Thanks God!

So something amazing just happened. Here is the backstory: TJ had bought me a pair of diamond earrings for my birthday earlier this year, and just about a month later, I was cleaning up when one of the earrings fell out of my hand and on to our bedroom carpet, never to be seen again. Well, needless to say I was REALLY bummed, and had pretty much given up hope I would ever see it again because in the move we never found it. Well, earlier tonight I went into our living room to grab my computer power cord, and there it was just lying on the floor!! I was astounded because after all of the commotion with moving, it just appeared there! Thanks Jesus! :)

Thursday, October 14

We Moved!

It occurred to me that while taking on this new city, I should keep a bog about our thoughts and feelings about this adventure, more for myself for reflection, but if it interests you enough to read it, go for it!

Seattle is definitely a change from Redding, but I’m loving almost every minute of it. As with any move, there are some adjustments, but the adjustments from moving from the suburbs to the city is almost comical. It’s the random things like, “Gee, the nearest Wal-mart and Target are 10 miles away?!? (in the city that’s a lot!) Where are we going to get shower curtains, hooks, nails, hangers, etc?!?” We’ve learned that you have to get specific in the stores you go to, so instead of going to a one-stop-shop, we go to 2 or 3 different stores now. Although, I did learn last night that there is a Fred Myer fairly close by, and that it will probably be my new best friend, so we will see.

We ventured out on our first grocery-shopping trip yesterday… oh boy. You see, there isn’t a Winco nearby… (I was so spoiled in Redding!) So I’m trying to figure out where we can go without giving up our first born child (food can be REALLY expensive here!) I get the bright idea that we should go to Grocery Outlet, because after all, it’s only 5 miles away… so how long could it take? So TJ and I set out around 5pm yesterday, not realizing that to get there from our house we have to go right by Quest Field (the big football stadium) and it just so happened that a big game just got out, which the Seahawks won, so of course there were TONS of drunk fans stumbling around cheering and blocking traffic. Needless to say, a drive that should have taken us, oh maybe 15 mins took us 45 mins to get through traffic. Then when we finally got to the Grocery Outlet, IT WAS ONE OF THE SMALLEST I HAD EVER SEEN. UGH! So we got what we could, and tried to stall much time there as we could to let the traffic clear a bit, but we just ended up plunging right back into it to go over to Trader Joe’s in Queen Anne. The guy was so nice there; he let us have the discount even though TJ didn’t technically start working there until today. So overall it wasn’t a bust, but we definitely learned to plan our shopping trips around the games. If there is one thing I have learned, it’s that Seattle may not have the best teams (they’ve only won 4 championships between all of the sports teams) but everyone in the city is a diehard fan.

We live in an area that it really close to downtown, where pike’s place, and the space needle are. Its SO nice to be able to walk everywhere. We been here going on 4 days, and I’ve only used the car twice, once to go grocery shopping ( who wants to carry all those bags back?!) and once to go over the Ed and Grethe Klose’s house (they live across the bridge in the Ballard area.) There is so much to do here, you definitely get the sense it will be hard to become bored here. And because we walk everywhere I don’t even feel guilty about eating all of the amazing bread that is here :)

I have more thoughts, but I better get back to job hunting! :)

Monday, September 27

How Little Do I Understand The Father's Heart

The cry of my heart lately has been, “God what are you doing right now?!?” It’s been really tough financially and emotionally, and I’ve just been stuck in the place of worry and doubt. There is so much looming on the horizon, so many questions to be figured out. Are we supposed to stay in Redding and explore what God has for us here, or jump into an adventure in a whole new town with a whole new, and honestly, brighter outlook? What job will I have six months from now? Who will we be close to? There are so many things that seem to plague my heart and frustrate me because I do not have the answers.

But I’ve slowly began to realize that basically, this all comes down to how little I understand the Father’s heart and His love for me. I don’t trust him to take care of me, and provide for my needs. And just when I feel so totally overwhelmed, He sends me a little signal to chill out and rest in His arms.

You see, I had been really bummed after listening to a message about generosity. I love being generous and seeing the joy in people’s faces when they are delighting in their gift. So obviously, I love Christmastime where I get to play Santa and bring the joy of gifts to people. Except this year since we are really strapped for money, we cannot give gifts to anyone. And then when I heard the message about generosity, I started to become even more bummed because my spirit longs to be generous, but with our money situation right now, there is no money to be generous with. So in the end I became a little mad at God because I felt the enormous weight to be generous, but had no resources besides my own time to do so.

Then Monday we get a check in the mail from TJ’s grandma saying that all they want for Christmas is for us to write out the story of how we used this money to bless people with.

That’s when it struck me how little I understand God’s extraordinary love for me. Not only is He going to provide for our needs, but he even provided for my desire to be generous. That struck me as so odd, because it wasn’t Him who got ourselves into our financial pickle, but yet He still wanted to bless us with this gift. I’m so not understanding God’s grace and love, but I’m trying to make myself more open to it. I don’t want to miss out on His blessings because I’m too stubborn in thinking I don’t deserve it.

Friday, December 11

Lent.

I'm doing it, I'm taking the plunge. For lent I'm giving up....
Sugar.
I'm insane, I know. But I have such an outright addiction to it, it's not healthy.
So if I'm cranky for the next 40 days... you'll know why.

Thursday, February 26

Offically under 100 days.......

I'll be married!

weird.

Friday, February 6

Miracles

"Love covers over a multitude of sins"
1 Peter 4:8

Nothing in a relationship has to permanently destroy that relationship if forgiveness is in the picture. No failure is larger than grace. No hurt exists that love cannot heal. But, for all of these miracles to take place, there must be compassion and tenderheartedness.
- Boundaries in Marriage.

Now that's a good word right there.

Thursday, January 22

True Beauty

How can we impact the world? How can we take things that the world has slowly perverted and make them whole, beautiful again?

God gave me a vision for my ministry. At first I didn't think it was God, because I rationalized that it was me trying to twist and contort my will into God's will. But He does give you the desire of your heart right?

You see I've always been fascinated by the fashion/beauty industry. I've loved the clothes, makeup, hair, just the whole art of it. Making beautiful women more beautiful. But our culture has taken the longing for beauty into an obsession. Its no longer a fun pastime for women. Its a daily hungering, life taking need that depresses, oppresses, and belittles women. I feel like because the world has taken beauty to such a bad extreme, there is a sense with the Church to take it to the other extreme where we shouldn't talk about beauty because wanting to be beautiful with clothes and makeup is vanity. Vanity is bad, and should be suppressed at all costs. At least this has been my experience growing up in the church, and with a father that would criticize my longing for beauty and shamed my desire for the art of being beautiful.

The Lord has been speaking to me lately that He created women for beauty, among other things. We have this desire deep within ourselves to be beautiful, to be desire, to be loved. This desire is not bad. It should be, like so many other things, be celebrated and enjoyed with moderation. We've all seen what happens when our desire for beauty turns us into slaves, but if we are in communion with the one who made us beautiful, shouldn't we be able to explore that beauty with caution? I believe yes. Its not right to suppress that side of ourselves ladies. We should be able to explore our beauty without being condemned by it.

With that being said, we do have to be careful to not let it consume us. Vanity is bad, Pride is bad, but God's creation is not.

Anyways, the more I reflected on this, the more I felt like God was telling me to use my desire for artistic beauty for Him. Turn back the beauty of women to be celebrated and enjoyed because He made us beautiful. So with this I want to become a cosmetologist. I want to be able to speak true beauty into women. I want to see women freed from their chains of vanity, and come to a place where they celebrate their beauty. So often a woman's hairdresser is their therapist and confidant. It's amazing to me how safe women feel in a hairdresser's chair. They let down so many walls without even realizing it. I want to get behind those walls, and speak God's truth about who they really are.

A child a God, made in His beautiful image.

Sunday, January 18

The Middle

I'm not good with words, which is probably why I've been more reluctant to dive into the blogging craze as others. But I just have emotions in me that I just gotta get out of me or I feel like I'm going to explode!

God has done a lot in me over the past 8 months. Its been bitterly hard and overwhelmingly joyful. I feel like for the first time in my life I'm finding out who I am, and not just believing what others tell me that I am. I've worked through, and in some senses, am still working through some heavy biases and bitterness from my past. I never realized how much they clouded up my vision and was blocking my view of God.

My life has been like a pendulum. College set it in motion, I went from an extreme high of experiencing God's love for the first time to an extreme low of depression and lies about myself. Now I feel as if I'm slowly swinging back towards the middle. Which is good, I like the middle ground.

I've noticed that in a lot of areas of following Christ, if not all, its all about the middle. There is a fine tension you have to walk. Going to one extreme or the other almost defeats the purpose, and disables your capacity for empathy and true love. This principle is written all over human life. Marriage, raising children, helping and not enabling others, friendships, evangelism, relationship with God, etc. Now I'm not saying that its wrong to be passionate, because passion is a good thing in the right context. But what good is passion when its destroying and blocking the real view of God from your mind?

I don't know if that makes any sense but its just been something I've been chewing on.
And I'm glad my mind isn't clouded from depression anymore. You really don't realize how much it can come in and choke the life out of you, bit by bit.

Tuesday, January 13

Ice Ice Baby

A big storm just blew through here in Illinois, its not as bad as everyone thought it would be but I did not escape unscathed. Figures. It was really icy last night cause the rain was freezing to the ground, so when I went to step down on the front steps to get to the car, what happened? Of course I slipped and fell. Now I have a big black and blue bruise on my hip as a gift. Lovely.
But otherwise the trip back home has been good. Its been great to see all of his family. I've missed them alot. I just wish they could live closer to California.

Friday, December 19

Twilight Obessions

I love Twilight. Love does not even begin to describe it. I got addicted thanks to my best friend over this summer. For two weeks straight I was just sitting in the hammock around my dorm reading about Bella and Edward's adventures. I acutally got sad when I was done with Breaking Dawn.

But now I'm excited to see the movie! yay more Twilight.
The only thing is though that I'm afriad it will ruin my own mind's eye movie of the series that I have in my head. Cause in my head it's so not cheesey or adolescent!

hmmm friday can't come fast enough. Who'll go see it with me?

Saturday, November 15