February 24th

Some "God" sightings of His Faithfulness...

• My sister is engaged to the love of her life, Paul and they are getting married on June 6th!!!
• A "blogworld" friend just got news that her husband's final severance check will come on graduation day in May!
• My friend Catie and her husband are moving to MI, their first pick for med schools!

These are just a few of the exciting things we have seen God do in the first 8 weeks of 2009!

A few that we are praying through, trusting that God is faithful to His people, praying that we will be content with what God does in these situations...

• Steve and Ronda in their making the decision to possibly amputate their 4 year old son's left foot.
• Erin and David as they wait on their first child to be born in August after much waiting.
• 6 applications that we sent to Law Schools last Saturday.

“The man who has faith is the man who is no longer looking at himself, and no longer looking to himself. He no longer looks at anything he once was. He does not look at what he is now. He does not [even] look at what he hopes to be as the result of his own efforts. He looks entirely to the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work, and he rests on that alone. He has ceased to say, ‘Ah yes, I have committed terrible sins but I have done this and that…’ He stops saying that. If he goes on saying that, he has not got faith… Faith speaks in an entirely different manner and makes a man say, ‘Yes, I have sinned grievously, I have lived a life of sin… yet I know that I am a child of God because I am not resting on any righteousness of my own; my righteousness is in Jesus Christ, and God has put that to my account.’”

- D. M. Lloyd-Jones, quoted by Timothy Keller in The Message of Romans (Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2003), 59.

Magdalena Grace Roberts

This morning this sweet little 5 month old girl left this world. She had Trisonomy 18. I do not know the Roberts personally but have grown to love their faith in our BIG God! Through this whole experience they have remained confident that God was, is and will forever be SOVEREIGN! Please keep Noah and Julie in your prayers as I am sure their heart is very sad today!

Happy New Year!!!

As I am sitting here on the first day of 2009, a lot of things are going through my head. 2008 was a fast year for me but I was able to experience a lot of things and meet new people. I am very thankful for my church family, the teaching I receive there and how I have been ministered to from them. God is good, all the time and I'm thankful that never changes! I have ready many blogs and heard many people talk about their resolutions. But how about a new idea: no resolutions! I read the Desiring God blog this morning and here is part of what I read from Martin Lloyd Jones' book, Spiritual Depression:


Would you like to be rid of this spiritual depression? The first thing you have to do is to say farewell now once and forever to your past. Realize that it has been covered and blotted out in Christ. Never look back at your sins again. Say: ‘It is finished, it is covered by the Blood of Christ'. That is your first step. Take that and finish with yourself and all this talk about goodness, and look to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is only then that true happiness and joy are possible for you. What you need is not to make resolutions to live a better life, to start fasting and sweating and praying. No! You just begin to say:

I rest my faith on Him alone
Who died for my transgressions to atone. (35)

WOW! So this is my resolution this year: NOT TO HAVE ONE! I am not going to try and "fix" the bad from last year or resolute to do better but to rest in Christ and trust that He who began a good work in me, is faithful to complete it. This doesn't mean that I do not have goals for this year. That I will sit back and "hope" that work will be done, but I work as if I am being worked on, knowing that God is the one doing and completing the work, not me, not my own abilities, BUT GOD!

Welcome to 2009!!!

I've been tagged!

Erin at Glimpse Into the Life of the Stanfords tagged me to share fifteen things that I'm not afraid to admit. Now I'm just admitting, not explaining!

1. I like sugar in my grits.
2. Touching fresh chopped tomatoes make me gag, but I can eat them cooked.
3. I have seen all 3 High School Musicals.
4. My sister and I communicate in songs...mainly from musicals that we have grown up watching.
5. I would love to be a fly on the wall in CJ and Carolyn Mahaney's house.
6. Every year at Christmas, from the time I was 16 until I was married at 22, I secretly wished that I would unwrap a set of car keys.
7. I don't like scary movies AT ALL!
8. I don't like movies with witches in them.
9. I've never lived in one place longer than 6 years.
10. I don't like sleeping in a room by myself.
11. I like to try new recipes.
12. I know every line and every song to Annie, Beauty and the Beast, and the Sound of Music.
13. I listen to the Rick and Bubba Show every morning from 6 am until 10 am.
14. I dry my hair in the mornings in between the commercials to the show (so I don't miss it...I know, sad isn't it?)
15. I have been to every state east of the Mississippi River.

Ok, so that was sort of fun! You can ask me about any of them, but I might not explain...Erin didn't tell me I had to explain! Haha! :-)

My AWESOME Husband!

I am so thankful for my husband and what God is doing in his life right now. I'm so excited to be apart. Last night after the election results came through, about 10:00 our time, my husband gets VERY excited. He is grinning from ear to ear and for those of you that know him...he is rocking A LOT in his chair! Evidently he has been communicating with Mars Phoenix. When he told me, I had no clue what or who he was talking about. For those of you (like me) who don't stay on top of our space exploration, it is the spacecraft that is exploring the planet Mars. Shane twittered with Mars Phoenix, asking him to turn the mic on so blind people could get an idea of what being in space is like. Anyway...Here is the blog entry if you are interested, http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001724/ and Shane is the "blind man" mentioned towards the bottom of the blog entry and the entire twitter conversation is below...check out that my husband (jack728) says "Blind people would really dig it..." I love how he says "dig it" talking to a computer...so funny! Isn't this so COOL though??? Or is it just me?

Where I am today...

At just the right time I got this in my email box this morning:

“Jesus Christ is stronger!”

“Ready for some good news? . . .

Jesus Christ is stronger!

Stronger than my fears about the future or my shame over a past that cannot be altered though I wish so much I could do some things differently.

Stronger than my tired prayers with well-worn phrases and weary pleas.

Stronger than my need to know now, and have the trial terminated.

Stronger than the enemy of my soul who would discourage me with my own failings and disillusion me with the faults of others.

Such a simple truth—Jesus Christ is Stronger. ‘Stronger than what,’ you ask?

Stronger than whatever would cause you doubt or discouragement today.”

—James McDonald, “Jesus Christ is Stronger”
(HT: Tim Challies)

PRAISE THE LORD!!!

Sharing the Wealth

Shane and I are going to try this for a week and see how it goes:


Redistribution of Wealth

Published at 12pm on 10/27/08

An Inside the Beltway Forward …
In a local restaurant my server had on a “Obama 08″ tie, again I laughed as he had given away his political preference–just imagine the coincidence.
When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need–the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight.
I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I’ve decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful.
At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient deserved money more.
I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.

You can find more insight on politics at www.wsmith.org. William is a good friend of ours who lives in Washington D.C. with his wife, Diamond, and his 1 year old son, Will. His blog is very good and provides some different perspectives on what it is to be a conservative.