In No Particular Order

So tonight I was able to teach at Underwood Baptist Church in Montevallo, Alabama. I was so thankful for the opportunity. They were such a blessing...I'm not sure that I was...ha! No but really I am usually way over excited, nervous, and I always have more material and not enough time. I felt sorry for them after it was over.
I was so thankful to their church and their pastor (Randy Hollingsworth) for opening their church home to us. It was encouraging to see him operating in the calling that the Lord has placed on his life. I am thankful for him and his wife because they really care about igniting a passion for truth and authenticity in the hearts and lives of God's people. I was only able to get a couple of pictures.





This is Mia. She is just precious to say the least. She has the most beautiful voice and the sweetest heart. Nikol Whitten taught first and it really convicted me about how I will sometimes forfeit extra time that I could spend with the Lord for sleep. She really encouraged us to seek after the Lord and to know Him and walk with Him daily.


Here is that sweet baby of mine at the State Fair. This was the first one I had been to (to my knowledge)...it was not a good start when I saw (and smelled) these animals right when we walked in. She had the BEST time.



This picture cracks me up so bad. I swear besides some friends we saw from church, I think we were the first ones there...kind of creepy!

My heart is so tender to that sweet baby girl. She means so much to me!

I scooped her up from the car and put her in bed a minute ago and had to leave the t.v. on for light to just ponder how blessed I am with that girl...and thank God for the holy privilege to steward her.

facebook

Y'all I just had to deactivate facebook. I am really working on cleaning house spiritually speaking and for now I have got to get more focused. Anything that is truly hindering me in the Lord has to go until things are in their proper place so to speak. =) I lived without it before and I can do it again...amen! I really want to press on to know the Lord and if I have spare time it needs to be spent on Him.
<3

Ladies Conference

1 Peter 5:5-8...All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because,
"God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble." 6Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

8Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

I have been hesitant to post anything about this weekend because I don't want to "self-promote". I am good about stepping out and stepping ahead of God so usually my call is one of waiting and humbling myself. However, I have been feeling so sick today and yesterday. I have had a fever along with my throat and etc hurting. I have sort of lost my voice today so I am asking for prayer.
Also, if you are interested in attending this FREE event tomorrow night please join us!
HERE is the link. Also, if you don't mind please pray for the women in attendance that they will encounter the Living God, that God will use this time to draw women to Him. Please pray that the women attending will not be distracted and that they will have a time of refreshing from the Lord. That He would revive our hearts and help us to lay our burdens down.

Thank you in advance. I am so grateful for the opportunity to serve Him this weekend and I know that I am not a big deal but that He is worth making much of!!!

Esther: It's Tough Being A Woman- Beth Moore

It is indeed tough being a woman but I sure wouldn't want to be a dude! haha!
This coming Tuesday night we start fall bible study. I AM READY to say the least.
Here are the details:
TIME: 6:30-8:00 pm
PLACE: Hunter Street Baptist Church, Room s107-108
What will you need? Your bible and Workbook
You can purchase a workbook at Lifeway.

Please sign up online if you have not already. CLICK HERE


This study is SO good!

Love the LORD with ALL your HEART, SOUL, MIND, AND STRENGTH

Man life can be so brutal to the human emotions. Right now I am staring several uncertainties in the face. In a way I am so thankful because it forces me to meditate more on scripture and spend more time praying. It is tough being a jar of clay and realizing just how fragile and out of control you really are. Yet if you truly bring yourself before our Almighty and Sovereign God you find that He is steadfast concerning you and He is faithful. It is impossible for Him to lie or for His love to change. I need to know that and I think you need to know that deep down in the recesses of your innermost being. We need to know the love that surpasses knowledge. Morgan is always trying to tell me in some form of measurement how much she loves me. She will say, "Mom, I love you up to the sky...I love you times 100...I love you a hundred pounds." It is so precious to me but I am reminded every stinking time she says it how God birthed that in our DNA. We want to be able to know that we are loved and part of our human condition is that we will search the world over (in the flesh) looking for someone to love us so lavishly, so deeply, so perfectly, so unfailing, and we will search in vain until we find Him. He is the only one that can meet the deep and I mean deep, often times cavernous needs, of our soul.
I was talking with a woman last weekend and she asked me the normal chit chat questions like what do you do? are you married? and so on. She then said, "So...you have been so happy in your marriage for 7 years!" Um, that was sort of an unusual question. I told her no (of course no relationship is all happy all of the time...and if you are searching to be happy 24/7 with a relationship hinging on your happiness you will live a very narcissistic life) and that I am sure Rod would say the same thing. It is the fear of the Lord that has kept us together at times when we would both rather part ways and call it quits. The Lord has been VERY gracious to us and very merciful (psalm 130). Along the way I have learned a lot about Rod and the Lord has taught me to the core that He is still my Royal Bridegroom even though I am married. The Lord defines me, the Lord is the only One who can fill me and even heal me. While He may use earthly relationships to bless us greatly I am convinced that if I had the perfect man in my life I would sure make him an idol. So, I can truthfully tell you that I have to cease striving where my expectations are concerned and just let some people off the hook. It doesn't mean I don't go through times where I feel needy or clingy but I have to take those things to the Lord or I will in essence suck peoples will to live trying to get them to make me feel special. I can say that even through marriage and earthly relationships that where I have felt let down or failed and have taken those things to Jesus I have been so thankful to see what He is to me that no one else can be. I wouldn't know that if I was constantly searching for it in every other way. I have also made it my prayer that I would see each opportunity where I feel hurt or needy as an opportunity to fall upon His limitless love for us. I love Rod now more than I ever could at the beginning because I see how God has used my earthly relationship to love my Heavenly Father more. But don't think I didn't try to suck the dregs dry only to come up empty before I learned the hard way.
So, what in the world does it mean to love God? Why in loving Him do we get to be blessed back? He knows how prone to wander we are and Him telling us that we need our hearts to be surrendered and wholly His means our liberation. We are safe to love others in the way that God would have us, even at times if it means to be guarded, when our hearts have been set at rest in His presence.

Mark 12:30 (New International Version)

30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

Part of loving God is trusting Him. Placing our trust and confident expectation in Him. Trusting that even if __________________________ (fill in the blank) leaves you or forsakes you that He won't. It is the whole "even if" that scares us to death. Some of you may not have one iota of fear concerning loss but I will say that you are not the norm. I had to personally think through some fears this week that were flat out giving me anxiety. I took them to the Lord and practiced what one of my favorite bible teachers taught. I knew good and well I was supposed to be casting my anxiety on Him. We don't need to throw off what we aren't carrying. He is telling people that are burdened, anxious, fearful, to cast ALL of our anxieties on Him because He cares for us. He is our Shepherd. We are the sheep of His pasture. When Israels kings or priests were often sited in the bible they were referred to as people who shepherded God's people. So lets not get a lowly view of Christ here. He is God on the Throne. He is in our tomorrow and He wants us to get up daily and seek Him as He gives us spiritual manna to feed our souls with what we need for that day. His word works. It brings healing and peace to my soul when nothing else will comfort. Yet we have to go and gather that manna like the Israelites had to do in the wilderness. It was supernatural that God fed them and the Israelites expected that God would deliver them and then that they would have no more hardship. That is so us. We want to walk with God and take what He has to give but we sure don't want trials. We don't want friends, husbands, kids, to walk out of our life. We can live plagued by fear over any of those things and just think that God is constantly out to get us. That is not God. He wants us alright. Our bodies to be the living sacrifices because when it comes down to it...those of us who are in Christ...He is all we really have. The only certainty. So, yes like the Israelites had to gather enough manna for them (otherwise hoarding manna would spoil)and God gave according to their need. He is not going to let us wig out with worst case scenarios that have not happened and give us grace to just sit there in our heap of worry and become paralyzed. That is not true living. Back to my fears and anxieties this week. I did a couple of things:
1. I petitioned several people that I knew would pray for me and asked them to pray.
2. I spent time in the Word.
3. I had to go to God over my fears ...myself. No one can have your relationship with the Lord for you. You won't find peace living vicariously through others relationships but not having your own. Isn't that why reality t.v. is so popular? Finding excitement in someone else's life. We NEED godly teaching and sound teaching but it can't replace our own intimacy with Jesus.
4. I walked what I was fearing through with God and thought about the worst possible situation that could happen (not to be negative). I found peace and comfort in my soul that I would ultimately be ok in this life because I have Him.

We literally are going to have to attach ourselves to Him, cling to Him, at times just fall on our faces before Him, make much of Him and you get the idea...if our hearts are going to be healthy. It doesn't mean they won't be broken but He is the One that binds up and heals.

Joel Osteen Says Jesus Christ is Not the Only Way

Mark Driscoll on Twilight

The Shack

Lol lol on Twitpic

Lol lol on Twitpic

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.