This is our God

Tonight on my way home I was singing this song "This is our God," and I was moved to tears as I thought about tomorrow. I thought about this past year, and the faithfulness & kindness of what God has done in my life, but how He has also opened my eyes to see what my sins did to His son on the Cross. I pray that this will drive me to my knees in repentance to cry out for my loved ones who do not know Him. The hope of every nation, the joy of every heart The King who won salvation, the God who comes for us Oh, the world must see Your love and Majesty This is our God, this is our King This is the anthem of the redeemed Tell the whole world, let everyone sing This is our God, this is our King The Light that broke the darkness, The Champion over death Victorious forever, Your Kingdom never ends Of, the world must see Your love and Majesty This is our God, this is our King This is the anthem of the redeemed Tell the whole world, let everyone sing This is our God, this is our King

FREEdom from sin's power!

"A Gospel Primer" Freedom from Sin's Power. "As long as I am stricken with the guilt of my sins, I will be captive to them, and will often find myself re-committing the very sins about which I feel most guilty. The Devil is well aware of this fact; he knows that if he can keep me tormented by sins guilt, he can dominate me with sins power. The gospel, however, slays sin at this root point and thereby nullifies sin's power over me. The forgiveness of God, made known to me through the gospel, liberates me from sin's power because it liberates me first from its guilt; and preaching such forgiveness to myself is practical way of putting the gospel into operation as a nullifier of sins power in my life." WOW! Isn't that AMAZING? What rich words! The other night I was ONCE again struggling with anger & having a bad attitude (Now it is even more obvious to me why parents start YOUNG to stop bad attitudes/anger because when you get old like me...YIKES!!:). Did not realize how much this had settled into my life and had become a besetting sin! Not something I care to admit out loud or even think about. But God has been gracious enough to continue to bring it up in my life in many situations and thankfully I have been convicted about it though it has been very obvious that I am still not responding well. I had to go and ask a friend for forgiveness (AGAIN!) and when I got home I read this and was reminded of Satan's stronghold in my life (GULIT!!) but more important of the amazing grace, forgiveness and freedom that comes from the Gospel and applying it in my life. Even though it has been baby steps of change I am so grateful for His kindness and goodness in my life and how he continues (over & over again) to draw me to His side and teach me that I am NOTHING, nothing without Him. Lord I repent of my anger and the bad attitude that continues to flow out of my heart, even though you have given me everything I need. Lord Help me to see that all I need is you not what I want or think I need. Please set me free from these besetting sins and to see the power of the Gospel in my life. I love you Lord.

Valentines Day

If I were being honest (which I am) I would tell you that I was NOT looking forward to Valentine's day for MANY reasons. I just wasn't going forward to it but the day ended up being more amazing then I thought it would be. My day actually started on Friday. I was blessed my friend Dena and her kiddos with the beautiful flowers (they dropped them of Thursday) but what a way to start Valentines weekend. Then EARLY Saturday morning I got up and meet up with my "other family" (NO comments on that one) to go and meet Grandmother & Granddaddy and we had a camping breakfast which was OH so yummy and watching Edgewater (GO EAGLES!) crew team at Turkey Lake. It was SO much fun. Then I came home to find 2 sweet cards in my mailbox from a dear friend, and my sweet dad. I rested for a little while then went over to Jenny & Stephanies as we got ready (having fun pampering ourselfs with manicures, pedicures and straightening Jenny's hair :) Then off to dinner with some friends, then ice cream (and I did not get Mango in mine :), then to play games (I finally understood and like the game PIT) and then to finish off the night we got Starbucks :) It was a great day and the best part of it was being with my friends and the thoughtful cards and gifts that I recieved that day. Thank you to all who made that day SO special for me.

Happy Birthday JJ!

For all of those who don't know JJ, she is the one on the left. She is celebrating her birthday in Wales, England this year as she is serving the church over there :) That's right. Sweet JJ laid down her life for a whole year (missing her nephew's birth, many special occasions, birthdays, and much more) to not only serve a church, but to love, serve and reach out to the many non-believers. She is someone I have admired from a distance for a very long time. She is has a heart full of joy and is always willing to serve and lay down her life for others. The one thing that I admire most about her is the way she puts sin to death daily and seeks to grow in her relationship with her Father. So I wanted to wish her a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY in the blog world to you my friend :) I don't have many picutres of us JJ (or ones that I would be willing to put up) So I thought a good picture would be one of some of your close friends (Do you remember when I took this one? We were on our way to G-Ville for the grand opening of their new building. That was a VERY fun night :). I hope you have a wonderful day and that you are blessed beyond your wildest dreams :) Love you!

A few surprises in the mail.....

Look what I recieved in the mail on Thursday! Thank you daddy and Amy :) Gotta love me some Vera Bradley ;)

Oh glorious day

One day He is coming and I look forward with much HOPE that that day will be soon, VERY SOON! But with as much hope as I look forward to Him coming, my heart breaks for those who do not believe. I am beginning to pray for opportunities to share once we finished the Proclaim series (but that does not come without a WHOLE LOT of fear of man and pride). Please pray for me. This song is an old hymn that was written with new music. Don't know much about it but it's been a source of encouragement and hope for me as we have been hearing the Proclaim series and how I am starting to truly understanding the Gospel (and Heaven) in a different light. What an amazing Savior we have that He would "Suffering anguish, despised and rejected: Bearing our sins," so that "Living, He loved me; dying, He saved me;Buried He carried my sins far away;Rising, He justified freely forever; One day He's coming; O glorious day!"

Update....and a somewhat funny story :)

It's very hard for me to post these days because I don't have good inernet connection, and my other computer is dead (and that is how I did all of my posts & pictures) so I haven't had the greatest post lately but hope to get back on top of it because I want to pass my blog along to some family members that I don't talk to very often so that we can keep up what is going on in each other lives. SO here is my first attempt in trying to be regualr in posting updates of my life. I might be changing my blog name, but still haven't decided. I love my blog and the many memories I have wrote about the past 2 years, so we shall see! With all that being said I wanted to share a funny story (well it wasn't so funny at 4 this morning) but I thought you all might get a good laugh out of my fear, and sillness. So I am sleeping last night, and all of sudden I hear that sound of the power going out. You know how it goes, just sounds like everything dies and comes to a complete stop. Instead of thinking there is a power outage or once again I forgot to pay the bill my heart falls into some major fear and thinking about all those crazy movies or shows I have seen where bad guys (and girls ;) cut the power put on the nighttime vision googles and are getting ready to break into houses to hurt them. YUP that is EXACTLY what I was thinking and fear has completely taken over, and while that is going on my alarm goes off REALLY LOUD! I pull my night stand in front of my bedroom door (it was already locked) turn off my alarm and called the alarm company. After being reassured that its just a lost to power, and phone line that none of the zones were alarmed I got off and called the power company to find out that about 1900 houses are without power. I somehow calm myself down, and fall back to sleep in the FREEZING cold and then many hours later you hear the power come back on along with my closet light. Somehow stupid me thought that putting the switch up at 4:00 in the morning would make it work. Who knows what I was thinking! I think I was exhuasted from not feeling well the past few days, and the exhuastion of the fear that took over me for a while just came to a crashing halt then :). The lady at the alarm company and power probably got a kick out of me ;) OH well and life conitnues on.....