Thanksgiving

Today as we all know is Thanksgiving! Woohoo Turkey, mashed potatoes and a whole bunch of other food. This is basically the time of year when we get together and eat til our hearts content, then sleep for hours because of all the turkey. But we also give thanks for the things we have, but we tend to thank each other, do we really thank God and give him praise on this day of thanks?
Today if not every other day of our lives we need to be thanking God all day long for the things that He has blessed us with. He has granted us so many things throughout life that we need to thank Him for, yet too often we neglect to do so. So in the spirit of giving thanks...I praise and thank God for:

My good health this year
My family and friends
Bringing Todd into my life
Bringing a good job my way even if it is for the season
Giving me shelter and food to eat and clothes on my back
I thank him for my education and the talents He has given me
For simply waking up each day
Helping me through some of the toughest moments of my life
Answering and not answering prayers

The list could go on, but you get the idea. We need to start thanking God more and more for the things we have in life, not just when we "remember" to do so. We need to do it all the time, everyday possibly all day. I mean it's not that hard to wake up in the morning and say "thank you God" or before we go to bed. Or while at work say "thank you for this day" simple! Takes a second or so. Not a drastic lose of time right? Who says thanking God should take hours on end? Thank you God for every blessing you have granted me in my life.

Friends

Throughout life we meet different people who become known as either mere aquaintences or a good close friends. It's a different times in our lives when certain friends show how important they are to you, or rather God shows you how important they are to you. I have had many people come in and out of my life who said they were friends and in turn weren't, and there are those who are more than friends, those who are like family who you would die for.

I have to admit I have not been the greatest of friends lately and I wish I was and I will do my best to change and call my friends more and let them know how they mean to me. I regret lossing contact with many of my friends, or I haven't talk to them in ages and I feel terrible about it. I mean I know God put my friends in my life for a reason, and like I said I would die for many of them. They are family. Donya is my sister, and I have started viewing John (todd's friend) as my brother and see myself getting protective of him.

We had to do a team building thing at our board meeting yesterday for church...it was something along the lines of "i wish i could more like so and so in these ways" and I ended up with Joey, who I see as a friend I cherish. As I thought about it I realized there were things not only in Joey that I admire and wish I was more like, but my other friends. So here are some:

I wish I was more like Joey because he has such passion and desire for Christ. He has been through a lot and has such faith in God that is amazing for someone his age (our age). He is just a great guy to have as a friend.

I wish I was more like Donya in her kindness and compassion for others. She is one of the most caring women I know and I admire her a great deal. I have learned so much from her and have learned more about myself because of her.

Then there is Tom....Tom could fit in with any crowd. He can make anoyone laugh and is very hard to not like him. I wish I could have the charisma that he has. I wish...I was more like Todd because he has such a cast knowledge of the Bible and other things, way more than I could ever imagine having, just like Pastor Marvin and PAstor Paul do.

And John. Though I just met John, there are things about him that I wish I had. I has a great passion for his talents as a musician. He won't let anything take his passion away and he uses that passion for his talents to honor and glorify God. I truely admire that.

God brings people into our lives to help us grow in many ways. I see ways that I can grow just from having these people and others in my life whom I consider the greatest of friends, even if I don't call them that often. There are others I admire and who have things I wish I had, but if I included them all this blog would be HUGE!...I want them to know that I do cherish their friendships and there are three or four in my head right now who I am thinking about. GOd gives us friends and family for a reason. We need to cherish them and not take advantage of them or their kindness and love for us. We need to let them know how much we appreciate them and that is what this entry is about. I appreciate everyone in my life.

Talents

God gave us all different talents to use, and most of the time we can use those talents to give glory and honor to him. We each have different talents, some can draw, others can speak, and some can write along with so many other talents around the world. No matter what our talents are, we should use them for the glory of God.

Sometimes we are unsure of how to use our talents for God while other times the churches and people we are around can help us see how to best use our talents. I have to say I am thankful for my church. I have never been able to use my talents for the glory of God the way I can at the River of Life. I am inspired by my pastors (which is the point right). I am driven more. Sure I have written things about my faith and used my faith in different projects in college and other aspects of my life, but with ROL I can use my talents in different ways. More fulfilling ways, ways that I feel God is happy about.

That brings me to a question: How do we know for sure that our works are making God happy? How do we know if our talents are really honestly truely bringing glory and honor to God? Or are we falling too short sometimes?

Fear

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately. I have been thinking about where I want my life to go as far as job wise and there are so many different things that I want to do and be a part of, but there are times when I am scared about where it could lead me. I know God wants me to work with children in some way, what way I am not sure and I am afraid that I will not be able to figure out what God wants me to do with my life and the gifts He has granted me. The fear has really stopped me in my tracks and I haven't gone forward with anything. I keep second guessing my choices and where I want to go from here (which is why I haven't registered for the test yet pastor).

Fear can hinder us and cause us to stall in our walk with God, and I find myself kind of stalling in different aspects. Lately I haven't been writing in my book because I have a fear that no one would want to buy it or publish it for that matter. Some of the best ways to get over fears is to pray and talk to God about it and I have been doing that, but it seems so hard sometimes doesn't it? I don't want my fears of what the future could hold to take away my focus from God, The Bible and praying. And I don't udnerstand my fears at this point, I just want to be able to do what God has planned for me, so all I can do is put it all in his hands and pray it will work out the way He wants it to, and if it is in his hands then it should work out for the purpose of God right?

Wednesday Nights

Wednesday Night we genreally have Bible Study at my church and every other week is a prayer meeting. Like this past week it was prayer meeting, then next week is study, then prayer meeting and so on. There were many prayer requests but we also had many praises! IT was great to see the praises on the powerpoint screen. Pastor Marvin mentioned having a huge piece of glass fall on his wrist, but it didn't cut him or anything, just hurt a little; God had a hand there. My cousin Kristopher was in a car accident totalled the car (his baby mind you) driver side door gone, mirror gone, speaker gone. Kristopher walked away unscathed; he was unhurt. We need to be praising God for all the good things.

Sure God wants us to ask him for help during out hard times, but that doesn't mean we should ignore when he answers prayers or protect us from harm. God is always active in our lives and many times we don't even realize it. One of my favorite songs by Hillsong called Solider says at one point "You need to open up your spiritual eyes" and that is what we need to do!. We need to open our eyes and realize how active in our lives God is and what it means to have a personal relationship with him.

Reading

There may be times when we need something good to read or we hear of a great book, but can't seem to find it. In the store I work at many people come in looking for a certain Christian author and we unfortunately don't have it. I have looked for Max Lucado's Facing Your Giants, but we don't have it. That is when I turn not to borders.com, amazon.com or even barnesandnoble.com I look to bookswim.com. It is something like netflix, you can rent books from the site, and they are taking 50% off the sign-up fee: so instead of 19.95, you can sign up for 9.95. Not only can you rent books, you can also decide to buy the book if you loved it. I have done that with quite a few of my books like Frank Peretti's Monster.

It is so hard to find Christian fiction books, that aren't the popular authors like Peretti, Dekker, Kingsbery. Bookswim is cool, I like it; and to top it off you're helping the environment by having a tree planted in honor of your gift. Your tree helps balance out new book paper production through a partnership with Eco-Libris. The fact that they are taking 50% off the sign up fee (first month's payment) makes it worth while.

There are so many books out there that contain things we should not be reading. A young girl wanted something to read, but the young adult books had violence and even sex in them that she should not be reading! I have to wonder if teens are reading books that have sex and violence in them, wouldn't that influence their decisions? So why not start them off on to Christian artists who will influence them to rely on God for different situations. I think the more our kids read of quality Christian authors, being proud of their faith and relying on their faith would become easier and they wouldn't feel ashamed that some could. Bookswim.com could help keep our kids focus on their faith, I mean at the low price of 9.95 for the first month it is well worth it!

Love Believes

Again I have been reading The Love Dare and I have to say it is a great book. It is a book that you read a chapter a day which is why I am still reading it instead of finishing it right away. There was a section on love believing the best and the scripture that went with it came from 1 Corinthians 13:7: Love believes all things, hopes all things.

Love believes in all things, and hopes for all things. Love doesn't just give up hope and think all things are lost right away. It hopes for the best and hopes for something better. The authors of the Love Dare say that love chooses not to live in denial and deception, but in the appreciation and love that our spouse gives. The same goes from God. We seem to dwell and focus a lot on the deception of Satan telling us different things about ourselves. For me it used to be "you are worthless." "You are not capable of success or even love." "You will always be a failure" yet on the other side of things, the side I didn't hear or focus on was God. Saying "I love you." "You are worth everything to me." and so much more. I found it hard to hear that although that's what he was saying.

We need to work harder at listening to God's love which believes in us. It's hard to think that when we feel at our worst that God believes in us, because he loves us. We need to remember that no matter what Satan tries to tell us...we are "COVERED IN LOVE." God's love surrounds us and when we feel like failures and worthless we need to hold on to that we are covered in his love.

Toys

This time of year we start to see signs and boxes for donations for Toys for Tots or other charities that provide toys for children that may not get one for Christmas. I know we all would love to be able to donate a toy or two, but may not have the money for it. While doing various searches online I found a great site that we could go to to find qaulity toys to donate. Toy Overstock is a lot like overstock.com where they are able to sell quality products for a lower prices because of overstock in manufactorers. There is a toy baby doll: Lets Bring Baby that is marketed at 20.99 for only 8.99 now that is a savings and would allow us to buy more gifts to donate to more kids.

There are so many kids that won't be getting a gift for Christmas, part of showing God's love to the world is showing love and support to those who need it. While you are shopping around for gifts for your own family, it wouldn't hurt to check out Toy Overstock and order a toy for a child less fortunate. That may be to only toy they get this year, and it could mean the world and show that there are people in this world who care and that would make a world of difference.

yes camp video

It took me awhile but I got a small video from the YES Camp pictures I had. I would like to make it into a DVD but not sure how....

Thoughtfulness

The fourth chapter: fourth day of the Love Date talks about being thoughtful and that isn't just buying something we think our loved one would like. It means really listening to each other and paying attention to what they say and what they do. Some people think love is something that just comes naturally and doesn't require work, but many of us already know that it takes a lot of work.

The authors say that if a couple don't understand each other the relationship could fail; they will result in arguments and soon resentfulness. Guys get frustrated when women speak in riddles, and women get upset when guys don't understand us. The authors said that women tend to hint at things because we feel most loved when a guy pays attention and understands what we are saying. But the authors also say that while men need to listen more, we women need to become more truthful and not speak in riddles and hinting.

Wednesday night when Todd came to Bible Study he gave me a leaf: not just any leaf, it was purple with red in the middle. It was different and I haven't seen a leaf colored like it. But he said he saw in the driveway, and thought I would like it since I was picking up leaves from the Buckwheat Festival for my scrapbook, so he thought I would like it for that too. It was so sweet and I really did feel loved.

The same idea of paying attention to what each other says and does goes for God as well. Sure we can read the Bible daily and pray to him and say we hear his voice, but do we really listen and pay attention? Do we pay attention to him when he wants us to do or not do something? Or when he tells us to be patient...that is a hard one for us and goes back to that selfishness thing. Sometimes we read the Bible, but don't grasp the concept we don't pay attention to what is being said about different things. We don't actively keep our relationships with God thoughtful. We need to be more thoughts and think about what he does for us. We should appreciate the blessing he gives us everyday!

We need to give God our time, tithes/offerings, faith, trust, love, devotion and more. We need to think about what would God like. How does he feel when I do this or that. We need to think about God before we think about ourselves.

Love is Not Selfish

The movie Fireproof inspired a book called the Love Dare which I have been reading and I used for a few posts already. Day 3 says love is not selfish. We are geared to think the world revovles around us, we want everything the way we want it and when we want it. We are a selfish people. That selfishness will effect your relationships no matter what they are because you expect something from them. What the love dare is saying is that we need to put aside our desires and wants to make sure our spouse's needs are met and are happy before we are.

The book uses the scripture 1 Corinthians 13:5 which says Love does not seek its own. If we love someone we shouldn't be thinking about ourselves. We love God so why should we be expecting him to answer our prayers when we want him to or do the things we want him to. Why should we only want to have him in our lives when it is convenient for us. We wouldn't want our loved ones only at certain times, we want them all the time, so the same should go for God. We should be unselfish when it comes to God. We should give him our time, love, devotion. We should give him ourselves.

Selfishness gets us no where, our loved ones don't feel loved when we are selfish...do you think God feels we love him when we are paying too much attention to what we want instead of what he wants?

Love Is Kind

This is the subject of the second chapter of the Love Dare that I read last night. Something the author said was "patience avoids a problem; kindness creates a blessing." lets reflect on that a moment: Kindness creates a blessing. I am sure we all are kind to our spouses and do our best to keep their wants and desires in mind. But something we put ours before theirs. The author who i believe is Stephen and Alex Kendrick go on to say kindness has four core ingredients: gentleness, helpfulness, willingness and initiative.

What he says is when we are kind we are willing to meet the needs of the moment, we are careful with how we treat our spouses, it inspires us to be agreeable and we think ahead. One of the greatest examples in the Bible about kindness is the story of the Good Samaritan and that is what Kendrick uses. Here is a man; a Jewish man who gets robbed and beat. Jewish leaders walk past him without a second look, then a Samaritan man, a race who are known to hate Jews, stop and help this man. He takes him to shelter and even pays for his medical attention. What a story! What kindness...how many of us would do that for someone we see hurting on the street?

We need to take that story and that kind of kindness and show it to our spouse. We need to think more of them than ourselves. I admit that is one thing I do need to work on. This past week I found myself upset because Todd wasn't coming to see me, instead he was supporting his sister in her tennis match. Sure I understood, and I wanted to support her too, but at the same time I wanted him with me. I was upset and i made him know it. After I realized how I acted and that it was wrong of course I apologized, but I still made him feel terrible. I should never make him feel that way, and I don't want to. I didn't act towards his desire to support his sister and tennis team with kindness. I will of course work harder at that and I will pray that God helps me with that.

There are scripture that lists what love is...many of us can remember them, but one of them is love is kind. And I wrote Monday about how we can have all the faith in the world, but have no love then we are nothing. Also that it is said that God is love...so if God is love and love is kind...hence God is kind. If we want to be more like God...we need to be kind. (wow i thought back to high school math..if a=b and b=c then a=c haha). We need to be kind and the dare for today is to do something kind unexpectedly. So be unexpected and do something kind that you normally wouldn't do. Show God's love through your kindness.

Constatine

The other night I watched the movie "Constatine" which is about a man who could see angels and demons and fought half breeds/demons and sent them back to hell. The basis was that he was trying to earn his way back into heaven because he tried or did commit suicide (i never got whether or not he actually did). But anyway he was able to sit and talk with Gabriel and destroy demons and of course send them back to hell and it got me thinking. Wouldn't it be cool if we could really see the angels and demons around us?

If you could sit down with like Gabriel what would you say to him? What would you ask? Do you think it would be too much to be able to see them? Or if we could see them at this moment do you think too many people think it is a hoax or that what they are seeing is just like a dream or something. What would you do if you saw a demon?

I think one of the reasons why we can't see them is because I don't think our minds would be able to fathom it. I don't think we can grasp what it would mean to be able to see them. And if we were able to see them would it change the world and how we live? I think it is hard for us to believe in them that even if we see them, we wouldn't believe that they are really there.

Faith and Love

I started to read the Love Dare, which is in the new movie Fireproof. I just finished the first chapter so I'm not really sure where the book will take me, but I'm sure it will be a good direction because it is a faith based book about love. Right before the first chapter was a verse from 1 Corinthians: 1-3, but I am going to focus on part of verse 2. If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. I think that is a very powerful verse as are the others, but this one I like best.

We can have all the faith in the world, we can believe in Jesus and everything he did, but if we don't have love we are nothing. Faith and love go hand in hand. God is love. So the way I see it is if we have faith but not love...do we really have God? We always say "I have faith in God. God is in my life." but then turn around and say "I can't stand so and so." or "I can't imagine forgiving him." If we say things like that do we really have love? I know it is human to not like certain people, but we still tolerate them out of love for Christ, and fellow man. We can love someone without really liking them or rather their actions.

The Bible says God is love, so if we don't have love, just a small aspect of it we are nothing and our faith isn't that strong. How could it be if we don't have love?