Hello bloggy friends! I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you about a very cool conference coming up called She Speaks!  It is a Proverbs 31 Ministries event that looks amazing!  I had the very cool chance to not only hear Lisa Terkeurst speak recently at an event in Memphis, but I had the chance to meet her! I fell in love with her and this ministry!  I had heard of it before, but never really took the time to check it out.  Well, for several weeks I have been totally addicted to anything Proverbs 31 and feel God taking me to another level.  I would LOVE to have the opportunity to go to this event because I have such a big heart for my home state of Maine and the women there!  I am excited about starting to move on the things that God has laid on my heart over these past weeks.  I long to guide women into the heart of God!  I am so anxious to organize a team and begin praying through what all this means!  In the mean time I am trying to win a chance at attending this event where I know God could bless me even more with endless gifts to assist me in my ministry dreams!  I would love the opportunity to win a scholarship because I think there is just soooooo much I need to learn!  My blogging abilities are in need of technical help for starters, and I would love to start out a ministry on the right foot.  The conference will offer many, many, many ways to revamp your writing, speaking, and blogging pursuits as you lead women to God.  Please check out Lysa @ lysaterkeurst.com and her ministry..........you will be blessed!! 

Here is the link.....  http://lysaterkeurst.blogspot.com/

Each year I have always enjoyed the season of Lent.  Our church in Michigan (Wesleyan) always had an awesome Ash Wednesday service and I loved receiving the ashes and making new commitments to God which always included fasting in some way.  I was reading through another old journal last night (I have been doing a lot of this!) and I had written down my letter to God for that particular Lent season.  It was so cool to read what was on my heart at that time.  Even cooler to see where I have been and how God has answered prayers. 

In an effort to have a real educated answer for the girls tomorrow about Lent....I googled it and I found a very cool article.  Here is the first bit of it.....

 The 40 days of Lent calling for acts of self-denial, soul searching, continuing faith in the gospel and Christian repentance begins today, Ash Wednesday, a day of fast and abstinence for more than a billion of the world’s Roman Catholics on this seventh Wednesday before Easter Sunday.

Pope Benedict XVI, in his Lenten message released by the Vatican last Feb. 3, 2009, stressed on the underlying links between fasting and depriving one’s self of temporal joys "aimed at an encounter with Christ."

"Along with fasting, spiritual discipline during the penitential season also include a greater commitment to prayers (lectora divina), recourse to the sacrament of reconciliation and active participation in the Eucharist especially in the Holy Sunday mass," the Pope said in his Lenten message.

In the same message, the Pontiff focused on the magnitude of fasting as defined by St. Augustine "who saw it as a means of restoring spiritual balance to a soul stained by sin."

"Since all of us are weighed down by sin and its consequences, fasting is proposed to us as an instrument to restore friendship with God," the Pope said.

I love these quotes from the Pope!  Encounters with Christ, restoring spiritual balance and restoring friendship with God.  All of which are on my heart.  During the fasting and praying that I have done in the past I have been amazed at the ways God worked in my life.......painful but humbling and joyful times.  I long for more of that!  Jean Stockdale the other day said, "I love me some hard preachin'!  I love to be convicted and humbled!  Bring it on preacher man!"  She cracks me up........but I love her heart and I totally agree....there is still so much to learn and understand about my heart and God's heart.  I long for the cleansing that comes from encountering Christ for who He is, bringing balance into my life and making His friendship the most important one I have. I am so not perfect and He loves me anyway!  Craziness.

I have decided to fast from several different foods and things.  Without these distractions I will attempt to have a clearer understanding of who I am in Christ, and more importantly who Christ is in me.  I love you all, pray for you all and miss you all so much.....have a blessed season of Lent.  See you in 40 days.  xoxoxo   

So, as I said before...there is a common theme in all that I am hearing from God.  In that journal that I found a few weeks ago I had written about an experience I had at a church I tried out one Sunday.  I wrote, "I went to church tonight...it was very strange.  It's like I have faith...but something is missing." 

Jean Stockdale has been teaching us about how to have Joy in the Journey.  We are studying Philippians, the heart felt letter written by Paul with so much Joy when it seemed impossible to have any at all.  The Joy of the Lord is truly his strength!  Wow is all I can say.  Even more profound is that it is available for me to have on a daily basis. 

Jean has been explaining to us the Christians journey from being saved to eternal glory. Justification is the time that we accept Jesus as our Savior and the Holy Spirit then dwells in us.  This seals our destiny and we are made right with God through Jesus' sacrifice.  Glorification is when we see Jesus face to face and are transformed into our eternal dwelling.  In between these two events is our life.  This is called Sanctification.  Sanctification is hard work!  It is the time that we "catch on to the secret of the super natural life."  She described for us that when we are saved we are not instantly transformed.  We certainly will feel different having learned the truth. But, our habits, pain, flesh patterns and more will all remain without a renewal of our mind.  We need to get out of our deadly habits and let God into the deep places in our hearts that need His divine touch and healing.

I am reading the book, Captivating by John and Staci Eldredge.  This book could not have come at a better time.  It is the icing on the cake for me right now.  It is a bitter and hard cake to swallow for me and it needs icing!  God and I have been sitting together "eating cake" for this whole winter and he prepared me for this book!  I was ready to receive it's message with love and I am forever grateful.  Jeremiah 29:11 has been my motto for over a year now.  I held on to this verse always picturing earthly things being the plans and blessings ie. that old farm house.  ;)  But really, the plans and the blessing, is God himself.  God is all I need.  To Him, I am captivating.  He has been protecting me, romancing me, loving me unconditionally and blessing me and He will never stop.  

Jean revealed yesterday the secret to living a Joy filled life.  It's God's word.  She stood on that stage holding up her bible showing a little more of her heart than I think I have ever seen and said, "this will help you renew your mind and bring you joyfully to Glorification.  She shared Romans 12:1, Phil 2:27, and Romans 12:2 that all talk about living Holy lives, conducting ourselves in a worthy manner, and renewing our mind.........being transformed everyday.  "Christ died for us....is it too much to ask that we live for him?" 

So, what was I missing all those years ago?  And what has been missing from my life today?  Daily surrender to Christ.  Daily bible reading, praying and listening.  Daily letting God into the secret places of my heart so that I can feel his love and healing and Joy.  As a mom striving to raise loving, respectful, God fearing, compassionate...etc. little human beings along with trying desperately to be a Godly wife, sister, daughter and friend.....I need Joy!  I need Christ.  I can't let any of my hurts or hang ups get in the way of what God wants to do in my life each and every day.

Recently I saw this quote, "How we live our days is of course how we live our lives."  I want so desperately to live a life pleasing to God.  I don't want to miss out on anything He has planned for me.  I don't want to miss out on the Joy. 

Another book I read recently described a man getting to heaven and seeing a box with his name on it.  He wanted to open it and God kept distracting him but he insisted that God let him open it.  When he did he found in that box........every blessing he had missed.  God had stored them in a box to show him at some point.  He wept having remembered times that he chose his way over God's way.

Building 429 has a great song out right now, End of Me.  Hear are the lyrics, or better take a listen on their website......

 I was the one to call the shots
Dream-eyed dreams, heart and soul
Answered only to myself
Never giving up control
Until the one day that brought me to my knees
And I would never be the same

Chorus:
Once upon a time the story goes
I laid it all down and let it go
To lose it all
To lose it all
Took a step of faith and said goodbye
And everything I had I left behind
To find true life
When all I longed for I found finally
At the end of me

And now the gone is wasted days
The selfish soul, the emptiness
Love had dimly been replaced
That old life is laid to rest
And now the new me is stronger day by day
I will never be the same

Chorus

Bridge:
And like an answer to a prayer
Jesus you were there
Calling me to live to die to give to gain
And I will never be the same

I have such a very long way to go, I feel, before Glorification......but I will do my best to work hard in this season of Sanctification.  And thankfully God is there to lead me and love me unconditionally because I mess up all the time.  But with Him by my side I can have Joy in this Journey.

Well...this week has been crazy!  So busy and so fun....  Wednesday night we went to the first wednesday service at our church and I was (finally) baptized!  It was an incredible feeling to obey Christ in this fashion and receive His blessings.  I have a new spring in my step and a new feeling about who I am in Christ.  There is truly no better feeling that I can recall!  Then yesterday morning I headed up to Memphis for the first day of my new bible study for moms at Bellevue Baptist church.  What an amazing experience!  The teacher, Jean Stockdale, never ceases to amaze me!!  God is doing awesome things through her obedience to Him....wow!  If you are a mom and would like to be blessed by Jean too....her teachings are on the Bellevue site....if you want to watch along with all of us on thursday mornings...i have been told that the video is there for you to see.  It starts at 10:30 or 10:45 maybe central time.  Check out bellevue.org for more details about moms.  If your on facebook she loves to have friends...especially her "lil' mamas!"  Friend her and you will be blessed!  Anyway, that was incredible and then last night Jeff and I took the girls to see the Winter Jam tour with New Song, Toby Mac, Francessca Battistelli, Stephanie Smith, Hawk Nelson, Brandon Heath, Tony Nolan....it was nothing short of incredible!  Our girls had a blast...it was a great family night of worship, dancing, and fun!!  Hawk Nelson rocked.....wow....i don't normal like them all that much but they were great live!  Full of energy and love for Christ...very cool.

It is 2:00 and I am still in my PJ's!!!  Of to do my daily reading and bible study  before the girls get home.......I can't wait to hear what God has to say today!  Love you all.  xoxoxo

I was thinking the other day.......wondering if, how and when we will ever have more space.  I think I have accepted the fact that the old farm house will never be remodeled.....but now what about the barn?  I would love to make it something special for entertaining, being a family and a studio for me.  It made me think of times when I have been impatient.  Like wanting to know something soooo badly......but then finding out and ruining the surprise.  One day I made homemade bread for the first time.....well instead of letting it sit I just dug right in and down it fell.....I didn't let it cool.  Ugh.  Have you done stuff like this?  Well, then I saw God......and He said, "What if it doesn't matter what you have on earth?  Would you be okay with that?"  Ummmmm.  Okay. 

Stay with me here.....what if you were on a plane to some tropical place.....it is a DREAM vacation....you have saved and sacrificed hours on end to go on this vacation.  Days on end!!!  You deserve this trip!  The plane has to stop over in some very boring location and you get stuck there.  Weather strikes and your vacation has to be canceled.  Now your concern is how on earth will you get home.....flights are all full because of the storms....you are devastated.  You could move on with your life and make the best of it thinking it just wasn't meant to be.  Or you could complain about it for the rest of your life and carry on in bitterness because you know you will never get a chance like that again.  Or you think you won't anyway. 

Back to today........what am I going to do?  Sit here and wonder and ponder and wish and dream about what the property could be.....or am I going to move forward one day at a time.  Living my life to the fullest, honoring God with how I spend my time and resources?  Trusting that His plans are good and will benefit me?  Simplifying more and more.....making more room for what God wants to do in my life......

After God asked me that question....would I be okay with that......He said to me, "What if everything you ever dreamed about here, on earth, was everything I have planned for you in eternity?"  And I think of that lost vacation.........how disappointing it would be to arrive in heaven to see it knowing the time I wasted being angry about missing that chance to be there......and here it was for eternity.  On the flip side.....I had accepted it as not meant to be.....what a delightful surprise!!! 

It gives a new perspective doesn't it?  There is a song that I love by Rita Springer called "It's Gonna be Worth It."  It's all going to be worth it......all that this life brings and doesn't bring......all that we sacrifice for Christ.......honoring Him and glorifying Him in our lives.......loving others.......raising these crazy children......all the exhaustion.....it will ALL be worth it.  God blesses us along the way too....I had a big list of blessings recently and I treasure those special gifts straight from the throne of God.....but I know that my real reward will be in heaven.  I need to never forget that.