My brain is melting....

....from all the amazing things I've been learning today!!!

BTW, where is the cool fonts, and other things that used to be available when posting? I hope that blogger hasn't down graded us who aren't paying for their site.

But back to what my brain is melting about.

Monday night we were in our Heart for Ministry class, going through the book of Acts, when a question came up about the Holy Spirit. I can't remember the question exactly, but the discussion basically revolved around whether or not receiving the Holy Spirit, (as in the baptism of the H.S.), happens at conversion, or at a later time.
So I sat my self down at the comp., opened up Josh's bible software program, and my Bible, and began to read through the book of Acts.

In my notebook I posed three questions:
1) When a person is saved, do the receive the H.S. at that same time?
2) If that is the case, what does the Bible mean when the H.S. 'falls upon' or 'fills' a person?
3) What is/are the result(s) of the H.S. doing these things? (ie.: 'falling upon', 'filling', a person 'receiving', 'pouring out upon', etc.)

I than spent the rest of the day, up until about an hour ago, searching just through Acts to see if these questions could be answered.

After several pages of notes, I have come to the conclusion that indeed the gifting of the Holy Spirit is a separate event from a person being saved. Now I must tell you, this completely rocks my mind, and for one solid reason: not only do we receive Jesus and are baptized in His name, but we are also given another gift, the gift of the Holy Spirit to empower our lives to share the good news of the gospel. I mean seriously, do we need any other gifts other than salvation? Already we don't deserve that! But than for God to be so gracious as to give us His Holy Spirit to enable us to go and do the things He has created us to do....ah its just too much!

I also learned that the words used for describing how the gift is delivered, really doesn't make a difference. Before searching all this out, I wondered if a person received the H.S. first, (when they were saved), and than later, (at God's appointed time), the H.S. would come upon them in a different way, empowering them to do His good works. Well it turns out that I don't know how the H.S. works in the life of a new believer who has yet to be baptized in the H.S., but I do know that whenever they use the words 'receive' or 'filled', or phrases like 'fell upon', or 'poured out', in the book of Acts, its all pointing to the same event: The Holy Spirit has come to empower a believer to do things that beforehand were not possible for them to do.

In answer to the 3rd question, I found out that SO many things happen when the H.S. is poured out on the believer. Sometimes people would speak in tongues afterwards, others would prophesy, some saw visions and dreamed dreams, many were given boldness to preach the gospel and stand up to the religious leaders even though they faced certain persecution, and some were enabled to perform signs and wonders of healing and raising the dead back to life. Basically all pretty incredible stuff, stuff that I believe God still wants to be doing in us today.

And with that last statement, my mind begins to wonder if the reason we often don't see these things happening is because we believers are not being baptized in the Holy Spirit? I mean if it is by this baptism that all these things happen, and none before in the individual, shouldn't we eagerly desire to also be baptized in the H.S.?

Thinking that also brought another thought to my mind. If that is the case, have I been baptized in the Holy Spirit? Is the reason I lack the boldness to share Christ with other because I have yet to receive this gift? Is the reason that I am afraid of persecution because I have yet to have the Holy Spirit poured out on me? I must tell you, I do not know. I feel I may know the answer, but I also think I must spend more time in prayer before I know for certain. Whatever the answer turns out being this much I know is true....I do NOT want to be an ineffective christian. A person who goes to church on Sunday, and during the week locks myself up in my apartment where I am comfortable and safe.

I wish so much that I could share in more detail what God has shown me, but in all honesty, Its still sinking in for me at this time.

If you have any questions about this, please ask me! Like I said I have lots of notes, and if anyone is interested, I will share them with you.

God bless you and I pray He intrigues your heart so that you seek out the things of God that are still a mystery to you.

Counting down the days...

I'm just counting down the days, now, until our little man gets here.

I am a little bit surprised at how quickly time is going by, now that I'm not working. I thought for sure that it was going to drag. I think its because I've been keeping busy with so many things that well, it just hasn't had time to slow down much yet! My 'to do' list is still rather long... but I'm ok with that. Of course other things have come up as being more important than things on that darn list. For example: the gathering of things necessary for home birth, like; cotton sheets, umbilical cord clamps, a knit baby hat, flexible straws, a 9 volt battery... I mean just the really obviously basic needs for a home birth, (haha yeah right!). Anyways the shopping around has been fun. I'm just getting so stinkin' excited that December is right around the corner! Though I keep assuming this baby will be a New years baby, I would not be disappointed in the least bit if he came before Christmas. In fact, if I keep looking at all his cute stuff, I will probably find it really difficult to wait if he goes past his due date. O well though! How can I not sit in his room and just look around at all this stuff just waiting for him when he comes out? I mean come on! But I digress...

In other O'Donnell news, Josh is scheduled for a knee surgery on the 2nd. He pretty much re-injured an old injury, but this time he injured it bad enough to completely tear his ACL. (So then again, maybe I don't want Jr. to come early, since his daddy will most certainly need all the time he can get for healing.) If you think of him, please pray for Josh's surgery. And please also pray that God would heal him with out needing the surgery. I'm hopeful that God will do this, so if others are praying the same, I would love it!

The baby had his shower last Friday, and with quite the turn out! Its so exciting to see that there are so many incredible & loving women around him! It just makes me so excited when I think about raising him at this church, (the majority of women there were ones from our fellowship), because I know these women will so genuinely love him :) Here are a couple pictures from the night:

I know they aren't great quality, and no one is paying attention to the camera person, but I figure that is ok and I can still show them :)

Josh and I recently had our two year anniversary, *woohoo*, and since we had no plans made for the day, it worked out perfectly when our good friend Krista asked us if she could take my pregnancy pics.

Its unfortunate how fuzzy they look on here, but you at least get the idea of how nice they turned out :) There are lots and lots more, but these ones are probably my favorites...at least for now they are.

Hope you all are having a blessed day! Don't forget Psalm 46:10, "Be still and know that I AM God", as you go about your business.

:)

I'm a terrible blogger...

But in all honesty, does that even need to be said anymore?

Anyways....

I just wanted to, again, update on some happenings. These ones are from this morning :)

God is still doing amazing things around here, (as if He ever stops!)

This morning, as I reluctantly crawled out of bed, I again found myself thinking that I wanted to quit being a jr. high leader. I often struggle with these thoughts, but have suspiciously discovered that I think them only on Sunday mornings, before the jr. high service begins. So of course it only makes sense that these nasty thoughts would be most invasive during morning prayer with all the other leaders. Up until prayer time, I was also thinking on the prior evening, and how sorely irritated I had felt, (of course my irritation was not caused by anything from my immediate surroundings. I simply had not prepared myself before the battle). Josh doesn't know this, but I was up for quite awhile after he had gone to sleep because I stubbornly would not let go of my pride and humbly ask God to take away my irritation.

But going back to this morning, and prayer time...

As we were all sitting in our little group, Josh went and did something totally unspeakable; he asked us to pray that God would cleanse our hearts of anything that shouldn't be in there, before going and ministering to the kids.

Of course I am than thinking, "Um so does that mean that you want me to stop selfishly thinking about myself and consider what God might actually want for me?" I mean I knew what the right answer was, but at first, I so did not want to do it.

Needless to say, I knew I would be utterly useless if I did not confess my sins and ask God to purge my being of anything nasty inside. So in prayer, before my brothers and sisters in Christ, I confessed my sins, and while doing so another little prayer slipped out of my mouth,

"LORD please help us to love on these kids"

You ever find yourself shocked when God answers one of your prayers, especially if it was one that when you said it, you really didn't put much thought into before it came out of your mouth? That was what this prayer was.

(now I'm going to side track a moment, but stay with me, I'll come back to this in a moment)

I felt God's compassion as He erased my sins of last night, but still found my mind struggling with the thought of leaving jr. high. I was rationalizing all the 'right' reasons for me to leave. I mean I am expecting, I'll have to think of my child soon and not have time for being in this ministry. I was looking at the fruits of my ministry and began to wonder, 'Am I doing this without God's blessing? Does He want me in this place anymore? Do the girls even get anything out of our small group? Am I hindering His work in their lives?' The thoughts were invading my brain, and really distracting me from our time of worship. So I said to myself, (and to God), 'I will not worry about this anymore. If God is calling me away, than when He does so, He will tell me.' I also believe that if you are unsure of whether or not God is calling you away from a ministry, the best thing to do is to STAY in that ministry until you hear from Him on where to go next. It is all too easy to feel strong emotions that make us believe that God is telling us to do something, when really He is not. I don't know if that is right, but as of now, I feel that is good counsel.

Josh gave his message, and than the dreaded moment came, small group discussion time.

This really isn't the most horrible thing in the world, but when you've been having thoughts like I had been having, being in this group with all those young faces looking up at you is a little bit intimidating.

The discussions were going well, (at least I felt they were), girls were sharing, we were talking, I was hoping they were understanding the real life applications of the message, and then my dear Emily shared with us how her Saturday went.

Emily, and her dad, do not have a very happy relationship as of late. In fact, during the past year plus that I've know Emily, her relationship with her dad has been a hard one. I know I can only take what she says with a grain of salt, seeing how I do not know the other side of the story, but from all that she says, her dad is a big meany.

On Saturday, (as of right now, yesterday), they had another one of their verbal confrontations, and as Emily told us about it the skin around her eyes began to turn red, and than within moments tears were flooding her vision.

This is when God unexpectedly answered my prayer, "LORD help us to love on these kids"

The instant I saw the torment in her face, my heart was stricken with unsurpassed grief.

You see, Emily asks for prayer a lot for her dad, and their relationship. So to see that things weren't, so far, getting any better, just completely broke my heart.

After the group was over, I turned to Emily and began to talk to her about her relationship with her dad, and than asked her about her relationship with God.

(My heart is still breaking for her now.)

I asked her, in regards to her relationship with God, if she was feeling any disappointment in Him because she didn't feel like He was answering her prayers. Unfortunately she said yes, and than went on to say, 'it is sometimes hard to believe God is merciful when this keeps happening'.

What do you say to a young girl when she says this??? I mean I KNOW God is hearing her prayers, but how to I tell her that how God answers them is a mystery? But that is exactly what I did tell her. I also tried to remind her that He DOES hear her prayers, and will answer them.

Maybe God is preparing her for something in her future, I don't know.

But it is so hard to watch a beautiful young lady, tormented by her emotions about her and her dad's relationship, and have no magic prayer that instantly makes it all better.

I didn't say it was going to be a happy post,

but I will say that even though God answered my prayer from this morning

in ways that I wasn't expecting, I still am so thankful that He did.

Can you imagine what my time with Emily would have been like if I had not confessed my sins and humbled my heart to doing His will for my life? Or if I had not prayed for Him to fill our hearts with love for the kids? I have had conversations with her that took place while my heart was in that other place. They always go about with me having nothing to say, but worse yet, with me having no love in my heart for her hurting one.

It was, by far, the hardest morning I have ever had being in jr. high, both before prayer time and after. Yet it turned out to be one of the most rewarding.

I told Emily I will be praying for her and her dad this week. If the LORD puts them on your heart, after reading this, I will be thankful that others are praying too.

It had been such a long time since I've felt love like that for another person, who wasn't a family member, or very close friend. In that experience, though, I learned more about the amazing heart of God. He really does love deeper than we can fathom. I also learned that when you ask Him to do something, be it His will, He will let your heart break to answer that prayer.

I can honestly say that I love Emily, and my heart is broken for her in her situation.

I don't know if I will wonder next Sunday whether or not I should be involved with jr. high, but I feel that as long as Emily keeps coming, I want to be there. I know God has a victory in store for her, and I want to be with her to celebrate when it comes!

I know this is probably way longer than you were expecting to read, but I wanted to get this whole experience written down somewhere so that I could look back on it in the future and remember God's faithfulness to hear my prayers, and remember how He answered them.

The LORD bless you and keep you and make His face shine upon you, and your family :)

O boy it has been awhile...

I just wanted to give some quick updates, since I don't believe the world outside our little circle here knows much of what is happening in our lives these days, so here it is!

Beginning in August Josh began his new job as an intern at our church. His job entails pretty much anything anyone else would have to do being on salary there, only the benefit is his responsibility is much lower ;) Which I like because I think he gets a chance to grow a ton this way!

Just recently our youth pastor decided to give Josh the reigns to the Jr. High ministry. He said he wanted it to be Josh's thing and he would disciple him through the year. Pretty crazy! It is so good to know that God is in control of all this and that He will see Josh through this time as their teacher, (I don't think he is wanting the title 'pastor' yet, and I also suppose the whole responsibility thing jumped up a notch when this happened too).

Our baby boy is getting bigger and stronger all the time! He seems to be moving less these past few days, but I chalk it up to the nasty cold I'm fighting. I wish I could post up a pic. here of my belly now, but It will just have to wait :)

I want so much to have another ultra sound done, but alas, if it is not needed, it will not be 'ok'd' by the midwife, (did i do my 'ok'd' thing right there?). When I am not sick, he kicks and goes nuts in my womb! Josh and I picture him being a boxer when he grows up...of course I'm sure every mom thinks that about their little one when they do all that crazy fast moving around :)

My baby shower has officially been put into the planning stages! My awesome cousin Sheena is going to take care of it. So far the date is the 13th of November, (which also so happens to be a Friday. Its a good thing I'm not a superstitious person!)

My job is quickly on the ending side, and I'm really actually kind'a sad about that. I mean I am excited to get to be home and start doing stuff around here that never seems to get done, but still, I've grown to really love the people I work for, and the work I do. I do have the option of going back next year, but as of right now I'm just not sure how that would work out. I think the baby could come with me, but what if he is fuzzy, or worse, screaming when I have to answer the phone? I don't think that noise would sound too professional. Maybe this is something I should be praying about...

Our good friends Mo and Barbi are moving to Anchorage, Alaska with their two beautiful children :( Although I and Josh both are EXTREMELY bummed they are leaving, we also can't help but be SO EXCITED because it is so obviously the hand of God moving them there. Which reminds me, Jess, do you and Charley feel like meeting a couple of super awesome people and quite possibly becoming friends??? Just thought I'd play 'match maker' ;) since they won't know, well, probably anyone up there.

On the plus side, more people to come visit now! And more reasons to move up, (now if only God would be convinced that was the 'right' thing for us to do...haha ok actually I don't even know if that is funny to joke about, but God knows I'm kidding :)

Josh and I have begun the Heart for Ministry program at our church again. For those of you who do not know what it is, it is a year long 'extensive' study through the bible, (I put 'extensive' like that because I know it is not as extensive a study as it could be, but it is the most I've ever taken on), and this year we are going through the New Testament. Tonight was the second night of class, but because of my dumb cold, and at the time low grade fever, I decided to stay home and sweat this sucker out with some hot chicken noodle soup. Last week was awesome though, and I am SO bummed I missed tonight :( I hope Josh took lots of notes for us! We also listen through sermons given by Pastor Chuck Smith. This past week I benefitted so much from them, I feel I may just be alright missing tonight's class :)

Well the tiredness is beginning to return to my body, I think that is my que to go lay back down.

I hope this update finds you all in good health and in deep satisfaction in our LORD Jesus Christ! I heart you all!

The Kindness of God

I have found a "new" way of spending my slow times in the office, (don't worry, even before I was hired, my boss gave me full permission to do this).

I don't struggle with boredom often, but I have recently found myself to be heading that way at work. The phone just doesn't ring like it used to *sigh*
So in light of my nearing boredom, I decided to actually study the Word! Every time I do, it is a sweet and rewarding experience :D I love the Bible! And I love God who translates it for my not-so-smart brain.

I've been reading Roman's during this past week'ish. Today, a "problem" with a family member came up. While searching the scriptures for answers, I came again to my past reading in Roman's 1:27-2:5. In helping me better understand the depths of what I was reading, I turned to my fellow friend, David Guzik. He has commentaries on many books of the Bible, (all of which you can find at blueletterbible.com), and they are excellent!

While reading the word, and following his commentary, this particular piece stood out to me.

"Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindess and tolerance and patience,
not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?"
Rom. 2:4

I've held this vs. very dear during the past few years of my life. It helps me not be such a hippocrit when thinking of certain people, who are making bad decisions :) And quite honestly not just for certain people, but people in general. Even to the Christian who has already tasted His goodness and is walking with Him. This vs. has helped me to remember it is His goodness that is what leads us to repentance. Which brings me to the initiall motivator in writing this blog. David commented on this in his commentary, and this is what he said:

"Not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance (in ref. to vs. 4): Many people misunderstand the goodness of God towards the wicked. They don’t understand the entire reason for it is to lead them to repentance.

i. Men should see the goodness of God and understand:

• God has been better to them than they deserve
• God has shown them kindness when they have ignored Him
• God has shown them kindness when they have mocked Him
• God is not a cruel master and they may safely surrender to Him
• God is perfectly willing to forgive them
• God should be served out of simple gratitude

ii. Are you waiting for God to drive you to repentance? He doesn’t work like that; God leads you to repentance. “Notice, dear friends, that the Lord does not drive you to repentance. Cain was driven away, as a fugitive and a vagabond, when he had killed his righteous brother Abel; Judas went and hanged himself, being driven by an anguish of remorse because of what he had done in betraying his Lord; but the sweetest and best repentance is that which comes, not by driving, but by drawing: ‘The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.’” (Spurgeon)"

Um WoW! Can you say, 'amazing!'? Cause I sure do when I read this!

Isn't it sad how we so often have humbly received God's grace, only to begin to believe we have deserved it? And when we begin to think that, we than look down our noses at others, condemning the obvious sinner for what they're doing. We forget that it is because of His kindess that we have received His grace. If only we would walk in His grace, sinners would see His love and turn to Him because they know He is kind. (I'm not saying it is up to us to 'save the world', but we do need to put our lives into His hands and let His love flow out of us and unto others.)

Those are my thoughts for the moment, and I hope to dwell on them all day. I have been wanting to post for some time. Reading this scripture has given me enough passion to do just that. Now, I get to go live it out, (especially since I know God is going to help me fully learn this lesson now :)

God bless you! I pray, if you are His child, He will show you today more how to walk in His ways. If you are not His child, I pray He will open your heart to the love He has for you.

Pictures, finally!!!

Here are some pictures from our weekend vacation. We had the opportunity to take the lift up the mountain, and ride our bikes down. It was awesome! Of course I only fell once, (thank You God!), and never on my tummy, or on any big pointy rocks :)

Can't you see that I'm a hungry pregnant lady?! haha actually I didn't eat this all to myself. In fact it took Josh and I two meals to finish this monster. This is only half the sandwich here.

See, I told you its not fun to fall down a mountain. Ow that really looks like it hurts huh? I actually took this pic this morning. I figured I'd wait 'till it looked its worse. All the swelling has finally gone down and look what was hiding underneath! Pretty gross!

We had an AWESOME time! Josh is now in love with mountain biking and is counting down the days 'till he can go again. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be going anymore. Its not that I don't want to, but well, here let me show you.

8 weeks 14 weeks
Yeah I don't think that belly is planning on staying small for much longer :D

Thought to ponder

" ¹⁶Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."
Hebrews 4:16

So if this is true, than why do I shy away from being bold before others?
I mean honestly, if God has made it so that I can approach Him with boldness, my Eternal Master, my Creator, my King, the Holy of Holies... then why I am not bold to share my faith, or reach out to someone hurting? If I believe the writer when they say, "let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace," then shouldn't it be that much more simple to go near to someone in their time of need?

Our girl's group discussed this last night and I must admit, I have been acting like a wimp. The chapter basically looked over these few things:

1. In order to help others you must first Be There, i.e., you must be at church, youth group, different ministry outings, work, the street, wherever it is that the people are! You must be present, wherever the people are, in order to help.
2. You must be Prepared to give of yourself. If I go to a church service just expecting to get something out of it, than I will be going unprepared to be a vessel that God could use to touch someone else's life. I must prepare myself before going. I must be in prayer, in the Word, looking through His eyes at the world and asking, "who Lord, needs to feel your arms of love in this moment? Who needs an encouraging word? Who needs prayer, and what do I pray?"
3. I must be Bold and willing to step outside of my comfort zone. Hurting people are sometimes hard to approach, especially if you do not know them. Instead of being afraid of rejection, a problem 'too big' for me to handle, or sitting with someone while they are vulnerable with me, I need to be bold to go to them and let Christ love them through me. I feel it is the same with seeing new people. At our church it is not very easy to pick out the newbies, (since a good number of people come to each service), but maybe if I greeted at the front door, I'd have a better chance of catching them and making them feel welcomed. Actually I think that our greeters do a great job! So maybe I don't need to go there, but after service there are always lots and lots of families just hanging out in the fellowship hall. Maybe I could strike up a conversation? This would definetly take some boldness to accomplish

So there is where I am left. Am I going to continue to hold my tongue? Am I going to continue to shy away when opportunity to share my faith arises? Am I going to wait until its a good time for me to let God have His way in my life, or am I going to let Him be my master today, right now?

I just plain don't want to be this wimpy christian anymore. I dont want to be afraid of offending someone or making a pleasant situation into an akward one. I want compassion to take the place of my standing still. I want love to take the place of fear. I want to watch Christ use me while I am alive on this earth. I want to see Him transform lives and reveal Himself to those who have yet to see Him. I want to live my life zealously for God so that when people look at me, they see the Father and want to know Him.

O Lord help me please, I don't want to be silent anymore. I don't want to hide my light under a basket. Please Father embolden me, let my heart feel the compassion you have for the hurting and lost. Please take me where you want me to go, I am Your servant and your beloved daughter. I know You will be with me wherever I am, please lead me to where You are. In your Son's Holy and precious name, Amen