Day 1 of change of FAITH

For day 1 I was made aware of at least 4 times when I was living in fear, instead of faith.

One specific instance was when we were supposed to be leaving the house at 1230 to meet someone. It was 12 and there was no way we were all going to be ready to leave by then. I was stressing out and running around like crazy when I suddenly realized that I was letting worry control me. I reminded myself of the truth - we didn't have to meet the guy at a specific time, he was flexible and nothing was important or urgent. So, I didn't need to stress about that. Wow, that totally helped me relax.

Later in the day we were driving and we all smelled a really bad, messed-up-car smell. The first thing I thought was, "Oh, I hope that's not our car. We don't have the money to get it fixed if it is and what if it breaks down right here on the freeway? What will we do?" Etcetera. I almost immediately realized I was being too fearful about it all and reminded myself of the rational truth - if our car broke down, someone would help us get home and God would provide a way for us to drive around. That's all there is to it. Trust God to be faithful because He is.

Later in the evening, we went to eat with someone and the woman mentioned something about fear and faith. I told her what God had shown me about fear and my kids and wanting to change and she encouraged me by saying that "the Holy Spirit is faithful to show us what we need to know to help us change." Awesome : )

p.s. By the way, the car smell wasn't from ours! : )

For He has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Hebrews 13:5

My 30 Day Challenge to trust my Father God

I want to trust my Maker with my heart, my life, everything.

It's hard to put your hand into the hand of Someone you can't see.

It's difficult to keep taking steps forward when you aren't hearing the voice of Someone guiding you.

It's not easy to live your life to the tune of another world you don't see, when most everyone around you is living their life by what they see and hear and feel.

Especially when there aren't rules to how to live this life. I can try to make rules for it, but then I end up living in religion. Living by the law. Which is what I did my whole life. It's freeing to live by the Spirit, but also difficult and confusing for me to figure out what that looks like!

(I want to be like a baby, with COMPLETE peace and assurance in my Daddy.)

I'm quite sick of living in so much fear. Fear of what I will do if this happens, or what I should do if that happens. It's just wondering and worrying about the stupid little word IF.

I've lived in a ridiculous amount of fear since I was little, I've said I was sorry, tried to not live that way, and did it yet again. But, when I see my children reacting and responding out of fear, that really bothers me. This is not something that I want to pass on to them. Yes, I may be confused about how to live my life, but I don't want them to grow up with confusion, doubt, etc. I want them to start out with the peace that I am still searching for.

And the thought occurred to me, "It takes 21 days to break a habit."

I grew up living in fear. It is a way of life for me. I can repent of it all I want, but something has to change. I have to learn how to live differently.

So, I'm going to take a 30 day challenge. I am going to try to make myself completely aware of all of the times throughout the day when I am tempted to fear. Instead of listening to the lie of fear, I will replace it with the truth.

Because the truth is that Every good and perfect gift is from above. The truth is that God wants good things for us. The truth is that God wants us to live in victory HERE ON EARTH. The truth is that God will work everything into good. The truth is so much more than I am able to grasp right now.

My view of God is that He can do everything and anything, but He doesn't want to do it for me. He might step in and help me if He thinks I REALLY, REALLY, need it, but He wants me to figure out everything for myself. But that's not true! I want to quit living life realistically. I want to quit being self-reliant. I want to walk in faith and live by the Spirit. Exciting, fun, and a huge adventure.

Here I go...................................Day One starts...............NOW!!!!!!!!

Thanks to pdphoto for the photo.

Passover and Easter and Family Traditions

Now that my oldest is 5, I'm really starting to think about traditions and why we celebrate what we celebrate. I had a lot of traditions growing up, my husband had next to none. So, it makes me really think about what I want to do with my kids; they are at the age where they will remember what went on during the holidays.

Thinking about this past weekend of Easter was interesting. Easter is a holiday that is traditionally celebrated by the church as the day of Jesus' resurrection. Many "church people" are offended that Americans celebrate it as a bunny day, easter egg hunt day, etc. However, a couple of hundred years ago, the Puritans didn't celebrate Easter at all - it was determined that it was a pagan holiday. Because that's what it was originally. Christians in other countries were actually killed if they celebrated the Passover and they were ordered to celebrate Easter instead.

I didn't celebrate the Jewish holidays when I was a child and I don't plan to celebrate them all now; however, the Passover is a very amazing holiday. If one can truly understand the culture and holidays and traditions of the people of Jesus' life, it is AMAZING how much more clearly it is to see that Jesus is the Messiah.

I don't think there is any point to dressing up in fancy clothes, going to church, and having an easter egg hunt. We didn't even go to church this year for Easter though we did make resurrection cookies and have friends over for a good meal. I want our traditions to be centered around fun and friends and family and relationships.

Jesus' death and resurrection completely restored our relationship with our Father God and provided a way for us to be a friend with Him once again. For this reason, I want to start celebrating Passover. Small, large, with friends, with just the family at home - I'm not going to be a stickler about tradition, but I do want to celebrate Jesus, my Passover Lamb. And if we end up doing an easter egg hunt every so often, and eating ham and potato salad on Easter, so be it.

In regards to the Passover, I'm just going to mention a few incredible things about the crucifixion of Jesus and the Passover Lamb. This is from Chuck Pierce and Robert Heidler.

1. The Passover Lamb had to be selected on the 10th day of the 1st month. During Jesus' time, the Passover lambs were born in Bethlehem and led to Jerusalem by the Mount of Olives and through the sheep gate. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, went to the Mount of Olives, and entered Jerusalem through the sheep gate on the 10th day of the 1st month.

The people chose Jesus as the Messiah and Passover Lamb as they waved palm branches and shouted "Blessed is He that comes in the name of the LORD! Save us, Son of David!"

2. The Lamb had to be examined. Only an umblemished, spotless, perfect lamb was chosen for the Passover. While Jesus was in Jerusalem, He was thoroughly examined - He was asked many trying questions by teachers of the Law. They tried over and over to trap Him but they admittedly could find no fault, no blemish in Him.

3. During Passover the people had to cast all the leaven out of their house. The leaven represented impurity. When Jesus was in Jerusalem, He purged the house of God completely of the moneychangers. He cleaned out His Father's house.

4. The Passover Lamb was taken to the altar for public display. This occurred on the 14th day of the 1st month. Everyone saw the lamb on the altar. Jesus was nailed to the cross and lifted for everyone to see of the 14th day of the 1st month.

5. The Lamb was killed at 3 p.m. every Passover. One priest blew a shofar at the temple, another priest killed the lamb and said, "It is finished!" Jesus was on the cross on the day of Passover and at 3 p.m. He cried out, "It is finished!" and gave up His Spirit. That phrase, "It is finished," means, "The debt has been paid in full."

Thank You, Jesus, for being My Passover Lamb and restoring me to fellowship with my Father and Creator. I love You.

Thanks to www.pdphoto.org for the image. :)

Choose Life!!

We all went to the abortion clinic today to hold signs and pray. We're nearing the end of the 40 Days For Life campaign so there were a lot of people out there standing together.

Last week a woman showed up with her granddaughter - a little girl who had been saved from an abortion last year and then been adopted.

Here is a picture of one of my kids sitting in the stroller holding a sign (sideways : )

Locks Of Love

Little girls playing princess - without any hair to comb.

Fixing the hair of their little dolls - but with no hair of their own.

I didn't mean for that to rhyme. But seriously, I can't imagine being a little girl (or boy even) with no hair. I've been thinking about it lately and, inspired by my cousin Emily, who has given her hair 4 or 5 times, I decided to chop off my hair so a little child can have some of her own to play with.

It had to be at least 10 inches so here we go....

I miss it. But I think it will make a nice wig.

And mine will grow back.

Locks of Love provides hairpieces for children who suffer from hair loss. It can be short term (radiation therapy, severe burns) or long term (alopecia, genetic conditions).

Check out www.locksoflove.org

Mid night ramblings

It is 6 in the morning. I have been up since 3:40. I woke up with bad dreams and asked Irish to pray for me and then he got up at 4 to get ready to go to work, so I got up and got some food together for him....and I didn't want to go back to sleep so here I sit.

I found this great song on youtube by John Waller. click here to listen It has some really powerful words. It's called "Our God Reigns Here"

I came across this interesting blog. Don't you want to make this yummy dessert? SO GROSS! Kitty Litter Cake


Ok. I should try to get some sleep in before the kids wake up! In an hour! Yowzers!

Jay Leno Show/Jessica Alba

I got to see the taping of the Jay Leno Show on Monday. That was really neat. It was my first time sitting in on a show like that and it was a lot of fun. There was a lot of "hurry up and wait" going on but it was an experience.

The instructions specifically stated that you could not bring a cell phone, bags, etc. into the taping and you might as well just leave them in the car. They took all of our cell phones at the taping of So You Think You Can Dance, so I decided it would be best to just leave my phone behind. As I walked away from the car I realized how weird it felt to not have a form of communication on my person. To think that I used to never carry a cell phone around!

Irish was at home with the kids and it felt weird to be gone from them so long (well, 4 hours isn't that long) without a way to get in touch with anyone.

And as soon as I got in line I thought, "Why in the world did I come here by myself?" I realized I was going to have to wait in line for about 2 hours with nothing to read, no one to text, and no one to talk to in person! And I am not the kind of person who is good at making little small talk!

But there was a service dog there who broke the ice for a lot of us, so I pushed myself a little bit and had some nice conversations with interesting people:

2 middle aged men from San Diego, visiting for the day with their daughters who were close to my age. They made sure to let me know those were their daughters and that they would never date anyone that young : )

A guy from New Jersey who was visiting his brother. He definitely had a Jersey accent although he lived in Texas for the first 16 years of his life! He told me that he dropped his accent overnight because he was bullied in school for his Texas drawl!

An older couple with their service dog. He is paralyzed from the waist down and the dog picks up things for him, brings him his clothes in the morning, opens and shuts doors, etc. She's been with him to see a TON of shows and I hear she likes Alex Trebek. :)

The show was fun. I got to sit on the 2nd row which was awesome! Jessica Alba was a guest and was just on the stage right near to where I was sitting. Seeing her up close and off-camera (she's a really nice person) made me see for the first time how actors are just people doing their job. Yeah, they make a lot of money and have to deal with annoying papparazzi, but at the end of the day, they just want to go home to their family and live their life. The attention and the glamor are just normal to them, a part of everyday life. I always knew that but now I actually know it : )

So, Jessica Alba came down and sat right in front of us to get her picture taken before she left. A girl jumped in front of me before the pic was taken so you can only see the top of my hair. Oh well.....I'm to the right of the blond with the scarf. (I signed up for Twitter just to get this pic off of JA's page! ha ha! I'm crazy I know!)

The guys in the front with her were hilarious.

So, that's it, I guess. I'm grateful Jonathan stayed home with the kids so I could do something fun by myself, even though it was a little weird trying to talk to complete strangers! Oh well, I've got to learn sometime!