Waking up

Today is a beautiful day to wake up! I woke up at 8:00, shut the air off, and opened my windows! It's a little crazy that it is April 10, and I already had to turn the air on, but I did, and I am not complaining, because yesterday was beautiful, and today is beautiful!

Today is a morning that I feel like I woke up in Florida, mostly because of the humidity, but I love it. I feel like it smells a little bit like FL in my house, because the window's are open :). What a beautiful day God has given us on His day!

This is what I woke up to:
The sky looking a little hazy with all the humidity. The sun just peaking over the building across from me creating this beautiful hazy glow! 72 degrees! My apartment to my self, for Jon had to get up early to go play in the worship band at church, and the smell of clean Laundry coming in my window! It is just a great start to a beautiful sunday. I wish I could take a picture of the way I feel and the way I see the morning, but that would be really hard to get :).

So instead, here is a photo I found that portrays what i feel and where I feel I should be this morning! :)

That is the hazy I feel/see outside, but that is also the place I should be to enjoy such beautiful hazy. :)

Well off to get ready for church... I am so excited to break out the summer twirly skirts! :)

The Start to some Answers

Yesterday Jon and I went in to the district office for our licensing interview. I feel I need to explain this because I found out last night that a lot of the people at 8:08 thought that meant we had a job and we were moving. 

In order to be a pastor in the C&MA, you have to go through this accreditation process. Jon had to fill out this extensive application that took like 6 months to finish. Then once you are done with that you have to read a book and right a paper on it. After that it is the interview with a board of other pastor's in the district. The Omaha district consists of 4 states: Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado. The district office is located here in Omaha, so that made it easy. During the interview they asked Jon, and at times, me, questions about our lifestyle, our past and what has called us to ministry, and question's about doctrine. After the interview they usually send you out of the room for about 10 minutes discussing the applicant and whether they feel He is fit to be a pastor in the Alliance. Then they will bring them back in and tell them their decision. If you passed and are accepted as a Pastor, they tell you and then you just wait for the official documentation to come in the mail.

Well we did all that, I felt a little embarrassed of my self because when they asked me about my past/what made me who I am, I shared the journey of my senior year and what happened at a church that year and I started crying. I did not think that I would cry during this interview. It was really weird, but I realized that even though I have forgiven the people and have handed it over to God, it doesn't change the fact that I went through that situation with my parents and still carry a big scare with me. But I got over crying and the interview went on and JON PASSED!! So now he is an official Pastor in the Christian and Missionary Alliance. He can now marry you if you would like or perform the ceremony for a funeral.

Officially staff of the Alliance. Logo = Fourfold Gospel: Savior:Cross, Sanctifier:Cup, Healer:Pitcher, & Coming King: Crown

We both walked away feeling very encouraged. That we are taking the correct order of steps to get to where God is taking us next. We meet with Rob on Tuesday about the possibility of becoming the youth pastor for his church in Grand Junction, CO. I feel very positive about it and think that we may finally get some answer's as to where God is leading us next. 

We appreciate your prayers in this crazy phase of life and are grateful to all of you who are a part of our lives!

Forever Reign

This is my favorite song of the moment. It is so powerful and speaks of so many truth's of God. It is my prayer.
Here is a link to the music video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZ3KIXadMoY&feature=related
Here are the lyrics:
You are good, You are good
When there's nothing good in me
You are love, You are love
On display for all to see
You are light, You are light
When the darkness closes in
You are hope, You are hope
You have covered all my sin

You are peace, You are peace
When my fear is crippling
You are true, You are true
Even in my wandering
You are joy, You are joy
You're the reason that I sing
You are life, You are life,
In You death has lost it's sting

Oh, I'm running to your arms,
I'm running to arms
The riches of your love
Will always be enough
Nothing compares to Your embrace
Light of the world forever reign

You are more, You are more
Than my words will ever say
You are Lord, You are Lord
All creation will proclaim
You are here, You are here
In your presence I'm made whole
You are God, You are God
Of all else I'm letting go

Oh, I'm running to your arms
I'm running to arms
The riches of your love
Will always be enough
Nothing compares to Your embrace
Light of the world forever reign

My heart will sing
no other name
Jesus, Jesus

Oh, I'm running to your arms
I'm running to arms
The riches of your love
Will always be enough
Nothing compares to Your embrace
Light of the world forever reign

The beauties I spend my day with

Sunshine

So I just downloaded the blogger app and so I thought I would try it out. I am sitting at work enjoying this beautiful day outside with jonathan.
I love being able to sit outside and feel heat in the as fun and not have to wear a coat, it is glorious!

That is all for now. Jon goes in for his licensing interview tomorrow. I will let you know how that goes.

Ready for some Answers!

So I am ready for some answers. I feel like I have been playing this waiting game long enough. I want to know the next adventure Jon and I are going on!

God is really trying my patience I think. More, he is trying to teach me patience, but I am not very patient. I want to start planning the next steps. Looking for a place to live, a job, just getting settled into a new life. I am ready! Yes I will be very sad to leave Omaha. I will cry my eyes out at our last 8:08 and last huddle. I hate change. But I know that our time in Omaha was a 2 year time frame, and that 2 years only has 3 months left. 3 months left and we have no idea where we are going next. GOD I AM READY TO KNOW!

One of our options is Grand Junction, CO. The position would be a Youth Pastor position, which is exciting, but Jon is a little nervous about that as well. He is used to the College age group where you don't have to deal with the parents, and that makes him nervous, but excited to try a different ministry field. But this church is also looking to hire a Children's Director part time. HIRE ME!!! I love children's ministry! I almost changed my major to Children and Family Ministries when I was at Crown, but didn't. How awesome would that be though!? We move to a new place for Jon's job, but I have a job in the church as well right away too! No stress of finding/looking for a job. It would be awesome.

We meet with their Lead Pastor Tuesday, April 12. It will be fun to hopefully get some answers and maybe see if I have a chance of getting hired as the children's director if we pursue this option.

Please keep us in your prayers. I am very ready to finally get some answers and to know the next steps in this adventure that God is taking us on. :)

For the Worry Wart

I worry. I worry a lot actually, or I used to. I believe I have started to worry less, but I am still worry wart. I am scared about the future. I worry about how we are going to make it. Are we going to have enough money to pay all our bills, are we going to ever be able to pay off our student loans, are we ever going to be in a stable place to start or family, are we going to be able to get a new car when that time comes? Life is hard and it stresses me out and so I worry and try to control it and have it go the way I WANT it to go. Does that ever work for you? I know it never does for me.

Here are some things that I had planned and didn't go the way I had planned.
1) I had it all planned out to graduate in Newton with my class, to go to my senior prom with my best friends and have the best summer of my life with my best friends before we all went off to college. Reality: I moved to Elk River, MN right before my senior year, only knew like 7 or 8 girls in my class of 420, graduated in front of all of them and only a handful of them knowing who I was.

2)Planned to go to Crown College and graduate in 4 years as an Elementary teacher. Reality: Did 3 years in the education program, realized I could teach if I had too, but didn't want too. I also met my future spouse and we were getting married, so I left Crown to become a wife and I didn't graduate, and now I still have know idea what I want to do.

Those are just a couple of instances where my plans did not go the way I planned them. But I look at them and I am glad that they didn't go the way that I planned them. God's plan has been way better for my life and I feel very blessed.

Jon and I listen to Matt Chandler a lot right now, and he is doing a series on Habakkuk. In one of the messages he was talking about how God is out of time. That although we may worry about tomorrow, God is already there, He knows what is going to happen because He is already there, so there is really no reason to worrry. How he put this into perspective for his listeners was by using a 1 hour block of time. Chandler said to think of a 1 hour TV show. Now you have a friend who just looks at the show for like 2 milliseconds, and then you sit and watch the whole show. Then your friend who watched a couple milliseconds of the show tries to tell you what they show is about but you know it isn't like that at all because you watched the WHOLE show. Now that is God. He knows the whole show, and we only know the 2 milliseconds of the show that we are here on earth for.

That hit me like a ton of bricks. Here I am trying to control my life, which in the grand scope of reality, is only a couple of milliseconds here on this earth. I am freaking out about money and cars and kids, when God is already in those future days knowing how it all turns out. It made me realized how insignificant I really am, but how blessed I am to follow and serve a God that Cares about my couple of milliseconds on earth and about my worries and has them all worked out down the road. I just need to trust Him and fully surrender my life to Him.

And that is what I am working on doing... It's a process, but that is what I want for my life! :)

Francine Rivers

I am a big fan of Francine Rivers. I know this is probably a long shot and not really going to amount to anything, but hey it is worth a shot right?

So if you love books, check out this offer, She is a fantastic Author and worth having any of her work.

Go to http://www.tyndale.com/blog/?p=1042 for a chance to win a complete Francine Rivers library! And don't forget to get your free Leota's Garden e-book, available until April 4.

MLFB

MLFB, which stands for Major League Fantasy Baseball... The league that my husband is a part of. There are times where I hate that he is so attached to this fantasy world, and that he spends more time with it somedays than me, but then there are other times where I don't mind it so much, Like this past weekend.

This past weekend was the fantasy baseball draft. Jon and his buddies have made it a tradition to get as many of the 20 people who are in the league together on this day as possible. To say the least, we drove to Minnesota for this splendid event! :)

Last year I was a little bored, but this year, as you can see from the above photo, I had company. Our friends, the Burkhart''s had a baby girl in February, and since they are both part of the league I had the privilege of babysitting :). This beautiful little snuggle bug slept on my the whole 2 hours of the draft. It was so sweet!

To say the least, it was a great weekend with friends. The only time I like fantasy baseball ;). It was a much needed weekend with friends, but it is always a bummer when you have to leave them, especially this time because Jon and I may move further away from them all and this may have been the last time to see everyone for a while. But I have learned to cherish these moments and to remember how much fun these times are and to not feel sad, because that never helps anyways :)

For as much as i gripe about MLFB, I am thankful for the friends that we have and the tool it is to keep us all connected! :)

Sometimes I just want to be 10 again

Why as kids, do we always want to grow up so fast? Now that I am "grown up" I really don't want to be one. I really wish I could go back to being 10 again.

Life has not gone exactly the way I had pictured it would go for me, but I believe that is a good thing because that means I am not in control, but God is, and that is the way I want it to be. God has been teaching me plenty lately, and a lot of it I don't want to be taught :) but obviously I need to be taught it. Such as money and how we handle it, to my relationship with my mom, past grudges and holding on to things way too long, to how I cope with change in my life. So here it goes, this may be a long note.

Money: So God has been trying to get my attention for a long time here, but it has finally hit home. Jon and I haven't been the wisest with our money since we have gotten married. Not that we have spent super foolishly, but more we haven't paid things well. God has shown me that I haven't fully trusted Him in this area and I have kept tight reigns here and need to give it over fully to Him. That is going to be hard, but pray for me as I pray for God to help me give this up to Him.

My mom: I love my mom to death! I am her mini me. But growing up we weren't super close and I think I understand some aspects as to why we weren't. 1) She was sick with clinical depression when she had me and struggled with sleep issues so my dad got up a lot in the night to take care of me and I believe that could be a reason as to why our relationship struggled as I was growing up. 2) I am exactly like her. We both love to read, to be some where comfortable, we hate change, and cry a lot when we miss our family. I am my mother's daughter. After reading this two book saga from Francine Rivers (Marta's legacy) I have realized that I don't know all of my mom's story and want to know it and want to know more about her sickness when I was born. We are super close now, but I feel like I need to know more about her past to truly understand her better. So I am hoping that when we are together at Easter we will have time to talk about her life :).

Grudges: I tend to hold things in, and let it swell into bitterness and still not deal with it. I believe that is another area where God is teaching me. Today I met with a girl in my small group and I realized that I had been holding onto this grudge towards a previous small group leader since 9th grade!! Holy buckets was it eye opening in the moment. I came home and felt very strongly that I need to write this leader a message and ask for forgiveness. I still deal with bitterness towards what happened in MN, and I don't know why because I know I have forgiven those people and everything, but I get so nervous and skeptical of small church's. It is very unhealthy. Pray that God helps me to relinquish that to Him fully. I don't want to become this bitter old lady one day.

Change: So we are coming to an end of our internship. Part of me is really ready to start a new chapter and to see what God wants to teach us in this next step of life, and part of me hates that fact that God is going to make me start all over again. I was talking to my friend Thursday night, she is also a pastor's kid, and we both agreed that we have this unhealthy need for change that comes around every 2-5 years because that is the cycle of moving we had as PK's. We both realized that even though we long for stability and comfort, we have this unhealthy fear of being in one place too long and need the change of scenery.  I also have noticed a pattern in my life that when I know change is coming, I shut people out early so I don't feel the pain of loss so strongly when the time for change comes. I wanted to do things differently in the end of this internship, but old habit's die hard. Please pray that I can finish strong here and not shut people out like I am so used to doing.

To say that least, I am growing up. I love that I am married and can spend the rest of my life with my best friend, but there are days that if I was given the opportunity to go back and be ten forever I would do it in a heart beat. Life isn't easy. I am learning that first hand. But with God's help and guidance I know I will survive this life and Live for eternity with Him in Heaven!