Woo-Hoo its another Monday!

I have nothing to say today, except that it is really cold in my apt and I 'stink' at making myself take naps.

But since I'm here now I might as well come up with something to talk about :)

My brother Scott just moved down from AK. He doesn't yet know what he will do for work or where he will live, so if you could pray for him that would be incredible! He is on Josh's "Hit List" for Heart for Ministry and since he put Scott on there we have been praying for my brother non-stop. It is awesome to see him healthy, but his lifestyle has been rough on him. He has scars from being beat up, eyes that are tired, and nerve damage all throughout his body from a fight he got into...its crazy to see someone changed so much in such little time. I thank God for bringing him down here! A friend of our's told us yesterday that he has been praying that God will bring godly people into Scott's life....perhaps that is why he is here? Scott said he wants to go to church with us and Josh mentioned something to him about helping out with construction work at the church-I know of quite a few godly people over there...I'm pretty excited about the possibility of Scott helping out :) I've been praying for my family members since I was sixteen, my heart so yearns for them to yearn for the LORD! I wish I could just take God and put Him in their hearts so that they would treasure and cherish Him and never want to let Him go. I know I should not get discouraged about praying for them, and right now I'm not, though sometimes for a season I give up praying for them or just plain forget to pray. I just don't know why God takes His time changing some hearts and others get touches immediately. I'm not complaining about God, its just one of those mysteries about Him that I won't ever understand. Why some prayers are answered immediately and others are prayed for years before they are answered. All in all I know God hears my prayers for my family members, and I know He cherishes them. What is that vs. that says that His incense is the prayers of the saints? Or something like that, at least.

Its funny because I wasn't planning on coming here and talking about Scott, or my family, or prayer, or lack there of...but now that I am, I feel compelled to leave and pray for them all. This is why I am enjoying blogging so much. I know that there will probably be very few people who ever read these, but for me, (like I was mentioning to you yesterday, Barbi), it is a chance to get thoughts out. And since I have to write in clear and concise sentences, it causes my heart and mind to work out the things going on in them. Its a neat little thing, this world of blogging!

Well seeing how I feel compelled to pray, I suppose I should not ignore that which has been brought out of heart and to my mind's attention.

Much love and many blessings to you, whoever you are, that is reading this :)

Date Night~!

My hubby and I haven't seen much of each other lately, so all week we have been looking forward to our desperately needed date night! We went to dinner at a nice place in the downtown mall, watched a movie with our free movie passes (thanks mom!), and than returned home for an evening of battle ship and champagne (which was really not good so it barely got touched).

Of course we had to get some ice cream, much to the breaking of my will against eating sugar, and ended up with leftovers, which sat in the the theater with us for over an hour and a half (does that mean I shouldn't eat it now?). The movie we watched was the new one with Kevin James, Paul Blart; Mall cop...pretty darn funny (and I know you like Kevin James Jess, so you would probably enjoy this one). Quite a few times I looked over at Josh as he hung his head down in that 'Are you Serious?' laugh that comes when something totally ridiculous has just happened...I love it when he laughs :) Josh won in battleship, but not before I blew up four of his ships (including the Carrier - so that is like double points for me). And then we just sat on the couch, listening to music, immensely enjoying one another's company. Our wedding song came on and I started to silently cry into Josh's chest, and couldn't believe how much love began to immediately fill my heart. I mean I loved the man before the song came on, but as it played I was 1) reminded of our beautiful wedding day, and 2) reminded of every wonderful day I have had with Josh since our wedding day. I can't boast about Josh, but I sure can say that God shows me He loves me by giving me such an incredible spouse...I stinkin love that man!

Unfortunately, Josh and I do a pretty poor job of taking pictures of ourselves (but honestly, how many pictures of just the two of us do we need? I hope we will be better about taking pictures after children are a part of our lives) So here is the one picture from our date We are standing in the hallway where the elevator dropped us off to our car. For not a very nice backround I think the picture still turned out pretty good (thats what love in two people does - turns any drab and dreary hallway into a backdrop of romance! haha or something like that).

It was a very delightful evening with my husband, something that I wish could happen more often. Actually I told Josh today that I really really wanna' go on a cruise again. Ah man that would be SWEET!!! So we are going to look into it. We will see. I think that after being reminded of our wedding day it lead my mind into reminiscing our honeymoon cruise to Mexico. I think working might be causing my mind to check out vacationing too. Work is good, but ya know when you've been working for about 4 months and come to that point of 'its time for a vacation', or is that just me because I'm a wimp when it comes to working? Well no matter what the cause of my desire to cruise again, I think any reason to want to go is good enough.

Well my dear friends, I really ought to get off so that I can hit the treadmill (woo-hoo for exercise!), if I don't go now it won't happen today :)

Love to all!

New President...and prayful thoughts

So as pretty much the whole world now knows, we have ourselves a new president. He just swore in about an hour or so ago, and I must say, I am excited for him.

Just think of the crazy new adventure he is now beginning in his life? I will be honest, I wasn't rooting for him during the debates, but I confidently believe God's Word and He said,

"Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God"

Romans 13:1

So if the LORD established Obama, than that must mean that He wants him there. Now that could be good or bad for us. I've heard some scary things about plans Obama/and or his "people" have brought to the public, but so far I have not been able to find any articles to prove the things I was told. So in light of not gossiping, I won't tell you what I was told until I find out whether or not they are true :) Sorry for getting your hopes up, (if they were up). But despite what I was told, our people and our leaders need our prayers. I can't express enough how badly they need them either! I mean you know yourself, and even if you are a Christian and are trying to allow Christ to live a righteous life through you, you know how frequently you make dumb decisions. Now put yourself in our new President's position, or any one of the new people he elected into their different offices. These people not only have the opportunity to make unwise decisions for themselves and their families, they have the chance to make things really messed up for the rest of us too. I'm not trying to demean or belittle anyone, I'm just simply stating a fact; we, as people, are all evil and some of us are in high positions of authority. So yea, that could be a tad bit freaky if you let your mind be consumed with those thoughts. But instead I encourage you to earnestly PRAY for these people. Just like you would for your kids, your mom, anyone you love, and yourself.

"First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we made lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth."

1 Timothy 2:1-4

Lets pray for these men and women who are in authority. And lets not give up praying for one another. I highlighted that part in blue because I believe that when God shares His heart with us, that is a pretty good place to start in our prayers for others; praying His heart for them, to Him.

I wish I could write more today, and in fact I might later, but for now I must rush off to work!

May God richly bless you and your family today!

Alas, I do believe I have figured this thing out!

Woo-hoo! So I've been meaning to get on here, for some time now, and figure out this whole posting and setting up deal. The only bummer is, I don't know if I have things to say that are worth anyone else reading. O well I guess if you read this, hopefully you don't walk away dumber than before you sat down! So now that you have been warned, lets see what I can find to type about this mornin...

My hubby has been gone allll day for the past few days. He is helping with a construction project at our church. He loves being there! And I love him being there. Now now before you start thinking that I mean something like "It feels good to get that guy out'a the house!" let me explain myself. You see since Josh has been spending time down there, and in the company of some rather godly men, I've seen him grow exponentially. It is so exciting! It is so obviously where God is wanting him, at least as of this week :) and He has been blessing my hubby so much. So much so, that I am blessed by how much God is blessing Josh! Josh's joy and faith are becoming more complete with every day he spends there...how could a wife not be pleased with such a thing as that? I do miss him being here after I get off work, but by golly if he is somewhere thats blessing the socks off of him, (what a wierd expression, by the way. Did I even say it right?), than I am as content as a blue bird on the first day of Spring! I'm thinking I might join him down there too, after the gym.

Which then brings me to my next nonsensical topic for the day; the gym.

Which I have been missing for quite some time since getting my wisdom teeth pulled and the roof collapsing over the pool. But now it has been nearly 2 months since the renovation of my mouth and gym, so I'm heading back to jog off these thighs!

And, since I brought up the word thighs, lets discuss them a bit here. Why does it seem that these things insist on growing into such awkward shapes? I mean honestly, (and really I'm not complaining, but its just kind'a fun to talk about this), I jog, I don't jog, and they are just always funny looking. At least Josh says that they are beautiful, (or maybe its that he says I'm beautiful), in any case they come with the package of me so he must like 'em! Well even if he didn't, I think God blessed me with a sweet enough man he wouldn't say otherwise :)

Ok so lets move unto something else.

God has been bringing me and my will under some strong lessons of obedience this past week+. My work(s) decided that they wanted to give me more hours, which really isn't the beginning of the story, so if you will, allow me to back track a moment:

Josh was layed off from his work recently, and with lay offs soon comes worry and fear. Especially for my wonderful man who, as long as he can remember, has always said his wife will never work to support him, (maybe a pride thing, or perhaps its just him in his man-hood wanting to be the one to provide for his family, or could it be both?). Finding ourselves in this familiar situation we decided that prayer was much better than worrying untill we were sick. It is awesome how the Father will sometimes answer prayers so quickly you barely have the chance to say amen, because within a week I was being offered 6+ hours more than I usually work. Sweet huh?! Well it came at a bit of a cost....if I wanted the hours, I had to be willing to work a couple split shifts. Real quick, show of hands of who really really like split shifts? Yep, as I thought, not many of you do! All last week I thanked God for his provision, and in the next instance struggled continuously with my flesh to say "I am doing this". I would ask/say to myself, "do you need the hours? Why not talk to the bosses and tell them that there has got to be a better way than you working splits. Audra just do it, just work this schedule and don't make a fuss about it." That last thought being me finally laying myself down to being obedient to what God has given/called me to do. I say that because I don't believe He wants me to have an easy schedule right now. I'm not sure He wants me to hate it either, but if this is how He is answering our prayers for provision, who am I to ask Him to take it back? I don't know what God wants to bring out of these split shifts and less than desirable schedules, but I am excited for the outcome! So if you think of it, please pray for me in this new endeavor. I don't know if everyday I will feel this positive about working, so if the LORD lays me on your heart, please do pray, I am probably going to need it! Pray also for my love, my hubby that is. He is a wonderful man, and not working does get to him sometimes, yet he confidently knows that he is exactly where God wants him to be. We, in God's creative way of simultaneously working things out, are going through very similar trials; one of laying down our will to a call of obedience.

O boy I've been sitting here and typing for awhile! I was supposed to take a nap so that I can actually work out hard when I go to the gym :S

O yea, almost forgot to mention, I am in the process of training for a race. A short race, but a race none the less! I would talk lots about it right now, but I might as well leave something for another day :D

Much love and many blessings friends!

Wierd

yada yada yada can't you tell I don't yet know what I'm doing??