Would you like some cheese with your whine?

This week at Life Group we talked about complaining, based on Philippians 2:14-15:

"Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless & innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked & twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world."

& it was one of those times when I realize what a big fat loser I am. You know those times? They are bittersweet. It is a blessing to have the conviction of the Holy Spirit, to know that you are being refined to look more like Jesus, but at the same time you realize how much "flesh" is still left in you, & you grieve over it, because you don't want to sin!

But recently God revealed something to me - one of those times when He makes a truth very real to you, & all of a sudden it makes perfect sense. I am not to make myself good for God, but instead God is making me good, over time. He does not shake his head at us & "tsk, tsk" when we sin - He says, "it's okay, get back up, we'll try again." (Please note that I speak of true believers, people that know the Lord; He forgives our sin because we are covered by the blood of Jesus. He is a just God & people who do not accept Jesus' sacrifice for us will be judged accordingly [hell].)

All that to say, all of my life I have been a rule-follower. This is not necessarily a bad thing (in my opinion, of course!). But because of my rule-following nature, I have always thought I need to just do the right thing, creating my own righteousness basically, then when I messed up I beat myself up over it. I lacked grace for others & myself. But God is revealing His grace to me. I am finally seeing His love & salvation for us as a perfect mix of grace & the law. When we love the Lord & know Him, we need to & should want to obey Him. & God is showing me how grace fits in perfectly.

It's so good when God reveals truth to you. It might not make sense in any logical kind of way, but God is so much bigger than logic.

Back to complaining. We kept coming back to two things: first, we complain because we think we have rights. We have the right to be treated in the best way by everyone, we have the right to go about our way without disturbance, we have the right for everything to be exactly how we want it. & when those things don't happen, we complain. Yuuccckk. How selfish are we. We, especially as Christians, have no rights! If only we lived life for Jesus instead of ourselves. If only we could stop thinking of ourselves as so important.

Second thing: everything comes back to the condition of your heart. Only you know why you say what you say. You know if you want to tear someone down, or if you have a genuine concern for their situation. You know the intent of your words. (Hopefully you've noticed by now that most of the time, when I say "you, " I mean everyone, the general public, including myself.) If ONLY everything I said were profitable!!

God is working in my heart in this whole complaining thing.

If you were wondering....

He came at 6:45. :-)

*insert jeopardy music* (the four-hour long version)

I'm here waiting on the AT&T guy. Don't you love when they say, "he'll be there in between one & five?" I get nervous to go to the bathroom. What if he comes JUST as I sit down?? & that's no fun... no one likes to feel rushed when going to the bathroom!

I also get nervous when the first two hours have passed sans phone man. What if he forgot? At what point should I call? I know the answer to that one would be "after 5, duh," but then that means he doesn't come today, & that means I have to wait on hold for 2 hours again to schedule another appointment for a couple days from now & he has to come today! See what I mean? It's stressful waiting in a four-hour block!

For those of you anxious to see what is to come following the previous post, don't hold your breath too much! All I know is that I think I'll soon do a post on salvation, & that verse captivated me yesterday so I thought I'd share it with you. Don't you love when a verse does that? The words flow so well, almost melodically, & not because it's poetic (although it may be), but because it is TRUTH & it hits you right in the heart, & you can't stop thinking about it.

So we'll see what comes. :-)

eventually more to come...

How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?

Hebrews 2:3

Communion hog

So today we had communion at church. This was exciting, because in the past year, we have missed most communions due to being back in Sunday School with our second graders. So yay for communion.

Anyways, so we file out of our row & stand in line to grab a piece of cracker-type "bread" & some grape juice. File, stand, take, walk, sit back down. Once we were seated again, waiting on everyone else to get theirs, I tapped Josh on the shoulder. He looked over & held up my cracker - a big piece nearly as long as my forefinger. He grinned & shook his head at me, in that "you are ridiculous" kind of way. I think he called me a goober or something too.

It's true... in the two seconds I have to scan over all the cracker pieces I have to choose from, I quickly spot the biggest available & take it. I love bread. & crackers are bread-like.

I was hungry too, does that make me less ridiculous??

A walk in the park

Josh & I took a lovely walk last night. I just love San Antonio terrain. I love all the oak trees (they just grow on their own - that in itself is amazing, coming from Midland). It really is pretty nice outside in the morning & late evening, even though it is sweltering during the day.

On our walk we talked about what God is teaching us & specific issues He has us praying about & researching through scripture. He is teaching us a lot & we are both hungry for scripture & have the desire to know what it says & what it means, making sure everything we do & believe can be traced back to scripture - personal opinions & experiences mean nothing if they cannot be backed up by the Bible.

I am going through Hebrews & I'm pretty excited about it. I haven't gone through it in a while. I'm taking 5 verses at a time, reading them, studying them, listening to the Holy Spirit speak truth through each chunk of scripture.

Lindsey is coming to spend the day with me! It should be a fun time.

I am also excited to receive the cookbook I ordered, it will come by mail any day now. Claire recommended it to me, & I bought it for 31 cents. :-) I love new recipes! Especially easy ones!

Very feminine

Yesterday my fingernails were as long as I think they've ever been, not gross long, but pretty long. One always breaks so I end up cutting them all short, but they were doing really well so I wanted to see what it would be like to have long fingernails... it's kind of annoying. So I cut them. But I felt pretty despite the irritation. I always felt like there were two prerequisites to being a wife - you must have pretty cursive writing & long pretty fingernails. I hadn't written in cursive since elementary school, but thanks to weeks of addressing wedding invitations then writing thank you notes, I write in cursive again. But the fingernails... well, I did it once, that should be enough!

I am dog-sitting for my parents' dog Riley. She's a bichon, which Sage is half of (other half scottie). It's funny looking at them both & seeing similarities they have. Like how they sleep.

Since they are from the same breeder, we like to think they are related, so they call each other "Cousin Sage" & "Cousin Riley," naturally.

I think I shall go start a new book!