Sister to Shout Hallelujah with!

Last winter I did a Beth Moore bible study, which I truly enjoyed! One of the things that I remember Beth saying, and is the reason for the name of this blog, is that we all need someone to Shout Hallelujah with. I am so blessed because I have that "someone". That "Someone" is my sister Rachael. For as long as I can remember she's had a better sense of God, even when we were little. However, as she's gotten older and married and become a mom, she's grown in her relationship with God. The really awesome thing, is she excites everyone she knows about their own relationship with God. Everyone wants what she's got! Which is totally awesome because she owns her own hair salon and literally touches the lives of hundreds of people just through the time they spend in her chair. Now, she's not preachy in any way, shape, or form, so it's not like she wraps that cape around you and straps you in for a sermon, she's not like that. However, you leave her shop feeling good about life. She's just a very positive, uplifting person and if you share her belief in God and are excited to talk about it and share, she's right there with you. However, if that's not your thing, she's okay with that too, but you still leave her shop feeling awesome and it really has nothing to do with how your hair looks, although, that helps LOL God has given her a "stage" to do His work and show His love and she does it well, with His help and guidance.

Last fall she really wanted to go to a Joyce Meyer Womens Conference and couldn't find anyone to go with her. I love my sister and I knew how important this was to her so I told her if she couldn't find anyone, that I would go with her. I truly thought that I was only doing this for her. Boy oh boy, was I wrong! God works in fabulous ways doesn't He?? I've always been a Christian but because of that one fabulous wknd that I went to the conference "for my sister", I've started a new, better relationship with God of my very own. One of the most awesome parts of that relationship is that I can share it with Rachael. I know that if ever I need to Shout Hallelujah with someone and not get a funny look, I can call Rachael and she's right there with me!!!

I'm very blessed that my life is surrounded by many Believers, and I am very loved, but there's just something that much more special about having a Sister to Shout Hallelujah with. I pray that everyone has someone they can do that with, even better, if it's a Sister!

An epiphany

Ever have one of those still small voices that just pushes you in the right direction?? I had one of those last night in relation to trying to get a handle on our finances so that we can tithe without it feeling like we're drowning to do it. I so desperatly want to do this! I also, in listening to Andy Stanley have learned that financial freedom and being debt free is what God wants for us. This is an area I struggle terribly in. It's also an area that my husband doesn't get involved with. Not because he doesn't care, but because it's just always been this way. I'm in charge of writing the checks and making sure the bills are being paid. However, last night, my "A-HA" moment, was when I realized I cannot do this on my own. I need him to be involved in this, we have to do this together. It has become an area that I'm not so good at and that I need some added direction and guidance, and some one elses judgement and decision making. Now, I just have to break this to him, hmmm, maybe link to my blog is in order huh? Love ya honey!

A Time, A Place, A Plan

I love to read! I read books all the time, James Patterson, Janet Evanovich, Dean Koonz, Jan Karon, and countless other authors whose collective works don't impact my life in the least once I've read the last page of the last chapter and close the book.

However the one book whose contents affects every single moment of every single day of my life I rarely crack open. Why is that? Why is it so difficult to sit down and read the bible? I went out and I bought this great Vera Wang bible cover in this great tapestry pattern, with the little front pocket for my journal, my pen and my highlighter. It has this great little handle by which to carry it if I should ever want to take it anywhere. So it's all packaged real nice and looks real pretty. What good is all that though if I never open it?

I listened to a 3 part series by Andy Stanley from Northpoint Community Church about reading our bible. He likened it to a text message, a text message from God. In the last message of the series he challenged us to find a Time, a Place and have a Plan on how we're going to go about reading our bible. I thought, alright, this is just the challenge I've been waiting for, as if it needs to be some sort of sporting event type thing in order for me to open that book.

However, this morning, I picked my time; morning, mornings are good for me. I'm usually up before most everyone, and those few times that others may be up they're busy doing other things. I picked my place; the cozy comfy couch in the family room. Now my plan, hmmmm the plan thing is the fuzzy area for me. I think I'm gonna do the open and read what it opens to plan LOL, or maybe I'll pick a book and go through that. I started this morning with James, I'll finish that I think, it started good, I'd like to see how it ends.

So, do you have A Time, A Place, A Plan???

New CD

I talked in a previous post how important music is to the way I worship and this right now is my favorite cd! I just love it!!!

God is Awesome!!!

For those of you that may not know, I'm attempting to be an artist, this is something that I just feel with my heart of hearts that it's what I want to do and I feel that God's okay with that choice. I have started to venture out into the Art Fair world a bit and let me tell you, it's a scary thing. Yesterday was my first ART Fair and what a positive experience it was!!! First of all, all week the forecast called for thunderstorms, so I prayed about it and asked for a nice day. What do you know, it was beautiful all day long, blue skies and sunny and warm! The spot we got for our tent was awesome, right near a big shade tree!!

Now when I decided to do this, I have made it my goal not to focus on sales. Yes, sales are nice, but at this point it's not what I want to focus the Art Fair experience on. Selling is nice, and I'm thrilled that someone would like what I do well enough to display it in their home, however, I'm more interested in feedback at this point. Having someone come into my booth and tell me they like what I do, and how different and interesting it is. When they ask questions and want to know about my art, to me, at this point anyways, is more rewarding that the almighty dollar. I got so much positive feedback from people I cannot even begin to tell you about it all.

The best part in all of this is that I truely felt the presence of God yesterday. He was there in ever aspect of it. He helped calm me when we were on our way and I was beginning to get nervous all the way till it was time to pack up and go home. I just felt so blessed yesterday and I know that I owe everything to the Glory of His name. Our God IS and Awesome God!!!!

The Power of Music

I know that worshiping God is more than just music, but music moves me. I've always been very much into music and being an artist, I use music quite often to set a mood. There are some worship songs that you just cannot help but want to raise your hands to the heavens and praise God. One of the songs lately that has just really moved me is a newer one by Delirious? called "My Soul Sings", and sing it does!!! That's one of those songs that when it comes on, I have a hard time continuing what I'm doing because it's so powerful that it requires my full attention.

Missing Church

I haven't been to chuch in 2 weeks, and I have an art show tomorrow so wouldn't be able to go then either. Even though I know that I don't NEED chuch to have God in my life, church is like my weekly revival or recharging. When I don't have it I feel like I'm slipping away from God cause I'm not getting that recharge, that boost that reminds me to nurture my relationship with God. Our church has a Saturday evening service as well so we're going to go to that tonight thank goodness. I need my recharge.

Giving In

I know this may seem silly, but I'm NOT a housekeeper. I do just enough to get by and the idea of deep cleaning gives me hives. I live with 3 teenage daughters, a 10 year old boy and a husband who isn't much of a neat freak himself.

A few months back I read the book A Purpose Driven Life, and I believe I was either listening to Joyce Meyer or something else at that time too. As I was doing this I kept feeling as though I was being told to clean my house. That everything I own is not mine, but God's and I should take care of it as such. That I need to do everything to the Glory of God, even the things that I don't want to do. Joyce is even so bold as to come right out and say, "go clean your house". LOL

Well this summer hubby and I have started doing some remodeling projects. We started in the dining room, painted and put in a new floor. Now we're on to the kitchen and put in a new counter top and back splash. Next will come painting and putting in a new floor in the living room. As I've done these rooms I've started making rummage sale piles, garbage piles, and give away piles. Cleaning out cabinets and washing down walls and woodwork and such. All these things that I've been avoiding like crazy before. It's actually not as awful as I remember it LOL

Now if I could just get my kids to keep it clean *sigh*

Why Do I Need More Than Enough?

Oh boy, Oh boy, Oh boy!!!! I finished listening to the rest of the North Point Ministries Podcasts and I have to tell you the last ones, just blew my mind. My husband and I have been struggling with how to get our finances under control in such a way that we can tithe effectively and not have it run us short. Neither one of us are real good at the whole budget thing and therefore we end up over spending. Me, because I like to shop, don't really NEED anything, just WANT alot. Him because I cannot say no to him when we shouldn't spend or don't really have the money, because I feel guilty that I have spent and now there's nothing left for him. What a vicious cycle!!!

In the last series however, that I listened to from Andy Stanley, he talks about spending and finances. One of the questions he asks us is, "Why do you need more than enough?". He talks about the wealthy man who has a better than average crop and has no place to store the excess. So instead of sharing the excess he builds bigger and better buildings to hold his grains. He then thinks he can sit back and relax because he has all this grain and he will be taken care of for many years. Yet the Lord decides that his life will be taken from him that night, so he never gets to enjoy all that excess. So all this extra stuff we fill our life up, is just stuff, and when we die, other people get it! We need to get rid of all the extra stuff, collections are just that, collections and truely do us no good, just more stuff that clutters our lives and makes us want more. I've always been a collector or one thing or more, and truely enjoy my collections, however, I now see them in a different light. I think it's time for a rummage sale, don't you?

Why do I need more than enough?

Do You Know What Laminin is?

Louie Giglio is a great speaker and he's so enjoyable to watch, unfortunatly I've only actually seen him on You Tube. He does this bit here, about Laminin, if you don't know what it is, you've gotta check it out, click here.

The Shack

I was up north this past week and in that time I read the book The Shack. I loved it!!! I think the reason I loved it so much was because of the way it challenged the "norm" in which you think of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Not that this is a book of nonfiction, cause no one really knows what the Trinity looks like, but whose to say that They can't look as described in this book?? I love books that make me think outside my box and be more open to other possibilities.

Proverbs 4:23

"Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life". The podcast series I'm listening to right now from Northpoint Ministries is about Guarding Your Heart. That everything you do and say comes from your heart. Even those things that you didn't MEAN to do or sag, those are things that come from your heart. That we need to not only guard it and be cautious with it, but before we can do that succesfully we need to cleanse our hearts. WOW, thats a HUGE task!! It talks about guilt, greed, jealousy or envy, and anger. How we need to release these things from our hearts and fill our hearts with the love of God.

What I found most challenging is the guilt part of the series. It says that we need to confess what ever is causing our guilt, not to God cause He already knows, but confess it to whom ever you've commited the act against. I've not done anything to feel great amounts of guilt for in years and years, and those issues have been confessed and forgiven. However just the idea of having to confess a wrong doing that you've done to someone that they may not even know you did, that may in turn hurt that person when you confess it, just seems like you're hurting someone else just to make yourself feel better. To me that seems somewhat selfish. To me the burden of guilt is your punishment for the wrongful act you've done, it's what reminds you not to do that again. Also, in my experience, confessing your wrong doing doesn't necessarily mean that the guilt goes away. As I said it's been years and years, and yet I still feel guilty even though I've been forgiven, yet I know it's not forgotten, which is why I believe I still feel guilty. I dunno, guilt is a hard one to get your head wrapped around, especially if you're a parent. Parental guilt is a never ending, on going thing, no amount of confessing is going to make that one stop.

The greed part of it was interesting too because I certainly don't feel that I'm greedy by any means. However, according to this series, by aquiring and wanting and NEEDING, the newest, the best, the biggest yet not always giving is being greedy. One of the examples was, the lengths we go to to aquire material goods, refinancing, taking out loans, putting leins on things, spending money we don't have, yet when Pastor So n So, asks for a donation for his latest mission trip, we say we don't have the cash on hand. He's not saying that we need to live life in the poor house and never buy anything new, of course not. He's saying that right off the top we need to set aside a percentage to give to God, whether that be your church or some other causes, or charities. Also, the thing that he challenges us to do is to increase our percentage as the years go on, as your income increases, so should your percentate. My husband and I just recently decided to tithe. It's kind of a scary thing to decide to do, although it shouldn't be. We chose to tithe 10%, but when you're writing that check out first, before you pay any bills, you can't help but have a little panic attack hoping that you have enough to pay the bills. Now, we're not making it so we can't pay our bills, however, we have to learn to control our spending habits, which will take some dicipline and time.

Jealousy & Envy, this one I think I do okay on, but I can see where I may have some issues with it. My biggest area of this is when I see women who are thinner or in better shape than I am. I have lots of body issue problems that I'm trying to work through with God's help, but I find myself longing to look like someone else, or have the body of someone else. It's not to say that I'm not a happy person, I am, I just am not happy with my body, which is something only I can change. Which is not an easy thing to do. One of the things that this series asks us to do, is to openly praise those that you have envy/jealousy for. That this will help heal your heart of those issues.

I'm still listening to the anger part of it, so I'll have to get back to you on this one. I at this moment don't feel I have any anger issues, but if I do I'm sure he'll point them out to me LOL

ITunes Podcasts

One of the ways that I try to stay connected is by listening to Podcasts from ITunes on my IPod. One of my favorites is from North Point Community Church. There are several others as well though and they are all free. You don't need to have an IPod to listen to them off of ITunes, you can hear them right on your computer as well. I find that I do get Lost if I don't make a conscious effort to connect to Him every day. Prayer alone doesn't work for me and I sadly am not real good about taking the time to read the Bible like I should. That is something that I really feel I need to work on and be dilligent in doing. I love listening to Christian Music, but I have heard more than once, that worshiping Him is more than just listening/singing music. These podcasts help me to not only hear the bible read, but also have parts of it explained to me so I can better apply it to my life.

God is Good

I'm creating this blog, not so much for others, but for me to have a place to put down all the ways that God touches my life. Maybe to use as a bit of a prayer journal of sorts, I'm not really sure yet. All I know is that I'm hungry for all that He is and to have a closer personal relationship with Him.