First Love

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. ⁵ Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

You know sometimes a sermon speaks to you directly.  Sometimes it is a passage in the Bible.

Do you remember when you first fell in love with Jesus? I do. I remember carrying my Bible everywhere, reading it and journaling whenever I got the chance. I took time to get to know God and build a relationship with Him.

I’ve been reading Frances Chan recently, actually read all three of his books in a few days. Crazy Love, Forgotten God and Erasing Hell. These books are just awesome, but also convicting. I know I have lost my first love, and I need to gain him back.

Jesus, you are what my life is supposed to be about.

You call me to stuff that is not always what the world values, and so I need to remember that, and walk in faith.

It’s not about the money, its about faith. It’s not about the status, it’s not about my esteem, it’s about faith. What you value will ultimately determine what you do.

God has a plan for me, and I need to trust that he is going to make it come true.

I need to let my love lead the way, I need to continually pursue a relationship with him.

Colors of Autumn

I have come to a conclusion about autumn. I believe that God knows winter is coming, so he puts on a spectacular show for us all. Think about it, we are about to enter a season where everything turns white and grey. Why not give us a great big show of color to help us hold over to the spring? Of course winter is always longer than the human mind can take, so God has to make spring spectacular with the different colors and blossoms that occur at that time as well. It has to be this way, we need a wintery season, but God tries to make the best of it by giving us fall and spring.

Sunshine has a way of making you forget the rain, and so does rain have a way of making you forget the sunshine. We need a good balance of both to survive. That is why fall colors are so necessary. They are like the sunshine before the rain. The brightness of color before the dreary of winter.

So get out your cameras and soak in the colors before they fall off the tree. God gave us this time to enjoy…

Senior Summary

So the time has come for me to have my senior seminar, which means a summary paper. Time for me to go back to the beginning of school and focus on everything I have learned. Now I could go back and tell you about things I learned the definition of, but in reality I learned more about myself over this past year or so that I learned about what is written in books.

I learned that I love life, that I actually want to live life and live it well. I learned how to be more open, to approach things from different angles, to look in the blank spaces as well as the colored in ones. I’ve learned that this world has many more shades of grey than I ever imagined possible. I’ve learned that some people have colors you can’t see when looking at them. Sometimes you have to hover above everything in order to really understand it. Things aren’t good or bad, they just are. I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter how much money you get paid if the work environment is disastrously bad for you, you will be happy making minimum wage in a healthy environment.

I’ve learned that even reading old school papers can make me cry.

I’m a totally different person now than I was a year ago. Honestly, I cannot wait to be a different person next year, and the year after that. I love how school not only changes me, but challenges me to change.  All while staying true to who I am, or in reality, becoming more truly who I am meant to be.

Yogi

We didn’t wait very long after Abby passed before we brought home a new pup. Abby had been deteriorating for some time, and we had been missing the dog that she was at length before she left us. We were ready for some new life into the family. We got Yogi through someone Dave met at work. Yogi is a girl unlike any other dogs we had had before. She is black and brown instead of white an brown. Her fur is entirely different from Abby’s fur, as are her ears and tail. Her disposition is what varies mostly. Yogi is super laid back (until we leave her alone) and is a subordinate as opposed to Abby’s hyperactivity and Alpha nature. Yogi is most likely to roll onto her back and expose her belly. Abby would try to climb on top of you.

I still miss the old Abby, I still miss Muffi and George my dogs from growing up. I miss Chinook, Woody, Shadow, and Daisy also. But now I have Yogi to worry about and take care of, and Yogi has her own set of personality quirks that require adjusting to. Like take for example her tendency to chew on everything. I am sure its a puppy thing, at least I am praying it is. But so far she has chewed on my shoes and school bag, torn a towel to shreds and destroyed a pair of the boy’s jeans. Not to mention the tennis ball that she made into a million piece puzzle and the several dog bones which have disappeared as quickly as they were taken out of the bag.

Mostly she is a sweetheart, running up to you and giving you kisses then rolling on her back so you rub her belly. She gets along great with other dogs, and even tries to get along with the cat. Phoebe is not as playful, but has adjusted very quickly to having Yogi around. Finally she is the alpha in the house, and the dog actually submits to her. Just one hiss gets Yogi to back off.

Yogi came with her name, at first they started calling her Bear, then Yogi Bear, then just Yogi. She reacts to her name, so we kept it. It is a cute name, and sometimes we like to call her Yogurt P. Egeland. The P stands for Portillo, because she is the jumbo version of the Portillo’s mascot. Jeramy will tell you her name is just Yogi, but she responds to Yogurt also.

I look forward to creating many more memories with Yogi.

Leadership Seminar

So I find myself being boggled yet again. I think it has more to do with having to put things into words than actually doing them. I find myself in a class on leadership having to write about how I am a leader and my leadership skills etc.  I am a leader because I lead a small group. I am a leader because ____ and my leadership qualities are _____ and I have room to work on _____.

Perhaps humility being a quality I have, remember Moses was the most humble man and he wrote about himself being humble, perhaps this humility blocks me from having a good view on my leadership skills.  Perhaps it can be attributed to low self esteem. Perhaps it can be attributed to my thick-headedness. Whatever it is, I really am not ready to write out a paper explaining what makes me a good leader. So what should I do? Take a poll.

This is your turn to tell me what makes me a good or bad leader, what qualities I possess that can lead to success, and what I need improvement on. With the exception of spell checking my last entry, I got that I put Obama instead of Osama.

oops

Do your worst, or your best and feel free to answer anonymously!

Reflections

September 11th is a good day for reflections. Not just reflecting where you were on that day in 2001, but just how far you’ve come. In ten years, my life has totally changed. When my dad woke me up that morning, I was still living with my parents. My mom was still alive. Two of my old dogs were still alive. I was working in a brand new career as an xray tech. September 11th would be a catalyst to end the relationship I was in, even though I believed I was head over heels in love and certainly destined for marriage (in my fantasy world I suppose it could have  been true). I believed so many different things back then, I was a different person.

Today I find myself married, starting a new career and going to school. I have Jeramy in my life, as part of a faith journey more stressful than any September 11th, and definitely more rewarding. I have had to travel with so many different security things to do, it became second nature to live at orange alert level. I live in an apartment after having lost a job, a home, and my ego. Today I truly know that Christ is Lord, and He reigns in my life. I have in so many ways, lived a whole other lifetime since September 11, 2001.

The tears and heartache of that day were so deep, it instills a pain in my heart to remember. Now Saddam is gone, Obama is gone, and we sit in peace waiting for a chicken dinner. I know many have fought and battled to keep that peace and accomplish what has kept me and my family safe, and for that I am grateful. Nothing can undo the tragedy, yet it seems to have shaped my life for good. I have traveled safely multiple times across country and back, not minding taking off my shoes or being x-rayed because I know it will make a difference, it would have made a difference back then.

Days, months, and years and decades will pass, and I will never forget September 11, 2001. The media won’t let me forget, nor should they. I pray that in my lifetime and my child’s lifetime nothing that horrible is ever experienced again on our soils. My mother raised me to be proud to be an American, to feel blessed that I was born on this soil. So I salute the flag and say a prayer and always thank servicemen and women for my freedom. (And not forget the fire and police in that as well.) Thank you all, today I say a prayer for you all.

Obedience

So the subject for the sermon this weekend was obedience. James 1:22: “but be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” ESV

The question asked in Q&A during the online service was how people would know that I am a Christ Follower if I was never allowed to say it, if they even would know. I wish I could poll people that know me and ask the question, the more I live my life with Christ, the more I wonder what sort of legacy I do leave behind. Do people know I am not cut from the same cloth as the world? Is there something about me and the way I live my life that people would know I follow Christ? I can only hope and pray, because I am not a mind reader. I do know that I have followed what I believe God has told me to do regarding my step-son Jeramy, and the results can only be explained by God lining everything up. But losing our home and my job? Is that God? I think so. My identity was so tied into that job I was losing myself in it. I put on mascara the day I was fired so that it might give me incentive not to cry at work, that is how bad things were. In the meantime, God has provided and we are not suffering this whole time. I am going back to school and searching after God’s dream laid before me. Something that would actually help me accomplish what he desires me to do.

So I obey with one thing and its a huge thing, and things work out AMAZING, like mountain moving prayer stuff, so why can’t I trust him with the everyday little things. Like my health, exercising eating and losing weight. I need to get on track here, not for me, but for my family. I don’t want to die at age 55 like my mom, I kind of want to stick around a little while longer than that.

God, I need your help with my unbelief. Help me to make the right choice and just do the next right thing. Your word says “so whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” so help me to be an active participant, to do things, the next right thing, one at a time.