Morgans First Day of Big School K-5 and other pics

Here was her bday at BuildABear.





sweet girl

me and my baby

Kenley, James, Bre, Morgan, and Maddie

morgan at church!

her getting ready to ask the congregation to pray.

So before she left for school today she asked me to please not get out of the car
she wanted to go in on her own.

When she got back in the car I asked her a million questions. The funniest thing she talked about was a talk she was having with some of the kids. She was telling them that Jesus did in fact rise from the grave and her and another kid argued because he said that Jesus did not rise from the grave. Of course we told her she was right. That's some heavy duty K-5 talk on the first day. haha. She said she had a bad day. I was already hormonal, then sick with fever, so none of it all stacked well with me today. I was so sad and missed her.

her nap mat, new keens, and that ugly bag.

come on mom

Beth Moore's Schedule for 2011

CLICK HERE for her schedule for 2011. I can't wait!

Rabbi Jesus-- The Good Shepherd--Part 2

Psalm 100:3 Know that the LORD is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

I was talking to Morgan today and telling her how we are the LORD's people, the sheep of His pasture. Like a light bulb coming on she exclaims, "Mom, I am a pastor! We are all pastors!" Praise the Lord that we are not all pastors...amen! However I do love that verse.

I want to head back to the book I mentioned in the previous post before diving back into what it looks like to be a disciple of Christ.

One of the most popular images of Jesus is as the "good shepherd." who hasn't seen painting after painting depicting Jesus with a lamb slung tenderly across his shoulders? This image comes from Jesus himself, who said: " I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me--just as the Father knows me and I know the Father--and I lay down my life for the sheep" (John 10:14-15). His words conjure another favorite image, that of the shepherd in Psalm 23:1-3a:

The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not be in want...
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he restores my soul.

Any rabbi worth his salt would have known that the mere mention of the word "shepherd" would have caused the rest of that passage to float through the minds of his listeners. Even now we find great comfort in this psalm.

They go on to write:

But Jesus was doing more than evoking a comforting image of himself. He was also evoking an image of power, because shepherd imagery is often used to describe kings.

Here is where it gets really good! What is shepherd imagery used to describe? Kings. Although some of you have studied David and seen him come from the fold of sheep to be anointed as future king over the people of Israel (2 Samuel 16) we normally don't think of a king when we think of a shepherd. Praise God for that little power packed verse tucked in the same passage when Samuel was searching for the king to anoint and David was not yet standing with his brothers:
7 But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."
Morgan was getting in trouble today for her attitude and she said, "mom, I need a heart like yours." Well, I sure wouldn't go that far AT ALL. Yet her theology is so correct. The Lord looks on the heart regardless of outward appearances there is nothing hidden from the Creator of our hearts. The true prophets of the Lord were to lead, teach, guard, and guide the people of Israel from running after other harmful things. They were to teach them the word of the Lord.
Just like them shepherds performed the following duties: They would herd, tend, and guard the sheep. I love that picture of unity, then tending to their very basic needs and guarding them from any harmful pestilence. The Lord, our Good Shepherd is indeed good. He will never lie to us. He always has our best interest at heart and He will guard us jealously. His love is so measureless, so concerned, and so intimate. He knows us. He made us. We are His. A shepherd was a keeper, a defender, a protector and a guardian of those entrusted to his/her care. I love that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ (Romans 8:38) and how we have a defender alright. If anyone touches a child of God, they touch the apple of God's eye Zech 2:8 (the cornea metaphorically speaking. The most important part of the eye.)

So, I am just sick. I finished my post and it erased from this portion down.

Let me just try to persevere and remember my point...ugh!!

In Isaiah, for instance, King Cyrus of Persia is called a "shepherd" (44:28), and in Psalm 78:71-72 King David is pictured as "shepherding" his people. Most interestingly, in Ezekiel 34, God expresses his anger at the leaders of his people by describing them as "bad shepherds." He then promises to save his flock and to send a good shepherd to lead them. Could this be what Jesus was thinking of in John 10?
Listen to what Herod's counselors told him after his encounter with the wise men who had come looking for the newborn king of Israel. They quoted Micah 5:2 (See Matthew 2:6):
6" 'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.'"

When Jesus called himself "a shepherd" in John 10, he was hinting at his identity as the messianic king, the future ruler of God's kingdom.
Such a reference would have astonished his listeners. But they would have been stunned by another allusion. Listen to what Jesus says in Matthew 25:31-32:

"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

Now listen to Ezekiel 34:17:
" 'As for you, my flock, this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will judge between one sheep and another, and between rams and goats.

What is so stunning about Jesus' words is that by using the metaphor of a shepherd sorting his sheep, he is linking himself to God, who is often called the "Shepherd of Israel." No doubt many of his listeners were shocked. Others would have been scandalized. We need first-century ears to hear Jesus' claims to oneness with God the Father.

So are the teachers we are sitting under pointing us to Christ or away? Are we becoming more intimately acquainted with Christ or are we in it for what we think He has to offer us? I asked Morgan to go to the store with me the other day and she asked me if I was going to buy her something. I told her no so she said she did not want to go. We can so be like that with Jesus where if we feel like nothing is in it for us then we don't want to go along for the ride. However, we miss truly knowing and beholding the glory of God when we settle for the things that would so easily lead us astray. Christ is the good Shepherd. His love is a purifying, protecting, measureless love. It is in the intimacy that He leads us and none of that will happen by accident. We must sharpen our swords and stay alert.

Not really important post compared to the last one....

1-this is part of my old shutter project for the fireplace. They were UGLY brown.

I bought this table for 6 dollars at the Thrift Store. I spray painted it Krylon lavender. Morgan loves purple. It is for her room. Like she needs anything else. I am going to do some other work on it.


I got this for a really SWEET price at Hobby Lobby. I just love it.


This little end table was 20 dollars.

This is my favorite from Hobby Lobby. It was $39. I love it because I have a lot of bookshelfs going on in the house but none in my room which is sort of my sanctuary of study. I normally have books in piles all over my room and the guest bedroom from where I am reading at night.

Rabbi Jesus--Part 1

I have been a bit absent as of late but with good reason. I have been extremely busy with just life in general. Also, I have had the holy privilege to serve some of the most precious women that I know through bible study. We have been going through "So Long Insecurity" by Beth Moore on Tuesday nights and "Ruth" by Kelly Minter on Thursday mornings. I have had to prepare much and also deal with my own insecurities in the midst of teaching on the grand subject. Well, all that is to say that I know several of you are about to love some of the things I am going to share because you dig Jesus. So, what I am going to do is share some wonderful treasures that I am learning from "Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus" by Ann Spangler and Lois Tverberg. Out of all of the reading I have done not one book besides the bible has been as intriguing to me as this book. So here goes:

"Disciples of the wise increase peace in the world, for it is said, "And all your children shall be taught of the Lord and great shall be the peace of your children." - Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 64a.

I can not tell you the times in the last 11 years where I have read the gospels and marveled and wondered at the call of the disciples. I am a very visual learner so I would try to picture Jesus walking up on the shore of the Sea of Galilee (Matthew 4) and calling Simon Peter and Andrew to be his disciples. I would wonder if He had some mysterious glow about Him or Holy aura and the disciples just drop their nets, leave their money, and etc sort of in a trance. No. This was a common thing for a Rabbi to train up people under Him.
First of all what in the world is a disciple? In Ancient Judaism it was customary for a Rabbi to begin his ministry at the age of 30. So, it makes perfect sense that Jesus' earthly ministry began when He was 30. I once had a girl tell me that the Lord would really be able to use me when I turned 30. Praise God He uses infants and children to ordain praise. I can't tell you how He has used my child to minister to my own life and heart. It was custom for a Rabbi to have at least ten or so disciples under him. They would walk where he walked, stay where he stayed, learn from him, eat with him and so on. Take a look at Elijah and Elisha in the Old Testament if you want to get a glimpse of the kind of relationship. A phrase was penned in 2 century BC that was attributed to Yose ben Yoezer that speaks of the Rabbi (which Jesus was a Jewish Rabbi lest we forget) "Let your house be a meeting place for the rabbis, and cover yourself in the dust of their feet, and drink in their words thirstily." So, the disciples were in essence what we would call modern day apprentices or an easier word, a learner. I loved this...I am quoting straight from page 58 of the book:

"The disciples would have shared the difficult life of their rabbi. But they would also have experienced great joy in the midst of it. After all, they were the talmidim of an extraordinary rabbi, learning from him about the deep things of God."

Let me break real quick to define talmidim:
"Talmid (tahl-MEED); plural, talmidim, tahl-mee-DEEM). A disciple or student, one who dedicated himself to learning a rabbi's understanding of Scripture and his way of living it out. In Greek, a disciple is a mathetes (plural, mathetai). In both languages the words mean "student" or "learner." A female disciple would be a talmidah in Hebrew, or mathetria in Greek. But were there any female disciples? Surprisingly, in Acts 9:36 Dorcas (Tabitha) is called a mathetria, a (female) disciple."

Stay with me here and please don't get lost in the fact that her name was Dorcas...haha.

Modern Christians have sometimes been confused about what discipleship is, equating it with "discipline." Of course discipline is vital to the spiritual life. Jesus himself said, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me" (Mark 8:34). But the overall goal of discipleship is not simply to grow in self-discipline, but to be transformed into the likeness of Christ.

Imagine for a moment if someone were to define parenting only as discipline. Of course children need discipline. But we would have great cause for worry if discipline was the only thing a parent focused on.

Sometimes we hear the word "disciple" and conclude that it's too hard to become one. But think about the alternative. To refuse to become Jesus' disciples is to consign ourselves to perpetual childhood and condemn ourselves to a waisted, frustrating life. The more we enter into relationship with Rabbi Jesus, the more joy we will experience. To become more like Christ will deepen our relationships and allow us to live more authentically. It may not always be easy but it will certainly be good, and, as we follow him, we will find ourselves living with greater passion and purpose, experiencing a life of greater fulfillment."

We also can glean from Luke 6:11-13 that Jesus prayed about the chosing of His disciples.


Well, I am just about to pass out. It is almost 1AM and I have gone non-stop (glory!) all day long. Tomorrow I want to blog about the Rabbi-Disciple relationship/bond...it gets REALLY good.

Any thoughts?