a rant...

well where have i been for the past two months basically?

i have been doing life. you know, buying a house, working, cooking, cleaning, seeing family and friends, going crazy! hehe! and i am totally wondering- how do people keep up with this whole blogging thing??

so lately i have been wanting more than ever to save save save money. but kinda in a good way, and kinda not in a good way. see i have started following this one blog that is called moneysavingmom.com. and its a good blog. but its like a whole new subculture.

you see the blog is all about finding the best deals around, you know being frugal. and i think thats a great aspiration. especially with today's economy. but you see, if you look at who posts on this blog, its like there are a million of these blogs! and they are all centered around being a mom and being thrifty. interesting.

so anyhow- yesterday someone posted on there how they save money by not having cable. now anyone who knows me knows i dont have cable or Internet and i do save quite a bit of money by this choice. however, someday i do hope to have them- i like them. i dont think its a crime (although i am not that well versed on the new code of good Christians in the 2000s...).

but then all this "i am super religious because i dont have cable" fluff followed. all these people posted about how they were making the best choice ever- that they were focused on their family and saving money and being productive and being pure etc etc etc.

this totally angers me!! i mean i am not like a huge tv advocate or anything at all... but why have we become the pharisees all over again?? did Paul not say that we are free??

"7But not everyone knows this. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat such food they think of it as having been sacrificed to an idol, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled. 8But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do." 1 Corinthians 8:7-8

"3This is my defense to those who sit in judgment on me. 4Don't we have the right to food and drink?" 1 Corinthians 9:3-4

Basically I am trying to say that God desires for us to be free indeed! and that He desires for us to live in the time and culture that He created us for. If I delight in resting by weeping with those who weep in some sappy show, my Father in heaven does not look down on me for not checking ten other things off my to do list. He rejoices that I can love people like He designed me to.

Now I get that there is filth on TV. I do. And I am not saying go watch a bunch of gross junk. I am not condoning the people that sit all day and waste their brains away. But i am saying that when Christians get on a religious soap box about being holier than thou by not watching tv we sound an awful lot like the pharisees that spent so much time trying to trick Jesus into thinking they were perfect.

let us live as children of God... children who are free indeed... children that delight in the Fathers love- not trying to earn it.

the house trap...

so i will admit i have been a little stressed out lately...

ok maybe alot!

life has been crazy this year and i think it has been easy to focus on the earthly individual situations and not the heavenly big picture.

however, the biggest source of stress right now is the new house. moving. packing. decorating. wanting to update. mortgaging. ughhh!

and i find it so annoying. a house should be a place of rest and renewal. edith schaeffer once compared it to a hospital- people should be healed by being in your home. thats a pretty lofty goal. and i so desire to have a home that people feel the Holy Spirit ministering in. i want to be renewed by walking in the door, and i want others too as well.

and yet too often my home is my biggest source of frustration. my biggest idol. my biggest distraction. i try to live up to unachievable perfection when it comes to cleaning my house and decorating and organizing my house. my intention is good- i start out wanting it to be clutter free and inviting. however when i end, it has not become a place of renewal- it is a place i (and prob my husband) want to run from!

so with the new house, i am finding it so hard to slow down and simply desire for it to be welcoming and relaxing. i am constantly thinking of how to update it, make it look better, make it worth more money, make it look super cute etc. it is such a worldly trap!!! ugh! it is enough to make a person want to just move overseas with some tribe that lives in huts! goodness!

(did i mention i am not even moved in this house yet?)

so if you think about it today, send a prayer up for me and my home. pray that my mind will be captive to the things of Christ only, and that my home will be a place of ministry, not of worldly show.

tired thoughts... with no point really

this year has been very full of tiredness.

i started the year tired from surgery. i had a tired voice and complete lack of motivation. i was also tired of my husband being jobless and us being churchless. just tired.

then i was tired from a lack of sufficient thyroid hormone. literally tired. it took months to get my dose right, and quite frankly we are still working on that.

and now i am just tired. i am so tired of constantly running running running. there are practically no margins in our lives. we run from thing to thing to thing. and it is not just the busyness, anyone who knows me knows i have been busy my whole life. i was born busy i think.

but there is something different about this busy, something that is leaving me feeling awfully cynical and negative.

i dont have a wise lesson to be learned here- i have something i am needing to learn i think. basically i am tired, and fighting negativity so hard, and i havent the slightest clue why. but if you are reading this- please pray for clarity and joy.

oh, and calmness hehe!

someone hit fast forward!

where did summer go?


suddenly we only have a few more weeks and I am wondering how on earth time went by so quickly! in the last month I have gone to New York on a family vacation, and Louisville on a youth mission trip. but the biggest news is...


we are buying a house!

yes in the process of helping Dustin (Justin's twin brother) buy a house, we ran out of reasons to continue renting and started our own house search! we found a house that is just so "us" and are now under contract. the whole thing si super fast and crazy! here is a listing if you are interested!

http://legacyrealestategroup.point2agent.com/Bowling_Green/Kentucky/Homes/Bowling_Green_North/Agent/Listing_1768599.html

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