And everything is speaking for allegiance

Yesterday I may or I may not have freaked out (may is true) and when it all comes down to it I was second-guessing what the Lord has and will provide in my life (note to self-don't do this). I was thinking that I knew what I needed and did not know how to reconcile the fact that I probably won't get what I want. At the time I was kind of jealous and mildly angry (read-sinful) and I knew it. I also don't know how to be sad about something (it makes sense I would be sad) without becoming jealous or angry. I also knew that I have a lot to be thankful for (note-I feel kind of cheesy that this post will be around thanksgiving, but I decided it is still good for me to continue in the hopes the joy and thankfulness can't live in the same heart as anger and jealousy).

Where to start...where to start...how about the fact that my biggest problem now and always is solved. Sin. I would stand before the Lord fully deserving Hell for my sin, nothing I can do could ever change that end. But it is solved, it is paid for in the blood of Jesus Christ...as Romans 8:1 says it Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. This is something I will/can never be thankful enough for.

Here are some other things in no particular order.

• I am thankful for a fiance who will listen to me even when I know I don't make sense
• I am thankful for URC that feeds me sermons of substance
• I am thankful for the body of saints that I stand by, pray for and who pray for me
• I am thankful for a brother who calls me at midnight telling me he has sent me links to some great Piper videos and I need to watch them
• I am thankful for hymns, reformed rap, acoustic sounding stuff, sappy country love songs (I know, I know...)
• I am thankful for parents who love me and pretty much "adopt" all my friends
• I am thankful for a best friend who still laughs when I am ridiculous
• I am thankful for my Rendezvous...I love it
• I am thankful for coffee, tea, diet coke and Perrier
• I am thankful for the kiddos that I spent my weekdays (and sometime nights) with and their parents who demonstrate biblical parenting
• I am thankful for scarves
• I am thankful for Pine Dive Gospel Church and their pastor Okey for showing me what a small, but faithful church looks like
• I am thankful for sweaters
• I am thankful for my friends who work for the growth of the Gospel at MSU, in Lansing, in Michigan, in the US, in the world
• I am thankful for a small group where a group of different people come together to know and make known our Savior
• I am thankful for the family at 541 Meadowlawn- their care, their hospitality, their example, their patience (in fact when I did freak out I ran over to that house)
• I am thankful for the friend I met in Philips Hall, who has been a great brother to talk to over the past five and a half years
• I am thankful for scented candles
• I am thankful for my puppy of 13 years
• I am thankful for an extended family who has always loved and been interested in my brother and I (we are the only ones in our age group)
• I am thankful for lakes and boats
• I am thankful for education
• I am thankful for people who let me sleep at their house and talk with me, watch NCIS, and play bananagrams till 2am
• I am thankful for games
• I am thankful for MACC Ave Church and their faithfulness to the Gospel in Detroit
• I am thankful for the color green
• I am thankful for ice cream night, which as far as I am concern does not need to include ice cream, just the people
• I am thankful for books
• I am thankful for friends who still go to MSU
• I am thankful for Netflix
• I am thankful for friends in North Carolina and South Korea and from Cali
• I am thankful for the saints of old who still line the way, retelling triumphs of his Grace
• I am thankful for MSU football
• I am thankful for asparagus, string cheese and garlic
• I am thankful

House Calls

This evening I was watching two small girls, the 2 year old watched Curious George (she has the other couple times I watched them). Anyways on my way the dad said something about how I must make more house calls then our pastor. This made me laugh...I do get to go to many great houses, with I am thankful for...and in majority of them I can tell you something about their fridge, laundry or other fun facts.

Engaged

So last Saturday I got engaged to Brad! I thought I would write it out so I would remember it better.

I had a feeling it was coming because I accidentally found out that he was talking to my parents a while ago and he was acting really weird. Very insistent about a Saturday night date, which he never really is without reason (Saturday nights we normally hang out with some of our others friends).

Anyways we went out for dinner at my favorite sushi restaurant called Omi (if you ever go there get the sesame spinach roll...seriously good, if you need someone to go with you...Call me). We then proceeded to go shopping for new jeans for Brad (one of our friends thought he proposed in Kohl. Thanks for not doing that Brad!) Next he told me he had to go to church to put something in a mailbox (I didn't believe that was all he needed to do, so I did the only thing I could think of told him I was not going in...I did). He had wrote me a nice note and put it in my church mailbox (I love my church mailbox). He then ask me to accompany him o the roof (It is a flat roof, that I like to sit on every chance I get). He played me a song he wrote for me on his guitar and ask me. Although I had seen this coming and had a rehearsed yes...all I said was really? He said yes. I said I should say Yes...I did.

He also told me there was no more surprises, but was still acting funny... and sure enough a bunch of our friends from church (young and old) were in my basement. A great end to a great night!

On mission

So sometimes I am not the best at articulating what I think and the question I have been butchering the most lately involves what I have been doing for work...watching kiddos...maybe even yours. (Sometimes I fall back on saying watching kiddos because babysitting makes me feel like I am in high school...sometimes I say nannying...)

Truth be told I currently love where I am right now and at the same time I know I won't do it forever. I was just telling a friend the other day that it's kind of like I get to be a missionary/servant for the local church...which I say fully knowing it's not as cool as holding babies in Africa, feeding the hunger in Chicago, caring for the lepors in Calcutta, (insert any number of other things mostly involving another country or the inner-city).

I do happen to know that it is not the most glamorous thing I could be doing, I happen to be in the habit of bringing spare clothes with me when I go some place, in case my clothes get peed on, pooped on, thrown up on, snotted on...you get the idea. This being said, I do think there is something cool about what I get to do. I get to come along side of Godly families, see how they "do life" and hopefully help (a very small amount) to grow these kids in the Lord. I also get to pray for these families (although I don't do this as much as I should). I pray that the kids never know anything besides the grace of the Christ, that there's no scandolous sin in their life, no clear rebellion, but they see their sin and know it was paid for at the cross of Christ. I also pray for the parents, for their marriages, for their own growth in holiness and for patience, strength and grace in the shepherding of their children.

Over the past year and a half I have had the opportunity to see the same 30+ kids on a regular basis either at their homes, their friend's homes or in a kids' bible study class I teach. In this group the Gospel is spoken regularly in 4 different languages to kids who I pray will grow up to be solid doctors, teachers, firefighters, mothers, garbage truck drivers, chefs, pastors, engineers, missionaries and whatever else they want to be all to the glory and praise of God the Father. I pray that God uses them to take the Gospel to lands I'll never see, to people I'll never meet, to meetings and classes I'll never sit through. I pray the Lord uses these dear children to expand his kingdom greatly, and me, I pray that he gives me vision to see what I do as such.



And this is my prayer:that you love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ-to the glory and praise of God. Philippians 1:9-11