Sean & Shey

Baby

So I just finished reading the book of Genesis. I started on Saturday, so that means it took 4 days to go from Creation to the death of Joseph. Whew! It feels like a whirlwind already. Before I started this reading, I tried to think of a few "themes" that I wanted to look at throughout the Bible. If you read much of my blog, you know I have a longing to understand and to grasp this whole concept of "home." Home here on earth, home in Heaven, Home with Christ. So going into this, I thought that would be a concept or theme that I would look for and maybe research a little more. However, as I started reading through Genesis, a completely new theme began to jump right off of the pages for me-- the theme of life. (I know, shocker. Especially since Genesis actually means "beginning" or "birth." Hang with me though...)

Now, saying that is almost as broad as saying "the topic of God." In college, we had to give a thesis statement that we would eventually base an entire paper around... more times than not, my professors would come back and tell me to "narrow down your topic." But in reading Genesis these past few days, narrowing down the topic of life was not at all a problem... The thing that kept coming up time and time again was that God is truly the giver of all life. I know this may sound so elementary to some, but let me explain a little more.

We all know the creation story... God created life. God breathed life into every single being on this planet. He gave life to every plant, every creature, every bird and every fish. He is the ultimate giver of all life. To talk about God as the giver of life in such broad terms is kind of like the effect some statistics have on our brains... they are simply too big to grasp. I can tell you that there are a 143,000,000 orphans in the world, but until you hold just one fatherless child in your arms, the gravity of that number does not sink in.

So here's where it sank in for me. 5 times in 50 chapters, I read about how God either opened the wombs of women, or he closed them. You don't have to be much beyond 6th grade science to know that no life on earth has ever existed without first growing inside of a mother's womb.

Genesis 11- Sarai was barren, she had no children
Genesis 20- The Lord closed up every womb in Abimelech's household
Genesis 25- Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife because she was barren. The LORD answered his prayer and Rebekah became pregnant
Genesis 29- When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren
Genesis 30-Then God remembered Rachel, he listened to her and opened her womb

As I was reading these and thinking about how God truly is the giver of all life, I then read to story of Abraham and Isaac. For decades longer than most of us will ever live, Sarah was barren. Then God promised her a son, and Isaac was born. But then, God tells Abraham that he wants him to sacrifice this son-- the only son, whose life brought fulfillment after so many years of emptiness. But as we all know the story goes, Abraham remained faithful to God and God spared his son's life.

So where am I going with all of this? You may not quite be tracking, but it all makes sense to me, I promise. :-) Like I said, it may seem elementary, but for me, this has taken on a deeper meaning. Perhaps it is because I am living a part of these women's stories. To be barren for so long, can you even begin to imagine the humble awe that Sarah and Abraham felt towards God when they realized she had a life growing inside of her? Can you imagine so many years of trying to conceive on their own, but then when it seemed the least likely, and they had given up all hope, the Creator of the Universe intervened and openend her womb? We then read the story of Abraham and Isaac and think that it must have been even more difficult for Abraham to make the sacrifice because of the years it took to have Isaac. But now, reading all of this in context, and really thinking about it, perhaps Abraham had a much better grasp on the Giver of Life because of those years of struggle. Perhaps the trials it took to bear his son helped him to realize where his son's life truly belonged-- in the hands of God. And not that it was any easier for him to make that journey to the place of sacrifice, but maybe he understood the Source of life, the bigger picture to it all, a little more than most.

Whew! Ok, that was a little heavy. I promise to have a happier post tomorrow. Hopefully. :-)

Oh-PS! I almost forgot! Bob Sjogren, author of Cat and Dog Theology is going to be speaking at our church again this weekend. And I am soooooo excited about what he's preaching on... he is preaching through the entire Bible. That's right... Genesis to Revelation. He'll be doing the same sermon in all 3 weekend services (Sat night & Sun am), then there will be two additional sessions on Sunday afternoon that will take us through the rest of the Bible. I am so excited about how this will kind of be a neat introduction to the rest of my B90X readings! So if you're around Fresno this weekend, you should definitely stop by! Its going to be great!

Home Decor

My First Try At Vinyl

Sunday, August 16, 2009

B90X- Saturday

Saturday, August 15, 2009

HOME

Home Sweet Home

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Our dear friends and former NC neighbors, Clayton & Holly are visiting our old town in Roanoke Rapids, NC this week. Clayton send Sean this picture from his phone:

Its our old home! I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE this little house. I opened the email that Sean forwarded me from Clayton and almost wanted to cry! I love this place so much. It was our first home and it was filled to the rafters with love, warmth and Southern charm. If we could move back, I would do it in a heartbeat and I would gladly pay twice what we originally paid for this little place. Look how green the grass is! And how huge those beautiful, flowering crepe myrtle trees are! See the flower beds out front? Sean and I dug those ourselves! OK, it was mostly Sean. But it was HARD WORK! We had to haul all this dirt off and the ground was hard!! We had such big plans for this house, but obviously, God had plans too. I still really really miss NC and the friends we had there. Nothing beats the South. As I've now lived in nearly every part of the country, I've come to realize that I truly am--and always will be-- a Southern girl at heart. Give me BBQ and Sweet tea any day over Sushi and Sake. I still love this house and am so glad they haven't drastically changed the outside. I don't even want to know if they've changed the inside... I want it to forever remain the way we left it! They've added a porch swing! And shutters! Both things I would have definitely done! Here's a look at the house when we lived in it...

Love that porch... you just don't see that out here.

Our living room... I LOVED the crown molding... it was EVERYWHERE! And that tray ceiling and recessed lighting was the BEST!

This was the kitchen... it was open to a dining area and then the living room. I loved the together feel of it all!

Guest bedroom... again more FABULOUS molding! Would have made a great baby room!

Guest bathroom that we COMPLETELY gutted and remodeled. Lots of work went into this!!

Below is a "before" picture of the bathroom... yeah... it was bad. :-)

Clayton & Holly lived one house down and we would walk over there in our pj's and play Settler's until afte rmidnight. That or we'd play Mario Party. Man, good times! I am so greatful for the time we had there. I will always look back on that season of Sean and I's life together as one of the best times ever.

B90X

Thursday, August 13, 2009

I don't twitter. And I don't twitter on purpose. There are several reasonings behind this, but mainly because I really don't need one more thing to keep up with. Well, that, and the fact that I really don't care if you're sitting in Starbucks listening to the latest Kings of Leon CD, or driving your car down I-95 at midnight. BUT, all that said, I have heard some tweeting of the latest rumblings making its way around Twitter and blogs... and that is something called B90X.

"B90x is a revolutionary system of intense, truth-absorbing, brain-busting Bible reading that will transform your understanding of Scripture from intro to nitro in just 90 days! Your personal trainer, Ruach "The Breath" Yahweh, will drag you through the most intense infusion of His vision that you have ever experienced and you won't believe the results!"

Its really simple: read the Bible in 90 days. Yep. The WHOLE THING. In 90 days. I've been in churches that have challenged us to read through the Bible in a year, but c'mon... we all know a lot can happen in a year. And try remembering on December 31, 2009 what you read on January 1 of the same year. Not so easy to do. The challenges are put out to congregations, but then a year later, the completion of this "Read Thru the Bible In A Year" is an afterthought. Its either not mentioned at all, or a "GREAT JOB!" is put as a one-liner in the already loaded bulletin.

But 90 days? That's pretty crazy. But 90 days? I can commit to that. A year? That's a long time to do the same thing every day. But 90 days? I think I can do that.

Pastor Steven Furtick (whose church I've written about on several occasions--they're doing awesome stuff there! Check out some of his sermons here) has challenged his whole staff (and their wives-- LOVE when they get us involed, too! We are a big part of the ministry, too ya know!) to take on the B90X readings. How cool is that? I can only imagine the awesome things that are going to come out of this church's leadership in the next 90 days-- and beyond! They're all on the same page, reading the same Good Words, and keeping each other accountable to doing those readings.

So.... I'm gonna do it. Just jump right in. However, seeing that I'm already a week behind, I'm going to alter the schedule a little bit. I think I'll start this Saturday, the 15th. Good round number. I'll post my new schedule when I am finished making it. I may even make a separate link up top to follow it. But here is the Elevation church's B90X schedule. If you decide to do it, too, you can follow Pastor Steven on Twitter and post everyday that you read, for accountability's sake. I won't be twittering, but I will be trying to post periodically on here how its going. Leave me a comment and let me know if you're going to be doing this too!