So, my bible study group just finished a study on a book titled " Living Each Day in the Name of Jesus. Living each day as if Christ Himself were right there with you as a human, as the being he was 2000 years ago; or, living life in HIS NAME. As each chapter touched on Grace, Giving, Gifts, Scripture, Spiritual Life, (and more), it was the last chapter that really put me in my place. The fruits of the spirit and Galations 5. I've always had the fruits that most people have trouble with and have always lacked in the fruits that most people seem to do fine with. In this last session, i sat down and really examined everything. I even (awfully) found myself automatically thinking of people in my life or people that i know who had certain fruits and lacked others. Which will bring me to my next point, i'll get to it later. Here are the fruits and my own personal definitions for each one:
LOVE: wanting, desiring all happiness and goodness for another, no matter what.
JOY: having the fruits of the spirit create joy - internal warmth / happiness
(interesting how Love and Joy are mentioned first of all of them, Love being the greatest of all, and Joy being only possible when all the fruits are present...)
PEACE: being able to trust in God without reservation and truly feeling HIM take over a situation.
PATIENCE: being able to wait even when you are in an incredibly uncomfortable situation or a selfish situation....it's a virtue, and it's not okay in God's eyes to accept yourself as impatient.
KINDNESS: doing nice things from the heart, even when it's hard or uncomfortable.
GOODNESS: always doing "the next right thing" (thanks Dad for that one!)
FAITHFULNESS: never steering away from your loyalty, even when you're blinded.
GENTLENESS: being considerate of another persons emotions or situation while dealing with them or consoling them; being able to make a person feel comfortable. Gentleness must accompany truth. People who have this fruit seem to be peace-makers (at least most of the people I know!)
SELF-CONTROL: being able to say no to the things that tempt you.
None of these can be in your heart if you don't have love! The greatest of these is love. God commands us to love. The bottom line is that, if you have a heart full of the LOVE OF GOD, then chances are you have most of the fruits. Obviously no one is perfect, and everyone has to stand back and examine their ownself and see which ones that are least evident in their life....we're human, it happens. But with God's LOVE, you CAN have all these.
I feel God working on me which is starting to create that peace within - I just keep praying for more love and more joy. The points that really made a mark on my heart from this study over the last couple months are these (my translation of what I read in the book mentioned above by Ortberg, Pederson and Poling):
~God isn't interested in a spiritual life. He's interested in your life. (my interpretation: Christians put all their eggs in the basket of "what actions am i supposed to be taking as a Christian?" instead of asking themselves "am I "doing life" in Jesus' name?" Let God have control of your life, and then you'll more than likely have a great spiritual life.
~We extend God's grace each time we behave kindly and generously to others - when we pray for them, NOTICE THEM, forgive them, serve them, include them - when we do this, we can experience an UNFORCED fruitfulness. The hard part about grace, is that sometimes we have to accept it from others! That leads to humility though.....
~Read, meditate on scripture, have solitude and prayer time and this is the painless training that will guide your spiritual life.
~Grace and Truth must both be present, one NOT without the other, to have Godly group life or community - each person must accept each individual regardless of falls and shortcomings and lovingly and truthfully guide them.
~Spiritual gifts are the absolute necessity for life and health of a church; when the church has these then it can build a community on servanthood. HUMILITY IS GOD'S MOST TREASURED VIRTUE.
~Whatever your treasure is, is where your heart will be. When you get close to a man's treasure, you've gotten as close as you can get to his soul. Treasure what God treasures, He trusts us with his resources!
And here are 2 things I've heard from 2 different ladies so I don't take the credit, however they are 2 of the most eye opening, profound, and self-examining phrases I've ever heard:
"When I look up at God, I'm not looking down on others."
and,
"If you are not building someone up, you are tearing them down."
See? Profound huh?
so, this was a great way for me to conclude my last two months. God is working on me so!
something else I found interesting, and i challenge you to do this: First read the Corinthians 13 and replace "Jesus" for "Love". nice huh?
then go through and replace "your name" for "love".....ouch, hurts a little doesn't it?
Then, go through fill in the blanks in this question, then answer all your questions.
"WHO DO I NEED MORE (fruit of the spirit here) WITH/FOR?
A lady in my bible study mentioned this excercise. What's really cool, is that she's the lady who will eventually be my daughter's principal! Praise God!

The HUNTRESS

It's Feb. 26. All I can think about is hunting season. I've come to realization that I am truly, 100%, sinfully obsessed with this. All I can feel right now is the bow in my hand. I'm dying to get out there. I want to get one....a big one. I missed her last year, and never saw bucky b/c i got "caught" by a hunter who had been leasing the land i was hunting on. It wasn't my fault but a miscommunication from the land owner. Anyhow, my season was cut short with that and then a crazy move to a new house.
I've been searching the internet day and night reading up on bowfishing....Yes, bowfishing. I love to fish, and I love to bowhunt, so how cool would it be to bowfish. I'm dying to do this. I haven't talked to my husband yet but I think i'm going to ask him to go sometime soon. We'll have to get a freinds boat. To do this, you have to completely rig up your bow with a fishing line, reel, and fishing aarows. Not to mention all the hunting/fishing legalities/licsenses, depending on where you go....but we are going to Colorado in June! I know we could get some good bowfishing in there! I have a feeling not one person reading this will ever click on this http://www.womenbowhunters.us but if you do you'll laugh first...then you might find something interesting to browse around at. You guys can then see just how obsessed I am, that go to sights like that hehehehehehehe.
WHY do i love this so much? There's no other feeling like it when i hold my bow in my hand. I think it's the adrenaline rush you get when you see one under you. "One" being a deer, coyote, fish, whatever. I think my "LIFETIME GOAL" is to hunt everything huntable (well, legally that is...) Obviously i won't go picking off humans; but too bad i couldn't be a professional sniper. that's alright. The government just hasn't discovered me yet. If they had I wouldn't be writing this that's for sure. I'd be going after the latest "hit" on the top of their list.
HA HA!
Seriously, I think i'm gonna have to set up a spring Turkey hunt just to get out some frustration. I'm going mad here. I can't wait 8 months.

Please Father, pick me up again
my spirits scraped
my mind bitten into

Please Father, hold me again
against Your breast
my heart pounds in fright, beating my own chest

Please Father, forgive me
i've failed you once again
Temptation repeatedly overcame my thoughts

Thank you Father, again
for cleansing my wounds,
for filling my soul,
for making me whole,
Again.

Wanted by the OCC driver - YESSSS

Ha! So, if you don't know who the OCC boys are check out their website, or just watch TLC's show American Chopper. Paul Sr, Paul Jr., and the weird brother Mikey, aka "The Teutal's" (pronounced Tuttle's) build custom bikes for a living and are pretty famous for some of their work. They did an awesome bike for FDNY in memory of 9-11, they've built a bike for Jay Leno, and many many others. Check out their website: www.orangecountychoppers.com. They do some really really amazing art work. They also are big supporters of the fire department. They incorporate "elements" of whatever theme their doing on a bike. On their website, click on the link to the "on-air theme bikes" to see the fire bike...it's amazing. They even used peices of the debri from the WTC destruction on the bike.
Anyhow, they've built a bike for a company here in Wichita and presented it at the fire station and had a big hoopla event over the whole deal and that gave me an excuse to go see someone famous....HOWEVER, they didn't show up until after I had to get back to work. Bummer. BUT the guy who drives their truck around the country with all their bikes (b/c obviously he can't fly them in an airplane...) was there. And he was trying to hit on me. He was your typical New Yorker, but also your typical truck driver with a big 'ol belly hangin' down. What was funny was I was standing next to Jason and I don't think he caught on until after the fact but at least J thought it was funny. This guy (who stuck his hand out to me and introduced himself while looking me up and down) asked me about the hotels around here. Then Jason just said "oh, my wife I recently stayed at Hotel at Oldtown" (while pointing at me). Then Mr. OCC truckdriver man realized that he was talking to a married woman and quietly but swiftly made his way to another conversation with someone else...I found this as my "5 minutes of fame" although, there was no fame, and it might not be very funny, but it was to me! Anyhow, check out the website to appreciate some really intense artwork, they hand craft every curve, every cutout of every inch of every bike. And then there's the guy who air brushes it who doesn't get near enough recognition. Pretty neat.

I LIFT MY HANDS IN PRAISE TO THE LORD

This morning I got up, went to the kitchen in the dark, and started to get the coffee pot ready for my morning cup o' joe. I turned on the faucet and...nothing. I turned it off again, thinking I must be dreaming. I turned the faucet back on again. Nothing. I ran to the bathroom and turned on the faucet there. Nothing. I ran through the house to the other bathroom and tried that one. Nothing.
Instantly my mind went racing. It had been 3 degrees overnight. A pipe had probably froze and busted. I thought "We've been in our for one month now and already we've pulled up sub-flooring, rebuilt the sub-floors, replaced the floors, replaced, taped and mudded and sanded sheetrock under every window and repainted every wall in the house. (Not to mention completely knocked down and rebuilt a wall separating the laundy room from the living room.) The hot water heater went out and had to be replaced. Jason's truck had been in the shop twice already. Now this?!?!"
All this in the middle of winter, and if you are around Kansas you know how our winter has been, cold, wet frozen solid and wind chills that bite your bones. I just could not handle this right now.
At this point I told my daughter that I needed her to go do something fun in her bedroom or just be quiet for awhile because I needed to pray for awhile. I needed to get on my knees and get with God. She said "please can we play mommy?" It broke my heart but I told her "mommy needs to talk to God for awhile honey. You can come with me and pray with me if you'd like, but I have to do this now."
So she sat on the floor and I began to pray. And pray, and pray and pray. I thanked God for things I DID have. I thanked him for things we take for granted. I thanked him for a roof over my head and food in the kitchen. I thanked him that my husband was on his way home from the firestation alive. I thanked him that my daughter, or anyone else in our family didn't have a terminal illness. I thanked him for my vehicle in the garage. AND I thanked him for the fact that my only problem was a busted water pipe. It could be alot worse. A family in our area has 4 children and the mother is 9 months pregnant and their house burned to the ground last week. I thanked God I had a home, and that I had clothes to put on. I thank him for the job I would be going to on Monday. We are not worthy of any of these things. God's grace allows us to have these things. We live detestful lives and he still provides these things for us. He still grants us His Mercy! To God be the Glory! Praise Him for what He HAS done for you!
Who are we to think we deserve a home, a car, health, freinds, and all the other necessities in life we should be refering to as BLESSINGS?

In the midst of my prayer I began to weep. The tears started welling up. My lip started quivering and that's when I told God that there was no financial way we could repair this. I told God that I trusted Him that He would provide for us...however, I know what's in the bank right now. I know that we've exhausted our resources in the other emergencies. Winter time is hard for us because Jason's fire dept. pay is nothing. (Firefighters get paid approximately a little over minimum wage to put their lives on the line, run into burning buildings, extricate mutilated bodies out of smashed vehicles, etc. That's why they do it... for the love of what they do.) Jason's 2nd job is lawn and landscaping which brings in the bread and butter. And obviously he's not mowing in 2 feet snow right now. things are tight to say the least. So as my prayers continued and my sobbing became obvious to my daughter, she came over to me and put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed me and said "mommy, can you hear God now?"

God spoke to my heart and I had a peace. What was I alone going to do about broken pipes other than deal with it? thankfully I have family around for showering right? Anyhow, Jason got home this morning with a kerosene heater and started heating up underneath the house to "unfreeze" anything frozen so we could start in on whatever it was going to take to get this figured out. After about an hour all of a sudden, the water just started running out of the faucet! After all the phone calls to plumbers, the water company, the turning off and on of the water to the house, the water flat out just "came back on."

God heard me this morning. Why he answered my prayers I don't know, I don't deserve it. BUT HOW THANKFUL I AM!! It's a complete miracle! Things don't just happen like that unless it's a GOD thing.
thank you Lord.