Jastef

We do too! I think I lost the camera this last week, at the park, so if you read this post, PLEASE pray that we find it. I cannot remember taking it out of the car, but something tells me I must have. I'm praying that God has protected it there under the tree and when I go back today, it will be sitting there and I will be amazed. We just bought this camera back around Thanksgiving and it wasn't cheap, so I'm feeling quite sick over this. Thankfully, we paid for insurance on it, so it may not end up being as bad as it seems, but still... I hate misplacing things. Its a horrid thing.

In other news -- Happy Memorial Day everyone! :)

With Jason being away on business this week, I've had time in the evenings to do some organizing and cleaning around the house. Something I've realized is, no matter how much junk we throw out, we always seem to collect more. Last night I found myself in a hard spot, trying to figure out what is really worth throwing out and what I'll wish I had kept. I've kept very little from my childhood; some dolls, letters, pictures (obviously) and a few other things. I've never really regretted not keeping more, but now that we have kids, I'm less inclined to just toss stuff that I'm not sure if they'll want someday.

I remember when I was 5 or 6 years old, I was looking through some photo albums; pictures of me as a baby and I noticed myself in this umbrella stroller... I ran to my mom to ask her where she kept that stroller, thinking it would be a great stroller to push my dolls around in, or, use for our "next" baby - not realizing my parents were done. My mom looked at the picture and then said "Oh, we got rid of that stroller when you stopped using it. When you were 2 or 3." I just about died (so dramatic, I know) started crying, asking her why she'd ever throw out MY stroller. I just couldn't understand why she would get rid of something like that. I remember taking a while to get over it and I also remember that was the day my parents told me that my Mom could not have anymore babies. I was heart b-r-o-k-e-n.

So when I'm sifting through baby clothes, dolls, stuffed animals and such, I always stop and think "will this be something they'll see in a picture, remember how much they loved it and then wonder why on earth their mom threw it out?? I don't know. I made a pile and I'm going to have Jason look through it when he gets home. :)

We're slowly getting adjusted to these trips he has to take to Roseville. Well... we're at least pretending to get adjusted to them. Ethan asked me tonight "is Daddy going to be gone when my birthday comes?" Poor boy. Time has no limits right now. For all he knows, his 5th birthday is next week. :) Rachel told me again -- "we need to give Daddy directions on his cell phone. I fink he's lost."

This weekend is my last attempt to sell all the stuff in our garage. I'm having our 2nd and final garage sale. Woo-hoo! Here's hoping, right? On Friday I'm taking the kids to the Children's Museum in Stockton and meeting up with some friends who are in town visiting. Ethan has been there before and loved it, but Rachel and I have never been, so I'm looking forward to it.

Life feels so strange now that all our Bible studies and regular activities are over for the summer. Its funny how I knew what day of the week it was, based on what we're doing that day. It hit me today when I was like "Um... what day is it and what's the actual date??" Our pool play dates start up next week (yay!) and VBS is just around the corner. I'm playing "Grandma" in the skit and need to start memorizing my lines. I've got myself convinced that those kids won't notice if I totally mess up, but something tells me I'm wrong. :)

The website here still needs some tweaking, as I'm sure you've noticed, but little by little my amazing husband is getting it all finished. I don't know where he finds the time. Our pictures will be able to be viewed very soon and hopefully after that is done, this will feel more like home.

Have a great week(end) everyone!

Hi everyone, I just noticed that I forgot to allow anonymous users to identify themselves when leaving comments.  I've adjusted this so that you can now do so!

I am feeling so discouraged these days, about the state of the church. I guess I should say the mainstream church, but I feel like its crept its way into many churches, in one form or another.

Why do I get the feeling that God is being turned into a genie? Why do I get the feeling the Bible is becoming a "book of nice stories"? Why do I constantly feel like people are conforming the Bible to fit their lives, instead of conforming their lives to God's word? Why does it seem like the youth of this generation (the ones that are from church!) are in more of a hurry to act and be more like the world and to "fit God in there somewhere", when its convenient or when they need to sound godly.I'm so tired of passing churches throughout our town that tout about how you can come to their church and "feel good" about yourself. On Sunday morning, we noticed a sign for a new church meeting in this area and it said something like "Come as you are! Come to meet new people, Come here to find out what a great person you are!" NEVER mentioned God or His Word or anything. Just wetting people's appetite with lingo about how fabulously amazing they really are. Really?? I guess they'd say its how they get people to go there and then they smack the gospel at them. Not so sure though.

I am so frustrated and so discouraged. Lately I feel like half the time I'm defending the gospel to other Christians! I must say though, I am extremely discouraged with the mid-to-late 20's group. Its sad to see the ways in which they're allowing worldly thinking creep in and take hold of their hearts. I was talking about this with a single guy from our Church the other day and reminding him to be bold for Christ. Never allow others to influence you in ways that would not be pleasing to God. "Bad company corrupts good morals." That's not just a cute saying.

Today I began reading through Proverbs and pulling out verses that would help me to see what God says about these things and ways that He would encourage me. Basically what I ended up with, was God reminding me that He is sovereign, He is worthy of all praise and glory and He is just and righteous. My job is to preach the gospel in love, to be bold for Christ and to serve others. He will do the rest. We were remind in Sunday's sermon that there is a great mission field right in our own home town and this week, God has made that abundantly clear to me.

Something tells me that if I went back and had lunch with Spurgeon, he'd tell me that nothing's changd... "there is nothing new under the sun."

I'm so thankful for God's people; for those friends He's given me that help me along in my walk with Christ.

I have a new favorite book. Well, it became a favorite about a year ago, when I read it. I am constantly finding myself going back to this book for various reasons. I love to read something short from it first thing in the morning, because the book is about our worship of God and I want my life to be a constant flow of worship and praise to Him, so I love starting the day off with a quote or two from it.

The book is called Worship Matters and its written by Bob Kauflin.These 3 points are taken from a part of the book that's dealing with the priority of prayer for worship leaders. There's much more that prayer does for us, but I thought these 3 points were excellent.

Prayer helps me remember what I can't do.

Prayer opens my eyes to God's purpose.

Prayer cultivates care for others

I have just started to realize how much my daughter listens to us and how often she is noticing things that I don't notice she's noticing. Did that just confuse you? It confused me a bit.

Rachel is going to be 3 in July and yet to us, it feels like she should be turning 4. She does a fantastic job trying to keep up with Ethan. Yesterday I took her to a Mother/Daughter picnic luncheon with the other moms and daughters at our church. It was very lovely. The ladies that put it together did a really nice job and the afternoon (though hot) was very nice. We picniced at our friends Ryan and Janee's home -- enjoyed a nice lunch, had a guest speaker share her testimony and then swam in the pool and enjoyed the fellowship. On the way home Rachel was going on and on about what her favorite things about the picnic were. As she was talking, I realized just how much she's soaking in... "I loved the lady who talked about God. She said she didn't love God and she could do it all-by-herslef... and then God made her radio get STUCK! and she heard the man talk about God and then she went to church. It wasn't at my church, it was at her church and she learns about God there and I think she learns to say I'm sorry."

She talked the entire 15 minute drive home and continued to tell me what she liked about the food, the craft, the pool and more about "the lady who gave her story". Something that really got me was this statement: "Mom... I don't have to wait to love God when I'm an old Grandma. I need to obey Him now!" She said it very matter-of-fact like and with such excitement. I love these seeds I'm seeing being planted and I really loved the mother/daughter time I had with my girl.

We had a very long/busy/fun Sunday, but I think the day took its toll on Rachel. We went to church this morning, had my parents over for lunch and then went to Ethan's AWANA awards night, followed by a trip with friends to frozen yogurt. We got home and Rachel was... very sleepy, to say the least. She started crying in the hallway and I had no idea what her problem was (other than being tired) so I picked her up and asked her what was up. Her reply?

R: "I'm ready to go to bed, because I am very tired."

Me: "I know! You had a very busy day and now you're body is super sleepy."

R: "Well... I fink its because there is SO much laundry to do!"

Yep. She's listening alright! :-)