Advent Conspiracy…..

This stopped me in my tracks…..Christmas is right around the corner folks. I want to make a difference this year.

ht: Flowerdust

Filed under: Justice , advent conspiracy, Christmas, spend less at christmas

Compassion Bloggers…

Hey Internets! Guess what?  Compassion Bloggers are going on another trip…..

You can check out the group of bloggers going here and follow them on their journey.

Last time was a wild ride for me and many others as we followed them in Uganda. I’m praying that many more hearts and eyes are open this trip to the needs of Children all over the world that can be released from poverty with our help.

Filed under: Compassion , Compassion Bloggers, Compassion International

The Shack….

I just finished reading this book yesterday.

Have  you read it? I would love to have some dialogue about the book, but nobody around me has read it. My husband….keeps saying he is going to read it, but who knows how long that will take!

The book gave me a lot to think about and raised a lot of questions for me….but I don’t want to give anything away if you have not read it or are not finished yet.

So….wanna talk about it? Bring on the discussion inter-peeps!

Filed under: Faith and Culture, Stuff I'm writing to shamelessly pimp my stats , Shack book Discussion, The Shack, William P. Young, William P. Young's The Shack

Questions????

Here are a couple of questions I have been pondering of late……any thoughts? Answers?

1.  Why is staying close to God SO MUCH WORK? Seriously…..it takes effort upon effort to really maintain the type of relationship with him that I want and need. And sadly? I’m often TERRIBLE at it.

2.  How do you fix a broken relationship….when it’s only broken on one side? Meaning, how do you fix something that is broken relationally when you aren’t supposed to know it’s broken, but you do?

3.  Why is coping with disappointment so difficult for some, and so easy for others? I don’t deal well with disappointment, and it really bothers me.

4. How can you crave true relationship and intimacy with people and yet still push it away at the same time? What makes the human heart do that?

5. And lastly……Why are the lean cuisine frozen meals rarely as good as they look on the box?

What questions have you been asking lately?

Filed under: Thoughts I thought.... , Hard Questions, Life Questions

Fireproof…

Okay, let me say first of all that I am not usually easily swayed by hype. The fact that this movie has gotten a lot of great press in the Christian Community doesn’t necessarily mean that it appeals to me. Let’s just say that I sometimes have issues with the whole “Christian Sub-culture”.

That being said, however, I went to see Fireproof this past weekend with my husband and parents. If you haven’t heard of this movie you can read about it here. You guys???? I seriously cried though at LEAST half of this movie! At one point, I was crying, my dad was crying, my mom was crying and my husband was crying. While I recognize that the ability to make one cry is not the only benchmark of a good movie, it does attest on some level to the emotional impact that it leaves on you.  I don’t know that I have ever seen a more heart wrenching depiction of marital difficulty or the impact it leaves on the people involved. It was almost breathtaking for me to witness the effect that coming to Jesus can have on a person’s heart and their relationships….and it was so realistically portrayed.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again….Jesus is all about changing lives. He is all about changing marriages, and relationships. If you want to see a great portrayal of the reality of that change, then see this movie!

One quick side note, and my only “complaint” about the movie. The acting…especially in the first 15-20 min. of the movie, was pretty sub-par. I wish that we could make something that has the high standards of quality films, but has the message that this one does. Maybe we will get there.

Watch the trailer at:
http://www.fireproofthemovie.com

Filed under: Faith and Culture, Stuff that makes me cry.... , Fireproof movie

Catching up…

I have not had a lot of time to blog the last few weeks. Last week at work was NUTTY – crazy busy. When I got home at night all I wanted to do was sit on the couch, instead I had a late night class to teach on Tuesday, my nephew’s football game on Wednesday and dinner at my parents on Thursday. Just thinking about last week makes me tired!

This week is shaping up to be better, with the exception of the colds that both the husband and I seem to be developing. Stupid elementary school germs are probably invading my house….both my kids seemed to have mild colds last week.

Life is good but busy for us right now. With 2 kids in school and 2 parents working full-time, there isn’t a lot of “extra” time for us these days. I still really enjoy my job and it’s continuing to be a nice challenge. I’ve been teaching a lot of classes the last few weeks in addition to being the chief editor for all the education content being written for our new websites (6 of them) and all the other little tasks that take up my time. I moved into an office last week since we got some new space accross the hall and now I have 4 walls and a door….it’s exciting stuff and I am enjoying the opportunity to really focus instead of being distracted by the 8 or 9 different phone conversations that were constantly going on all around my cubicle.

Brian was given a promotion last month along with a much needed and much appreciated raise. God is continuing to provide for us in amazing ways. It seemed like a long road getting to this place where we can say “things and life are really good” but we have grown and changed and been stretched so much that in the end I can totally say it was worth it. We are thriving in our life here!

The kids are doing fantastic in school and really seem to love it. Abbie in particular just seems to be coming alive. She gets disappointed when the weekend comes and she doesn’t have school for a few days. Noah continues to love reading and science and history. He is growing up and getting to be so mature. He helps us out around the house and is a general joy most of the time. I’ve found that I REALLY enjoy the age of 9…it’s a great age! He is independant and trustworthy and a great companion, but he still needs us and wants to be with us….we are still cool to him!

So that is what is going on in my world…..glad you could catch up with me!

Filed under: Family Stuff, Kids , catching up, life

Random late night brain dumping…

In no particular order, these are the things pinging around in my head tonight when I should be sleeping but can’t!

• I seem to have developed a certain fondness for bullet points….and homemade salsa….and peach ice cream. The bullet points are the only one I can’t really figure out.
• My dog snores loudly…and often. My husband doesn’t snore, but sometimes he breathes loudly enough that it might as well be snoring to me. Tonight would be one of those times.
• My son is writing a short story….and it’s really good…even for a nine year old, it’s seriously good.
• I’m obsessively trying to find a set of canisters for my kitchen that combine old world charm, are Tuscan looking without being cheesy, have red accents and do not involve roosters of any sort. It’s a tall order!
• I hate laundry…seriously, I hate it. Do you think my family would notice if I stopped doing it completely?
• I need for this election stuff to end. I’m tired of hearing the same stuff over and over and over and over and over and over….oh, you too?
• Work has pretty much been sucky this week. The good news is, work is not generally sucky, just sucky this week, so it’s not like it’s a pattern or anything….but still, sucky is just sucky!
• My Tylenol PM is about to kick in…I can feel it!

And that my friends….is called clearing out your brain. Now, maybe I can get some sleep!

Filed under: Apparently Random Thoughts , brain dump, clearing out your brain, random thoughts