Planning Ahead

I think that God is really leading me into a season of my life that is very much a dichotomy. On one side God is asking me to surrender and wait for his timing and on the other side he is asking me to be plan some of the little projects a little bit better and not always wait to the last minute to get things done.

So let me explain a little bit about what I mean. Because of my lack of planning last year, I remembered on December 5^th that I wanted to do a project called DecemberDaily. December Daily is a scrapbooking album project that documents the 25 days leading up to Christmas pretty similar to Project Life. After I noticed the little detail I overlooked and found out that she starts to plan her album in October. Which is a much different than I decided to start my album last year. 

In case you checked out the website. I will not be doing anything near the ornateness that Ali Edwards is doing. I know what I can handle and the ocd-prefectionism that I possess when it comes to scrapbooking. They spell check things for you and make you check and double check things. Right now I’m planning on using Shutterfly to make a photobook. They are always having deals on their products and then I can print multiple copies to send to my Nana and my brother.

Ali did say the secret to the success of December Daily is having a base album done so all I have to do is put pictures and the journaling and move on. I have started the album on the website so it will be very easy to just upload pictures and place them.

I also started to get the Advent season in order and look to see if there were any new family devotions that would be fun for us to do. Last year we did A Family Advent: Keeping the Savior in the Season and it was really a great devotional. I would recommend it to anyone that is looking for a kid-friendly Advent devotion. They went through and put some added information like the “Fun Facts.” We did our reading at the dinner table at night; it seemed to work for us. It would be awesome to hear what you are using!

Since Christmas is my favorite time of the year and I have the spiritual gift of 3-ring bindersI thought I would share one of my favorite websites. A couple of years, I found a website called OrganizedChristmas. The entire website is dedicated to cutting the stress at Christmas time by making a 3-ring binder planner with hundreds of FREE printables that help you get organized. There are several different “plans” depending on how much you want to do. 

I would absolutely encourage anyone to read the article Before The Season: Focus On Holiday Values and work through the Family Values Worksheet. Because knowing where your true values lie allows you to set a path to true holiday happiness, and to avoid the minefields that our culture and commercialism will throw in your way.

Stuff

Not much has happened since the last time I wrote, but there are things that I didn’t say the last time. One of the biggest things that is happening in the Warnock household right now is we are preparing for my baby brother’s deployment.

I don’t know much about it and I’ve kept it that way. I mean I want to know everything about where he is going to be and what he is going to be doing so that I know how to pray for him. But knowing that information might put him at risk and I really don’t want that. Another reason I don’t want to know anything is that is there is news of something happening and it’s in the part I think he is located I will drive myself crazy with worry.  So I will do my part and just pray for him and let Jesus take care of the rest. That is all I can do.

Long time, no write!

I miss blogging.

I know I love reading a lot of other people’s blogs. I think that it’s because it is a window into someone else’s life and I really like to watch other people. I think that is another reason I love Reality TV so much. 

Speaking of Reality TV, I really love the show TLC show Sister Wives, and the new season comes on this Sunday. I am fascinated by the sister wives relationship, I want to know how it works. The entire concept boggles my mind. I know that it’s part of their belief system that it makes them better people because they are removing the jealously from their lives, but I feel that the particular form of jealously is normal. But for now I will just watch the show.

Right now I’m reading the book “Sun Stand Still.” I love the book. I would totally recommend this book to everyone. But then I’m not sure that everyone will have the same reaction to it that I am. I’m sure that they can but I know that people got something out of the “The Purpose Driven Life” and I didn’t. And it I don’t want to diminish the experience they had with The Purpose Driven Life but I didn’t have it.  

I would totally like to read “The Help” next. I watched the movie and it was an excellent movie. Hokey Smokes! I would totally recommend that someone go and watch it. A little bit of foul language but the message was really good.

Oh and I've given up on Internet Explore. I know, I know I'm a little late and I'm not thrilled with Firefox but it doesn't crash every time I open a website.

So I’m not making any promises about keeping up on this but I will try.

Sticky Note Saturday

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Letters to Myself- 16 year old me

Dear 16 Year Old Me,

I sit here and try to remember what you were like and the things that you struggled with. I wish so much that I had a journal to look at to read to remind me of the person that you were. So my first piece of advice is, keep a journal. Write it all down, don't hold anything thing back. Your thoughts matter and are important, maybe only to you.

Just Sayin'

Sticky-Note Saturday

These are just some of my random thoughts!
 PS. I's sorry if you subscribe by email and got like 10 emails while I tried to figure this out!

 

 

 
If you would like to join in the fun of Sticky-Note Saturday. Make your own sticky notes and then add your blog to the comments! That way we can all ready your Saturday thoughts!

The Elephant Room and the Flint Mission Trip

A couple of months ago Mark Driscoll posted on Facebook about being a part of a conference called the Elephant Room.

The Elephant Room Conference had some names that I have heard of before and some I never knew existed. Those that attended the conference were James MacDonald, Greg Laurie, Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler, David Platt, Perry Noble, and Steven Furtick. One of the first videos that came out was this one…

Chandler and Furtick from Harvest Bible Chapel on Vimeo.

After watching this video and a couple of others from this same conference, I decided to check out some of the other pastors on the panel so that I didn’t judge people by sound bites. I am familiar with Mark Driscoll and Matt Chandler, I have listen to more of Mark’s sermons and talks then I have Matt’s.

So I started with Steven Furtick at Elevation Church in North Carolina. Where do you start when you have years of material at your fingertips,  I choose to start with his series “Mr. and Mrs. Betterhalf” it’s a relationship series from a Godly standpoint. I’ve listen to the first 4 messages, and I’m working on the bonus message and the fifth one.  It’s pretty good some pretty good points and I like that his wife did an entire sermon on what this messages series looks like in real life.

After watching a couple of sermons I did a Google search on Pastor Steven. I found his blog and his Twitter. I haven’t read too much on either so I won’t say go there and read his stuff, but I did find one thing I would like to use during the mission trip.  It was a neat idea, which hopeful people will continue to use after the mission trip is over.  We will see how it works out!

I’m sure everyone is aware of how I feel about rock and roll music after taking Stan’s discovery class.

Highway to Hell - Part 1 from Harvest Bible Chapel on Vimeo.

In the video above I saw Perry Nobel used ACDC’s song Highway to Hell. Automatically I’m intrigued, Just sayin’! So I checked him out as well. This is what I first found.

Beautiful_02- Single Guys Outtake from NewSpring Church on Vimeo.

I had to find the rest of this sermon series.  I did locate it and if you get the time to watch it since I don’t really want to judge on a 6 minute sound bite.

After checking out 4 of the 7 sermons of the Beautiful, A Series for Women and theMen Who Pursue Them,. I would recommend it!

Second and foremost I need to give credit where credit is due

Jesus always gets the first credit because he put you wonderful people in my life but I do need to give you the credit for your heart to serve Jesus! So here is my list and if I forgot someone it wasn’t intentional, I love you!

Thank you! Deb, Ed and Juanita, Kristine, and my mom, thank you so much for all of your hard work in setting up for the rummage sale. I think I would have gone bat poop crazy if it were not for you.

Thank you Andrew, Anthony, Matt, Ruben, Zach, Junior, Jay and the boyz! You guys made it very easy to tear everything down and get it to the Salvation Army. Hokey Smokes! I turned around and it was all done, I never expected the amount of help and it was really nice.

You are all amazing brothers and sisters in Christ and I wish everyone could be as lucky as myself, just sayin’

With all of that said, Saturday I ran a rummage sale to make some money for youth missions. We brought in a little over $500, which I think is really good. Everything we sold was donated by people in our church and I made it by “donation only.” So people paid exactly what they wanted too. I never told anyone what they had to pay for anything, which was a really hard concept for people to understand.  A lot of people struggled with my answer of “you tell me what you want to pay” when they asked me how much for everything on the counter.

We received some really nice donations, one of which was a propane grill that had been used maybe once. Someone suggested that we put a “suggested donation” on the grill. At first I was ok with this idea; we do need money for the mission trip.

But as Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another (Proverbs 27:17). I don’t remember if I said anything about the suggested donation or not but while we were setting up on Friday someone made a mention about the widow in Mark 12 and how we need to bless others. What happens if someone only has $2. So I went to sleep Friday night thinking about that particular concept.

When I woke up on Saturday morning I was convinced that I needed to sell the grill for whatever price someone was willing to give me, if they were ripping me off them it was completely on them and had nothing to do with me. They were the ones that are going to have to answers to Jesus.

We did sell the grill for $3. A gentleman came up to me and asked me if it was really all by donations and I said “yes.” He asked if I would take $3 for the grill and I said yes and offered to load it up for him. He came back with a friend and loaded it up.

So maybe that $3 wasn’t the last money in his pocket, I don’t care. It’s not my deal. I feel I did my part. Thank you!

What is your Favorite View?

I was asked this for one of my classes so I thought I would post my response.

My favorite view is from front windshield of my car. First, I find that this is the only time I can sit still and enjoy the beautiful surroundings in Michigan. I tend to be moving and going place to place.  

But the thing that makes this particular view my favorite is I’m always looking forward and seeing what is to come all the while having the opportunity to keep an eye on where I have been.  That is something I have had to work on in my life. In my normal tendencies I will focus on my past. I will look at the things I have done and wonder how I could do them better or different.  So I have to work to focus on what is in front of me and only glancing what is behind me to reminding me of where I have been.

What is your Favorite View?

I have returned!

Instead of making a ton of excuses on why it has been so long since I have written I’m just going to start writing again. In my option those would be a waste of word.  

I will start with what is going on in my life. I know it’s pretty exciting.

I start to embark on the summer; I have two classes, one Bible study, I’m leading a mission trip to Flint for the last time, find a job and whatever else Jesus brings into my life, namely Caty.

Caty is moving back to Traverse City in a couple of days, her mom bought a house. Which is really good for Caty, she can now put down roots.

Since I watch Caty 3-5 days a week we have patterns that we follow, one of our favorite patterns is that we read together. There is nothing really significant to what we read; the only qualification is that Caty wants me to read it. Reading should be fun, let her grudge through books later on in high school. It is really needless to say that I end up reading books that I don’t really want to read. I have read through the first 3 Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, and half way through the 4^th one.  The reason I don’t really like the book is because I think Greg (the main character) is a really bad friend to Rowley. So it does give Caty and I something to talk about and how to be a better friend.

With Caty moving to TC, I was wondering how I was going to keep doing this. My thought was to use Skype and read to her. Caty asked how she was going to look at the pictures. This is a really good point so I asked my mom and she came up with a great idea. Her idea was to have 2 books. One for me to read and one for Caty to look at; that was her idea! Which I really liked.

More Later!