thursday thoughts.

1. this is exactly what He did in and through me...

You give the hopeless soul a brand new start,
You lead the captive in Your freedom song,
I know, this is who You are.

2. I'm feel so blessed to have friends literally, around the world. I got to have some needed skype dates, what did people do before skype!? It is crazy to think that God some how, miraculously allowed all of our different paths to intersect one way or another. It makes the world and the Church seem smaller...you can feel the community, I love it.

3. this week I was reminded that I need to spend more time LISTENING to God. I TALK to God all the time, but how often am I LISTENING!? Almost never..!! Yeah... I was talking with some people and this topic came up & felt a huge tug on my heart. I talk, talk, talk... when do I sit back, in solitude and LISTEN!? It's funny, because I would say I'm a pretty good listener in general, I LOVE to listen to people talk and share their heart... but when it comes to God & I, it seems to just a one way convo?! Gotta sit back & LISTEN to Him & stay in check on that.

4. I've recently started running, again... HOLLA! I maintained a good routine all through the summer and into the fall... then I just stopped because, I had an accident with my shin -- involving falling... I'm glad I can laugh at myself -- AND mainly cause it got cold out... typical. BUT it's not an excuse because I have a TREADMILL!? Yeah.! I'm lame. ONE day I want to run a half/full marathon and you gotta pick back up somewhere, right? Plus it feels good & keeps me healthy :)

5. When I was at work yesterday this caught my eye. When I started working at church I had put a ton of random things up on my massive cubicle pin-up-board; photos, verses, notes, post-its... last month I added the FREEDOM picture and it just dawned on me yesterday WHERE I had placed it... RIGHT by Luke 8:45-48... HELLO... that is basically the passage that led me to FREEDOM! I love sweet reminders like that.

whoa-eekend.

This weekend was jam-packed!

Friday... heaps of work! wsm girl hang out... lots of giggles, chocolate, pinterest, & conversing.

Saturday... spent the day downtown, repairing an old DPS - turned church & youth outreach center... long nap... massive grocery shopping trip... date with my twin, classic dinner & bumming around Target.

Sunday... church/worship... excellent message on trusting God for our needs... huge/scary snow fall, making driving a nightmare... long arvo setting up for kairos small group kick-off dinn dinn... a huge success... I'm so excited to see what God had in store for each group starting up :)

*first ever post via my Blogger App!

M.A.S.H.

One hot Australian summer night this past March, my friend Sarah and I sat around a table filling out countless M.A.S.H. games on scratch paper for our girlfriends. One by one as a girl said "stop" to the line markings; we would ordain marriages, sell homes, deliver babies, give out pets, and decide the future of our friends. We sat there getting our friends hopes up or ruining dreams. It was all fun and games until you were the girl stuck married to Santa Clause, with 9 kids, a pet giraffe, driving a clown car and living in an Apartment.

The other night at watershed Bekah had us play M.A.S.H., this time it was a little nicer...we got to choose the potential husbands, number of kids, pet, cars, and then prayed we would land with the Mansion or House.

Bekah had us start the night with an elementary game, to display the not so elementary danger of unrealistic/unreachable expectations we set on relationships. The expectations we set on this game are the same expectation we set on how we approach dating/marriage relationships. We cannot set expectations too high on any human relationship, for one reason...we are humans! We often think if we could just date this guy or marry that guy we would have a this fairy tale perfect life. Humans are broken and imperfect, therefore making every human relationship broken and imperfect. The only truly fulfilling, one-sided perfect, relationship we can have on this earth is with the Creator of the universe. Therefore, our perfect husband, perfect best friend, or perfect life will always fall short of our expectations. So... lets lose the expectations! It is not fair to the other person to have such high expectations on them anyways, it is too much pressure for someone to constantly be living under.

Godly relationships flourish when we realize that no one is perfect, including ourselves. When you are willing to love someone else without conditions...keeping in mind that they are human and will mess up here and there...it is in the "mess-ups", when our unconditional love for them is tested. How will we react when the other person does not meet our ridiculous expectations? Will we kick 'em to the curb!? Mmm no...maybe we should learn to admit what we might have done to cause the situation, learn to forgive and move on... in love with out conditions.

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
Romans 12.9-12

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
1 John 3:16

This song came on when I was writing...

I'm convinced this song will never get old and
that I will always need to hear it as a reminder,
thanks Bethany Dillon!