Psalm 7:17 Friday

"I will give thanks to the LORD because of his righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the LORD Most High."                                                            
                                                                                                                                      Psalm 7:17


Things I am thankful for this week:

- People who hold me accountable for my Bible reading. There is a college student who asks me every Sunday night at worship how my Bible reading is going and what my verse is for this half of the month. It never fails. This week I was way behind in Leviticus and in memorization. Just knowing that this student is going to ask me this Sunday got my butt in gear. I caught up on my bible reading and got my verses down!

-I finished reading Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Acts. How exciting is that!

-Being finished with reading Leviticus. Honestly, some of those descriptions of skin diseases and discharge were disgusting!

-For Jesus Christ being the ultimate sacrifice. I am so thankful for him laying down his life for me and for all people. Reading Leviticus opened my eyes again to how incredible this gift is.

-For my fabulous mother who is always thinking of me. She is such a servant!

-For the fantastic people who are supporting me for London. I am up to $810!! Yay!

- For God using the circumstances in my life to reveal weaknesses in me and give me opportunities to grow in my relationship with him.

-Coca Cola and not the diet kind!

-Students who care enough about their grades to challenge me (respectfully of course). I had a student challenge an answer on a quiz. At first I was taken aback by what he was saying, but ultimately he had a very convincing argument. After we had it out in class I took him out into the hallway and we discussed it again. I ended up giving him half credit back because it wasn't the best answer. Then at the end of class he came and thanked me for giving him half credit, talk about humbling. I felt horrible about how I had talked to him, but he had the manners to thank me for it. Awesome.

-French pedicures and rainbow flip flops


What are you thankful for?

Blogging Blues

It has been a week since I blogged and I am pretty bummed about it. I just can't seem to get this blogging schedule thing down. I know as a blog reader I am disappointed when the blogs I follow have not posted something new on a regular basis so I can imagine how my readers feel when I have not kept to my schedule. (Please know I recognize that my blog is not some life or death situation. I don't think that highly of it, I promise.) But I am trying to find a way to make blogging a regular part of my life that I enjoy. I don't want to keep myself to such a schedule that its not something I ever want to do. Perhaps thinking I was going to blog five days a week was a little too much to handle and I should lessen the number of blogs I expect myself to do (These are definitely all self imposed expectations). But we will see. Hopefully I will be able to find a schedule that works for me and makes everyone involved happy! Happy Monday!

Happy Valentine's Day

A day to celebrate love. Not just love between family, friends, boyfriends and girlfriends, but also to remember the only true definition of love...God.

I had so many fabulous friends send me messages today reminding me of the love that our heavenly father has for us. I hope that you took the time to remember his love for you and to share it with others. If not take time to dwell on his love for you and just how perfect it is. Share it with others this week, especially those who may not understand what true love is. 

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us; He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, who also ought to love one another. " - 1 John 4: 7-11

"The king is enthralled by your beauty; honor him, for he is your lord." - Psalms 45: 11

 

Psalm 7:17 Friday

I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High.

-Psalm 7:17

Things I am Thankful for This Week

1. Coworkers to listen to me gripe and then put me in my place.
2. Students who share their pickles and pringles with me.
3. God giving us warming days in the upcoming week.
4. Russell House dates with Josh Dry (including Marble Slab mint chocolate chip milkshakes and reading at Thomas Cooper)
5. A God who is incredibly holy and worthy of all praise


What are you thankful for?

LOVES II...

Things I absolutely love...

1. Students who tell me that I look pretty (In a non creepy way), when I am feeling not so pretty.
2. Koozies for my cokes at school...They stay cold so much longer
3. Friends who love Ooooing and Aaahing over the new Anthropologie catalog with me
4. GLEE is back!
5. A mom and best friends who did way more than they should have to help me with my support letters


What do you love?

Blogging for Books

Do you love to read? Would you blog for free books? Then this is the website for you. My mom showed me this website a couple of weeks ago and I was stoked when I read into it. Basically you create an account with the site, noting what your book preferences are and then they send you books to review for free. After you have read it you post your review of the book on their website (and yours if you are a blogger) and then they send you another book to review for free. Isn't that just fantastic.

I created an account about two weeks ago and got my first book to review at the end of last week. There are a variety of book types and you get to choose which book you review. The website was easy to navigate, I got my book in a timely fashion and I can't wait to read it. Let me know what you think if you join! Hopefully I'll be able to post a review in a few weeks!

Honestly...

Honestly, I have missed the past two days of my bible reading in a year. Sunday I justified it with the fact that I was at church and spent time in the word there. Yesterday was another story. I really have no excuse except for the fact that I was tired and busy. Doesn't hold much weight does it? Regardless of what my excuses and justifications were I can definitely feel the affects of not being in the word today. Yesterday was quite the Monday. My students had a project due and it was like they had never heard of it (nor had their parents with the number of emails I received) and on top of that my bulb for my smartboard has been out since before Christmas break. (Yes I know that I should be happy that I even have a smartboard and I sincerely am, but I am really starting to miss my bright bulb with its great speakers!) I found myself snipping at students and not being the least bit understanding. Doesn't really work out for a good day for me or my students. Then I woke up this morning feeling anxious about who knows what. It's as if God lit a light bulb over my head to get my attention. "Hello, Kristin. All of this is happening because you haven't spent time with me recently! I promise you life wouldn't look so gloom and doom if you would just talk to me or spend time in my word."

Then I remembered reading a interesting comment in Matthew Henry's Commentary this weekend while I was doing my bible study (Funny how on Saturday I can go from spending a couple hours in the word to Sunday and Monday not being the least bit concerned with it). He commented that scripture should show us how God has, is, and will work in our lives while our circumstances in our lives should point us back to promises in scripture. These past two days instead of letting scripture show me how God will work in my life or my circumstances pointing me back to scripture it has been about me complaining and being self absorbed with no trust in my heavenly father.

Life is so much better when we spend time with him, allowing him to remind us how he has worked in our lives previously, how he is currently working in our lives, and how he promises to work in our lives. Don't let your circumstances point you to yourself and your weaknesses, allow them to point you to Christ.

Oh Mondays

It's just been one of those Mondays! But I know the week will get better! Hope your Monday was fabulous!

Psalm 7:17 Friday

I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High.

-Psalm 7:17

Things I am Thankful for This Week


1. My parents are coming home tomorrow!
2. The safety and stability in the US when watching the news of northern Africa and the Middle East
3. Weekends to catch up on laundry, cleaning, reading, and TV
4. Books! I just love books! I picked up The Pioneer Woman's new book last night and love it just as much as her blog and cookbook!
5. Sushi from Miyabi's (I will be picking some up tonight!)


What are you thankful for this week?

LOVES

Things I love today...

1. The short size at Starbucks
2. Warmer winter days
3. Commander-in-Chic nail polish
4. Dry Shampoo (for those days when an extra 20 minutes in bed sounds fantastic)
5. Students who repeat directions for me after I have said them 50 times


What do you love?

Pursuing More of Jesus

My bible study is doing Anne Graham Lotz's book Pursuing More of Jesus this semester and it is incredible. The study takes a look at the intimate relationship Jesus had with his disciples, especially at the end of Jesus' days here on earth, and suggests our life should look the same. We have only completed through week 2 and I can't say enough good things about this book. Lotz is an incredible woman of faith who deeply desires a intensely close relationship with the Lord. The way Lotz writes about Jesus and his interactions with the disciples and us will move you. Lotz has an incredible way with words and the book is also very visually appealing.

Chapter 2 covered how Jesus not only identified with his disciples, but also identifies with us. Lotz goes on to say that we should so desire to identify with Christ that his tears of joy, love, grief, pain, and blessing should be our tears. Lotz discusses the story of Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus, breaks her alabaster jar over Jesus' feet and wipes it with her hair. This is symbolic of Mary's tears of love for Christ. Mary literally gave up everything by breaking her jar over Jesus' feet in an act of love for him. The jar itself would have been a part of her dowry and in breaking it over his feet she is saying that he is all she needs. This begs the question, what is my alabaster jar? What am I holding back from him? Am I willing to give everything I have in love for him?

Lotz ends the chapter with this picture of the breaking of The Alabaster Jar. What a beautiful picture of God's all consuming love for us.

"In the early light of creation's dawn, the Father held His Alabaster Jar. It gleamed with the beauty of the Morning Star and was scented with the fragrance of the Rose of Sharon. It was His most precious possession. As His omniscient eyes looked down the years that stretched out before Him into generations and centuries and ages and millennia, He knew...

The Father slipped into the darkness of the world He had made and loved. The hands that held the Jar with such tender, eternal love, relaxed and opened as He placed the Jar ever so gently on the small manger bed of hay. During the years that followed, the beauty and glory of the Jar were shared and admired by those who had eyes to see.

And then, with hands that were trembling yet certain, the Father once again picked up His Alabaster Jar. And on a hill so far away from His celestial home--a hill that was cold, barren, and bleak, swarming with an angry mob that was unruly and obscene--the Father smashed His Alabaster Jar on a rugged, wooden cross. As the contents of flesh and blood were poured out and the fragrance of His love permeated human history forever, our tears were on His face..." (Lotz 38)



What is your alabaster jar? Are you willing to pour it out as a love offering to Christ?


Lotz, Anne Graham. Pursuing More of Jesus. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2009. Print.

Cruising in the Caribbean

My Fabulous Parents. Aren't they good looking!

My wonderful parents are on their first non-children trip lasting longer than 3 days in over 30 years. They have not been away for a week without us since their honeymoon. Mind you they have taken plenty of 3-4 trips here and there, but no trip long enough for them to melt their cares away. What's even more fantastic about this trip is that they are on a cruise and have absolutely no way to connect to anyone in the states (obviously unless it is an emergency). No phones, no email, no contact. I can guarantee you they are both loving it and hating it.

VBS

WOG

Young Married Bowling

My parents live to serve those around them. They both work at the church and everyone who works with them loves them. My dad is the minister to young married adults and the leader of the contemporary worship. My mom works in the children's ministry. She is lovingly known as Mama Dawn. Before being minister to young marrieds my dad was a college minister. To say that their schedules were jammed pack would be an understatement.

My mom and I are best friends. We talk 4-5 times a day through text, calls, and email. I see her at least two times a week. We talk about anything and everything, serious to silly. My mom is caring, loving, supportive, encouraging, funny, a rock, a servant, a hard worker, a fantastic cook, a loving wife, and most of all a woman after God's own heart. She will love you until it hurts her and do everything in her power to bring you closer to the Lord (even if that means some tough love on the way...she may be small, but she packs a punch with truth). If you have never heard my mother's testimony I encourage you to make time with her to hear it. She was raised in extremely difficult circumstances, but she grew to love and trust God with everything she has. She is truly an inspiration to me.

See what I mean...our joy of picture taking!

My dad and I are strangely similar, which makes our relationship interesting to watch. We both love each other very much and because we are incredibly similar it is sometimes difficult to understand how we show our love to each other. My dad is extremely hard working, dedicated to his ministry/wife/family, talented, driven, stubborn, independent, intelligent, encouraging, funny, giving and supportive. If my mom errs on the side of love, my dad errs on the side of truth. Its amazing how they balance each other out. When my dad puts his mind to something he is going to get it done with 110% effort. My dad has poured his life out serving college students and now young marrieds. He is a man after God's will for his life. He desires nothing more than to be following after God, leading others to do the same. My dad is my rock of truth and love in Christ.

My Beautiful Family

My brother and I couldn't be more blessed with our parents. We grew up in a home that desired the Lord's will. Even in times of financial difficultly I never saw my parents wavier. Even when giving up the job at Apple meant losing financial stability my parents trusted the Lord would provide. When my dad took the job in Columbia at Shandon I saw my mom rise to the occasion. She may not have liked it, but she was going to support her husband's decision. In the ups and downs of life my parents always sought after the Lord. My parents are quite the team. They are running after God with abandon and I couldn't be more excited as to where it will take them. I am blessed by their leadership and example! I hope to one day be like them!

Mom and Dad-

I hope that you are having a fabulous time! You deserve nothing less! I love you very much and can't wait to hear all about it! Don't worry about anything or anyone here! (Even though you have people checking in on us mom ha ha). We miss you, but are doing great!

Love you tons!

Kristin

PS. See what I mean...aren't they fantastic!!