Six months…Happily Married!

Life is wonderful. It has been almost twelve months since I last updated this blog. Since then:

• Married the love of my life on June 13, 2009
• Spent one glorious week on our honeymoon in St. Augustine Florida
• Finished out the summer with Josh’s 25th birthday
• Started my second year at my school teaching precious and sometimes crazy K-5th graders
• Had my third surgery in 2 years – hopefully the last one for a while
• Had my third Christmas  with Joshua and the first one as a married couple

The Lord’s will is perfect and I am so blessed to have married this wonderful man! The past 6 months have been exciting, challenging, blissful, hard and wonderful all at once. Some books I have enjoyed reading as I desire to become a wife of excellence.

Here’s a picture of us on our wedding day! Be blessed

 

Back in the swing of things…

Life is back to normal. Teaching school is very rewarding, yet also very tiring. I do not realize how tiring until I return after time off. In keeping with my schedule I struggle to ensure I spend enough time in the Word.

For Christmas I was given the new ESV Study Bible and it has a yearly reading plan. I am still on track and it is day 10…I pray I am able to continue with this! It is great for Josh and me as well because we are able to talk and discuss the same passages from scripture.

Let me encourage you to find a study plan and stick with it! It is difficult for me to get up every morning at 5am, but I do it so that I can start my day off in the word of God.

Love and Prayer Conquer All!

I am convinced that Christ is sovereignly in
charge of ALL things and works them together
for OUR good! Just a little thought for the evening!
Have a great week!

Christmas 2008! (early)

A week ago Josh and I put up our first Christmas tree together. That was  a fun and exciting time to spend together. Then this week we exchanged presents early. He gave me the book Valley of Vision by Arthur Bennett and the CD by Sovereign Grace titled the same. The prayers listed within the book were authored by many different Puritans. They speak of Christ and spur the Christian on to devotional, heartfelt prayers.

One of the songs on the cd has a song titled “How Deep” and it is based off the prayer title, “ Love Lustres at Calvery.” If you are looking for a great book to purchase for anyone on your gift list – this is it! Also, the cd is wonderful and very filled with scripture.

Here’s an excerpt from the prayer “Love Lustres atCalvery”

O Father, who spared not thine only Son that thou mighest spare me,

All this transfer thy love designed and accomplished;

Help me to adore thee by lip and life.

O that my every breath might be estatic praise,

my every step buoyant with delight,  as I see my enemies crushed,

Satan baffled, defeated, destroyed,

sin buried in the ocean of reconciling blood,

hell’s gates closed, heaven’s portal open.

Go forth, O conquering God, and show me the cross,

 mighty to subdue, comfort and save.

I can’t even begin to express the emotion this brings to me as I think of the cross. This time of year we focus very heavily on the cradle, but we must not forget that is leads to the cross. This baby is the one who was sent for OUR SINS. His substitutionary atonement on the cross allows us to see our “sin buried in the ocean of reconciling blood.”

Don’t forget those around you who do not know the reason we celebrate this baby born of a virgin who is our Savior. Share the joy! Share the peace that passes all understanding and the truth of  Romans 5:8

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Merry Christmas – May you and your family be blessed this holiday season!

We’re getting married!!

Hello All!

I thought I would let everyone know the story of how Josh proposed. He told me earlier last week that he wanted to steal me away for a few hours on Thanksgiving. I didn’t think much of it, because he kept telling me that he didn’t have the ring and that he wasn’t sure when he would. Little did I know that was just part of his plot!

Thursday arrives and he came over for a brunch with all my family. I didn’t know where he was taking me and I only knew I needed to bring my tennis shoes. We left the house and he insisted we go by Walgreens and buy a camera. I should have clued in a little more that something big was going to happen. We ended up at Bernheim Forest, a place we have gone to hike at a few times together. I love going there and it is a beautiful place.

He took me on a walk on the path going the opposite way from normal. He was so calm and acting normal I didn’t even pick up on anything. We had almost finished the walk and he saw a bench and asked if I would sit down for a minute with him. He asked me what I was thankful for and I said him, and my shoulder, my family and I don’t remember what else. Then he started talking and telling me about what he was thankful for and had just finished saying that. He looked at me and said, ” I brought you out here today to tell you that I love you and will you marry me?” Well, you must realize that we committed to not telling each other “I love you” until he proposed. So I knew the second those words were out of his mouth that he had the ring and that he was going to ask me to be his wife.

It was a joyous day and a great beginning for both of us. A year of challenges and triumphs and ultimately seeing God’s providential hand in all of the events. I never could of dreamed a year ago thanksgiving to be engaged to a wonderful, handsome, godly man! God’s timing is perfect and I just can’t wait to begin this new chapter of our lives together.

This was a great week for both of us. Now every year we will think back to Thanksgiving of 2008 and be thankful for the first step of commitment we made to each other.

The wedding date has not been finalized, but it will be in June. I’ll be sure everyone knows when and where!

A great day!

Yesterday, Josh became the Pastor at Plum Creek Baptist Church. This is an exciting step for both of us! Since I met Josh and he shared God’s calling on his life to be a pastor I have been praying for this day. We will face some challenges, but God has prepared this place for him to serve. As he learns how to pastor a congregation, I will be learning how to best support him in this role. A verse that came to mind yesterday was

“GIve thanks to the Lord for he is good His love endures forever!” – Psalm 118:1

So be praying for both of us in this journey!

Prayer for those you love…and commitment to family

Do you forget the people you most love in your life in your prayer life? I do. I don’t want to though – I want to break that cycle. In reading Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening today:

“The church in thy house.” – Philemon 2

Is there a Church in this house? Are parents, children, friends, servants, all members of it? or are some still unconverted? Let us pause here and let the question go round—Am I a member of the Church in this house? How would father’s heart leap for joy, and mother’s eyes fill with holy tears if from the eldest to the youngest all were saved! Let us pray for this great mercy until the Lord shall grant it to us. Probably it had been the dearest object of Philemon’s desires to have all his household saved; but it was not at first granted him in its fulness. He had a wicked servant, Onesimus, who, having wronged him, ran away from his service. His master’s prayers followed him, and at last, as God would have it, Onesimus was led to hear Paul preach; his heart was touched, and he returned to Philemon, not only to be a faithful servant, but a brother beloved, adding another member to the Church in Philemon’s house. Is there an unconverted servant or child absent this morning? Make special supplication that such may, on their return to their home, gladden all hearts with good news of what grace has done! Is there one present? Let him partake in the same earnest entreaty.

If there be such a Church in our house, let us order it well, and let all act as in the sight of God. Let us move in the common affairs of life with studied holiness, diligence, kindness, and integrity. More is expected of a Church than of an ordinary household; family worship must, in such a case, be more devout and hearty; internal love must be more warm and unbroken, and external conduct must be more sanctified and Christlike. We need not fear that the smallness of our number will put us out of the list of Churches, for the Holy Spirit has here enrolled a family-church in the inspired book of remembrance. As a Church let us now draw nigh to the great head of the one Church universal, and let us beseech him to give us grace to shine before men to the glory of his name.

Prayer is the beginning. God honoring time spent in A.C.T.S.

A – Adoration

C- Confession

T- Thanksgiving

S-Supplication

This should not just happen in solidarity, but also with your family and the body of Christ. It is not a competion to see how long you can pray, but instead to pray with fervency and purity of heart. To truly seek the face of the one who died to rescue an underserving people. He claims our lives – we are God’s children – those who have experienced the saving grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ. So take a moment and evaluate your time spent in prayer. I know learning about A.C.T.S. helped to focus my prayer life!

Life is good…

I am truly enjoying life right now. I am busy with work and school…well technically I TEACH students and I am also taught! Just started reading a book called Beyond Surrender by one of my Dad’s students mom. It tells of their missionary lives in Benin, Africa.

It highlights the path they traveled to end up in Africa. The preconceived notions that she gave up and instead placed her TOTAL future in Christ’s hands. We are called to do that. Christ commands us to trust and obey. Why do we struggle so much to do what in simple theory sounds easy? I just know I want to daily seek HIS face and align myself to the plan HE has for me!

I am just on the sixth chapter, but I would encourage everybody to pick this book up! It is is a call to die daily to self. It can be purchased at Amazon. I linked the title up at the top of the post.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and he will make your path straight.” – Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust with all your heart…

Psalm 56

  Be gracious to me, O God, for man has trampled upon me;
          Fighting all day long he oppresses me.

2 My foes have trampled upon me all day long,
          For they are many who fight proudly against me.

3 When I am afraid,
          I will put my trust in You.

4 In God, whose word I praise,
          In God I have put my trust;
          I shall not be afraid.
          What can mere man do to me?

5 All day long they distort my words;
          All their thoughts are against me for evil.

6 They attack, they lurk,
          They watch my steps,
          As they have waited to take my life.

7 Because of wickedness, cast them forth,
          In anger put down the peoples, O God!

8 You have taken account of my wanderings;
          Put my tears in Your bottle.
          Are they not in Your book?

9 Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call;
          This I know, that God is for me.

10 In God, whose word I praise,
          In the LORD, whose word I praise,11 In God I have put my trust, I shall not be afraid.
          What can man do to me?12 Your vows are binding upon me, O God;
          I will render thank offerings to You.

 

 

13 For You have delivered my soul from death,
          Indeed my feet from stumbling,
          So that I may walk before God
          In the light of the living.

This passage is reminding the Christian to trust – always! In all circumstances, at all times. In verse 10 we are reminded to always praise God and our Lord for the word and for who they are in our lives. In verse 12 we are told that God has a binding vow with us, his born again children. And a reminder to thank him for that offering or blessing. The very last verse is so poignant. It offers a picture of how our lives would be without our Savior, Jesus Christ. So through everyday I will walk before God in the light of the living!

Thanks for the memories!!

Today was my last day @ Chick-fil-A as the training coordinator. I had worked there for over a year and had grown to know and enjoy working with all of the people there. I am so thankful for the time that God placed me there at Chick-fil-A. Thanks everyone! You were awesome to work with and I will miss you!

Now off to start my new adventure…Teacher or as Karina says “Maestra!”