it must be time for a lesson...

well a few weeks ago i write a post about comparing myself to others on facebook etc. well apparently God thought it was time to teach me a lesson about just that!
I just began a bible study with a group of fabulous ladies online (whom I have never met and whom live all over the US really) entitled "No Other Gods" by Kelly Minter. It is about confronting the everyday idols we all have in our lives. The ones we dont even notice...
... such as comparing ourselves to others!
Hopefully I will get to share alot more about what god is teaching me thru this study later, but for now I wanted to share a great definition in the bible study of an idol:
An idol is something within creation that is inflated to function as a substitute for God. All sorts of things are potential idols, depending only on our attitudes and actions toward them...Idolatry may not involve explicit denials of God's existence or character. It may well come in the form of an over attachment to something that is, in itself, perfectly good... An idol can be a physical object, a property, a person, an activity, a role, an institution, a hope, an image, an idea, a pleasure, a hero- anything that can substitute for God. -Richard Keyes

really?

ok this post will prob seem pretty dumb to any males reading, but my girls will prob find it hilarious.

i am getting my haircut today. i really want bangs, i dont know why but i have a deep longing for bangs! hehe! so today i wen to google images and searched 'medium haircuts with bangs". well i found a whole new subculture of the internet! ladies, there is no longer a need to go look or buy the haircut mags at walmart, you can find anything you want on the internet these days!

i found a whole blog titled "hair obsessed", where the whole point of this ladies blog is to post pictures of different haircuts she finds online! she had even divided them all up into hair length categories, face shapes, appropriate for each age haircuts etc. it was nuts!

then i am also getting my eyebrows waxed today, so i decided why not see if there are eyebrow blogs etc. oh yeah... whole websites dedicated to helping people get the right eyebrow shape.

now to all this i have to say, "really?"! really, people have enough time and passion for others hair cuts and eyebrows to update blogs and websites every day with pictures?!! do these people work?? i just found it bizarre. dont get me wrong, i enjoyed being able to find pics to take to my hairdresser, but I just have to wonder who these people are?

you really can find anything on the internet!!!

is their life better than mine?

facebook, blogs, myspace, wedding websites, etc. have you noticed how many personal websites there are these days? it is quite ridiculous how easy it is to webstalk people's lives.
as i was "facestalking" (if you arent familiar w/this term, it is when you are on facebook and continue to go to page after page simply to see what that persons life is like etc) people today, i wondered to myself why this is so darn addicting?
i have come up with two answers thus far: 1) we deeply long to connect and stay close with many more people than we are able to. God created us for community, we enjoy other people. 2) we secretly want to know how their life shapes up to ours. this one saddens me to addmit. but i am compelled to look at people's facebook pages from high school b/c i want to know what their life is like. do they seem happier than me? do they have a great marriage? do they have a great house? have they gotten prettier? uglier? UGHHH!!!! the questions go on and on in my head. of course we dont automatically realize this is what we are doing. we dont do it on purpose. we do it because we have a sinful nature that desires to always be better, be in control, be the best, be our own lord basically!
taming this sinful nature is not so easy, in fact we arent even capable on our own. only Christ can defeat it forever. believers know that. but what we fail to remember is that once christ is Lord, we do have the power to fight against the flesh. We now know when we are being ridiculous... we are aware. before we really knew and submitted to Christ, we werent aware that any of these things were an issue. however now we know, and we are commanded to fight against this. jealously is not a fruit of the spirit, neither are pride or smuggness.
today, remember to check yourself in the small things. often once we have been a believer in Christ for awhile, we tend to oversee our sins. obviously we are not killing people so we are doing good. we let the devil & our own sinful nature lure us in the small ways where we have our guard down.
could this be what Christ meant when he says we are to be in the world, but not of it? so often in the Christian realm this has meant being so anticulture we cant reach the culture. but maybe He meant for us to be enjoying culture without being lead by the sinful nature. enjoy facebook- but dont allow pride, jealousy or judgement to rule how you enjoy it. enjoy a movie- but dont allow lust, judgement or idolatry to rule your thoughts during it.
leaving in a fallen world is sooo annoying. i am so over it. I second what John cried at the end of revelation: "Amen. Come Lord Jesus Come!!"

downpour

in december i had surgery. it was really an ordeal of sorts, and was no big deal at the same time. i had my thyroid removed and then discovered i had thyroid cancer. it sounds very dramatic, but in fact was not a huge deal. once the thyroid was out i really didnt have cancer... so as my husband likes to say- i didnt know i had cancer till i didnt have cancer! but on the financial side of things this has been such an ordeal! obviously surgery costs zillions of dollars, so you can imagine how poor people like the pate's cannot afford this type of thing. (justin says when this is all over i cant go to the doctor for years b/c i have exceeded my cost limit) i have been fighting with my secondary insurance for months now trying to get the correct papers in to the correct people so i can get some correct money! it has been the most frustrating and trying thing i have ever been involved in....
however the Lord has provided....
we found out this weekend that the insurance paid all of it!!! which means i had a semi major surgery and paid zero out of pocket on it!! Praise the Lord!

the beginning...

i have a summer job where i am in front of a computer for hours on end...sooooo.... i decied to try the blogging thing. and the only thing on my mind?

KID SUMMERS!

i miss being a kid in the summer. remember when you were too young to work or pay bills? and summer was spent riding your bike, watching tv, playing outside or swimming? how i long for those days again.

but instead i am having an adult summer. and i have come to realize that this is my reality. get up, go to work, come home and eat, go to church softball, go to sleep and get up and do it all again! (ok maybe it isnt quite that boring or bad- but you get the picture)

i want to swim and lay by the pool. i want to go to amusement parks. i want to sleep in till noon and stay up till 2am. oh well... back to work!