Eureka!

Hello world! Nice to see you again. If this is your first read, welcome! But I recommend you read my first post. It is basically the point of this whole blog. Otherwise, here's a little catch-up for ya. Since 2010, I have felt that God kind of gave me a few words to remind myself of whenever I have questions or don't know where to go next.

SEEK, FOCUS, CREATE

Specifically in that order. Seek God. Focus on whatever that may lead to. Create something-anything.
This blog is my way to keep myself accountable on that last part, mostly. This is where I can create, or at least show that I have been. If you're reading, thanks for helping with that. :)

I have often said that I think this is my own little motto. Maybe a tiny tip just for me to carry around. It's not directly the bible and I would never claim it is nearly as credible as the Good Book itself. Never. However, I do have a relationship with God, and I believe it is from him. So, if it helps you too, that's groovy. If not, okay then.

So, I have this friend. She was actually my roomie. And she had a little adage that she felt was from God too, a bit like mine. Pray Listen Receive. I always thought it was cool, but I eventually noticed something. Now maybe it's a stretch- it's very possible- but here's what I think. When you pray, isn't that the primary method of seeking God? I'd say. And when I'm listening, that's me focusing on the results of that seeking/praying, right? And the way I react to Receiving what he sends my way is to take on what he would do- create. And you may say you're not crafty, but we are all made to create. Maybe not in the "artsy" sense, but even if you just speak it out, you've created something out of nothing, words out of thin air. So, in my humble opinion, all of us appropriately respond with creating when we receive from God.
So, "Nifty," I thought, "How strange that her little message would be so similar to mine." But it's not significant enough to stop me in my tracks. So, I moved on.

Then, Jeremy Johnson (You may have heard of him; he's a pretty popular pastor. He was a youth pastor at this time though.) started promoting his little battle cry: Infiltrate Destroy Rebuild. This one's a little bit more of a stretch, but play along. Infiltrate and Seek both have the "begin here, dive deep into God" feeling to me. Destroy and Focus both bring me to "simplify, get down to the basics, get rid of distractions". Finally, Rebuild and Create go without explanation.
Strange, right? But whatevs, maybe I'm crazy.

Aaaaannyway, my husband's one of three youth leaders at our church, and I attend the youth services as often as I can. This week, the sermon was done by one of the other youth leaders. He had three notes. I would summarize them like so: Build your relationship with God, Have expectations, Be Confident. That's as similar as I see it getting, especially with the way his commentary went for each note. Here's my summary. Seeking God is clearly identical to building your relationship with God. Having expectation, the way he put it, is actually looking forward to what He leads you to and pushing toward it- zeroing in, if you will. Focusing. Lastly, being confident. Now, he never used the word "Create", but the idea of Creating is to do something with what you've got from the last two steps. The idea of being confident, according to this sermon, was to be brave, step out, and do something with that newly-strengthened relationship with God.

(UPDATE: I just saw "Lights Camera Action" on an ad and thought. When I'm searching for my keys, phone, etc. or when helicopter cops are looking for their criminals, we have to shine light in the dark. And cameras just plainly don't function well at all unless their focus is adjusted. And action is just about the simplest way to communicate "do SOMETHING". So, another one is here!)

So, here I am with this.
Seek Focus Create
Pray Listen Receive
Infiltrate Destroy Rebuild
Build Expect Be Confident
Lights Camera Action
And I can deny one, but not four five, so similar. Maybe this is the skeleton of how to approach life. Again, I'm NOT saying this is anything close to the merit of the Word of God. But maybe it's the summary, a quick idea of what the Word would have us do. Maybe it's a little mnemonic device to just remind me, you, us to go to the King- to find him more. My point in all of this: Word it how you like, God wants us to find him, and he wants us to share him by doing something. And that's the gospel truth.

So, choose your catchphrase as you please, but do something. And with this, I bid you adeu.

Ready
Aim
Fire

Our Opposing Shifts

Guys, my Husband got a new job! :) Let's take a moment to backtrack into why that's exciting...

When we started courting, He was already a very hard worker. He didn't need to prove himself in that area. He was already willing to work as hard as need be to take care of his "future wife" whoever she may become... ;)
Once we got a little further in to the relationship, he stepped up even more moved to a job that had a better chance of getting him to where he dreamed to be. I admired that. :)
Leaving out everything else he is amazing for that I just don't have time to mention, when he proposed to this lucky lady, he chose to give me the wedding He felt I deserved- by getting a second job.
Our entire engagement, he was a zombie. He worked nights at the first job, and days at the second.
Black Friday meant working almost 3 days straight, with no sleep and only a few small breaks in between.

When we finally got married, he let go of the extra job, and soon after got a promotion to even more night hours. Oh, sarcastic joy. :/

For one year, one week, and 6 days, we have lived with opposing schedules. This is not including the few week-long trips when I was away from home for ministry. For over a year, we were newlyweds who rarely saw each other. And when we did, one of us was halfway asleep. All this time, we've slept apart. I've eaten dinner while making his breakfast. I've stayed up far later than I should have, hoping to receive one more text, to get one more digital moment together.
He's given up opportunities, dreams, and ministry moments, to take care of our home, allowing me to do ministry. He has lived many days only partially awake so as not to miss something in an afternoon where he needed sleep. I imagined it might be rough being one of those couples I never thought I'd be, but I can't describe how many nights I avoided falling asleep in a house alone, kept awake by the distractions of the TV, so that I wouldn't have to feel lonely. It was more undesirable than I anticipated.

But we fought through it and prayed through it that GOD would open the door and that we'd be able to trust him to do so. And FINALLY a door swung right open.
This Monday, I made my husband's lunch at the same time that I made my own. I woke up in the same time of day he did. We were both conscious at the same time of day. Today, for the first time, when he left for work, saying, "Goodbye, see you in the morning," it was a mistake!
I am more than excited to see how much more time we can spend together being on the same schedule for the first time in years-- in over a year of marriage. But I hope I don't forget what this year was like. I don't want to forget to appreciate every moment I have now. I don't want to forget waking up to Him getting home and kissing me on the cheek. I don't want to lose the "newlywed" feeling of how much I'm in love- the sacrifices I'm willing to make for even a chance of seeing his smile. I pray that with this blessing, I don't forget to thank God every day for the life He's given me. I am a blessed girl. :)




On this last note, pray with me that I won't fail to be who I need to be.. to SEEK, FOCUS, and CREATE more. Even if it means to CREATE a blog post about my groom. :)

Easy Encouraging Gift Idea

If you are a regular church goer, you've probably heard of the Five Love Languages. If you haven't, get a quick read here (http://www.5lovelanguages.com). Most people that I've talked to about these love languages, spend most of the time talking about how they prefer to receive love. That is only a small portion of the purpose. Most of the purpose is to know how to give love. So, I like to try to focus on creatively giving love.
I have a theory: no matter how you tend to receive love, everyone needs it! Even if it comes in a different language, we were made to love and be loved. But I think, personally-maybe it's because words actually are my love language- that sometimes people from each of the languages sometimes just needs to hear it plain as day with the language they actually speak. That's why Hallmark can stay in business; every holiday has a card! So, no matter how I decide to give a gift, I just can't help but to say it with words. :)

My pastor has been more of a father figure in my life, and since Christmas, Pastor's Appreciation, and his birthday are all so close together, we keep him on our Christmas shopping list. But we definitely had to include our words.

So I bought a 12 pack of his favorite soda, got some duct tape and a few permanent markers from my craft stuff, and just put it all together.
Six of them were just little honest encouragements from me and six were from my husband. Just for kicks, I did them in different marker colors. and somewhere on each can, I wrote "Happy Pastor's Appreciation, Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas", the note, and who it was from. Then I repackaged it back in its box and wrapped it.
It was probably our cheapest gift to give, but fun to make and pretty encouraging. I've been getting texts about once a week with how encouraging they are.

 

I've actually done this before, a few years ago, with the same gift, except I used white labels and neater handwriting. It looked much cleaner, but I don't think that's the part that mattered. :)

 

If I wanted to, I could do water bottles, juices, Arizona's, or maybe even a snack food, like Pop Tarts.

 

If any of you try this, I'd love to hear about it. :) Regardless, I'm having fun learning to SEEK, FOCUS, CREATE. :) Until next time, *tips hat*.