Catching up

Busy, busy, busy. Life just seems to increase in speed and demands. I find I have to make deliberate, difficult efforts to slow things down and keep the sanity in my family's life. I don't want to miss a minute of my kid's life. I am amazed, amused, and humbled by them every minute of every day. Oh what joy, my little, growing ever bigger, joy boys are! With that said, homeowork has increased greatly this year. Sam has some for the first time, and Max being in third grade...it is the year of leaps in the amount of homework assigned. We knew that in advance and so were prepared, which helps. I do have to give hoo-hoo's to my boys in the fact that they are great about doing homework. They don't fuss much about that and like to get it done and out of the way. Max likes to do even the assignments that aren't daily and have to be done by the next day to turn in, but aren't due til Friday. He likes to get it out of the way as I said earlier. This makes things much easier! What a helper! (Not that we don't have other things that we fuss about. They are still kids;))

Anyway,things are busy, but rolling. Some of the funny things they are into are "Angry Orange" and "Nannerpuss". You can google them on computer and see how annoying these short shows are. But....the kids love them. Sam likes to sing, "I came into the kitchen like a berry on a mission!" and sing beat box background sounds. Durng Max's karate class he always has to go to the bathroom and takes forever. The whole time Sam is in there he sings loudly and gives the class, Mr. Lance and all the parents a show. Ooooh Sam.

Max was talking about a girl in his class and I asked if she was nice and he said, "Yes, She represents Zarrow well." He also likes to say that things, (even cows on the side of the road) look European...get it, You are peeing! His new joke he uses a lot.

Soo, yes they boys keep me on my toes and laughing. Max is going to be Luigi for Halloween since his cousin Sawyer is going to be Mario. Sam wanted to be a Warewolf, but couldn't find a costume his size (still little)so is going to be a mummy. He is still obsessed with his much loved and admired Halloween decorations. He loves anything gross and scary. Max does not! He had nightmares after looking for a costume because was scared by some of them. Sam's dreams are Max's nightmares.

I have been running, believe it or not. Doing the couch potato to 5k app on Iphone. Love it. Worried that with the cold weather and shorter days I won't be able to get it done and continue. I haven't lost weight yet after 6 or 7 weeks, but feel better. Now to work on giving up pop and eating better. Sigh!

Well, I guess that is all I can think of to catch up. Better go wrangle the wild boys! Love to all. His love and mine. Din

Scandalous

Today My pastor preached on the series, "Scandalous". It has talked about how Jesus' teachings were scandalous to the people back then. His teachings are still difficult for us to understand and even harder to obey, but they are important, live giving and we are commanded to follow them if we choose to follow Him. Today looked at Matthew chapter 7:1-27.

It starts out with Jesus telling us not to judge others. Hard to do, even harder, as my preacher stated, while at the fair this year with all the mass of humanity and eccentric people around. "Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged." (verses 1-2) This verse is simple, yet easily and often misinterpreted. People will use it as an excuse to get away with things. But judging others is not the same as evaluating them. We are called to be our brother's keeper and keep each other accountable. Speaking the truth is important. We shouldn't water it down to please people and not offend. We should also be wise in our evaluations and not throw our pearls to swine (verse 6). We can love and forgive others, but that doesn't mean we trust them if they have proven themselves unworthy of trust. They have to earn that back. There is a balance and wisdom there. Judgement involves condemnation. You can call a sin a sin and correct others, but don't say that person is worthless and going to hell. Only God and that person know that relationship. We all sin and fall short of the glory of God,(Romans 3:23) and I personally want to receive mercy and forgiveness and grace. So I need to show that to others---while using discernment at the same time. This is the golden rule we all heard as children, acted out in life.

"And why worry about a speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own. How can you think of saying to your friend, Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye, when you can't see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your ow eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye." (verses 3-5) This can be called 2 by 4 vision instead of 20/20 vision.

Verses 7-13 continue on with the golden rule idea and talk about God's provision if we ask him for help. Then verse 15 talks about false prophets. How do we know the truth in ourselves and others? It is by the fruit we each bear. A good tree bears good fruit and a bad tree bears bad fruit. We identify sin by our actions. What starts out in our hearts and thoughts eventually bears fruition in our actions. We are not saved by works, but if we are saved and in right relationship with God and Jesus, then an overflowing of that is seen in our works, done out of love. First we are saved by grace and faith, giving us an intimate relationship with our Savior. Second, out of that love relationship come works. This is how we evaluate others and ourselves, yet we can't condemn.

"Not everyone who calls out to me, Lord! Lord! will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. On judgement day many will say to me, Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name. But I will reply, I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God's laws." (Verses 21-23) These are the scariest words in the bible, along with verses 13-14, "You can enter God's Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult and only a few ever find it." EEK!!! These verses literally haunt me. It is where I find my doubting and worrying. If the way is that narrow, am I really saved? I'm not a great saint or anything. All I can do is continue to ask God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit to search my heart and examine myself and my actions. Do I strive to follow Christ? Or do I follow my own ways? To be honest I do a little of both. My sinful nature is always fighting me. Ugh!!!

Verses 24-27 talk about building our lives on the solid foundation of Christ. Anything else is foolish and will crash down around us. We must invest in things that will last, in the things of God.

These teachings may not seem scandalous to us, since we have grown up hearing them, but to people in Jesus' day they were. His teachings went against everything the Pharisees stood for. That is why they strived so hard to silence him and ultimately crucified him. If His words were that powerful, then we need to know, learn, act on them.

Be Thou Holy?

I have often struggled with the verse, "Be thou holy as I am holy" and other verses that tell us to be like Christ. He is our example, but he and we know that we are incapable of doing that due to our sinful nature. Yes we are regenerated and made new, transformed, renewed when we accept Christ into our hearts and the Holy Spirit comes to live in us. But.....we still struggle. Come on, lets get real...at lest I do. My attitude sometimes stinks. I am a grumbling, martyred Israelite often. Anyway. There is a tension and struggle with this call to be holy-lived out in our lives. Well, I read the following in my Oswald Chambers devotional, My Utmose for His Highest. I love that book. Anyway, I thought I'd share it. It talks about how it is not our disposition, but Christ's disposition that we inherit.

"When it pleased God...to reveal His Son to me." (Galatians 1:15 and 16)

If Jesus Christ is to regenerate me, what is the problem He is up against? I have a heredity I had no say in; I am not holy, nor likely to be; and if all Jesus Christ can do is to tell me I must be holy, His teaching plants despair. But if Jesus Christ is a Regenerator, One Who can put into me His own heredity of holiness, then I begin to see what He is driving at when He says that I have to be holy. Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into any man the hereditary disposition that was in Himself, and all the standards He gives are based on that disposition: His teaching is for the life He puts in. The moral transaction on my part is agreement with God's verdict on sin in the Cross of Jesus Christ.

The New Testament teacing about regeneration is that when a man is struck by a sense of his need, God will put the Holy Spirit into his spirit, and his personal spirit will be energized by the Spirit of the Son of God, "Until Christ be formed in you." The moral miracle of Redemption is that God can put into me a new disposition whereby I can live a totally new life. When I reach the frontier of need and know my limitations, Jesus says---"Blessed are you." But I have to get there. God cannot put into me, a responsible moral being, the disposition that was in Jesus Christ unless I am conscious I need it.

Just as the disposition of sin entered into the human race by one man, so the Holy Spirit entered the human race by another Man; and Redemption means that I can be delivered from the heredity of sin and through Jesus Christ can recieve an unsullied heredity, viz., the Holy Spirit.

Long Time, No Hear

Well, obviously I have been busy and not blogged in a while. Sorry. This summer has been a crazy, hectic one, but a lot accomplished. Still working full time---I don't get the summers off, but as I told you earlier, June was busy with summer camp, swim lessons and karate every night. July and August have been HOT and DRY!!! My kids have literally been praying for rain (Remember the group with that name, PFR? It just brought back that memory). Anyway, I am obviously spinning and dizzy from the busyiness, but life is good. Max did a week of basketball camp at Upards Bound, a wonderful christian league. They are so good with the kids. It was the first time Max got to learn a sport. He has only done karate so far. He is at the highest group class level in karate and does an extra two hour class once a month called "SWAT team" to learn extra such as juditsu. Sam takes karate also so it is an hour and a half twice a week when I can fit them in back to back. We took a vacation and went to Corpus Christi at the end of July. Kids saw the beach for the first time. It was great. On the way back we went to Lake LBJ in Texas and met my sister and her family and my brother and his wife. Trent's wife, Holly is great. Her uncle has a cabit, more like a compound there with three houses, two boats, four jet skis and four wave runners. Wow. We bought groceries and Trent and Holly cooked for us all. Did I mention Trent is a great cook? He has a cooking blog he used to write. It was great spending time together and I have great memories from it. I am so glad the kids got to spend more time with Holly and Trent. What a blessing. Brook and I turned 43 this month and mom had a birthday also the week after ours so much partying occured. Yay! Went shopping and to lunch with Brook and mom for my birthday. On mom's, us girls took her to see the movie, "The Help". It is wonderful. Mom and I read the book a while back and loved it. School starts up tomorrow morning. We had meet the teacher on Friday. Our school was moved to a new location so is in disarray with painting and repairs occuring at this moment and the street it is on has been under construction also. As if that isn't enough, there are two other schools next to us on the same street. The traffic is awful. I have to travel this street to get to and from work daily and struggle with it. Ugh! But we still have our school (it is a magnet school) so that is a huge blessing, some kids lost their school, including the school building we were moved into.

Can you tell I like run on sentences and paragraphs? Please forgive me. I am in a hurry. Imagine that. But at least I'm writing. This week I was off with kids in between summer camp ending and school starting so took annual leave at work. I did fun projects with kids, painting pictures, treasure boxes, going to park and taking a walk. I also went through all the kid's clothes and toys, my clothes and several drawers to clean out and get rid of stuff to make more room and organize. Got rid of Max's train/leggo table and got him a desk to do school work. He is such a big boy going into third grade and Sam into first grade. Yesterday and today I updated both boy's photo album/scrap books and made a new one for myself. My old one ran out just before I delivered Sam so that was six years ago? I had a lot of work to do going through all the old photos. But now the photos are organized as well! Am I anal or what? I get on a roll and can't stop. In a small house it is a necessity so hey, my OCD tendencies can come in handy at times! Praise God! Hope all is well with everyone else. Maybe the fall and school will bring less chaos and a better routine.

Use Sorrows and Fight the Good Fight

Like I have said before, I love Oswald Chambers devotional, "My Utmost for His Highest". I am reading it for the fourth time. I pull it out every few years and use it again for my yearly devotional. Ahhhhh. Like an old friend who always teaches me new things and keeps me accountable. Anyway, a few this last week have been on sharing in Jesus' sufferings and dealing with difficulties in life. I know, I know, stuff I hate to think about too. But we have to because it does happen...bumper stickers say so, so it has to be true. Just kidding.

We are all aquanted with hardships. But how do we handle them, view them? None of us are aquainted with grief like Jesus. He was innocent and endured. We, we are not so innocent. We are born sinning and sinful and like to justify our behavior. We try our best to overcome and do good, but our best efforts fail and we are frustrated and somehow surprised. Why? We must recognize that sin is a fact. It happens every time we put ourselves before God and others. It will happen, but we still need to fight against it. We need God's help though. We must come to the point where we realize that either God or sin must die in my life. Ouch!

"If sin rules in me, God's life in me will be killed; if God rules in me, sin in me will be killed. There is no possible ultimate but that. The climax of sin is that it crucified Jesus Christ.... It is the only explanation as to why Jeus Christ came and as the explanantion of the grief and sorrow in life." So fight the good fight and fight sin. You can't fight it if you don't see and recognize it in your life.

"My attitude as a saint must be not to ask that sorrows and difficulties be prevented but that I may preserve the self God created me to be through every fire of sorrow." It is in the fire of sorrow that we find ourselves because the sorrow burns up the shallowness in us. It can either make us better or bitter. It eitehr gives me myself or destroys it. We must make a deliberate choice in handling sorrow. Always come to God with it so he can use it. If you hold onto it, it will consume you. God to God and let him fight for you when you cannot.

Seven Little Words

Ok, my new obsession has been an iphone game called "seven little words". I still do "words with friends" and "solitaire" but this new game is soooo addictive. I keep staying up half the night playing it, on top of doing it in my spare time (which is too little with work full time, kid's karate and swim lessons, friend's birthday party, and daily chores like grocery and cleaning,etc.) Like I need more of my time sucked away.....but I can't help it. It is awesome. Try it and you will see....just "seven little words". That's it, my obsession, and what I have been up to lately. So try it...no peer pressure...but try it. Ha! Then you can thank and curse me both. Enjoy!

Lord I Love the Way You Hold Me

I am sooo crazy about this new song and artist. Her name is Jamie Grace and she sings the song with Toby Mac. It is "Hold Me" and here are the lyrics...Read them and let them be a praise song to our Lord. They make me so happy. To do justice you need to google the song and listen to it. The tune and lyrics together transform my mood in an instant to pure happiness!!! Enjoy.


(I love, I love, I love, I love the way you hold me) (I love, I love, I love, I love the way you hold me)

I've had a long day. I just want to relax. Don't have time for my friends, no time to chit-chat. Problems at my job, wondering what to do. I know I should be working, but I'm thinking of you. And just when I feel this crazy world is gonna bring me down, that's when your smile comes around. Ooh, I love the way you hold me. By your side you'll always be. You take each and every day, make it special in some way. I love the way you hold me. In your arms I'll always be. You take each and every day, make it special in some way. I love you more than the words in my brain can express. I can't imagine even loving you less. Lord, I love the way you hold me. (Toby Mac: I love, I love, I love, I love the way you hold me.....)