Thanks Thanks Thanks Thanks

woooooooooooooooo it's thanksgiving tommorow! And truly it must be known that you better write a big long thanks filled Blog or your a Jerk...so here it is here it is.
thanks for a God that is huge huge big ginormous better than I can imagine
thanks for a husband who's so hot he can't help it and who makes me laugh!
thanks for a mom and dad who raised me right and love me deeply
thanks for friends who challenge me, make me laugh till I cry, and who are awesome
thanks for the youth band kids who work really hard you know who you are!
I'm missing a ton of stuff, but don't want to go on and on now...you spread the love if you haven't all ready!

A different take on "you reap what you sow"

15 He who digs a hole and scoops it out falls into the pit he has made.
16 The trouble he causes recoils on himself; his violence comes down on his own head.
I read this today in the Psalms chapter 7. Wow, it kinds of hit me like a brick wall. This concept applies not only to christians but non christians. Things you do whether right or wrong always seem to come up and sneak up on you. If you are constantly trying to serve the Lord and others usually the people your serving sooner or later help you and serve you. If your stirring up a bunch of garbage, gossipping, doing other things to make the "pit" deeper, it'll come back to you even if your not a christian! Check yourself...what are you doing are you building others up and serving or digging the pit??

Wouss

Okay so i've been in the south for a year and half now. I am a total wouss when it comes to the cold! It didn't take long either right now theres inches and inches of snow in NW indiana right now. Here it is the sun shining and at least 40 degrees and I'm freezing! Crazy!

SC Youth Convention 2008

I'm going to be honest, my first "AG" Youth Convention was last year. My husband has been going to them for years in Indiana and talked them up. I was not impressed last year...I kept wondering what is all the hype about?? This year though I understood the hype. It was awesome. Yeah the music was loud, the bass was so loud that it made my heart beat faster, but wow was the worship, and the message powerful. I saw kids in our youth group worship and seek God like I haven't ever seen before. Kids got saved, and found God! I can honestly say I hadn't really had freedom worshipping God in a long time, but for that brief time we were there I was overtaken, I wasn't thinking about anything but how awesome He is! That's what I want in our church, not the loud make you almost have a heart attack worship but worship that allows you to get lost in His Presence!!

Fight For What's right and wait on the Lord

A few quick words....
Fight for what's right.
Don't let others influence you into going down the wrong road.
God is Faithful and just when you get it in your head that nothings happening nothing's going on that's when God shows up and show's up big!!!
Work hard and do your Best for the Lord He'll bless you!

A Call to Love

First, my forewarning be careful what you pray for! Going along happily in this thing we call life and thinking your an okay person, a decent christian, serving the Lord, then I get this brilliant idea to pray yesterday God, please refine me, please reveal my junk. When you pray that and really mean it be ready for a smack in the face a big one. My day started off with a little two mile jog where I came across a sermon on my ipod that talked about loving your neighbor as yourself. I thought what a great idea, and proudly thinking to myself wow i do that great! But what God revealed to me yesterday is that I don't do this, at least not like God wants me to. I help out with our church youth group a lot I mean I'm at the church more than three times a week doing stuff with our praise team or seemingly something. We run about 30-50 kids depending on the week. Guilty as charged I have my favorite kids I really do I probably have five or six I really invest in. Trouble is there's thirty others that need love too! And you know I don't do a good job of it. Well convicted I am and changed I need to be because each one of the kids in our youth group is uniquely awesome. Each has their own dreams, views, passions, quirks. Each one a child of God. So forgive me for having favorites!

Churches in Indiana

Wow okay for the first time in a while I visited the web sites of the two former churches I went to when I lived in NW Indiana. The first church I attended was Suncrest Christian Church. I didn't know that it had two campuses now, and the youth ministry is huge!! When I went there and helped with youth they didn't even have a pastor it was volunteers keeping it going, now they have a very talented couple leading the pack with over twenty student leaders! Sweet. The other church was Living Hope Church. Its expanding they have a new building project going on. If you knew the before and after of this church is quite remarkable what God does! When I met my now husband I started transitioning to this church and they had just lost their pastor of over sixteen years, the people were devistated. So they got Pastor Lehmann to "fill in" for almost a year and went on a pastor search to make a long story short they ended up hiring Pastor Lehmann, I believe he was sixty nine years at the time. Wow has he allowed God to use him to lead this great church. I'm not going to lie seeing all this awesome stuff happen makes me miss these two places very much. But in light of all of this I'm encouraged because churches don't change overnight and it takes months or even years of hard work to see fruit from labor!

Thoughts after Election Day

Truthfully No my "candidate" didn't win. I'm not jumping up and down because Obama won. But what I won't do is say things like NoBama, our world is coming to an end and junk like that all over my myspace status. I read a blog from a pastor in Nashville that stated a great point. It is no surprise to God who won last night. He knew who was going to win way before Barak spent billions on campaigning. Our trust is not in Barak its in God. Barak or John would not have been the answer to our problems, our saving grace, anything like that. The harsh reality of our world is that we need Jesus. He is our hope, our saving grace, our provider, our protector, and the lover of our soul. Watch how you react to the election because now more than ever non-christians will be watching how christians react to the election.

Challenged!!!

I am writing this morning a very challenged individual. You may ask from work? Well yeah work challenges me just about everday but that's not why I am this morning. Last night I went with my friend Meghan to her old church in Summerville. I went to get a road trip in and I wanted to see their worship team because Meg had said how good it was. Good doesn't even describe it. This worship "team" and it truly was a team was amazing. Everything on stage was mixed wonderfully there was no one trying to make a show of it, and believe me with the talent they had they could of. Each musician and singer knew their part and played it beautifully. The other and probably the most important aspect was the fact it was annointed. They did a song I'd heard a thousand times before How Great is our God in such a way that got you lost in the presence of God. Awesome! The other great thing about the experience was after the service we were able to meet a lot of the team and they were all so gracious and awesome. Pretty much Sara and I's new hero Chad also let us play his Taylor which made our days! So I am challenged in serveral ways, one I want to practice more and try to improve my novice skills at guitar. But also in the fact that the annointing of God is the most important part of worship, if He hasn't annointed it, it's worthless! Also I was taken back by the humbleness, I hope I can try to get that across to our youth band, humbleness and annointing two key parts of amazing worship!