live near will come it is going to be amazing with Jennifer Moffatt as our guest speaker!

Blessings all and I will miss you guys! Hope you have a great week!!

God is the same

I love how the Bible says that: "God is the same yesterday, today, and forever." This is so hard for us to get our minds around. People change all of the time in our lives. They may say that they are going to do something then never come through for us. Maybe they tell you that they are going to be one way and then they are the complete opposite. I am so fired up! God's word makes me get so excited!! So hang with me cuz I am pretty excited tonight!

The great thing is the same God that blessed Abraham, delivered Moses, answered Hannah's prayers in the temple, raised the dead, healed the sick, fed the multitude is the God that we serve today! This is the same God that is wanting to meet whatever need you have in your life today!

We serve a God that not only hear you prayers but will answer the prayers of those that diligently seek Him. That gets me all fired up! We have a God that loves us so much for just being us. Not for what we will be or when we act right, but He takes us just as we are and that is Good news!

See our minds can't get around this. Everything is so works in our life. If somebody does something nice for you, then you in turn have loving feelings toward that person. If they do you wrong you are upset. Right?! Don't sit there acting like you don't! lol I see you when you get all mad in the store cuz that checker isn't being very friendly, and I know how you are grinning from ear to ear when your honey brings home flowers.

This isn't God though. The Bible says "While we were still in sin He sent His son to deliver us". WOW!!! We serve an amazing God. His will is and will always be to see us blessed, prosperous, kids serving the Lord, happy, healthy. This is what God wants. He is the same always! I just want to get you all kinds of fired up today in the reality of the great, amazing, good God that we serve! You don't have to be in problems because the word says that "Many are the afflictions of the righteous but He delivers us out of them all!!" WOOO HOOOO!!!!

Prayer:
Lord I thank you that you stand by YOUR word. Lord I thank you that your word is true. Your word says that you want to see me blessed and living an abundant life. So that means I receive that which you have for me! Lord I thank you for miracles in my everyday life. Lord I thank you that you are the Jesus that is in the Bible. I speak to every difficulty in my life and say that it has to go in the name of Jesus I will be blessed in EVERYTHING I put my hand to!

Moment that stops time

Today was a day like any other. Filled with laundry, spilt cereal, filling of juice cups, wiping noses, potty time, dishes etc. We went to the lake with my family for the Fourth of July. My daughter has found something to add to her list of favorites.

FIREWORKS

She discovered them the other day and decided that she loves them so much. So she was excited that we would see some fireworks tonight. When dark fell the fireworks began. All over everyone on the lake started popping their fireworks.....

Then next door started a show. Next thing we know we entered a 40 minute show of fireworks. They had hired someone to come in for their party that they had.


We sat out on the boat dock. I listened to the sound of my children squealing with joy at the beautiful display before us. Brailey was so excited every time a purple one would light up the sky.

Towards the end she runs to me, wraps her arms around me and says: "Mom thank you so much, this is the best surprise ever! I love you so much!" Tears filled my eyes. What a wonderful moment. There was no other place that I would ever want to be. I thank God for that precious moment. My daughters heart so filled with joy and gratitude for something as simple as watching fireworks! It made my heart just melt on the spot!!

There are moments that will forever stay in your mind all your life you will go back to that moment and relive how it felt. That is one that will always stay with me. It makes the loads of laundry, icky noses, dishes, cereal spills all worth it. This moment this is why I love being a mom. I am so thankful that I got to be a part of that moment

Dying to your flesh will stink

I love how Peter talks about in the Bible that he dies daily. Everyday we are faced with temptations and things that come our way. Christianity is a choice. It is not mandatory that we serve God nor how we serve God. Everyone serves Him to a different degree from not at all to entirely. When we choose to start walking with God there is a sacrifice that has to happen I believe if we want to see God's fullness in our life. We have to be like Peter and die daily to what the flesh wants in our life. This is something weather you have served God for 20 years of one you will still encounter what your flesh wants daily and have to make a choice.

For some reason Christians got it in their head that serving God was going to be so easy. The hard thing is that it isn't. There are daily struggles. When you live in the world you are constantly coming against opposition because you are going against God's will. When you choose to serve God you have every devil in hell fighting you. The good news is that we know the end of the story and we win. We have Jesus' strength to get us through any obstacle that may come our way if we look to Him and not to our way of doing things.

You think about Abraham. God called him in Genesis 12 and God just told him simply to go. Leave everything that he had ever known and God would tell him what to do from there. That would be so hard. Can you imagine what his wife said when he came in and said we are supposed to move I don't know why, but I just know that we need to go. That is one submissive wife. I love my home and being close to family. That would be so hard to just load up everything and just go. You have to know that you know that you know that you will hear God's voice.

This is how your christian life is. When you get saved Jesus has one request, "JUST FOLLOW ME". That means leave everything that you ever thought aside and follow Him and Him a lone. I love the scripture that says "I put my hands to the plow not looking to the right or the left I set out to do the work the Lord has given me". This is so good to me. When we start just looking at what and where God has us going we will be happy. You will be full filled. You will get to your destiny. When you are keeping in God's word your flesh will die daily. Then you will be a christian that makes an impact on the world. Why do I know that? Because the word says so in Genesis 12:2 It says that He will make you famous that He will bless you and curse those who curse you. With a word like that how can you not put down the life that you have lived. You have the promise of God's word behind you. That is better than any insurance you can ever buy!

I will tell you this. I was talking to a friend on the phone this week and we were talking about how nothing in this life happens with out a sacrifice first. God has a blessing He is waiting to give you, but He is waiting on your move first. Abraham was blessed. He had to make the move first. Jesus' disciples were blessed, but they had to follow Him. It doesn't come at no effort on our part. I believe Jesus is watching to see what we are willing to give up to receive our blessing. So girls it is time to let go and start to receive your blessing!

What am I going to have to let go of you may be asking? Bad friends, music that you wouldn't listen to with Jesus in the car, potty mouth, bad movies, sleeping in till 1 p.m. on Sunday mornings, getting drunk, etc. None of these things are bad things, but at first they are hard. Honestly I have come to a place that it is just such a way of life for me that I think others are weird when the don't do those things. The dying takes place when you say "Ok so my social calendar is going to stink. I will not be the life of the party anymore." But you have to learn this: Life isn't about how full your social calendar is it is about how full your spirit is and if you are pouring that out onto other people.


I encourage you to start living for God in a total new way today. Die to what you have known. Seek God and His ways and He will direct your paths! I want the church to rise up and start being the church that God has called us to be one moving with power! This will only happen when we die to what we want and give it to God!

True love

1 Corinthians 13 (msg)

1 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. 2If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. 3-7If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.


I sit here this morning thinking of how my husband lives this definition of love everyday. He loves me with such an unconditional love. He loves me when I am at my lows or when I am at my highest of highs. When I met Bryan my life was so bad. I was going in the total wrong direction. I was doing everything wrong. He came into my life and not only did I fall in love with him, but also with Jesus. I can't tell you enough how thankful I am for him in my life and how lucky I am to have him.
I try daily to treasure the precious gift that God gave me in Bryan. I am not perfect and there are days I will get frustrated, but I try my best to love him like the Bible says we are to love. At the beginning of this verse it talks about how if we don't have love we are nothing. How true is that? I can't imagine what life would be without the love of Jesus or my husband.
Yesterday my sweet honey surprised me with a new diamond ring! It is so beautiful! When he first asked me to marry him we didn't have hardly anything and had to pay for a wedding. So he gave me a ring from an antique store that his mom had bought years before I came a long. Little did she know this would be her son's wife's ring. So for 7 years I have proudly worn this ring. He has always told me how badly he has wanted to get me a bigger ring. I have always told me that I am perfectly content with the one that I have. Yesterday he gave me that ring. What a blessing! I love it so much and will post pictures soon! After all this time that we have been together I still love to hear his voice on the phone, get chills when we sweeps me up and kisses me. I love the way he can bring calm to my life no matter what is going on around me. He is so perfect for me. I love him more then I can ever write, say or express!
I just want to challenge you girls to love your husband as this definition tells us to. What a precious gift we have that is sometimes so easy to take for granted.