Another Weekend - or - The Post Of Links.

The end of July brought a great weekend for Pete and I. It started off with the wedding of a daughter of some very good friends of ours from church. It was a beautiful outdoor wedding followed by an air-conditioned reception. (It was a tad warm outside.)

See how gorgeous the bride is?

The bride's dance with her father was to "Butterfly Kisses". Oh man. What a tear-jerker!

And I just had to include a picture of the flower girl. She was adorable and so loved the dancing! It was so much fun to watch her!

After the wedding we stayed with some dear friends (Dan & Cheryl) that moved away from here a few months ago. We enjoyed spending time with them in their new home and worshiping with them on Sunday morning.

Dan helped Pete find a car part to fix Caleb's run-in with the mountain.

Cheryl and I caught up on our lives. We found the sheets that Megan wanted for college. Those pesky extra-long twin beds that almost every college has...

Then Pete and I took off ALONE to celebrate our 24th wedding anniversary. We found a quiet hotel for some alone time.

We went to a play at The Guthrie Theater. It is a beautiful theater. We had an "adventure" finding the theater in downtown Minneapolis. Let's just say there is no way we could repeat the route we took there. :) From the theater we could see the new I-35W bridge almost completed.

We saw the play The Government Inspector. It was pretty funny. A few too many inappropriate innuendos (if you know what I mean...) for me though. It is a re-write of a Russian play called The Inspector-General.

We had a wonderful Sunday night and Monday morning of just relaxing and enjoying some time to just talk.

Monday we ran some errands in the Big City. Pete bought some new running shoes.

We ate lunch at a sweet little Italian restaurant that is right next door to the running shoe store. It was yummy! I had seen the place several times and had bought something to drink there, but had never ate the food. I'm glad we did.

I dropped my camera off for repairs since I managed to drop it and break the tiny switch that holds the battery in. :( So I am without my camera for 4-6 weeks. Sad. I may have to resort to "borrowing" pictures from Megan and/or Caleb. :)

It was a very fun weekend. How could it be anything else? I got to do my favorite thing --- hang out with my husband, my best friend. :)

Growth!

Remember this picture I posted last May?

Look at what all those tiny plants my sweet, amazing husband planted grew into:
(Aren't they beautiful?)

God does an even more amazing thing with people:

I love that God gives us visible ways to see growth, to see how He is working. I often wonder if I am growing and changing in a way that pleases God.

I recently received a phone call from a very dear friend. He used to be the pastor of our church. I have been struggling through some things and had written he and his wife some emails to ask for prayer. I shared with them some ugly things that God had shown me and how I have been trying to work through them. And the victory I have had. So he called me to tell me he was proud of me and that he sees real growth. That just made me cry with gratefulness to God's graciousness in my life. It meant so much to have my friend tell me those things.

I have heard a song on the radio a lot lately called Whatever You're Doing (Something Heavenly). It's by Sanctus Real. These words express what I have been feeling. (They are just some of the words.)

Whatever you're doing inside of me
It feels like chaos somehow there's peace
It's hard to surrender to what I can't see

Whatever you're doing inside of me
It feels like chaos but I believe
You're up to something bigger than me
Larger than life something heavenly

Whatever you're doing inside of me
It feels like chaos but now I can see
This something bigger than me
Larger than life something heavenly
Something heavenly
but I'm giving in to something heavenly

I do feel peace despite the craziness around me. I am all for God doing something heavenly in me. I remind myself that some of the struggles I go through are not necessarily about me -- but may be for the growth of those who are in my life.

But sometimes they are just to get the uglies out of me.

Praise God for His goodness and Praise God for growth!!

100-fold Harvest

I have had a couple of great weekends that I need to write about. I'll start with last weekend first. The other weekend will have to wait for another post.

Beth Moore had a huge simulcast of her Living Proof Live conference from Louisville, Kentucky. I was able to attend in a small town just 25 minutes from here. While I do love the atmosphere of a large group of women worshiping God, it was kind of nice to not drive very far and to sleep in my own bed. I have been known to travel quite a ways to Beth's conferences: Des Moines, Kansas City and even Providence, Rhode Island. (Well we flew to that one...)

This conference was broadcast simultaneously to something 715 locations across the country and to four other countries. There were about 70,000 people viewing it. That's quite mind boggling if you ask me. The worship was amazing.

Beth talked about Luke 8:1-15, the Parable of the Sower. The focus was on verse 8: Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown."
When he said this, he called out, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

I just love how even a familiar Bible story has so much more packed into than I can ever know! God's Word is so alive!

Beth had seven points:

1. Treasure the wonder - recapture the wonder of the word - it has power to transform.

2. Protect your heart - the enemy can steal the Word we receive - keep the Word hidden in your heart - down deep so that it gets into the blood and the very marrow of our bones.

3. Expect the test - we will be tested when we receive the Word. Tests are either trials sent by God to teach us to stand or temptations sent by the enemy so that we will fall. We have to be strong in both and cling to the Word. The Word is meant to be applied.

4. Dig the roots - if we want to bear fruit we have to have deep roots - our roots are only as deep as our conviction that we are LOVED by God. Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.

5. Stop the choke - Anxiety chokes the Word. We have to stop what chokes the word in us - namely, anxiety. We have to turn our worries over to God in prayer- confessing that we trust God's authority in every situation.

6. Retain the Word - to hold in a vice grip; to possess, to own.

7. Press forth to our promised 100-fold - The harvest takes time in coming - don't give up! We need to persevere to the end.


A couple more thoughts:

• I'm glad it's not about me. It's to give strength and be an encourager to others.
• God's Word restores and heals and puts lives back together again.
• Spiritually speaking, I want to be a woman of means and of substance.

I realize this is kind of long. Sometimes I write these posts as a way to remember. So readers, please bear with me.

John 7:38

He who believes in Me [who cleaves to and trusts in and relies on Me] as the Scripture has said, From his innermost being shall flow [continuously] springs and rivers of living water.

Since People Won't Listen To Me Explain This In Real Life...

One of the definitions of the word angel is:

• A person having qualities generally attributed to an angel, as beauty, purity or kindliness.

So, this definitaion works in Monk & Neagle's song "Stars Would Fall" where the writer (who wrote the song for his wife) says:

You're an angel, you're a queen and I would give you everything

So there.

I feel better now that I was able to get that out.

This blog sure is a handy way to communicate. :) Especially since people won't listen to a person just innocently wanting to explain something.

Geez.

24!!!

Today I have been married 24 years to my best friend. Wow! What a great 24 years!

According to a comment left on my previous post, the great source of wikipedia, the traditional gifts for the 24th wedding anniversary is furniture.

I guess we missed it.

Last year for our 23rd anniversary we bought a coffee table. Oops! If only we would have known about the wonders of wikipedia. **SIGH**

This year Pete gave me a pendant. It's a green garnet. It looks like these earrings, but only one and green.
He spoils me so. :)

I gave him an armband for his iPod and sport headphones. He went running with them tonight and said he loved them!

Happy Anniversary Sweetie! I Love You! Thanks for a great 24 years.

Man Trivia

1. Who is your man? Peter

2. How long have you been together? We will be married 24 years on Monday!

3. How long did you date? We were best friends for 6 months or so, dated for 9 months before we got engaged. We were engaged for 13 months, which I do not recommend. We were so ready to make that commitment , but had another year of college to finish.

4. How old is your man? 47

5. What kind of car does he drive? A Mazda 3. Bright red. I have never seen him so excited about a car as this one.

6. Who said "I love you" first? Ummm... I really don't remember. But I would bet it was him since I was trying to let him lead with things in our relationship. (I hadn't done that in some previous relationships...)

7. Who is taller? He is 3 inches taller.

8. Who sings better? If volume is anything, me. He does a better job of harmonizing. I sing on the worship team at church. He plays an awesome piano.

9. Who is smarter? Hmmmm. I would say Pete, easily. He is an engineer. He can problem solve like nobody's business. He can even do math in his head! It's so amazing! But I can cook better and sew, and understand small children. I guess we each have our own strengths.

10. Whose temper is worse? Definitely mine.

11. Who does the laundry? Me. The kids have done their own for 7 years! Best parenting move I ever made!

12. Who takes out the garbage? I collect it in the house, he takes it to the curb, and I bring the trash cans back to the garage. Team effort!

13. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? He does. We switched once at my parents' house when I was pregnant so I could get up more easily to go to the bathroom multiple times during the night, but he could barely sleep! So we've never switched since then.

14. Who pays the bills? Pete. He loves the numbers thing and the spreadsheet thing.

15. Who is better with the computer? He understand some details like how the whole filing things works, Power Point and Excel. He is a whiz with spreadsheets. But I know how to change the wallpaper on the desktop (an important skill, you know!) and I love to do things with Publisher and can surf the web for anything.

16. Who mows the lawn? Thank You, Lord, it's Pete. I did not get the "mowing gene."

17. Who cooks dinner? Me.

18. Who drives when you are together? Usually Pete. When we are on a long trip, I'm usually the one who does the late night driving. I can force myself to stay awake. The down side of that is when we get to the destination, everyone else falls asleep quickly, and I am still awake because of the adrenaline I got going.

19. Who pays when you go out? Usually Pete, unless he doesn't have any cash, or left his glasses at home and can't read the bill...

20. Who is most stubborn? Quite likely me... unfortunately.

21. Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? Probably not me (See answer to previous question.)

22. Whose parents do you see the most? I would say it is about equal.

23. Who kissed who first? He kissed me first (See #6) We were sitting on a bench near the campanile on campus talking about what we should do and where we should go with our friendship.

24. Who asked who out? I don't remember. We went to see a movie when we were friends and I was dating someone else. We decided that was too much like a date and we better not do that. After we decided to date (I had broken up with the other guy) I don't remember. We just hung out a lot "studying."

25. Who proposed? He proposed to me 25 years ago last month on an orange vinyl couch in an apartment he was living in for a summer. I didn't say, "Yes." I said, "Definitely!"

26. Who is more sensitive? Probably me. He's an engineer. 'Nough said. (I don't mean that as a slam, honey!) :D

27. Who has more friends? I think they are about equal.

28. Who has more siblings? Me. I have two sisters and one brother. He has one brother and one sister.

29. Who wears the pants in the family? Petey, and he looks real good in them. I love you, Sweetie!
What new thing did you learn?