Well I think I need to send an email to the weather guys. Attention: We live in Northern GA (truly the deep south). We do not need snow for more than a day at a time. It is important to our lifestyles that the snow melts following day 1. So, stop broadcasting that it's going to be so cold! Give us a few degrees -- say 15 or so-- and we'll all be much nicer folks, I promise. We need our sweet tea and sonic ice and light jackets. My children don't own clothes thick enough to play outside and are tired of wearing 2 layers! So, hurry up and warm it back up around here -- please and thank you.
Currently, Tuesday is the first time it's supposed to get above freezing... a whollaping 38 degrees for our high. If it gets that warm, I might not have to give myself an extra 30 minutes to drive in case some other person decides that they don't know how to drive in the snow (though it's on the sides of the roads, not on the roads anymore) and go 15 mph down the highway with double solid yellow lines so I cannot go around them. If it gets that warm, I may be convinced to not wear leggings underneath my work pants and a tank top under my uniform shirt. I might even be convinced to take a shower again!
I went to take a shower last night, after washing some dishes almost an hour previous to that. Well, I turned on the hot full blast and kept waiting for the warm water to appear. I stripped down in good faith, freezing my buns in the meantime, and finally decided that the water was warm enough. I hopped in and the very second the water touched me I shrieked like a child and scrambled back out of the shower. Brent thought it was hysterical and dried me off (well the small section of me that had gotten wet) and dressed me and stuck my hands under my arms so that my core would heat up faster and wrapped up around me to try and warm me faster. Its so nice to be married to someone who knows how to fight off/prevent frostbite. Ok, not that I was in danger of loosing a toe or something to frostbite, but I was cold and he knew the best ways to warm me up! He tucked me in bed and brought chocolate covered cherries to feed to me :-) They were REALLY good but I only let myself have 3 because I really probably don't need them.
Today I work until 5. I need to finish washing dishes, throw in a load of laundry, straighten the house a bit.... and pick up milk and bread and a few things from the store. (It's been hard to find milk and bread lately, the weather man said the s word and everyone ran off to the store like they were expecting a blizzard!) I think tomorrow Alina and I will make some more "princess" cookies (sugar cookies with pink icing and sprinkles) because we are out of them and she seemed to enjoy them so much. Something about homemade cookies just makes me happy... I don't mind giving those to her as much because I know exactly what's in them and that seems to give me some comfort (I don't really know why).
Next weekend Brent and I are going on a church retreat together - I think this is the first one we've gone on together as a married couple. We're really excited because this is leadership training for our church and we were asked to go by our pastor. We'll be there Friday night, all day Saturday, and Sunday morning - no kids :-) so it's actually a retreat, and a mini vacay together. I'm really excited to see what all we do on the trip, and what things we look into and stuff.
I know a big part of the retreat is finding out what your gifts and strengths are and how to use them to benefit the body -- and that's really cool to me. I've taken like a bazillion of those "what is your spiritual gift" tests and it always comes out different... depending usually on what denomination is administering the test and what they call things. I know I've got alot of hospitality that's naturally oozing out of me - so much so that we had a prophet couple come to our church one weekend and they looked at Brent and I out of the blue (we hadn't even met) and said "you have a very hospitable spirit, and you've always kept your home open and you need to continue to do that." I know I hear specifically from God pretty frequently about doing things or not doing things -- but it seemes to be more prophetic than discerning... but I also know that I'm very much a teacher and shepard but I also know I can't be everything so I just don't know (LOL). Ahh if only it was on an index card one day when I was reading in my bible or something. Just tell me "hey, you're a prophet" and I could handle that pretty easily! I don't think I'm an evangelist... I feel more concerned with teaching people how to live correctly and how to impact others than I do going out and "preaching to sinners" so to speak. And I don't think I'm an apostle either -- I'd rather stay with a group of people than jump from church to church to church planting and growing them for a little while and coming back to kick their butts when they've been stupid. And, for that matter, I've never really felt a calling for intercesory.... sure, I pray for people and on their behalfs on rare occasion, but its only happened one time that I really felt like I needed to set myself entirely aside to pray for something/someone specific and I have the feeling that that had more to do with the person whom I was praying for and what I'd just been told about what they were going through. I think that qualifies more as worry than intercessory. I think part of the deal with being a true intercessor is to know someone needs prayer before you hear about what's wrong or if there is something wrong -- like speaking prophetically doesn't really count if you look at someone you know is in drug rehab and tell them that drugs have been controlling their life. It's sort of a duh statement.
Well, our first bible study is Monday, and then we have the retreat (called Encounter) and then we have bible studies on Monday nights till like June I think... I'll be really interested to learn about what it is exactly that God has for me. Lately I've felt like I was just waiting around for whatever it is to happen so I can start to reach out and minister.
I remember a few months back, Brent and I were asked to go to a meeting about starting a youth group. We were ready to be involved and be leaders but God stepped in and said "nope" even though we weren't really listening. He timed it to where Becca went into the hospital the weekend of our first youth group night so we didn't go to the first meeting and just never really went back.... probably a good thing, anyway, because the guy in charge was very zealous but seemed to think that his passion for the kids would be enough to make them realize how awesome God was -- and didn't really have a course of action besides "let's have a church service and just invite teens." ech. We tried to talk to him about it too, because they've been tons and tons of people to come in, start a youth group, loose zeal, and dissapeer at that church and it's just frusterating. Brent and I KNOW that whatever it is that we have to do is going to be involved with teenagers somehow -- we've been told and shown that time and time and time and time again. We both knew it while we were still like 15 and 16. I was a youth leader in high school and I even organized and ran entire retreats -- and let me tell you, Happening was alot of work. I didn't sleep but like 5 hours all weekend. It was exhausting, but let me tell you, I knew that was what I was supposed to be doing. I was sure that was the thing that was meant for me. But since graduating, I've just been... on hold. Now I'm married and have kids and my own schedule and stuff, so its different. And I guess, good youth ministers have their own teenagehood under their belts a bit and aren't still growing up (not that I'm not still maturing but I'm past the teenage part of it). But, I'm ready to be doing something. I'm ready to be ministering and making a difference. I'm ready. But right now I'm still waiting. Maybe Encounter will change this and it'll be a step towards whatever-it-is.
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