If you want to know how cute second-grade Lydia is, just read this book report she wrote. She hasn't learned Hannah's "technique" in sending me her papers to proof-read yet. Personally, I like this paper much better than Hannah's. ;)

Negative Nancy?

In past semesters, I never really studied with other people in my class. I would talk to them and try and get to know people, but never really studied with anyone. I still do better on tests when I study alone, but I have been studying with others some too. It has rather annoyed me that every single study session has turned into a "complain about the teacher/work load" session. I'm fine with people expressing how they feel about the subject matter to an extent. When we don't even study but rather just complain the whole time, nothing gets accomplished at all, and it definitely isn't a good attitude to have!

Hannah also was telling me about how a lot of people just seem so depressed at her school. There is just always something negative or wrong going on, so they complain about it.

I'm not one of those "as-long-as-we-think-positive-everything-will-be-ok" type people. But, I am one of those "God-is-in-control-so-don't-worry-or-complain-because-we-get-so-much-better-than-we-deserve-anyway" people.

We deserve nothing yet God chooses to give so many blessings. How can we complain against the faithfulness and provision of the Lord? We should give thanks in all things!

Here is an excerpt from a letter written by John Newton that is a great reminder of the Lord's goodness:

“[One of the marks of Christian Maturity which a believer should seek is] an acquiescence in the Lord’s will founded in a persuasion of His wisdom, holiness, sovereignty and goodness.…So far as we can attain this, we are secure from disappointment. Our own limited views, and shortsighted purposes and desires, may be, and will be, often over-ruled; but then our main and leading desire, that the will of the Lord be done, must be accomplished. How highly does it become us, both as creatures and as sinners, to submit to the appointment of our maker! and how necessary is it to our peace!

2. Pray without ceasing.

3. Pray with an undivided heart.

"It may seem daunting to walk away from the attractions of pop-culture. But when you seek your King with an undivided heart, you will discover that in His presence is the fullness of joy, and in His right hand are pleasures forever more(Ps 16:11)!"

~from Set-Apart Girl magazine

1. Pray specifically and boldly.

"There is a general kind of praying which fails for lack of precision. It is as if a regiment of soldiers should all fire off their guns anywhere. Possibly somebody would be killed, but the majority of the enemy would be missed." -Charles Spurgeon

"So Jesus answered and said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ it will be done. And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.” -Matthew 21:21

(It appears I'm not the only one thinking about prayer! The next few posts will be {Biblical} thoughts on prayer taken from the Set-Apart Girl webzine.)

A little story and BIG Answer to Prayer!

As I shared the other day, I have been praying specifically and waiting expectantly for God's answer. God has promised to answer all of our prayers. It may not be in the way that we want, but His will is perfect and his response to us is far better than what we could ever ask. Well, I was expecting a reply, but I didn't expect that reply to come so soon. Only a week later, I have received the answer to some of my prayers (and it was far better than I imagined it would be!).

As you may know, this month is a month of decisions in my life. I was supposed to begin planning out the rest of my school until graduation (by Oct. 31) and decide about camp next summer (by Oct 14). I knew I had to do an internship (200 hours within the time of a semester), and that pretty much has to be done in a summer (it would be nearly impossible to complete with a full load of school work). I only have one summer (hopefully!) between now and my expected graduation date--so that leaves one option--do the internship next summer. That's fine, but I really wanted to work at camp!

At the end of this summer, I assumed it would be my last. I "retired" from my Head Wrangler position. Even if I was planning to go back to camp I know I'm a little burnt out from being at the barn. Don't get me wrong, it's one of the most fun, most wonderful places at camp, but the job is exhausting, mentally and physically! I felt like I had used all my ideas and energy the past two years. I did talk to our director and told him I would be willing to do another job at camp. Ever since I knew about camp, I KNEW I would NEVER want to be the Head JC (Junior Counselor) Girl. Working with high school girls in that way just wasn't my cup of tea. The last week or two of camp, God changed my heart on the issue. I sort of had the idea and started to want to do that job. After camp ended, there have been several neat opportunities to minister to girls in high school, including leading a Bible Study on Thursday nights. Also since camp ended, knowing about the internship/school thing, I have been trying to let go of camp and come to face the fact that I would probably not be there. This wasn't working out so well. I was praying that God would provide whatever I needed, including clarity and wisdom to make the right decision.

Last Thursday, I met with an academic advisor about the internship. I learned I could do my internship at camp without really changing the role of Head JC Girl at all! This got me so excited, I was so busy thinking up plans and ideas I couldn't pay attention in class for the rest of the day. As soon as I got home, I shared the ideas with my parents. They had already encouraged me to work at camp--even if that added a year to my school--so they liked the idea. The next morning I called Andy, our camp director, and he was good with the idea--told me to pray about it and let him know by October 14. After finalizing and getting the internship approved (they approved it on Saturday--a NO-SCHOOL day!!), I was totally sure that this is what I wanted to do.

In the past, I have had to make decisions about camp, and other things, and just trust God that He would work it all out. I've never really had such clarity in decision making before. After two months of struggling a lot with the issue, God provided for me to go back to camp, do a new job that I have become very passionate about, AND fulfill my internship responsibilities, getting school credit. This decision has brought so much excitement into my life! I felt like I was walking on air all of Saturday and even a little now--a week later! Learning a new job will be a challenge, but I can't wait for it! I can see how God has been preparing me even during camp last summer, and since then for what will, Lord willing, come next summer! God is good and delights to give good gifts to His children. This gift is being received with great joy!

Not much time for blogging right now...But here are some pictures from my cousin's wedding. Lydia was the cutest flower girl ever!

Background Music

So, music is pretty cool. I often have it playing in the background while I work or type or do whatever...Here is what I often listen to....

Songs for worship:

"Beautiful" by Phil Wickham

"Worthy is the Lamb" by Hillsong

"How Great is our God" by Chris Tomlin

"How Marvelous" by Chris Tomlin

Songs for driving:

"While I'm Waiting" by John Waller

"I Will Rise" by Chris Tomlin

Songs for writing and painting (and all the other artsy things I do):

Anything Michael Buble

Anything Jack Johnson

Songs for running:

"Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay" by Marvin Gaye (haha, I don't know why I like this song)

"You are Loved" by Josh Groban

"How Can I Keep from Singing" by Chris Tomlin

EXPECT

“…but the people who know their God will display strength and take action” (Daniel 11:32).

The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much (James 5:16b)

The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective (James 5:16b)

“If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you will and it shall be done for you.” (John 15:7)

“Everything you ask in prayer, believing you shall receive.” (Matthew 21:22)

“Ask and you will receive, that your joy may be made full.” (John 16:24)

I am praying. I am praying very specifically. God will answer my prayers. It may not be in the way I want, but he will answer. I am praying with faith that the will of God will be accomplished. PLUS....God delights to give good gifts to His children! I'm praying for "rain" and carrying my umbrella!

We will never outgrow the faithfulness of God: “the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children's children”(Ps. 103:17).

Feels like Home

"...complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind." -Philippians 2:2

For the past three weekends I have had the opportunity to spend time with some of my favorite people in the world--camp friends. It is so nice just to sit and talk and catch up on life with them. These people get me. We have been through a lot, over the course of the past two summers, with each other. I am really thankful for the time of fellowship with them recently. I love how I haven't seen some of them since camp ended but we can just pick up where we left off, like we were never apart. I feel totally myself and at ease with these people. What do we talk about when we are together? The better question is....What do we NOT talk about? Everything from the dumbest little stories or reliving camp memories to checking in on one another's spiritual life. I love them a lot. Being with them feels like going home after a long time away.

A little poetry for ya....

The Road Not Taken

By: Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The Scandal of Gendercide — War on Baby Girls

BY AL MOHLER

The reality has been known for years now, though the Western media have generally resisted any direct coverage of the horror. That changed this week when The Economist published its stunning cover story — “Gendercide — What Happened to 100 Million Baby Girls?”

In many nations of the world, there is an all-out war on baby girls. In 1990, economist Amartya Sen estimated that 100 million baby girls were missing — sacrificed by parents who desired a son. Two decades later, multiple millions of missing baby girls must be added to that total, victims of abortion, infanticide, or fatal neglect.

The murder of girls is especially common in China and northern India, where a preference for sons produces a situation that is nothing less than critical for baby girls. In these regions, there are 120 baby boys born for every 100 baby girls. As The Economist explains, “Nature dictates that slightly more males are born than females to offset boys’ greater susceptibility to infant disease. But nothing on this scale.”

In its lead editorial, the magazine gets right to the essential point: “It is no exaggeration to call this gendercide. Women are missing in their millions–aborted, killed, neglected to death.”

In its detailed and extensive investigative report, the magazine opens its article with chilling force. A baby girl is born in China’s Shandong province. Chinese writer Xinran Xue, present for the birth, then hears a man’s voice respond to the sight of the newborn baby girl. “Useless thing,” he cried in disappointment. The witness then heard a plop in the slops pail. “To my absolute horror, I saw a tiny foot poking out of the pail. The midwife must have dropped that tiny baby alive into the slops pail!” When she tried to intervene she was restrained by police. An older woman simply explained to her, “Doing a baby girl is not a big thing around here.”

The number of dead and missing baby girls is astounding.....READ the rest of the article HERE.

INSIDE-OUT Youth Student Conference. Come!

I'm back!!! After a busy summer away, and a month of settling back in to home and school and all that good stuff I'm going to try and return to blogging!

Surprise!

Arms that hold the universe -fee - song lyrics

Seven Habits of Highly Evangelistic Christians

Here is a good article I am reposting from Josh Harris, who reposted from Kevin DeYoung.

I'm reposting the following from Kevin DeYoung's blog. Good stuff...

Thom Rainer, President and CEO of Lifeway, argues that the secret to being an evangelistic church "is really no secret at all. Ultimately evangelistic churches see more persons become Christians through the passionate efforts of highly evangelistic Christians."

And what characterizes these highly evangelistic Christians?

1. They are people of prayer. They realize that only God can convict and convert, and they are totally dependent upon Him in prayer. Most of the highly evangelistic Christians spend at least an hour in prayer each day.

2. They have a theology that compels them to evangelize. They believe in the urgency of the gospel message. They believe that Christ is the only way of salvation. They believe that anyone without Christ is doomed for a literal hell.

3. They are people who spend time in the Word. The more time they spend in the Bible, they more likely they are to see the lostness of humanity and the love of God in Christ to save those who are lost.

4. They are compassionate people. Their heart breaks for those who don't have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. They have learned to love the world by becoming more like Christ who has the greatest love for the world.

5. They love the communities where God has placed them. They are immersed in the culture because they desire for the light of Christ to shine through them in their communities.

6. They are intentional about evangelism. They pray for opportunities to share the gospel. They look for those opportunities. And they see many so-called casual encounters as appointments set by God.

7. They are accountable to someone for their evangelistic activities. They know that many good activities can replace Great Commission activities if they are not careful. Good can replace the best. So they make certain that someone holds them accountable each week either formally or informally for their evangelistic efforts.

How are you doing? I know the last characteristic isn't present in my life right now. Be sure to read the whole article.

(via Kevin DeYoung)

Before the Morning by Josh Wilson

Do you wonder why you have to

Feel the things that hurt you?

If there’s a God who loves you,

where is He now?

Maybe, there are things you can’t see

And all those things are happening

To bring a better ending

Someday somehow you’ll see you’ll see

Would you dare would you dare to believe

That you still have a reason to sing

Cause the pain that you’ve been feeling

It can’t compare to the joy that’s coming

So hold on you gotta wait for the light

Press on and just fight the good fight

Cause the pain that you’ve been feeling

It’s just the dark before the morning

My friend you know how this all ends

You know where you’re going

You just don’t know how you’ll get there

So say a prayer

And hold on cause there’s good for those who love God

But life is not a snapshot

It might take a little time but you’ll see the bigger picture

Once you feel the weight of glory

All your pain will fade to memory

It’s just the hurt before the healing

Oh the pain that you’ve been feeling

It’s just the dark before the morning

1. Take my life and let it be
   Consecrated, Lord, to Thee;
   Take my hands and let them move
   At the impulse of Thy love.
2. Take my feet and let them be
   Swift and beautiful for Thee;
   Take my voice and let me sing,
   Always, only for my King.
3. Take my lips and let them be
   Filled with messages from Thee;
   Take my silver and my gold,
   Not a mite would I withhold.
4. Take my moments and my days,
   Let them flow in endless praise;
   Take my intellect and use
   Every pow’r as Thou shalt choose.
5. Take my will and make it Thine,
   It shall be no longer mine;
   Take my heart, it is Thine own,
   It shall be Thy royal throne.
6. Take my love, my Lord, I pour
   At Thy feet its treasure store;
   Take myself and I will be
   Ever, only, all for Thee.

Today

So here it is, another day. I did nothing to deserve it. I just woke up this morning, and there it was. I may have expected it to be there, but I had no right to. Just like Christmas morning, I got up to find a present waiting for me, a brand new day.

Yes, today is a gift. And it has my name on the tag. This present from God has been custom-made for me. God has filled it with blessings, some obvious and some in disguise. Its difficulties and challenges are tailored to fit my size. It may not be exactly what I asked for, but it is exactly what I need.

-Russell Board

World Magazine, November 18, 2006

"There is in each of us an envy; O how hard a matter it is to rejoice in the gifts, graces, and labours of others, and be content in circumstances, when God casts us by as unworthy, and uses others to glorify his name! We are troubled if others glorify God and not us or more than us, or if they are more holy, more useful, or more serious...We should be content to be abased and obscure provided Christ is honored and exalted."

- Thomas Manton

Signs of Spring

Love and Common Cents

Love and Common Cents

Posted using ShareThis

Keys to Relaxation After Playing in the Snow

Hot Chocolate

Kettle Corn

Reading by the Fire

Snow Play

"There are actually ways to use technology to create more quality family time....'Technology has brought me closer to my family. Parents need to keep the dialogue open about technology if they don't want to be shut out of their children's lives.'

Let your fingers do the talking. Text with your kids. 'Children can't roll their eyes at you or use a sarcastic tone in a text message...'texting limits negative interactions. Plus, parents tend to be long-winded, and texting is better suited to adolescent attention spans."

- "Family Time 2.0," Better Homes and Gardens magazine

Obviously Better Homes and Gardens never heard of kids "doing hard things" or "children obey your parents in the Lord" or anything like that. I'm not a parent yet, but when that time comes, I don't plan on finding parenting advice from this magazine!

HOW TO WRITE GOOD!

1. Avoid alliteration always.

2. Prepositions are no words to end sentences with.

3. Avoid clichés like the plague.

4. Employ the vernacular ad nauseam.

5. Eschew ampersands & abbrev., etc.

6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.

7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.

8. Contractions aren’t acceptable.

9. Foreign words are not apropos.

10. As Emerson said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”

11. Comparisons are as bad as clichés.

12. One should never generalize.

13. Don’t be redundant; it is highly superfluous to use more words than necessary.

14. Be specific, more or less.

15. Understatement is insipid.

16. Exaggeration is infinitely worse than understatement.

17. One word sentences? Simple. Eliminate!

18. The passive voice is to be avoided.

19. Bad analogies are like feathers on a snake.

20. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.

21. Who needs rhetorical questions?

22. Colloquialisms are grody to the max.

23. Abjure polysyllabic obfuscations.

24. Finally, chech for pselling errors and typeos.

When you are in Love

"When you are truly in love, you go to great lengths to be with the one you love. You'll drive for hours to be together, even if it's only for a short while. You don't mind staying up late to talk. Walking in the rain is romantic, not annoying. You'll willingly spend a small fortune on the one you're crazy about. When you are apart from each other, it's painful, even miserable. He or she is all you think about; you jump at any chance to be together.

In his book, God is the Gospel, John Piper essentially asks whether we are in love with God:

"The critical question for our generation--and for every generation is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?"

How many of you will read those words and say, 'You know, I might just be ok with that.'? If you are deeply in love with God...you know you could never be satisfied in a heaven without Christ."

~From the book, Crazy Love, by Francis Chan

Something worth Blogging About

Romans 5:1-11

¹Therefore, since we have been justified by faith,we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ²Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. ³More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

⁶For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— ⁸but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ⁹Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. ¹⁰For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. ¹¹More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Brownie Rock

No matter what the internet says, 2 TBLS of corn starch is NOT a good substitute for an egg in brownies. The above picture shows a thick layer of hardened would-be-brownies that are now stuck to the pan. Next time, we will be out coaxing the chickens to lay just ONE more egg!

Just Buy It.

JUST BUY IT.

Now, just read it.

Mary's 10th Birthday