Currently Listening Arriving By Chris Tomlin, Steven Curtis Chapman see related

2 months later...

So yeah, I guess 2 months plus is a long time between posts.  After careful consideration, I've decided Xanga is not my calling.  After 2 1/2 good days away  in God's Word and with wonderful ladies in Christ, I am refreshed and renewed.   I'll porbably keep my site so that I can leave random snide comments on the sites of others but sure don't expect to be in here too much. 

Like that horrible food critic dude on the 10 o'clock news--"ciao ciao (chow chow) for now!"

Out with the old, in with the new!

It's a season of newness for me and I am enjoying it thoroughly.  I have a NEW job --(thanks for praying!)  I have moved into a role in Marketing and am the Product Manager for the same company that I was working for.  It's challenging, fun, hard work and LOTS less travel which was the prayer request of course.  God is good -- all the time.  And as one of my business friends said--"Marketing is just sales without the Accountability."    PRECISELY!  And I will NOT miss the burden of carrying a quota and getting yelled at all the time for meeting (or not meeting my quota).  Plus I have substantial opportunity in this role to boss around the developers, the PR firm, the advertising agency, etc. and I do find the bossing around thing to be a bit fun!

There are NEW little daffodil shoots coming up in my lawn and it is so exciting to see that SPRING is really here.  The kids put the trampoline back up yesterday and the neighborhood is abuzz with children and dogs and bicycles.  I love SPRING and the reminder that it provides about the resurrection.  What was dead--comes alive.  He that was dead came alive!  He is risen indeed!

We are getting all sorts of NEW things in our house.  The 15-20 year old floors are going and the old railings and all sorts of things.  Brad and I have figured that at a minimum we can save money by doing the destruction part of this home repair project.  It's tremendous work but very fulfilling to see the old, grimy, worn-out stuff getting broken and shredded and thrown out in the garbage like rubbish.  I read an article once by some old-time preacher named Leonard Ravenhill called "Breaking up the fallow ground" that talked about the hard work needed to dig up the old cruddy sin and crud in our life and get it out so that God could replace it with new character and the fruit of the Spirit.  So while I'll never have the gardening examples that my friend Susan does for spiritual truth ( I despise gardening), perhaps I can come up with destruction and building ones that will work for me (after all Jesus was a carpenter!)

It's been a long time so I'll give previews of entries to come--hamster babies are stinky fun,  I got old when I wasn't looking, what if all my neighbors got saved?!  and more... Stay Tuned!

She Lives!

Yes, yes I know, it's been a few days,.... well weeks since I last posted. 

I feel now the need to answer Olivia's challenge tag to announce 5 (just 5!) of my weird habits:

1.  When I eat ice cream out of the carton, I NEVER dig the spoon in making a gouge in the surface.  I always scrape it across the top of the ice cream keeping the surface perfectly smooth, as though that means I really haven't eaten any.

2.  I rub my toes (on the right foot only) on the bed when I am going to sleep.

3.  I bounce my heel (on the right foot only) up and down three times each time before I bowl.

4.  I baggage check my suitcase nearly everytime even if it's small enough to fit in the overhead bin just because it's such a pain to haul it around.

5.  I eat raw hot dogs right out of the package.

Anybody reading this who hasn't done this yet is formally TAGGED!

I love this!

Currently Listening Overwhelmed Live At Hume Lake see related

Fascinating conversation last night with a co-worker (slightly inebriated but still able to converse).  He was completely hung-up on the fact that I would call myself born-again.  He was ranting about how he didn't understand the need to be "born-again" or understand why anyone would want to be born-gain.  "Why?" he asked "do you feel the need to complete reject all that you have already done and lived to have a completely new life?"  Why indeed?  It seems so obvious to those who have in fact been reborn--because all that you have ever lived or done is worthless--in fact worse --filthy rags.  As we went around and around in this discussion (with lots of talk about John 3), I was again reminded how necessary it was for us to truly understand:

1.  our sinfulness

2  the utter futility of trying to do anything about it in our own strength

My co-worker, Marty rejects the ides of being "born-again" because his pride forces him to reject the idea that his efforts / faith / works thus far have no value in an eternal perspective.  God graciously provided that one of our customers (Greg) who was at dinner was also a believer (a little touch-feely, charismaticy compared to me but praise God well-versed in the Scripture).  Greg finally told Marty --"look being reborn is a spritual event done by the Spirit and without the Spirit you simply WON'T understand it."  I shared how Nicodemus clearly didn't really get it either.  We then challenged Marty to read John 3 and Greg and I both agreed to pray for Marty's salvation.  pray with me--it is disturbing to see someone who cannot understand his own sinfulness.  I am so aware of my own- and yet even that I know is by the Spirit.