"But As For You, Pursue Gentleness"

1 Timothy 6:11

"but as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, and gentleness."

This morning an old friend texted me and asked if I had an email in my sent files from like two and half years ago and if I could send it to him. As I pulled up my yahoo account and sent him the email, I was so caught off guard as I read some of my sent emails for years past. My heart sank and I began to tear up because of the lack of gentleness in my responses and posture with friends, family, and fellow believers.

After awhile, I stopped reading, and feeling utterly defeated, I opened my bible, started to read and I thanked God for all of the painful and broken moments over the last few years He has taken me through, in order to break me. He has birthed in me a more gentle spirit, a more Christ-centered approach to how I interact and serve others.

It was a catch 22. I hated reading a few of those old emails, but I love seeing God's faithfulness in my life over time. It's hard to see sometimes, but today I had a glimpse into my old self...

Lord, let me continue to pursue living a life of a servant and help me tomorrow to put on the new self.

grace and peace,

matt

Halloween 2009

Matt and I's first Trick-or-Treating experience as parents. We got Ryland all decked out with some stuff from one of his favorite movies right now - Cars! We went out in my parent's neighborhood. We made it to about 4 or 5 houses then Ryland decided to lay down on the sidewalk. It was obvious at this point Trick-or-Treating was over but we had a lot of fun for our first adventure. Next year we will definitely have both children in costumes :-)


Checking Out the candy at grammie and papa's house...contemplating this Halloween thing!


The full Lighting McQueen Pit Crew Outfit


Ryland at his first house wanting to take more candy!!!

P.S. We were excited that Ryland still does not know what candy is...so when my parents ran out of candy, we started handing out Rylands. Maybe he will actually get to try some next year.

Perfection

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:12-14

This challenge has reminded me that I am not perfect. Also that the goal of this challenge was to not be perfect. There is a side of me, a deep, dark, ugly side I try not to show that wanted to be perfect in this. I wanted to get done with this 90 day challenge and say...Look at me! Look at how good I did. I was able to not spend any discretionary money for 90 days. God is moving me and changing me to realize that was not the true intent. I have seen God, felt God, been blessed by God, been challenged in life more in these 90 days than I ever would have thought. And I now realize I would have probably missed it all. I would not have been focusing on God's hand in my life as much as I am right now because of this "silly" money challenge. This has made me focus my life completely around my God. I am very grateful to be able to witness Gods hand in my life, my husbands life, my children's lives as it happens instead of always looking back on things and later realizing God was at work. This has been one of those hidden blessings that I am happy to have experienced.

New Beginnings

I resigned last Thursday from Phoenix Christian Counseling Associates. My big news is that around January 2010 I will be opening my own counseling business. I am going into private practice. I am so stoked and so unbelievably amazed that I even have this opportunity. A woman I work with at PCCA, her husband is a Dr. who has his own practice in the Arcadia area, off of 48th Street and Indian School. He has vacant offices right now and heard that I was thinking of leaving PCCA. This space has been offered to me and his wife so we have decided to go into business together. I am so excited to be working closer to home and to be able to see more clients without having to drive across town to do that. I have worked a total of 3 and a half years at PCCA so leaving is not easy but Matt and I have been praying about me going out on my own for months now and cannot ignore that God is moving me in this direction....YEAH!!!!

???? Down and way too many days to go :-)

I have made a few more poor decisions in the last two weeks. First I got sick, then I got both of my kids sick....so the last two weeks have been pretty unbearable. I found that to make things easier or to brighten up my day I got some fast food. I think in the last two weeks I grabbed food three times. Oh...and with my "new" dairy allergy, that was added to the mix in the last two weeks. Life has just been hard and I felt like quite a bit had been thrown at me. I am definitely not trying to justify anything, it has just been a few hard weeks :-)
It is strange to me that I keep cheating with food. I have been so tempted to go to the store and go shopping....shopping for ANYTHING and yet I resist that. The hardest thing to follow is not adding to our grocery bill. I have to constantly remind myself there is no need to grab food when there is plenty of food at home.

A Taste of Fellowship

Last night a few of us gathered to eat, fellowship, laugh, play catan, and most importantly hold Keane for the first time. I watched as each of his kingdom aunts and uncles held him and stared into his eyes. It was a worshipful evening....

I continue to learn everyday what true fellowship looks like. God, thank you for your deep love for us, so that we might know how to give love to all who need it. Let us be moving closer to your heart.

grace and peace,

matt

Food Allergies??

This post is a shout out to all of you out there who have already had to brave the world of a food allergy. I personally do not have a food allergy and have never had to think much about what I eat and how it might affect me. That was until I started nursing. For the past three months I have been off dairy. I have been avoiding "obvious" dairy. Like milk and all cheeses. London has been doing better because of this but this past weekend was a nightmare. Her tummy seems to hurt all the time. So I was advised to take the next step and actually eliminate all dairy. After doing my homework I realized that dairy is in almost everything we eat. They hide it in words like whey, casein, lactose, recaldent. Did you know that even lunch meat has dairy in it? I went food shopping last night so I could start stocking my shelves with dairy free friendly food so I would not cheat because of lack of options. It is overwhelming to read all the labels...it was a very long food shopping trip for four bags of food. The other thing I realized, because I have a friend with a legume (soy) allergy....THERE IS SOY IN EVERYTHING ALSO. I also found it interesting that you would find a food not containing milk or soy or gluten, but then at the bottom of the container they advise you that the food you are about to eat was packaged at a plant that also packages food that contains soy, or nuts, or gluten...so it would be in your food. Very challenging!