How Spring weekends are meant to be spent...

One thing that I am ADORING about this Spring is the fact that Mark is no longer coaching track. This is the first Spring in 9 years that he's been home at a reasonable hour during the week and isn't gone half weekend. It has been so nice for him to be able to be at all of Ethan's soccer games and take Karis to some of her gymnastics practices. That has made the financial sacrifice worth it. I know that I am so blessed to have a husband who understands the value of being with and investing in his family as much as he possibly can...especially while the kids are little.

Anyway, we enjoyed what seemed to be the first nice weekend, weather-wise, in weeks. Karis had her gymnastics recital on Friday night. My parents came down to see it and Mark's parents came along, too. Here are a couple videos of her performance. We were thrilled that she actually got out there and did her stuff. Karis is a girl who wouldn't get on stage at her Pre-K graduation, and practiced for weeks for a Christmas program at church then decided at the dress rehearsal she wasn't getting up in front of the church. She fell off her bike a couple hours before the show and skinned her whole left side up. Injuries are the one time the girl will draw attention to herself. You would have thought her arm fell off and leg was broken the way she screamed! It wasn't till about 5 minutes before we had to leave the house that she decided she'd be able to perform. We loved watching her and cheering her on in "her thing". (I couldn't figure out how to flip the one horizontal...sorry!)

My mom, the "master gardener", helped me put together some flowers for a big tiered flower post my MIL got me for Christmas. We had a nice time browsing the garden market down the road with Natalie. The girls enjoyed watching Grammy work her magic and picking up some tips on how to split the roots.

The guys spent the day putting together our new playset. The big kids have far outgrown the one we've had since they were 2 and 3, so we decided to take the plunge and go for a wooden one. We spend so much time outside, we knew it would get a lot of use over the next several years. It was great having my dad's carpentry/contracting expertise and power tools to help with the job.

More Revival thoughts

I wanted to share a couple more things about our Revival Summit...

I bought a set of CD's if you're interested in borrowing them. Or you can listen to the teaching from the week at Berean's website.

A great ministry that you can access online is Revive Our Hearts. I am currently doing their "True Woman Makeover", which has had some great teaching on the Proverbs 31 woman and is now moving onto to modesty and purity. I am also doing the 30 Day Husband Encouragement Challenge. Lots of good stuff to sift through on this site.

The whole week and a half was draining and refreshing at the same time. It's something hard to describe. The testimonies that came out of it were amazing. The Holy Spirit definitely moved. Which brings me to some thoughts on what the Summit did for me. I have been a Christian my whole life...prayed the prayer of salvation at the age of 4 and was baptized in 4th grade. This video from Francis Chan pretty much sums up how I feel like I've lived the much of my Christian walk:

Well, I'm determined to get off the "middle road". I feel like God spent the week calling me to let go of the complacency and fear of looking a little "crazy" and just tap into the power that the Holy Spirit offers. I want to be a believer that hears God's voice and obeys...whether it be spontaneously praying for a friend, neighbor, or complete stranger or paying for a random person's groceries, or sacrificing time and resources to serve wherever there might be need.

I don't feel like I know the Holy Spirit and what He makes possible for the true believer. It's like any good person could do the things I do. There isn't much that sets me apart as holy. Ever since I read Crazy Love, and read the excerpt from Forgotten God at the end of it, I knew that it is my relationship with the Spirit that is lacking and I needed to find out what being a Spirit-filled Christian should really look like. I know I was given the gift of the Holy Spirit when I prayed that prayer 25 years ago. And I know there have been times where His guidance has kept me from disobedience and moral destruction. But, I also am realizing that He has so much more to offer me if I know Him and His power in a real way. I want people to notice that "I've been with Jesus", to quote our pastor as he referred to Acts 4 this morning. So, I'm burning my ships (look up the story of Hernando Cortez to understand that analogy), reading Forgotten God and Acts, and training myself to conciously tap into that power. It feels good to see the Fruit growing as a result. I expect more changes in the days to come.

Beautiful Faces

I realized it's been quite a while since I've posted pictures of our sweet kiddos, so enjoy...

It's been a while...

Goodness, it's been a while.

We've been busy this week seeking some refreshment from God. Our church invited Life Action Ministries back for an 8 day revival summit. If you've been reading my blog since the beginning you might remember they came for a 4 day conference back in November 2008. It was great then, and has been truly amazing this time around. I know that different people and denominations, etc. have varying ideas of what "revival" is all about.

To me, the intent of this ministry (and our pastors intent in bringing them again) has been to transform lives...to get people on their knees and their face before God and each other. To get people to love like they should, pray like they should, give like they should, and lead like they should. And for it to not end on Sunday night. That we would not just get caught up in emotion of the week, but that our lives would be changed long term and that our families would look different for generations.

We started the week with three hours of church on Sunday morning, two hours on Sunday evening, and 2-3 hours every night this week. I went to a lunch on Tuesday and we'll go to a family seminar for 4 hours Saturday. Then Sunday we'll finish up the week with morning and evening services. It has been a little bit hard having the kids out every night and not getting them to bed until 10 a couple of the nights, but it has been worth every minute.

Many of the team members from Life Action are the same ones that were here previously, but this time they also brought along a man named Tom Nesbit who has focused on speaking to families. Seriously. If you EVER get a chance to hear this man speak, you must take it. His call to men to lead their families is the best I have ever heard. His Scriptural teaching on submission to authority, binding the devil, and seeking/giving forgiveness were amazing.



There is no way I could share everything that I have gained from this week, but I wanted to post a few thoughts and quotes that I'm holding close.

• I Kings 18...repair the altar, make the sacrifice, pray...refreshing will come. One of the things that especially struck me from the teaching on this passage was that the real sacrifice was not necessarily the bull, but the water. The drought had been going on for so long...how could these people afford to pour that much water on the altar just to prove Elijah's God? So many times we think we are making a sacrifice that will prove who God is, but how much more or what bigger thing is He calling us to give up?

• The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toils, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray. -Samuel Chadwick

• Matthew 12:25-29 "Or again, how can anyone enter a strong man's house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can rob his house." How long does Satan need to bind up a husband/father with things like pornography, sexual immorality, dishonest business practice, and self-centeredness until he is able to steal that man's wife/children and destroy them with the same sins? The answer: not very long.

• A mother who prays for her children can bind a thousand demons. A father who prays for his children can bind a thousand demons. But a mother and father that pray together for their children can bind 10,000 demons.

• I Timothy 5:14 "So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander."
  Ephesians 5:23 "For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church." Tom asked the congregation who the head of the household is and most of us said the man. But he pointed us to the verse in Timothy and assured us that the women is the head of the home, and according to Ephesians, the husband is the head of the wife. God is the head of the husband. There are umbrellas of authority. While the woman is to manage the home, the husband is responsible for what happens or doesn't happen under his roof. He is ultimately responsible for the success or failure of his marriage and the children who live under his roof.

• To piggy-back on the previous verses and thoughts, Proverbs 14:1 says "The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down." Tom preached that a woman who tries to be the spiritual leader in her home will end up tearing it down. This is the husband's responsibility, and she is foolish to think that she can do a job that he is commanded to do. I heard it as a call to women to give up control (we tend to be control freaks) and allow the men to lead.

Well, I have more, but I want to get this posted before it's too long or outdated. I'll try to come back this week with some more resources and thoughts about what God has stirred in me.

Happy Mother's Day

Well, I have another post about where I've been at lately, but I haven't been able to finish it yet. But I wanted to post a Mom's Day thanks to my mom.

Mom, I don't tell you enough how thankful I am for the legacy you and dad started when you became Christians and raised us in the church. I know that it wasn't easy doing that with the background you had, and I praise God that He brought you out of that, and that Mark and I now have the chance to raise Godly children. Generations to come will be impacted...and will impact others...because of the mom you are. Love you.