"brings joy"

Ever since I was a little kid I knew that Abigail meant "brings joy". Over the years I always hoped that I lived up to the meaning of my name, but I never felt sure.
A funny story with this... When I was a freshman in college my roommate’s name was Joy and interestingly enough she was completely directionally impaired. So for that year at least (because I had to take her everywhere) I lived up to my name.
Anyway yesterday I was listening to a sermon about enjoying life, and the speaker was talking about how there are some people in life that just by being around them it causes you to enjoy life more. I suddenly thought "That’s me!" Now I realize that this sounds completely egotistical, but it's really a huge blessing. I struggle a lot with self image, and I have been asking God to show me what he thinks of me. I can't even describe the feeling of KNOWING that God enjoys me and that other people do too. Anyway it was too exciting for me not to share.

Praying

Ok so Sunday my church passed around a sign up sheet for activities involved with welcoming back military personal. (Idaho loves their military, and we are having a big to do for them.)
Anyway I was thinking of signing up and I noticed that the heading with the least amount of slots filled was for praying with people. Apparently we have a booth where people can come and leave prayer requests and be prayed for and invited to church. I kind of wanted to sign up but I think I thought about it too much and I got really freaked out about what I would say and how could I possibly think I'd be any good at praying for tons of people. Anyway I'm going to pray about it this week and maybe just show up and offer to work on Saturday. So please pray that I have boldness and not fear! Thanks!!

In other random news I was supposed to go horseback riding this weekend but that didn’t work. I did get to go to a half day of swing dance lessons which was incredibly fun for me also went shopping with my sister yesterday and found a really cute skirt and a CD with hymns on it. I love it, it’s something I’ve always wanted. And speaking of things I’ve been wanting; Scott hooked me up with sermons off iTunes which made my weekend! Thanks Scott!! I think my friend Becky and I will go horseback riding today, so I may be VERY sore tomorrow, but I'm excited about it anyway! : )

Valentines Day!

I decided really recently that I am going to spend some part of the day playing with Charlie. (He's my 3 year old nephew, I watch him and his younger brother Harrison during the day.) Because tomorrow is Valentine's Day (and partly inspired by one of the TV shows he watches) I decided that we would make valentines today. It was definitely and interesting endeavor. He of course wanted to do everything himself, (which he isn't actually coordinated enough to do yet) added to that is the fact that he's left handed (I'm not and neither are his skizers) and his skizers are child proof, so they pretty much don't cut at all. Yes sir, we made about 4 valentines (largely my work with a little of his) and that was the end of that. It was very much fun though. It reminded me of grade school and passing around valentines. Good memories!

In other news, God is amazing! He's so good about placing people in our lives to encourage us when we are down. I hope that God uses me to bless all of you sometimes! You all bless me!

My new favorite!!

I recently discovered how great it is to have people pray for you. I mean right on the spot, you tell them something and as your sitting there they say well lets pray about that, and then they pray out loud for you right then. It's Amazing! It really lifts the spirit and just brings such peace.
Ok so If you have been involved with friends or churches where people do this then I'm sure you are wondering that I'm so behind on discovering the joy it brings. Well I have to say that other than my sister I never had anyone do that before. There is just something totally unique about it not being planned. It's different than sitting down with friends and saying pray for the person on your left or having someone say sure I'll pray about that (because unless you know them really well you don't know if they really will or not). It also, I think builds up friendships.
And so knowing the great benefit of having someone pray for me on the spot I decided I should in turn start praying for my friends in a similar way. It's pretty scary actually. I'm not sure why, maybe because it's unfamiliar, maybe because the devil doesn't want me doing it and being effective, so he tells me that my friends will think I'm strange. I don't know, but I know that I love it and I will endeavor to spread the love :)

In other news I was sitting around a lot yesterday not feeling well and decided to start reading "The Screwtape Letters" by CS Lewis. It's been on my list to read for some time now and I just decided it looked more interesting than any of the other books I'm in the middle of. And I'd just like to say It is totally awesome, everyone should read it. It's actually a really easy reading style too so you don't need to be concerned that you'll be wading through deep theological musings in language that no one really understands. (sometimes I feel that way about such books) Anyway it's completely insightful about demons and humans. And now... I think I'll go read a few more chapters!

Testing Faith

Sunday's are the best days. I actually watched the super bowl yesterday!! I have to admit here that I read books at all my brother's football games as a kid. It wasn't until I played powder puff my senior year of high school that I actually kind of understood the game. So at least I know what is going on sometimes when I watch now, It makes it more interesting. At half time I went over to College church (I was on the NNU campus) and watched their half time show. It was a guy with horns all over his body and he played songs. He was pretty much the most amazing thing I've seen in awhile. Davethehornguy.com check it out!!!

Ok well you are probably wondering what all that had to do with the title of the blog... Absolutely nothing!! :) Here is the real point.
Pastor Cliff was talking yesterday about how God builds our faith through testing in 4 major ways. 1. God tests us through difficulties and we are supposed to respond with Joy. (James 1:1-2) (1 Peter 1:6-7)
2. God tests us through demands and we are supposed to respond with immediate obedience
(Ex. 16:3) (Heb 11: 7 and 8)
3. God tests us through delays and we are supposed to respond by waiting patiently. (Isa. 64:4)
SIDE NOTE: I thought that not only should we wait patiently for tomorrow but we should have Joy for today as well. We shouldn't be so focused on what the future could hold that we don't see how God is working now.
4. God tests us through dollars and we are supposed to respond by giving generously. (Lk. 16:11) (2 Cor. 8:7-8)
SIDE NOTE: Two things here. Being wasteful with money shows a lack of discipline. I also thought this was good. "Money is a mirror reflecting who you are inside."


Well I just thought that this was really good and I wanted to share it.

Freedom in Christ.

The Wednesday night service was about.. well really I don't remember exactly. However I do know that we had an awesome prayer time after. The best thought of the evening was that prayer creates space in your life for God. God the creator of all things, and the all powerful loving father, wants that space so he can work in your life. I realized that I just thought I was free because I was a Christian. I mean I know not everyone is, and we all struggle with things, but it was a new thought for me to realize that my fear of rejection and my struggle with finding people intimidating, could actually be spiritual and not just me being dumb. So I was praying about that and It was exciting to be free. Now comes the process of working on not falling back into the familiar pattern of life.

today's dilemma

Good grief I didn't know it could be so hard to get a job. I applied, I took tests, I interviewed, they actually offered the job, and now I have to decide if I can accept it or not. You see the problem comes that they want full time workers, and I can not do that. I watch my sister's kids and can't just up and quit, that would be beyond lame. So We've worked it out that I can do the 4 weeks of training full time and then work weekends for CITI. However, I don't know if they will work with that schedule, and as it turns out life for the next year or so is completely unpredictable. I don't know if Matt will find a job. If he finds one soon then I might have to quit CITI which wouldn't be good. However if it takes him a very long time, then I may end up having to watch the kids again next school year so Suzy can teach again. and then I'd have to go back and forth from weekends during the school year to full time in the summer, and it's all so confusing and not at all very certain. Can I just say that I don't like not knowing what is going on!!!! Drives me batty! OK well now that that is out of system I'm going to try to call my friend Dianna the career counselor again. (she is the coolest person! I wish the world could have a Dianna!)