Echoes of the Spirit

I must extend an apology for my missed post yesterday. Work has sped up just enough that it is difficult to keep a train of thought going as other things continue to take precedence.

I ended my last blog with reference to the jaded worshiper. It was not necesarrily the topic of the blog, but it is truly how I have been feeling for ahwile. My heart and spirit long after God, but my flesh feels so tired and weak. Cynicism and frustration often take their toll. Sunday night we gathered for Africa prayer watch. It was the first in over a month and to be honest Chris and I both felt less than enthused. What had been started to bring like minded people together to intercede on behalf of Africa had dwindled down to about six of us who were faithful on a regular basis. This was disappointing as so many people have gone on mission trips with my dad to Africa, and so many others had good intentions to come. Never the less here were were almost two years into it and the six of us labor away sometimes feeling like our prayers have accomplished little. As we launched into worship my heart felt so distant so blah.
We moved into a song called Jesus Be the Center and I felt the Spirit rise up inside of me. A line in the song says "Be the wind in theses sails." It was a perfect analogy for where I saw myself. Sometimes we have an idea of where we are going, but we have no idea how to get there. Sometimes our arms are tired from rowing with no direction. Sometimes we are not even sure where we are going anymore, but with Jesus as the wind in our sails were are guided and moved by the Spirit of the living God.

What can I pray? How do I pray? I have looked all around seeing godly men grow weary and men, once perceived as righteouss leaders, fall. It has become easier and easier to become isolated and disenchanted in the mass throngs of Christian culture that so often disappoint, but there is hope.
Romans 8:26-27
26In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words;
27and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

In my darkest place and greatest weakness, the Spirit is interceding on my behald as well as yours. I felt something leap inside of me as I read such a passionate scripture. We are not lost or abandoned. The Spirit is intereceding, groaning on our behalf. Our hearts are being searched and purged according to the will of God.
Even in my dark, quiet hiding place, I am not alone. Even when I can do little, but cry out I hear the soft echo of the Spirit helping me in my weakness once more.

Inadequacy

It is something that I struggle with on a daily basis. It has been a battle for as long as I can remember. It plagued me severely in my teen years and caused me to make some detrimental decisions in my quest for significance.
I often find myself just trying to stay ahead of myself. Many pursuits in life I have hoped would erase that feeling have left me still wanting, from working to earn a degree, trying to better myself through career advancement, and trying to set up a home life that would make myself proud. Still to no avail that feeling comes creeping back. The loneliness and the questioning can sometimes be too much to bear.

A scripture came to my mind last night in John 4:24. Jesus stated," God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth." I realize much of the interpretation behind this is that our actions or truth of our life be a reflection of the one we worship. As I was contemplating this I realize part of worshiping in spirit and in truth is acknowledging the truth that we are weak and incomplete in this flesh, but as we worship in spirit acknowledging that it is not us, but Christ in us that completes us we find the true center of worship. The truth is the enemy knows me well and will do everything possible to make sure I feel as inadequate as possible, but I hold on to the truth of the Spirit. It is the righteoussness of Christ that covers me, and in Him I am complete, a new creation.

Join me tomorrow as I delve deeper into the hiding place of the jaded worshiper.

Happy Half Birthday Micah!

I love my baby boy. Today he turned six months old. He has really started to display his cute little personality. He is definitely a morning person. He goes to bed early and wakes up early. He laughs and talks about things we have yet to understand. He is on the verge of crawling. He gets on all fours and rock back and forth and then flips over and rolls all over the house. He is starting to eat solid foods which makes it fun for us to all sit down at the dinner table together. Our family just feels complete with him around. Here are a few pictures of my wonderful little man.


Micah on his birthday




Six months old and trying to sit up.
He loves his big sister.

Running Till the Death

Oh Venezuela, my heart grieves for you. As your leader is gripped with the insatiable god complex that is the detriment of so many countries, I can only pray that you find peace and hope at the end of this dark tunnel.

What a joke this is. Who can be surprised at the outcome of this vote when the man controls the government and oversees the election process? This is the outcome of a socialist agenda gone completely wrong. He may offer you a bit of food or shelter, but the price paid will be bitter to swallow.

Much Better

Saturday turned out to be much better than Friday. I finally broke down and apologized to Chris Friday afternoon. It helped clear the air and we were happy once more. Yesterday was the big love fest day. I personally have nothing against Valentines. Even when I had no one I was never one to dress in black or go indulge in overeating. Simply put, Valentines does nothing for me. Chris and I have gone out to dinner a few times before, but we just don't make a big deal out of it. I prefer birthday celebrations and random acts of love to a one day mandated holiday for it all. I just feel the day takes the personal factor out of it, but hey that's just me. If you do love Valentines than I hope you had a great one. The only reason I really do anything for the holiday is because of Kaylie. She loves every holiday, so I try to make them as special as possible. We taught her how to cut out little construction paper hearts (we did the cutting) and she received plenty of cookies and candy.

We spent our Saturday going to the park with the kids an then took Maverick to the doctor for a weight check up. At his yearly exam a month ago he weighed 122 lbs. We were told he needed to get to 100. I was so nervous about this weigh in. I have been trying to monitor him at all times so he doesn't help himself to extra treats around the house. He has been walking a lot more, but it is really hard to keep a yellow lab from scrounging. Well it turns out all of that hard work paid off. Maverick lost 8 lbs!!! The dr. was very happy with his progress. With a little more work Maverick will be the biggest loser =) The greatest reward for us is hoping we can keep him with us a few years longer.

After all of that excitement we were starving. We had spent week and a half eating all of our meals at home and bringing lunches to work. We are trying to stick to the budget and be a little more disciplined. This is a huge accomplishment for us as one of us usually ends up snagging a fast food meal at lunch during the work week. I had been craving some Chinese food for some time. We decided we could work in one meal out for the week at our favorite and very affordable Royal Panda. It was so awesome! You really do appreciate the little things more when you delay instant gratification.

We finished the day off by getting back to the plan and heading to the store for grocery shopping. This part is definitely a chore, but we always shop together so it's not too bad. All in all it was a good Saturday. Today we are going to go to the park and grill hot dogs as long as the weather is favorable. What a great weekend. I love my family!

It's Friday and I feel Blah

Why does this Friday feel uncannily like a Monday? My early morning relief that it was Friday was interrupted when I woke up and wondered why it was so light outside? I groggily look at my cell phone and realized it was blinking the missed alarm message. It was five till seven. I should have been walking into the office at about this time. Since I am the first person to open the front door and turn the phones on I move into panic mode. Who do you call when you are the one who needs to be there? I found my bosses number and told her I would be a little late, and if anyone called to check where I was to tell them I would be there soon. She was surprisingly cool about the whole thing, but it did little to pull me out of my frenzy. I began to rush around and realized while running through the house trying to get good cell reception I had left the light on in Micah's room. We heard him up and crying. That makes for a stressful backdrop when you are under pressure. When I get stressed Chris and I usually end up in a fight which is exactly what happened. I'm sure it was mostly my fault, but when we have a fight I usually just feel horrible all day. Luckily a lady I work with forgot that I was working Fridays again and she had arrived at seven to open. It was definitely one of those beautiful ironies.
I tried to settle into some normalcy, but the fight kept gnawing at me. Of course trouble had to be lurking. I had quoted a price for a delivery yesterday and accidently left the sales tax off. The customer called in an outrage wondering why his total had changed. Some people just know how to make your day better. Once again things were smoothed over, but it just didn't have me feeling very great. To make matters worse I let the stress get to me and my eating habits. With Valentine's being tomorrow there were several sugary treats around, and my stomach is hating me for indulging right about now.
Oh Friday why must you parade as a Monday?

Getting the Snowball Rolling

I said I would give updates along the way about our personal goals to get out of debt and gain financial freedom. Chris started Dave Ramsey's finanacial peace course about a month ago at his work. It is amazing to see the change in him and us as a couple. We definitely have not "arrived," but we are already finding so much peace and contentment in our home. We are finally communicating in a healthy way about money, and we are setting common goals which really gives us a sense of partnership.

We have been incredibly blessed that with this years tax return we will be embarking on to baby steps one and two. Setting aside some money in our emergency fund and paying off one outstanding debt, two and a half credit cards, and all of the doctor's bills from Micah's birth except the hospital bill. What a great feeling of weight that is lifted. We are getting our debt snowball moving, and we are like giddy school children watching it gain mass and pick up speed.

We still have many tough decisions ahead. We will still have a car payment and a sizeable portion of student loans, but our resolve is strong. We are finally coming to terms with making some short term sacrifices for long term gain. I am excited and naturally a little fearful. We are almost certain we will put our house up for sale this summer. Even with the downturn in the housing market, our neighborhood has retained a reasonable value and I believe we can make a profit that will set us even further down the road to eliminating debt. We will probably downsize to an apartment for awhile and use the extra cash flow to really get ahead and finish out our emergency fund. It really does bring a lot of heart issues to the forefront. I start to realize how want driven I was. What will people think of us if we move from a house to an apartment? Will it look like we went backwards? In my heart of hearts I know this is not the case, and our true wealth will begin to build. Still I am only human, and this process is exposing some of the rough edges I try to hide so often. I can only pray that God will continue to work on me. The peace in our home is definitely worth it!

Don't Tread On Me!

I have watched in utter amazement and disapproval over the past few months. We stand on the threshold of congress passing the largest piece of pork in my lifetime under the guise of stimulus. We are no doubt in a mess. My views are not stricly partisian. I was irate when President Bush suggested we bail out failing business with my taxpayer dollars, and I am am equally angry that President Obama sees the need to saddle my children and grandchildren with a deficit that is ballooning out of control. People will argue government oversight is necessary when business and wall street become too greedy. What is necessary is for you and I to become angry enough that we do not allow our own greed to enslave us to lenders. This mess was caused by educated, greedy people making poor decisions as well as uneducated, greedy people making poor decisions. No one is free from fault. We spent ourselves into an oblivion to get here, and the answer is not to spend ourselves into a deficit on a national level. Perhaps we need the pain of this recession to truly ingrain in us the importance of living within our means. We will learn this lesson when we are okay with driving a car that may not impress the Joneses, but it is paid for. We will learn this lesson when we can pass on the house until we have an adequate downpayment. We will learn this lesson when we are putting more money into our savings accounts and less toward interest. Do you want to punish the greed of wall street? Stop signing away your life to them with every visa application that arrives in your mailbox.

Our government has the worst track record of responsibility with money, and we want them to oversee our commerce? Don't get me started on healthcare. My husband worked in the medical billing industry for several years. Do you know why your medical bills are so high? Medical care professionals have the hardest time collecting on medicare and medicaid accounts. The government will find any excuse to not pay on these accounts. In return our doctors are forced to raise the cost to rectify this imbalance. Maybe if the governement would just pay their bills we could all afford a little more.

The sprial that we find ourselves in will not be satiated by more pork. The cure can only be found in time and our own willingness to look in the mirror and recognize the problem and take some responsibility. American ingenuity is not dead, but it is not fostered in the confines of the governments pocket. As we take the long road ahead all I have to say is, don't tread on me!

February

One week ago I was preparing to leave on a jet plane. Now here I am safely back home and settling into the routine once more. I enjoy the chance to get away. It puts all the work and daily humdrum into perspective. I am invigorated to come home and put my best efforts forward once more. It was not a particularly restful vacation in the literal sense. We were up early and usually out late walking most of the day. There were moments when a curious three year old and a five month old made us more than weary, but it was wonderful all the same. Pictures will follow soon.

How could it be February already? I feel like I just took my Christmas tree down. I am back to working my full time schedule. It really is hard to wake up Thursday and realize I still have one more day to go. I know, I got spoiled. The larger paycheck will help soften the blow.

I wrote a blog a few months titled hydration. I've been feeling dehydrated once again lately. It's not that life is bad..far from it. I just long for something fresh in my life. I was reading someone'e blog about the rain. They talked about God refreshinging us physically with rain as well as spiritually. I long for rain in my life. I want to feel the closeness of His presence saturating my being. I want to know His loving kindess in a new way. I know things will be different. I just don't know when.