Keeps Us On Our Toes

This past week has certainly been the craziest that we have endured since we began this journey together. Last Monday we found out that Ben would not be able to keep his job at the Springs Campus of Griffith Centers for Children, thankfully this did not make him unemployed he has been transferred to the Larkspur Campus of GCC.

Since we had been planning on moving we spoke to the leasing office to see if we could keep our lease for another 12 months. Needless to say this has been a simple reminder that life is always uncertain.

Growing Up

In the past year I have learned a lot about myself and life, I have really taken back my name and come into control of my life. This is still a constant struggle for me in a world that bombards us with a self-image that is hardly attainable. My new fear is that I will be unable to maintain the image that I have. The voices from my past tell me each time I look in the mirror that what I am is hardly good enough.

Today I go shopping for wedding dresses with my best friend, I know that as I watch her come out looking lovely and breathtaking I will still be struggling with the thoughts that I am hardly beautiful. The truth about today and most days though, is that it is not about me. Through counseling and many tearful nights I am beginning, for the first time, to own myself and to own my beauty. The man who holds my heart continues to defy the voices of the past by proclaiming that I am Captivating!

Areas of Gray

Each and everyday we realize that blessings have been showered upon us. There are so many people and individuals around the world who struggle everyday. How can we change ourselves and change our lives so that we are able to help others who are not nearly as blessed as we are? How can we make ourselves available to change the world?

Real Faith

My whole life I have been searching for a Christian faith that is real and meaningful to my life. It can be easy to forget about this pursuit in the chaos of everyday life. I want a faith that challenges me to love and live as Christ did. In The Last Word and the Word After That, Brian McLaren offers a perspective of faith that I find to be true.

"From beginning to end, our faith is situated. It's an unfolding story, and every story requires a setting. It's news - and not just news that happened but news that's still happening, and that means it requires a context. It's an ongoing movement and message that always takes place in a medium. It's all about incarnation - about God entering and embracing our story. So if you want to abandon the story, if you want to get out of time and culture and into some timeless neutral zone above the fray, you're trying to get out of the very thing that God is deeply into. Maybe some other religion or philosophy can deal with timelessness, but not real Christianity. It's forever timely, not timeless."

The Elusive Search

"How did a spirituality such as Christianity, a spirituality that speaks eternity, a world without end, of forgiveness of sins and a mysterious union with the Godhead, come to be represented by a moralist agenda and a trickle-down economic theory? And more important, how did a man born of Eastern decent, a man who called Himself Prince of Peace, a man whom the sacred writings describe eating with prostitutes and providing wine at weddings and healing the sick and ignoring any political plot, a man who wants to turn the other cheek and give all our possessions if we are sued, become associated with- no, become the poster boy for- a Western moral and financial agenda communicated through the rhetoric of war and ignorant of the damage it is causing to a world living in poverty?" -Searching For God Knows What Donald Miller

Our dream and our calling in life is to be missionaries, and mind you not the kind of missionaries who "evangelize" but the kind who venture into the world and share the love that Christ came to expose. This coming summer we may be taking a trip to Africa... Our first trip to this continent and our first exposure to this dream. Prayers would be greatly appreciated as we figure out the details, such as cost, and as we learn what the Lord has for us.

Coloring Outside the Lines

Not everything in life is black and white. Each day I discover something new about myself and the relationships I have with those around me. I have been reading the book by Donald Miller titles "Searching for God Knows What," and I feel like that on a daily basis. The truth is that everything we do is powered by relationships, and nothing we do is powered by formulas and steps. When my following of Christ turns away from a mystery and becomes a routine, that is when everything else falls apart. So how does this idea play into modern "Christianity" and the establishment of the church? I just wonder how much we are missing the point... I think that I will stop staying inside the lines and start being like the kids I care for. Very little is black and white, so why do we insist on thinking there is no gray area?