I love doing this every year..it's a personal little tradition!
Amazing Sunny beautiful weather today!
Brycen! Love getting to connect with my cousin and talk about God all the time and see all that God has answered in the past year in his life! Faithful God.
California-the three weeks in orange county this summer were some of my favorite three weeks ever in my life.
Dad and mom. I am so blessed to have loving godly parents.
Eaglerock. This place is gorgeous and so peaceful.
Family, near and far. I have been so blessed to grow up in a gigantic family, always someone around.
Godly heritage.
Hospitality. One of my favorite ways to bless people.
Imagination-where dreams take off and become realities.
JESUS.
Knowing Jesus more and more every single day.
Learning to cook. This year one of my goals was to become confident in the kitchen..it's taken some time, but it's going well!
My house! I love the little place my friend stacy and I rent. It's beautiful.
Necessities always provided for, like the day Stacy and I needed more toilet paper and we picked one out, it rang up whole price, though there was a tag that said it was on sale. Turns out the sale had ended but since the sign was still up they gave it to us for free! Yeah!
Opportunities to TRAVEL! London and Romania in the spring. Woot woot!
Pies, lots and lots of them.
Quiet moments.
Reaching out on 16th street mall. (Kingdom Nights.) God transforming the city.
Settlers of Catan.
Trying new things.
UV rays 300 days a year.
Vacations! Looking forward to going home at Christmas.
Worship times with our community 3 times a week.
X-ceeded expectations. God is always surprising me with His goodness and his provision in little ways.
You who is taking the time to read my ramblings.
Zippers. Can you imagine if we had to use straight pins to shut all of our clothes?!
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Saturday, November 5, 2011
"Shalom"
Last night at Kingdom Night, myself and one of the students got into a conversation with a man named Shalom. He was dragging around and oxygen tank and his heart was filled to the brim with hurt. THe conversation went something like this...
Shalom: "there is so much suffering in the world. Why is there so much suffering? Little kids are dying, the economy is crashing, people are without jobs. Ain't nothing gonna get better til God comes back and then we all gotta stand before him on Judgement day and then we is all equal. Why don't people treat us all like we equal. We all the same in God's eyes."
Us: That's true. There is a lot of suffering. People have free choices."
Shalom: "Yeah but my momma didn't chose to be laid off."
Us: "No but sin and suffering is result of human choices."
Shalom: "yeah, but ain't nothing gonna get better til God comes back."
Us: "what if we told you things could get better. That there is hope? What if, things could begin to change today?"
Shalom: "So it might and it might not."
Us: "It will. Hope doesn't depend on our circumstances or even our job."
Shalom: "No, people are just in denial. There is wars and rumors of wars."
Us: "Yes, Shalom, there are. But Hope is a man, his name is Jesus. Do you know about Jesus?"
(Interuption: Shalom: "Yeah, but the economy is bad. That president....and blame, and blame and blame....")
Us: "The economy doesn't dictate whether we have peace and hope. Listen Shalom, let us tell you about Hope. His name is Jesus."
So, the conversation went on and we told him our stories and how our hope isn't dependent on the decisions of other people, the suffering that we go through, whether we have money or not, no, our hope is Jesus. And because of him we have peace, we have joy and we have hope. And no, dear man, we are not living in denial. We just chose to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith-who for the joy set before HIM endure the cross...Yes there is suffering, yes there is pain, yes, there is hurt and hatred and misery..but we can bring hope and no, we don't need money to help people. Sure, of course it helps, but money doesn't bring eternal hope. Oh, man of peace, do you recognize your name? His mindset was so stayed that he kept repeating the same hopelessness over and over and over. We would speak truth, his eyes would brighten for a moment, and then he would shake his head and say "no, it's not possible because of..." Oh Jesus, break the lies, bring peace to Shalom.
Do you have any rivers you think are uncrossable
Do you have any mountains you can't tunnel through?
God specializes in things thought impossible.
He does the things others can not do.
In everything GIVE THANKS, for this is God's will concerning you in Christ Jesus.
Shalom: "there is so much suffering in the world. Why is there so much suffering? Little kids are dying, the economy is crashing, people are without jobs. Ain't nothing gonna get better til God comes back and then we all gotta stand before him on Judgement day and then we is all equal. Why don't people treat us all like we equal. We all the same in God's eyes."
Us: That's true. There is a lot of suffering. People have free choices."
Shalom: "Yeah but my momma didn't chose to be laid off."
Us: "No but sin and suffering is result of human choices."
Shalom: "yeah, but ain't nothing gonna get better til God comes back."
Us: "what if we told you things could get better. That there is hope? What if, things could begin to change today?"
Shalom: "So it might and it might not."
Us: "It will. Hope doesn't depend on our circumstances or even our job."
Shalom: "No, people are just in denial. There is wars and rumors of wars."
Us: "Yes, Shalom, there are. But Hope is a man, his name is Jesus. Do you know about Jesus?"
(Interuption: Shalom: "Yeah, but the economy is bad. That president....and blame, and blame and blame....")
Us: "The economy doesn't dictate whether we have peace and hope. Listen Shalom, let us tell you about Hope. His name is Jesus."
So, the conversation went on and we told him our stories and how our hope isn't dependent on the decisions of other people, the suffering that we go through, whether we have money or not, no, our hope is Jesus. And because of him we have peace, we have joy and we have hope. And no, dear man, we are not living in denial. We just chose to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith-who for the joy set before HIM endure the cross...Yes there is suffering, yes there is pain, yes, there is hurt and hatred and misery..but we can bring hope and no, we don't need money to help people. Sure, of course it helps, but money doesn't bring eternal hope. Oh, man of peace, do you recognize your name? His mindset was so stayed that he kept repeating the same hopelessness over and over and over. We would speak truth, his eyes would brighten for a moment, and then he would shake his head and say "no, it's not possible because of..." Oh Jesus, break the lies, bring peace to Shalom.
Do you have any rivers you think are uncrossable
Do you have any mountains you can't tunnel through?
God specializes in things thought impossible.
He does the things others can not do.
In everything GIVE THANKS, for this is God's will concerning you in Christ Jesus.
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