Janurary 8, 2010

Wednesday night I was getting some water before I was going to sleep. And as I walked into the kitchen I heard something dripping, so I thought to myself it was a good thing I walked in when I did so I could make sure the faucet was turned off. After I checked it the dripping continued. So I investigated a little bit further. Turns out that water was dripping from the top of the window molding. My first thought at 11 pm was “NOT GOOD”. Luckily, we do know the reason and we will take care of in the morning. There are ice dams on the roof and water is getting backed up in the walls. That drip got me thinking about life. We never would have known ice had built up in the walls if that drip didn’t start. I often wonder how many little things in my life get backed up and then I only realize that there is a problem when there is a small drip. But really that drip is covering a bigger problem, from the inside of our house we would never be able to see the ice dam forming on the roof. And looking at the ice dam on the roof would we be able to see the little drip on the inside.

Janurary 7, 2010

One word for you today: FRICKLES!. Mom and I went to the Food Factory in Lake City today for lunch. The only place I have ever found them. So, I’m sure you are wondering what in the world is a Frickle. Well I’m so glad you asked so without any further delay I will tell you. They start with a wonton wrapper and to that they add a pickle, Swiss cheese and ham. They roll the entire thing up like an eggroll and deep fry them. When they come out of the fryer they cut them in half and serve them with ranch dressing.

Janurary 6, 2010

For the last 3 or 4 years, Ali Edwards has come up with a word that she wants to define her year by. This year her word is “Story.” While trying to win free loot I had to think of a word to define my year with, so I came up with the word “FIND.” Which I went on further to describe that I wanted to FIND Jesus and FIND who I was in Christ. So the more I thought about my word for the year being “FIND” the more the phrase “SEEK and you will FIND” has been coming to my mind. So I looked up the complete verse.

Matthew 7:7 (ESV) “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”

ASK, SEEK, and Knock are all active present tense verbs. They are all things that I have to choose to participate in because if I don’t I will not get the results that I am after.

In the six days that I have working on this project, I have realized how passive I have become about my spiritual life. For at least the last 2 year, I’ve just kind of let God do his thing with me and I’ve been pretty content to just go along for the ride. I made a joke in one of my last classes about me producing mediocre work. I spent about 1/3 the amount of time and did about 2/3 of the work as someone else and got a better score because that was the standard I had set for the teacher. When my life is over I don’t want mediocrity to be the standard I set for doing work for Jesus. Just kind of passively walking through life, I think I starting to make that change with this picture project. Yes, I had to stage this photo, at first I thought that I was going to miss a day because I didn’t find something, but I want to not be passive anymore so I printed it off and took a picture. I would have loved it if I found the “Passive” on a t-shirt, but who is really proud of the fact that they are passive.

If anyone sees me making a passive move or decisions, call me on it. But please do it nicely.

I just thought I would let everyone know that it has been 3 and half weeks since I have bitten my nails. I have had to cut them really short a couple of times because I was really tempted, but I have not bitten them.

I read four chapters in Exodus, but I reread some of the stuff from yesterday, so does that make me up-to-date. I’m going with yes. My goal was to get further then yesterday. I am planning on listening to all of Numbers. I have heard a couple people tell me it is hard to get through. I don’t want to quit, because quitting would be a passive move!

Wordle

Janurary 5, 2010

In the last couple of weeks Caty has really challenged me in my pray life. She didn’t do it on purpose, but on several occasions I have just been taking back by how quickly she thinks to pray. That seems to be her very first thought. For instance, when my Mom and Dad took Oreo to the vet to have him put down, Caty and I were standing outside waving goodbye. As the jeep was pulling off into the distance, I went to turn around to go in the house; Caty says we should pray for Oreo. I tell her that she had a good idea and she starts. And it was a sweet little pray.
Dear Jesus, thank you for this wonderful day, and come with your hand and heal Oreo. Amen!

I’m just going to try and work on that for the year too. I know that this isn’t a picture of Caty praying but it is very hard to get that. For I’m usually trying to get her to go to sleep when she does pray, maybe I will get one, maybe I won’t but this is a picture from today in her Halloween costume.

I’m also up-to-date with my Bible readings. Well I totally cheated and listened to them on my i-pod. A couple of years ago I got The Bible Experience: the Complete Bible for my birthday. So I loaded up Exodus and did the dishes. I really like it. The different voices and the background stuff, make it an experience. No pun intended. I mean they had frogs going in the background when Moses was talking to Pharaoh during the plague of frogs. Forest Whittaker does the voice of Moses.

I did load the entire Bible on my computer so that will make it easier as well and now I have no excuses to not be up to date. Oh yah, remember those emails I signed up for through biblegateway that would send me daily reading, well they never came. Thinking that I made a mistake, I went and signed up again and then read the fine print. They aren’t doing that for everyone at this point in time, but when they are I will have about 15 emails to let me know.

Have a blessed night and day, until I write again.

Janurary 4, 2010

I was at the Shay Station today getting only the best hot chocolate in the world. In my humble opinion it tastes like the hot chocolate they serve on the Polar Express, not that I know personally it is just how I imagined it would taste. While in the Shay Station I was looking with eager eyes, God always speaks to me in there. I have seen so of the coolest stuff in there, with the colors, shapes and textures it is hard not to find Jesus speaking to you in there. I looked through the entire store and didn’t find anything, until I stepped into the bathroom to wash my hands. I found this little plaque that someone had taken the time to type up frame and place it in the bathroom. And it was really neat.

Take a closer look at the plaque.

I know that I have heard Psalm 46:10 numerous times. “Be still, and know that I am God.” It sounds so easy, but being still is one of the hardest things in the world for me to do. There will be days that I set aside to do NOTHING for the Glory of God and someone will call and ask me to go with them somewhere and before I know what I’m doing I walking out the door to meet up with that person. I really like the sentence “To guard your inner life you first have to guard your outer life.” I do a terrible job of guarding my outer life so that I have time to think about thing. Then I also have the opposite problem of thinking too much about a problem and working myself into a frenzy about something that hasn’t even happened. Maybe that is why I don’t give myself time to sit and think, maybe that is why I have a hard time being still. I guess this is something I’m going to have to pray about.
Just in case you were wondering. This summer I am taking on Beth Moore’s Believing God: Experiencing a Fresh Explosion of Faith. If you want to join us for the just the videos that is fine if you would like to get the member book and work along with me that is great. Either way it you will get so much out of the series. I’m not sure when I’m going to start it. I think at the end of May or early June. I just want an idea of how many people are going to be doing it so that if we need to find a bigger place to watch the videos we can secure that location.

I know, I get it, but I'm going to try.

Simple Stories by Memory-Works is offering a free kit to anyone who promotes their product so here I go.

I would love to win a kit to help me with my project it would be fantastic. I just love the colors. the kit looks great.

Simple Stories by MemoryWorks from Amber Crowell on Vimeo.

Janurary 3, 2010

Today in service Pastor Mike gave us Luke 11:1 as part of his message.

Luke 11:1 (ESV) Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples."

What struck me about that verse was even people who were around JESUS everyday were self conscious about their prayer life. Pastor Mike was right this is something that has to be learned and doesn’t come naturally to anyone. So I just need to stick it out and keep working on this part of my spiritual life.

By the way: I need to send out my thank you for the night to Ms. Deb Simon, who felt the call to ask me about my goal to read the Bible. I did start that part of my project and I decided to start in Exodus since I have started this little project about 4 times and always make it through Genesis. So I have read Genesis about 6 times and the rest of the Bible not so much. Love you so much Deb.

Ongoing Prayers:

• My brother Chris is planning on deploying to Iraq. He is a non-believer and hardest part for me is that he is a Calvary Scout. What makes that so hard for me is he is one of the first men in and one of the last men to leave dangerous situations. I know that I would feel a lot better about the entire thing if I knew where he was going when he took his last breath.

Today Pastor Mike asked us to pray for God to bring someone’s face to our minds that we can build a relationship with so that they could have a relationship with Jesus, Chris’s face was the one that came to my mind. The funny part was he came to my mom’s mind too.

I also have prayed that a Godly man from the Army will influence his life.

• That I just keep on keeping on. I feel good about this journey but I’m only 3 days into it.

I forgot to tell everyone. If you were wondering where I got the font I put on my photos. I used the Ali Edwards font. Right now it is free from Creative Keepsakes. So go over there and get it.

Janurary 2, 2010

I’m finishing up my Esther study and after I read this little part it spoke volumes to me. The entire study I have heard Jesus speak to my heart by telling me, “See, even when you think I’m not there, I am 100% there for you and I have a plan for you. Trust me.” This was found etched into the wall of one of the Nazi death camps. Talk about not feeling like you would never be able to see God again. I went to listen to a missionary from Chosen People Ministries speak at First Baptist this past summer, and that gentleman said that most Jewish people feel like the Holocaust was their punishment for killing Jesus. That kind of stopped me in my tracks. Even when I read those three little lines I’m reminded of me of how God is working in everything even when I cannot see him.

Janurary 1, 2010

I went to Rockford, Mi yesterday to hang out with some people that I met through a friends wedding. So all day long I was looking for a picture, and on the way home I was thinking about how beautiful the day was. Because the weather man said that we were suppost to get a lot of lake effect snow all day. When I got to the rest area just outside of Cadillac I had to slow down to 35 miles per hour. So I just want to thank Jesus for keeping me and Caty safe on the way home.