Birthday!
Today was my 26th birthday and it was great. I met Mike for lunch at our thai place and the waitress gave us Christmas gifts. Mike got coconut milk candy and I got a quilted makeup bag with little birds on it. Last year I got an awesome scarf from them that I wear all the time. And the food was great too. Then for dinner we went to Olympia, a greek restaurant, and everything there tasted wonderful too. I want to try and make tzatzatki sauce now and get more acquainted with my greek heritage. I debated on whether to take pictures of their giant Parthenon painting, especially because it was framed with Christmas garland. For dessert we went to The Dessert Lady and shared a piece of their carrot cake. I felt like mmmming after every bite. It was so delicious. Year 25 was filled with so many blessings and opportunities for personal and spiritual growth that I am both humbled and grateful for everything God is doing in our lives and can’t wait to see what happens next.
Filed under Birthday | Comment (0)Giving, Fasting, Praying
I always considered myself a giver and I am definetely married to a giver, so I thought the best thing to do would be to keep tithing and concentrate on prayer and fasting. These of course are my plans and I was about to be introduced to God’s. On Christmas eve we went and visited our old church with some friends and it was time for the offering. They told us 100% of their offering was going to a new project a doctor was starting in the community and we watched a video of a pediatrician who felt an aching in his heart to leave his successful practice and start a clinic for those who had no insurance. As we watched the video I knew we would put money in the basket as it went by us. Mike looked at me and asked how much. This was one of the few occasions we had cash because we had just sold his ipod. I thought in my head about 10 dollars then raised it to 20. Mike asked if that was my first thought about what to give. I looked at him and suddenly felt … I felt, well honestly, I felt God. Mike had $40 in his hand and I shook my head. “twenty?” he asked incredulously. I shook my head and there must have been something in the way I looked at him. I don’t know what you look like when you look at God but it must be different then any other expression. The music was loud, the lights were dim and the basket was coming closer and he asked one last time, “all of it?” I couldn’t speak at this point so I nodded and immediately began crying. Now we are in the middle of an affluent church on Christmas eve during the offering and I am the only one crying. I’ve thought about why I cried. I’m sure I was scared, I sure part of me thought I was out of my mind, I had already decided what bills we were going to pay with that money. I also think the bigger part of me knew that if you say you will give with all your heart then you must give everything you have in your hands. I kept searching for this profound reason for my tears and I think it is simply a sign of sacrifice. God helped me give on a level that meant something to me. There’s a song they sang in church yesterday and the first verse says How sweet the tears to trust in Jesus. The hardest part of giving isn’t knowing, it’s trusting. And it will prepare your heart to receive miracles; give your money, give your tears, give your food, give your hunger, give your prayers. For God so loved the world, he gave. I know God loves a cheerful giver and it is my prayer to one day smile with empty hands. I am so grateful to Him that now my hands are finally as open as my heart.
Filed under Fasting, Ministry | Comment (0)A fresh coat of paint in heaven
We are in the process of painting the church and we have been blessed with an incrediblly talented artist who came here to sow into our ministry. We got to talking and something he said has stuck in the back of my mind ever since I heard it. His dream is to paint murals for churches all over the world and then when he gets to heaven he wants to paint on the walls there too. The Lord’s prayer says Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I sat and thought about having a vocation or a calling in heaven, what would you do if you knew, wow this is heaven. What would your day look like? What would I be in heaven and then mirror that reflection on earth. I think of my husband, who handles computers and electronics with deft skill, and I don’t know if he would be the go to computer guy in heaven but I do know he would be helping someone. And when we sit and dream together about starting a company and how he would treat everyone there with an immense amount of respect and gratitude. Even give them an extra week vacation to go on a service or mission trip. I could see him doing that in heaven, running the company you always wanted to work for but could never find. Working in heaven seems like a strange combination at first but it is in work that all the gifts God has bestowed on us come to fruition. And then I turn inward; does heaven need preachers? I think if I was surrounded by God’s glory in His Kingdom, you probably couldn’t stop me from talking about it. Every moment would be another glimpse of inspiration about how we are so fearfully and wonderfully made and deeply and unconditionally loved. When I struggle with my calling here I can remember that this is a journey on earth to rain down the Kingdom of heaven.
Filed under Ministry | Comment (0)From 12 days of Christmas to 21 days of Fasting
I was thinking back to when the seed of ministry was planted in my heart for the first time and discovered it was during a fast. The 24 hour famine to be exact. Our youth group participated in the event which included a concert and lock-in. The idea was to keep kids busy for 24 hours at church so we didn’t notice we were hungry. A good 14 hours into the fast I was definetely cranky and went to go sit by myself in the one classroom they had turned into a prayer chapel. I read Job and it really struck me that the hunger I was currently feeling was felt by people all over the world on a daily basis, but not just for food. It was a deeper hunger, a thirst for God. I had never been given so many words before that I didn’t feel like were my own. There was a sign up sheet for speakers and I signed my name on the list of kids who wanted to stand in front of the group and say something about the fast in it’s last 20 minutes. I was 16 years old as I stood and delivered my first mini sermon. I was hungry, passionate and rediscovering what it meant to love God. God used every word He gave me, my faith journey started to grow immensely right after that and it is deeply signifigant to me that it began with a fast. Mike and I both have felt that a new chapter of our life is around the corner, one filled with ministry and chasing dreams and starting a family. Our new year will begin with a church-wide 21 day fast. The biggest reason I wanted to start this blog was to record every one of those 21 days. I pray that I will be able to adjust the gauge on my faith to bring it into a sharper focus. I am returning to the point where I first fell deeply in love with God, during a fast. Right now I am concentrating on preparing my faith for it’s endurance run as our church starts fasting together on January 4th.
Filed under Fasting | Tags: Fasting | Comment (1)The “woman cave”
First of all I am deeply enamored with the idea of cooking. A good day for me includes waking up early to watch the food network and then browsing through cookbooks, making a successful dinner (cue my husband smiling) and then doing a search on the internet for a cast iron dutch oven. The very idea of cooking makes me giddy and I think that I will become a better cook simply because I love the process of making something and the expectation and hopefulness that it will taste amazing. We have gotten rid of our TV so it was time to stop living vicariously through the food network and start living in the potential of what my kitchen could be. An avalanche can start with a single snowball or in my case, a hanging pot rack. I saw it on craigslist, the most beautiful hammered steel pot rack and 6 hours and 45 dollars later it was sitting on the floor in my kitchen. And. It. Is. Awesome. Something happened when we installed that pot rack. I couldn’t get the word gourmet out of my head. Suddenly a whole new world of possibilities opened up to me. My husband never ceases to amaze me either. Last night he played electrician and installed three new lights in our kitchen, two over the counter and a main one overhead. Gone are our depressing cafeteria rectangles replaced by twinkling glass that is controlled by the newly installed dimmer switch. My husband calls it my woman cave, much like he would have a man cave of Big screen tv, Beer fridge, Leather Recliner and nothing else. I look at it now and think about all the meals I will make in the kitchen for my family, all the recipes I will try and all the love and memories that will be formed there. I think a woman cave of my very own may just be the most satisfying present I could think of. I will post pictures soon. I need to clean up from all the recent demolition.
Filed under Home | Comment (0)The Spirit of Christmas
I love Christmas. I always have, especially when I was little because I figured it was probably a good thing to have your birthday five days after baby Jesus was born. I still love Christmas because I see it as a time that everyone is turning and reaching out for what matters in our lives; families, relationships and thankful hearts. It is also a time when we plan for perfection; the perfect dinner, the perfect party, the perfect present. We strive for the perfect representation of festive joy which is so hard to translate because we are also perfectly human. We stumble into the manger, to see a infant Savior sleeping peacefully and realize this is the most perfect image our eyes have ever come upon. God has already given the perfect present and in my abandonment of perfection I can now focus on being a giver of kindness and compassion. I can give whatever I hold in my hands and raise them to heaven when they are empty. It is no mistake that our new year begins after Jesus’s birth. There is a renewed promise in the air, a palpable expectation of everything hope is capable of creating.
Filed under God | Comment (0)Bringing a calling to Life
I thought long and hard (kinda) about what I wanted to name my blog. As I was writing my latest seminary paper, one of the quotes that jumped out at me from one of the seven books I was reading simultaneously was “all you are is a hearing and a response.” The simplicity of those words defined a call I struggle to capture in 12 pages. I have heard God. I can either choose whether or not to listen and if I do respond then that response will be in the way I live my life, the way my heart beats or breaks, and the way I can stretch out my hands to others. Everything is rendered a response to the call… So there you have it. Called and Response. I want this to be an authentic rendering of my life right now, as a young married woman who is struggling to define a call to ministry that I have heard loud and clear for a while now. I also believe that this will affect every part of my life and nothing is off limits in terms of inspiration. This is a journal of my life and all it’s beautiful tangents. Here marks the first sign post in a journey towards a calling that I am equal parts thrilled and scared about.
Filed under Ministry | Tags: Calling, Ministry | Comment (0)