God's still revealing Himself

We're always learning. It seems lately that the Holy Spirit has been speaking to me in a concentrated manner lately. It seems that every time I turn around, he's teaching me something new or showing more of his Glory through the people I meet and the experiences that I have daily.

As I've mentioned in blogs past, in June I lost my job, two weeks after purchasing a new home. I remember that day so clearly, down to the dark blue faded jeans and red collared shirt I was wearing. Since that sunny day, Jesus has proven over and over to me that I'm in the palm of his hand. He cares for me.

I'm in a new Beth Moore study called "Believing God". The Lord has definetly impressed onto my heart that many of the struggles that I have, and the heartache that I experience is because I believe so little. I've always struggled with believing that God wants GOOD THINGS for me. He's not vengeful, or uninterested in my life. He is concerned with all the details, despite how I may or may not be feeling that day.

In Week 3 "Believing God Can Do What He Says He Can Do day 1 "Permission to Believe" Beth Moore states:

"Much of the body of Christ is paralyzed by unbelief. Our unbelief has likely ushered us into a frustrating, disabling cylce: we believe little, so we see little, so we continue to believe little and see little."

She goes on to state that:

"We seek God primarily to find Him, not to see Him perform. .. Sometimes God may prioritize the faith required to continue trusting Him when we don't get what we ask over the faith required to receive it."

When I was doing my study this morning I was reading Matthew 14:22-31. A verse that caught my attention was "Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him..." Thoughts have passed through my head today...Jesus didn't dilly dally and wait for his sweet time to lift up Peter. IMMEDIATELY he reached out! I believe the same is true for all of us. When we cry out for help, he immediately is at our side.

In Luke 7:11-15 it tells a story about a woman who was a widow and had only one son. Her son died and Jesus approached the procession. It says that "When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, "Don't cry". Jesus came after the fact that her son died. He knew her son died, but he used the pain of losing her son, to bring healing and allow himself to be glorified through raising her son from the dead. Sometimes Jesus has us go through things that he will later redeem. Just because we don't know why something is happening, doesn't mean that it's happening in vain. Everything brings Him glory if we choose to bring Him glory through the situation. It's all about choice. How are you choosing to view your issues?

Look what Hurricane Ike blowed in

Whew.....


...this week has been a whirlwind.....

Sunday morning/afternoon was absolutely beautiful despite the tendency to be a little windy. Matthew and I headed to our church, we went to the 1130 service, dropped off the transcribing machine that I had been using afterward, and then we walked out into the blinding but gorgeous sunlight. We had packed up the two laptops, I grabbed my current read The Wizard of OZ book one and we drove the some odd miles down to Panera to grab some lunch, surf the web and get engulfed in a good book. Halfway through our time there the lights flashed. The internet stopped working. We didn't think anything of it and decided to pack up and go back to our home. We got back to our house and found that the garage door wouldn't go up....our electricity was shut off. By that time the wind was really picking up. The sky started to change to a dull gray and we just thought a storm was brewing and would soon let loose. Fat chance. The sky had much more on it's mind that just a simple rain storm.

I decided to go sit out on the front porch in my bucket seat. I thought I'd read a couple more chapters about the great adventure through OZ and listen to the wind blowing through the huge maples that line our street. Let me just tell you that it's NOT one of the smartest ideas I've ever come up with.

As I was sitting there I soon realized that the wind was picking up way too much. I had never seen it blow like this before....but I stayed outside. I had just finished the day before the book Prince Caspian, book number 2 in the Chronicles of Narnia Series by C.S. Lewis. In the book Narnia has magical trees and those trees come to life. Since this was fresh in my mind I started talking to the trees in a muffled voice "Mappie (since our tree's a maple), you've got to stay strong for me. You're too close to the house and if you fall over, you'lll crush our new home and you'll mess up the front lawn. Mappie stay strong". About 10 minutes later I heard a huge CRAAACK! I had no idea what large branch was cracking but I wanted to get out of the way!!!! I'm sure it was a funny site to see me scrambling trying to get out of the fold up bucket seat. It actually brought me to tears because I was so scared. Thanks be to God that it was the limb out by the road. The limb cracked right in half, was still connected and twisted backwards to land in our front yard.

We didn't know quite what to do during the rest of the storm. I was so shook up that I decided to go upstairs and organize all of our bills in a filing cabinet. I had been putting it off for quite some time. After the storm was over we walked out to our backyard and our HUGE walnut tree had decided to drop all of it's walnuts. We started that very night to pick them all up. You couldn't take a step without your footing being uneven. I'm surprised we didn't break our necks or twist our ankles. Matthew started griping but all I could say was "Hey they are all down now. Now we won't be picking up these smelly green things every weekend for the next two months"

For the next four days we were without electric. We stayed with my parents two night as I had to get up early the next morning to go to work and needed to use the hairdryer. I've learned a couple things through this storm. DON'T take the electricity for granted, we are blessed to have what we have. DON'T decide to stay outside to "hear" the wind when it's raging at 75 mph, really NOT smart. DON'T look up!

EMPATH
You can sense the emotions of those around you. You can feel what they are feeling as though their feelings are your own. Intuitively, you are able to see the world through their eyes and share their perspective. You do not necessarily agree with each person's perspective. You do not necessarily feel pity for each person's predicatment--that would be sympathy, not Empathy. You do not necessarily condone the choices each person makes, but you do understand. You hear the unvoiced questions.

1.Empathy
2.Strategic
3.Input
4.Belief
5.Developer

So these are my top 5 strengths. A job that I'm interviewing for had me take a strengths finder test to find my top 5 strengths and this is what they are. Some are more shocking than the others but empathy hit the nail on the head. I've been told throughout my life that I'm too sensitive, that I need to let things roll off my back and that I think about things too much. My question in response was why is that such a bad thing? Now I'm beginning to understand that this is the way that God made me. I shouldn't be made to feel, or people tell me that I shouldn't be this way. It's engrained in my being. This is part of who I am.

Now I'm not a very political person. I don't like watching Meet the Press every Sunday morning like my husband does (the big history buff). There are certain things that I stand for (that goes along with my belief strength), but I've never been one of those staunch political people who shove their belief on others and make others feel that they are "bad Americans" if they believe something different. (i.e. Democratic ideas). There are certain things that are very important to me that deal with presidents....(1)their view on abortion (2) how they treat the poor and the misuse of funds for the rich and (3) their view on the environment, oil drilling and the progression of alternative fuel choices.

Every night last week we watched the Democratic National Convention. My husband was glued to the tv with the lights turned low, two pillows behind his head, and the slight hum of the ceiling fan cooling his bare chest after a hard day out in the yard. I on the other hand was in my running clothes, the reading light over my head with my fluffy bed pillow propping me up, my book on my lap, and cool peanut butter ice cream with caramel topping waiting to be devoured. I was half paying attention. Certian topics that were brought up caught my attention but other than that the mood was set for prime time reading!!! When Barack spoke though I listened in Thursday night. For me a person who up until recently was a convinced republican, has now been riding the fence during this election. I needed to hear what this man had to say.

Some of my views were changed, others stayed the same. Something though that has really been catching my attention though is the references to Obama being the "antichrist". I've been thinking about this alot and it's really starting to bother me. Maybe it's the empathy that is deeply rooted into my core, but I think it's wrong to say that he could be the antichrist. Who are we to say? Aren't God's thoughts greater than ours? Isn't He really the only one that knows?

On the drive up to Mansfield today I sat in the warm car with the air tangeling my hair and thought about how terrible it would make me feel if someone called me the antichrist. How would that make Barack or McCain feel? How would it make anyone feel? Who are we to judge? How does that make God feel, God's child....called the antichrist?

I believe that as followers of Christ we need to be on the lookout, but who are we to make judgements? In the Word God doesn't talk about it being our responsibility to accuse others of being the antichrist.
He says,
"Therefore keep watch....So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him." (Matt. 24:42, 44)

...Keep watch...

cultivating less weeds, more fruit

"Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man. Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely, who conducts his affairs with justice. Surely he will never be shaken; a righteous man will be remembered forever. He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD. His heart is secure, he will have no fear;" ~Psalm 112: 4-8

It's been a tough month. Dealing with the loss of my best friend CoCo has been rough. Even more than I had originally thought that it would be.

Throughout college, each time I would come home to visit, and when the end of the weekend was approaching I would start to pack up my bags and say my farewells. CoCo would always get special treatment. I would spend an exaggerated amount of time with her. Petting her ears, scratching her belly, and wispering in her ear to be "a good dog" (even though she was ALWAYS good) and that I loved her. Mom started preparing me way back then to say my goodbye because who knew what would happen. Four years later I was still having this ritual with her, and making each time meaningful and special. I wanted her to know that I loved her. In a sad way, I made her invicible because now I have difficulty coming to the realization that she isn't here anymore. Her presence isn't gracing my world. She is only here in spirit and in memory.

I've been learning through this time of loss. Through the struggles of balancing the finances of a house with partial income, breaking free from spiritual strongholds in my life, and handeling the new, but fun responsibilites of new homeownership while also searching for a job has been interesting. I've come to the realization that the only opinion in the entire planet that actually matters is the opinion of Christ. I've also learned that it's not so important what the actual trial is about. It's the character that you're building through the trial that actually matters.

In God's own little ways he has been encouraging me through the sounds of our new backyard, the comments of individuals passing by on their bicycles while we are working in the yard, and the comment of my 5 year old nephew Tyler about our home. These are God's way of encouraging me to press on. Press on! He'll bring beauty from the ashes.

On a different note, I thought I would show some progress of our flowerbeds since we purchased our home on May 15th. It's great to actually see progress through images for at times it seems like we are hardly making any progress at all. We have big plans but limited muscle strength. We're hoping by the end of next weekend we'll have the flower bulbs relocated, the grass seed planted and be on our way to fewer weeds!

...laid at rest...

We buried our best friend yesterday morning. Mom and Dad were in Michigan on vacation up at the lake and Matt and I had come home earlier that week. Thursday night we received a call from mom stating that they were coming home early because CoCo wasn't doing good at all. In the background I hear howls of pain that I had never heard before from her. Mom stated that it didn't look good and before she closed, she said "Kim you need to prepare yourself for the worst". The next morning at 5am we got the call. Mom was in tears and she said, "Kim, we're going to the vet, this will be CoCo's last day. She can't walk, and is alot of pain." Luckily, I had fell asleep in my clothes the night before and I jumped up, put my shoes on and was in the car within 5 minutes.

My worst day had come. I arrived at mom and dad's. The car was on, dad was driving and mom was in the backseat with CoCo comforting her. She wasn't howling anymore, but right when I saw her, I knew this was the end. I opened the back door, CoCo lifted her head and shoulder, I sat down and then she placed her head on my lap for me to rub and pet her. It brough flashbacks to my mind of when we first picked her out. She sat on my lap, 15 years earlier, and I petted her head. This was coming full circle.

The car ride went so fast. I whispered to her that I loved her, would always love her, and that I would never forget her. We took her in, and watched her breath her last. I can only hope that she went straight from our arms, to the arms of Jesus. My hope is that she's in heaven with him, playing and running.

The past day has been pretty rough. I stayed at my parents and rubbed CoCo's head while the grave was being buried. I positioned her on the blanket so that she would look "beautiful" for all eternity. And I watched her be placed in the grave and the dirt be piled in. My mom and I made a boquet for her later that afternoon and we painted a rock with her name on it. My dad made a cross and also placed in as the headstone. This all just happened so fast.

I've been trying not to play the game of "would of, could of and should of". It only brings more pain. There is so many things that I could of done, but I've been trying to not live in that kind of place. I know that I loved her with all my heart, and I tried to care for her as much as I could with what I had in me. I hope that she knows that I will ALWAYS love her and that she can never be replaced. You'll always be my CoComokers, my Colimolie, my babes. I love you, for all eternity CoCo!!