Things I've learned about Sadie ...

1. She comes running, eager and expectant, anytime you say her name. She's just waiting to be called.
2. She is content with little and savors much.
3. She barks to let you know she's there. Otherwise, no barking.
4. She has a grandma spirit that i think sees a lot.
5. When she stares straight at the SAME corner in our living room I really wonder if she is looking at an angel. She is transfixed, and it is always in the same place that she is looking (she's doing it right now, and then looking at me, and then looking back ... hmmm.... )
6. She likes to go outside to see what's happenin' and then wants to come back in to be with us - the ones she loves most.
7. She gets scared and hides under whatever she can find.
8. She wants to be good but sometimes she's just not.
9. She loves babies and kids and feels proud when she's sweet to them.
10. She loves to play and will be completely ridiculous until you join her in the game. Even though we don't always join, she still tries with the same amount of zeal and hope.
11. She is not one to turn away affection, and actually encourages for as much as she can get. And most of the time, gets extra.

Our Dades ... we love her (crizap and all.)

Also, we are finding she is very much like us ... just fully in the open about it.

Coming to a close ...

Facebook Fast over in 5 days! WOOOOOOOOO!

Facebook Fast ... and furious

Okay, not furious, but I've been fasting from Facebook for a good three weeks now and tonight is the HARDEST it's been not to get on there... Could it be that I'm just relaxing at home, Labor Day is over, and it would be fun to peruse pictures and comments and such? Could it also be that something monumental is happening on there?! I do wonder, but I SHAN'T go.

I thought maybe blogging about really wanting to get on there would help. We'll see if it does.

Happy Labor Day to all! :O)

Open wide my heart!

It's pretty amazing when we actually live the way that our heart responds... beautiful, actually!

I am so thankful for my job, for the opportunities God is giving me to be me and I find myself coming alive again ... deeply alive. Singing in the morning, laughing alone in the kitchen while I pour my coffee *GASP!!* I'm falling in love with God, again!!

Oh my gosh, I hadn't realized that until JUST now, but in sharing how I'm feeling I remember that two/three weeks ago I told Him that I wanted to fall in love with Him again and He is doing it!! How is He doing it?? By me starting to live in the way I was created to live, my soul is responding and singing!! LOVE IT!

Case in point of me feeling very 'me' ... Tuesday I was in the office and I rounded the corner and pointed at my cube-mate, very broadway like, singing, "Jimmy crack corn and I don't care, " ... and when I went to the second line I was going to add the big ol' broadway kick - not the chorus line kick but the sassy knee first then toe slap, "Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care!" And on the 'care' I did the slap kick and my shoe flew OFF my foot like a stinking missile, SHOOTING across the office and slamming into the opposite wall! Narrowly, like inches, missing cube-mate's face by the way. I stopped, *scream!* and then we just laughed and laughed!!!

I'm pretty confident I heard God laughing too :O)

love to you all ... I pray you are living in who you were created to be. We are His workmanship, made on purpose - every piece. As we grow/remain committed to being who we are, we will find that life inside of Him.

Thank you, Lord!

A desert on the mend

You know what, I am truly deeply in love with the Lord ... and it is nothing of my own doing. That's for dang sure.

I was just in the kitchen fixing myself a couple little hors' dourves (if I spelled that right I should give MYSELF 10 dollars) and as I was putting the finishing touches on, I was thinking of the conversation I had had with the Lord earlier ... really, the begging.

"GOD!! Why is it so easy to feel you and to talk to you and to hear from you when I am in community or with other people, but when it's just been you and me lately I feel so dry! Like you aren't there!! I hate that Lord and I don't want that type of relationship with You!! Please help me! Please show me what scripture to read .. i really want to hear You and I ask that Your Word would come alive to me. PLEASE speak to me as you desire" And John 7 came to mind, so I went on faith and I was reading about Jesus, which really does my heart good to read about my best friend and the life He lived. It goes to about the middle of the chapter where it talks about him being the spring of life. Specifically verse 37 and 38 say, "Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." This afternoon I just started crying because I haven't been feeling that way. When I am with OTHERS talking about God or even to Him I have, but what about just me and You, Lord?

This evening, as I was wrapping up making my crackers, turkey, swiss and dill relish (my hors' douvres ;) ), I was thinking back to that, "Father, I really don't feel the streams of living water and that's what I long for. I want to live in that place. I know You promise it, but I haven't been feeling it when it's just me and You" And as I was walking from the kitchen back to the office, He did it. All of the sudden gratefulness flooded my heart such that I forgot I had JUST uttered that prayer ... I was just walking through my house, and was suddenly so thankful for His provision of a sweet dog, a wonderful home, food to eat, an evening to relax and then I heard them, no FELT them, trinkling through my soul. Living Water.

The Lord just reminded me of something else that He's been talking to me about this week: He inhabits the praise of His people so it makes COMPLETE sense that I would feel Him as I praised and thanked Him!! GEEZ!!! You are SOO good! You CAUSED my thankful heart and then you INHABITED it!! You are so wild, Father! (you can read about this in Psalm 22, I'm heading there in just a sec)

Just now when I went to grab the verses above in John 7 I saw again the ones that follow: "By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive." I BELIEVE!! And He is HERE!!! Hallelujah! Or, Praise the Lord!!!

I am SO thankful the Spirit is inside of me, guiding me to praise and as a result, the Lord is here with me!!! Does He set us up to win or what??!?!

You truly blow my mind, Lord. You are more than ANYTHING I can understand, but I accept you SO thankfully, so thankfully.


ADDENDUM: I just went and looked at Psalm 22 and the word 'enthroned' is commonly used. Which in the original writing means: to dwell, remain, sit, abide
(Qal)
to sit, sit down
to be set
to remain, stay
to dwell, have one's abode
(Niphal) to be inhabited
(Piel) to set, place
(Hiphil)
to cause to sit
to cause to abide, set
to cause to dwell
to cause (cities) to be inhabited
to marry (give an dwelling to)
(Hophal)
to be inhabited
to make to dwell

Christmas in September? Sounds GREAT to me!

I know it's been a while, but here I am again.

I am REALLY feeling a desire for fall and the Christmas season. So much so that I jokingly told a friend last week that I want to decorate for Christmas in September, have our Christmas Party in October and then just enjoy November and December of other people's events and parties all while sitting in twinkling lights and candles at home.

At first I thought I was just kidding, but now I don't know that I am! Even sitting here now I'm longing for hot chocolate and fleece pajamas, holiday scented candles and twinkling lights. I don't have any plans this weekend, other than continuing to prepare for my garden, so I may just find myself stringing up the lights :O)

Realistically I'll wait til September, but ONLY just maybe. Especially since a lot of the post Christmas extreme clearance decor I purchased is fall colors.

Who am I kidding ... I don't think I can wait.

Have a twinkly day!

Simply Pray

Hey everyone! I know it's been a LONG time since my last post, but God has been up to absolutely wild and incredible things which have left me with zero time to share!

One of the "bigs" I would love to share with you is the video below :O) It is a session God let me share at a Women's Retreat and then again two weeks later ... What He did was like nothing He had done in our relationship before I wanted to share that with you :O) Also, if you came to one of these sessions, I would LOVE to get your feedback and hear how it's going for you. The video is at this link:
http://blip.tv/file/2140021

I am no professional AT ALL so this video was made by someone sweet enough to record it and then another wonderful friend uploaded it for me :O) YAY FOR FRIENDS!!!!!

If after you watch the video (note AFTER ;) ) you want to read the notes I wrote to sum this up they are below, but PLEASE watch the video first and respond as God leads you through the session. Let HIM lead your time ... not me.

Love love to you all :O)
Anna


Lectio Divina: Divine Conversation, the Embrace of God
1 Lectio: Prayerful, slow, heart-centered reading of a sacred text.
a. This is the most crucial step … centering your heart to hear what God wants to talk to you about. Before you open the Bible, be honest with God. Talk to Him about how you are feeling, what you are thinking. Lay it all out - completely honest. THEN ask Him to line your heart up with His. This gives Him complete freedom to talk to you as He desires.
b. “How do I choose what to read?” Honestly, it doesn’t matter what passage of the Bible you read. You are asking God to speak to you and He will regardless of where you are in the Bible. He may not speak to you about what you are asking Him, but He will speak to you about what you need to hear first. He really does know your needs better than you do. Trust Him with the timing of His answer. If you feel you want to explore a certain book of the Bible, go for it. If you want to look at a certain subject go to the back of your Bible and look in the index for that topic – choose a passage from the list that is there. OR go to Biblegateway.com and enter that word. From there a list will pull up of every time that word is mentioned in the bible. From there just choose the verse you want to look at. There is no right or wrong here. If you do choose a verse this way, be sure to read the two to three verses before and after that verse to get the idea of what the passage says. You never want to take a verse by itself because it may misconstrue the actual meaning.
c. “How long should the passage be?” Less is more. I wouldn’t read more than one chapter at a sitting. If you started reading and feel especially impacted read the next few verses to finish that thought and then stay with that section of verses. You definitely do not need to read an entire chapter.

2 Meditatio: Deliberate pondering of the message in the text.
a. Read the entire passage.
b. Read the passage again and write down everything it says about God. This includes Lord, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, God, I AM.
c. Read the passage a third time and write down anything that causes any kind of an emotional response.

3 Oratio: Responding to God’s message with honest, sincere prayer.
a. Talk to God about what you have just written, specifically the things that caused any kind of an emotional response. That is something the Lord wants to talk to you about! i. Example: If I wrote down, “God is just” and it impacted me emotionally in a positive way I would say something along the lines of, “Lord, I LOVE that you are just! It is so good and comforting and sweet to me to know that you WILL take care of things! I can let go and trust that justice WILL be done!” and if there is a specific thing I’m talking about like an injustice you have experienced, something you’ve heard about, etc elaborate specifically with the Lord. If it impacted me in a negative way I would say, “Lord, this says you are just but in … situation I haven’t seen this!!! Please please please be true to your Word and help me to trust you that you WILL be. Thank you that you ARE just and I can trust that you ARE working things out and I don’t have to be the one to do it. I can trust that you WILL work it out! Please show me if you want me to have any part in this. And as I trust you please flood me with your peace about the situation.”

4 Contemplatio: Allowing the prayer to dissolve into wordless, thoughtless contemplation, or simply resting in the Divine presence. The embrace of God.
a. If your time with God was:
i. Sweet - soak it in!!! Sit there and enjoy it with Him!! He longs for you to and it feels so good to do that!
ii. Painful - in that God pointed out some stuff in your life and it stung - Please let me remind you that there is NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:18). That means that if you have turned your heart to God, through Jesus Christ, the rest of our lives is about the Lord helping us become exactly who He created us to be and it is GLORIOUS!!! The Lord disciplines the one He loves (Hebrews 12:6) so sometimes our time with Him will be about Him pointing out things in us that aren’t according to what He desires for us and that may really sting, but it is for our GOOD. If it seems hard to remember His love in that moment, just remember that God loved you so much that He sent His only son so that you may know Him. That is no small thing. (John 16)
iii. Confusing - that is okay. Please continue to sit with Him until you feel released to go. You are truly sitting in the presence of God … linger. Even if you didn’t receive a ‘direct, clear word’ from Him be encouraged! The Lord says that His word NEVER returns empty/meaningless (Isaiah 55:11)! Ever! So even if it wasn’t for ‘this time’ trust that there was a reason you learned this today. The Lord WILL use the Word He just wrote on your heart.

My final “Lectio Divina” encouragement: Give God your active “Yes!” Whether it is in being obedient to what you have read in the Bible, or in being obedient to what you feel God is prompting you to do … when you give Him the freedom to shape your heart and your life He will do ABSOLUTELY wild things! I pray you saw just a glimpse of that in our time together. I did absolutely nothing and could have done nothing to plan any of what God has done with this session. Every single piece of it was simply me saying “Yes” to Him and trusting Him whatever that meant … it has been GLORIOUS!! Scary? Yes! But ultimately AMAZING and I would have missed it if I hadn’t given Him my “yes” and kept giving it as He gave me opportunity.

I beg you and encourage you to do the same. One of my favorites is in the book of Mark where there was a father who asked Jesus to heal his son. Jesus asked the father if he believed he could heal the son and the father very honestly said, “I believe. Please help overcome my unbelief.” It is very honest and okay to say that to the Lord as we grow in our relationship with Him. He knows it can be scary and just because you are scared doesn’t mean you are wrong. Be honest with your doubts and fears, and then choose to trust Him and do as He is prompting anyway. As you give Him your active “yes” He will do things in you and through you that you would have never imagined! (Ephesians 3:20)

Love, love, love to you. Anna