You better watch out....

Let's just say not everyone was happy about Santa Claus coming to town!

Holding Hands

The other day as I was walking my daughter across the street for playschool. As we were walking up the curb to the sidewalk, my daughter started to stumble. Because I was holding her hand, I lifted her up so she wouldn't scrape her knee. I said "See why Mommy makes you hold her hand, so that I can keep you from falling."


As soon as the words were out of my mouth, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Isn't that just how our Heavenly Father feels towards us? The moment we think we have it all under control and we let go of His hand, we slip and fall flat on our face! How many of life's scrapes and boo-boos could we avoid if we would only hold tight to His loving, faithful and protecting hand.


I hope it doesn't seem like I am overspiritualizing such a small thing. Thank goodness my Lord uses the simple things to speak to me or I might never get it!

The ABC's of Gratitude

The ABC’s of Gratitude!
Many years ago, at a luncheon for women, I spoke on the topic The Power of Gratitude. I shared my testimony about my first experience with depression and how I overcome it by starting a gratitude journal.
I sometimes still have to remind myself how important it is that our focus stays on what we have and not what we don’t. Life becomes a pretty beautiful place when we realize just how much we have been given.
There used to be a Christian radio station that played the ABC game every Monday as people where on there way to work to overcome the Monday blues. The rules were that someone had to call in with something that they were thankful for from every letter of the alphabet. It was great listening to it and I always looked forward to my Monday drive to work.
That was years ago but I can still distinctly remember one woman calling in and saying the letter G for grass. Thankful for grass? She said that every time she smelt freshly cut grass it reminded her of all the times she and her family spent together in her backyard, playing games, grilling out or just being outdoors together. That made me smile.
What a wonderful perspective on life. Sometimes thankfulness and gratefulness is something we have to work at and make sure it is a strong character quality in our life.

FRIENDSHIP

Friendship
The word FRIEND is defined as a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard. I read this definition and thought to myself, "That is not the definition of a friend". There is NO way that defines what a friend means to me.
This past weekend I had the pleasure to recall what true friendship is. Ironically some of these true friends I have not seen in over ten years. Yet there I was this past weekend surrounded by some of the most amazing women in the planet.
Now let me make one thing clear. We are not all exactly alike. Are tastes are all very different. We belong to a variety of church types and we all have our own unique hobbies. Yet there I was Saturday night looking around me at these beautiful women. Beautiful beyond just what you see in their pictures. Beautiful hearts, beautiful lives, beautiful stories.
Every one of them leaves a legacy of the person they are and of the God that they serve. As surreal as it was, I looked about me Saturday night as we laughed and cried together and I realized in that moment how blessed I was. I may only get to see these girls on occasion and certainly not as often as I like, but just the fact that I have been a part of their lives and they have been a part of mine, is a blessing I dare not take for granted. Every person there has shaped my life and inspired me in some way.
Friendship is a thing you take for granted until you lose it. It's value is priceless, it is an investment with an endless return. So to all my beautiful sisters in Christ, I love you, I miss you and I am so grateful to call you my FRIEND!..

My Fairytale!

My Handsome Prince








AND









My Country Princess

Worship in Spirit and Truth

Ironically you will find no greater controversy within the church world today than worship. Isn't it odd how deception comes from something that should be sacred and precious rather than something dark and unrighteous.
I have heard debates over everything from the style of music, the time alotted, conservative versus progressive and the list goes on. We complicate something that God desires from us so greatly. We spend more time analyzing worship than practicing it. It is a natural river that should flow from us without reservation. And it is a practice that should exist as much outside of the walls of a church as within them.
Worship can not exist with out a worshipper and an object of affection or adoration. Outside of that simple formula the rest is really natural. It is what we were created to do. If we were honest I think we would admit that we worship constantly throughout our daily lives. We magnify and exalt the things that are precious to us. Whether they be self, career, family or our relationships. We give honor and glory to the things in our lives that matter the most to us.
Yet when it is time to honor and exalt our Creator (the one who deserves our worship above all others), we complicate it with the things we think necessary to pay Him the greatest honor. All the while He is wanting only our hearts. The place, the sound, the style are of little consequence to Him.
He wants our hearts. Not part but the whole. We can not share our hearts with other gods and experience the blessings that come from pure worship. Sometimes we use the phrase "Spirit and in Truth" so loosely. What does it really mean. To worship in Spirit and in Truth? (John 4:23-24)
The scriptures about Spirit and Truth are not within the step by step plan of how to worship God or which song service works best. No these scriptures are within the story of the woman at the well. Jesus is telling this lost and searching woman. "but the time is coming AND IS ALREADY HERE, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for ANYONE who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit so those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth."
He was wanting her everything. He was trying to tell her that He already knew her. I mean really knew her. He didn't want her rituals and offerings and traditions of worship. He wanted HER! In spirit and in truth. Not just the parts she wanted to offer but the ugly and the attractive. The hidden and the revealed. Until we offer all the chambers of ourselves to Him, we will always be left with the grasping for True Worship from a far. Desiring it, yet never experiencing it. He longs for us to worship Him and we were created to do so.
I think the controversies of worship come from the fact that we know within ourselves that something is still missing. So we complicate it with strategies and formulas that we have heard will work in our favor. We make it even more difficult when we take the simplicity and the beauty of Worship away.
Earlier I stated that the simple formula for worship is an object of affection + a worshipper. Who are what will you worship today?

Deeper

I am learning new things. I am thinking too much. I am trying to catch up for the years I didn't think enough. So many things I just accepted. I thought I was full of discernment. Yet all I knew was how to surround myself with people like me. Then there is nothing really to discern.
Oh but how subtle the sway is. It comes over you slowly until you are covered in the very existense of it and it is you and you are it.
Church has always been so very important to me and I have always respected my leadership so much that I have never taken advantage of my right to question them. To question things that did not add up. Todd is just the opposite. He questions everything. I used to get so aggravated that he could not close his eyes and just walk blindly into something without examining and understanding it first. Oh to have taken the time to question and to understand and to learn beyond my own small experiences. What it might have saved me.
Now at thirty with over twenty years of knowing the Lord. I am realizing that so much of what I have seen was not TRUTH. My love for the Scriptures is stronger and deeper than ever. And to think that my desire to be "normal" by the standards of my peers, even Christian peers, has taken me to this place of such inner turmoil. To realize that man has made a business and a career out of the things God calls Holy.
Ministry. Ministry lets you see a side of people that not everyone sees. You know the whole story when the rest of the world knows only the half. You begin to see the clear politics of it. The compromises and campaigning for agendas. You begin by trying to fight it. To conquer, To make a difference. Then one day you wake up and you realize that you are just the same. You are compromising, you are campaigning and you have your own agenda. What is most upsetting is that you are making a difference. But what kind?
The results of mans agendas lead to emotionalism and hype and production and conducting. Until you realize that you really are just leading your own personal army. I don't want to lead any armies. I don't want to have an agenda. I don't want to search after some "fresh word", or "new revelation".
Instead of searching for more. I want to be stripped away. Stripped away of all that I have seen and of all I have heard. I want to lose the knowledge that I think I have until I am totally ignorant of anything but Him.
Then and only then will I be ready.

Where Have I been?

I know I keep leaving the blogshphere for months at a time. It is just getting way too hard to keep up this and my myspace. And since myspace is my latest addiction, that is usually where you will find me. Check me out there at www.myspace.com/foursmiths.
This weekend we have nothing we have to do, so we decided to put the primer on in the bathrooms and dining room/kitchen, so we can paint. Finally! I mean don't get me wrong, I love our new house, but the wallpaper HAS TO GO!
My life must be pretty sad when I get excited over painting. Don't feel too sorry for me though! I love my life just the way it is. Lord knows I haven't always been able to say that.
LATER!
b

How Time Flies

I know. I know. It's been way too long, but between trying to sell our house and MYSPACE. I just haven't been able to be introspective enough to blog.

Time however has not been at a stand still just because I have been absent. Here are the latest pics of the babies. Zach is 16 months today and Madelynn will be 3 years old on Sunday. What a big girl!
Sunday is the big party day and there will be lots of princesses and lots of pink!
Zach still only has one tooth and we are anxiously awaiting some new additions to his collections.
Abby is definately part of the family now and is just as spoiled as the rest of us.
Please pray that our house sells quickly and we can get relocated and settled soon in our new home.
We have had a lot of decisions to make lately about our future so as always we appreciate your prayers for our family.
We Love You All,
Betsy