Ideas

Crosswalk.com is a Christian website that I visit regularly to read articles on marriage, parenting, homeschooling, etc. Today I found a link to farrelcommunications.com where I found a couple of great ideas that I really want to try to implement either someday soon or sometime in the future. The article was about how to energize your quiet time...but I think they are just really neat ideas for anyone to do anytime.

*Read through a Bible and mark it up with notes and underlined passages, then give it as a gift to your child. The author here says to mark things that might help your child in a specific time in life, but I think it would also be special to them if you mark things that the Lord speaks to you about. What a great keepsake for them to have, and a wonderful way for them to get some insight into your spiritual life and relationship with God.

*Keep a miracle journal or scrapbook. I have had a similar idea before, but haven't done very well carrying it out. This is where you would write about, keep mementos, and take pictures of ways that God has answered prayer in your life or just blessed you in a special way. It's so easy to forget all the great (and miraculous) things God does because He does them so regularly and we begin to take it for granted. Keeping this scrapbook/journal would be a beautiful way to look back and remember how faithful God has been! Your kids would also learn about God's faithfulness in times when they were too young to remember or realize how He was working in their lives.

*Memorize at least one verse from every book in the Bible. I think I could do this in a year. That would be a great goal. Then at the end of the year, I hope I can say them all (even in order)!

I think I can already see my Christmas list forming...
-New Bible (used for ideas 1 and 3).
-Scrapbook

Uh oh, baby is crying...

Update!

Four years since my last post. A {brief} recap is in order.

At the time of my last post, I was a couple months into my first year as a 5th grade teacher at Heritage Christian School. Just a little over a month later (Dec. 2006), Josh asked me to marry him and I happily accepted the proposal. He found a job in Indy (had been working in Kokomo) and we got married on July 21 of 2007 on the most beautiful summer day you could imagine. We rented an apartment in Noblesville for about a year, and I finished my 2nd year of teaching while Josh finished out a year at Key-Art Publishing. We coached the Varsity softball team at HCS in the spring of 2008, too. It was a lot of work to be totally in charge of a classroom of 10 year olds and a team of 14-18 year olds, but it was a really fun time for us as a newly married couple. :)

Sometime during that year, we started (well it probably started with me) getting the itch to get out of the city and back to a slower paced lifestyle...more trees and fields, fewer traffic jams and shopping centers. We prayed about this desire, knowing that we hoped to have kids in the near future and wanted to raise them closer to family, but still unsure of how it was going to work out since neither of us had a job lined up in Crawfordsville. Without a doubt, the chain of events that followed over the next year and a half were orchestrated entirely by God. Josh got a job at The Paper (not great pay but enough for the time), my uncle Rhett allowed us to live in his house for 2 years (rent free practically), and by August of 2008 we were expecting our first baby. Our desire for our family has always been that I would be a stay-at-home mom while our kids were growing up, but Josh's income at The Paper wasn't exactly what we needed for that to happen. No worries...after applying at several other places, he got a call for an interview (that led to his current job) at RR Donnelley the very day our daughter, Halle, was born. :)

We went back and forth for several months about whether now would be a good time to buy a house, or if we should keep saving money living w/ my uncle...eventually our desire to have our own home where we could raise our family the way we really wanted to won out, and I believe God is blessing that decision. He gave us the {perfect} house-- not perfect in the sense that it was move-in ready and wonderfully suited to our taste. No, not at all. In fact, we spent 5 months fixing it up...renovating from top to bottom...every wall and ceiling was primed and painted, every floor replaced, bathroom fixtures, lights, electrical work, lots of miscellaneous repair and TONS of cleaning. The previous owners had smoked in the house for over 20 years (GROSS!). However, because of that fact we were able to buy the house for a very reasonable price and do most of the labor ourselves (with the help of family and friends). It was a LONG, HARD process...and at times seemed like it would never get finished, but we have now been HAPPILY living here for 3 1/2 months. :) And although there are no decorations on the walls and still many small (and big) projects to complete, we are HOME.

And, of course I must mention that 18 days ago we welcomed our second daughter, Reilly, into our family! And I am a stay-at-home mommy with an incredible husband and two precious daughters. It's hard to believe this is really my life, and that only 4 years ago I was just beginning my journey into 'adulthood,' fresh out of college and totally clueless about where the Lord would bring me in the coming years. I am happy that it's here.

I'm in my fourth month of being a 5th grade teacher (and actually getting paid for it!) at Heritage Christian School. Wow...I cannot even begin to describe how much the Lord has taught me in these past months. Going into this job, I thought I would be the one teaching these kids everything, but my guess is that they have taught me far more than I've taught them. Now, I'll let you be the judge as to whether that's a problem or not. :)

Our first subject every day is "Bible." What a blessing to be able to learn about and discuss the Word of the Living God every single day in school. Of course, the kids don't always see it that way. From time to time I'll get complaints that the memory verse is too long or there are too many questions to answer about a certain chapter. In my own attempts to convey to these young hearts just how incredibly amazing it is that we have the privilege of studying the Word of our Creator and Savior, I've come to realize that I, too, have taken His Word for granted for much of my life...actually almost all of it. Can most of us not say the same thing? Honestly, the God of the Universe-the One who created everything- the One who sacrificed so much to save us from hell- the One who loves us SO much more than any friend, relative, boyfriend, etc...- and probably the ONLY One who has the very truest and best intentions for our lives (here on earth and for eternity) - wrote us the longest love letter in the history of all love letters.... and yet we consider it a hassle or a chore much of the time. How blind we are...how distracted... but still, He remains....calling us to Himself. What a wonderful Maker! God has warmed my heart to such a degree that, although I am still distracted by many things (Satan's attempts to draw me away from God), I now see His Word as truly precious.

I've also learned a great deal about how my every decision, day in and day out, ultimately directs my life. In trying to teach my students the importance of showing respect to others, being diligent in daily work, and taking the time and effort to learn from previous mistakes (and the mistakes of others), I've come to realize just how true this is for all of us. No matter what point in life we're at, the decisions we make each day determine who we are. If I want to be a godly woman (selfless, honest, forgiving, serving, and loving), I have to make decisions that reflect those qualities every day. I can't pretend to be selfless if my first response to every situation centers around the question, "What do I want the most?" or "What will make me happy?" I can't say that I am an honest person if I resort to lying in order to avoid looking bad or being disciplined. I can't say that I am forgiving if I talk about how someone treated me so badly or if I fail to show love to someone who hurt me. My actions speak about who I am...not my words.

I'm so grateful for the way God has used my job to help me grow closer to Him and hopefully to be more like Him. It's such a beautiful thing how He uses us all to make each other better (for His glory, not our own) if only we're willing to listen and learn. I guess that's what He meant when He said that iron sharpens iron... :)

Okay, there is my quarterly post. Much love.

God always follows through. I'm amazed at how wonderfully things work when He's the one in control and I'm not trying to get in the way. Of course, life isn't ever going to be perfect or even close to it even when I'm living a surrendered life. Sin exists in the world and it taints everything. Still, the one thing it can't touch is the peace I have knowing that Jesus Christ is my Savior and that He has an awesome plan for my life.

I'm so glad I have brothers and sisters in Christ who challenge me and keep me walking the straight and narrow. I love you guys :)

I have made life so much more complicated than it should be. The problems arise when I try to live with one foot in the world and one foot in the kingdom of God. The Bible says that we live in the world but should not be of the world. It can be a hard line to draw sometimes. With everything that our culture throws at us today, it's no wonder we get confused about what is reality and what is only an illusion. I've been basing many aspects of my life on an illusion for the last few years....or probably my whole life. Now this isn't to say that I've been 'enlightened' and now understand everything as it truly is. Scripture says that now we only see in part, but one day we will see things fully, as they truly are. Until now (well I'm still working on it), I've been consumed by what people think of me. I'm a people pleaser...my biggest fears are failure and rejection...so I kept chasing after things that either a)give a certain impression that others would approve of or b)serve as an escape from that pressure to please.


God has been teaching me so much over the last few months. I'm realizing that for the most part, the people I am so concerned about impressing either a)won't even be a part of my life long-term or b)don't really care that much about what I do anyway or c)don't judge me as harshly as I thought. Aside from those things, WHY SHOULD I EVEN CARE? If God is for me, who can be against me? God is the only one I can truly count on FOREVER...so His opinion is really the only one that counts...and I love that. He is the only one that truly has my best interest at heart and the only one that knows absolutely what I need when I need it. When I start letting other people's opinions and expectations guide my decision making, that's when I get in over my head and things get chaotic.


It's a daily challenge...the Lord reminds me every day that I need to look no further than His word to find what I need to guide me through life. How stupid is it to look to the world to determine what I should do? The world is a complete mess....obviously wisdom is not found there...only in God. And that is reality.