Trading for pennies...

I'm don't typically divulge dirty little secrets on the Internet, but today I'm going to allow you the privy of seeing some of my more shameful side...

I remember being wangled into some very raw deals as a child. It did not take much coercion for me to buy into raw deals however, for as at a youngster I was very ignorant in regards to many things.

For example, when I was about 5 years old my brother and I decided to "trade" Halloween candy. He was so generous and offered me 3, yes 3, packs of Smarties for just 1, and only 1, of my miniature Snickers bars. "What a deal!" I thought to myself. "3 for 1! That's awesome."

It wasn't until I put the chalky pure sugar candy into my mouth and then later tasted the absolute deliciousness of a sweet and salty snickers bar with far better texture, that I realized I had been duped.

I had traded in something of infinite value for something of little to no value and worse yet, I thought I was getting the good end of the deal.

While I have grown wise enough to keep Snickers bars to myself, I am still unfortunately much more like Judas Iscariot than I would like to admit.

You see Judas turned Jesus Christ into the "cops-of-the-day" for a bag of coins. He possibly thought that they'd just beat Jesus a little and question Him a little, and then release Jesus, and life would be back to normal - except he'd be rich. But then Jesus was sentenced to death, and those beloved coins that were so alluring only days before suddenly became like chalky Smarties in his mouth - only much worse.

Matthew 27:3-5 depicts Judas' own revelation of being duped like this, "Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying, 'I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.' They said, 'What is that to us? See to it yourself.' And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself."

Judas realized his stupidity a little too late so he thought. I can relate. We so often trade in good things, things of so much worth, for destruction and ruin and end up with a load of regret and despair.

(Be warned: Here comes the dirty little secret)

So often I have traded in my love for God for my love of people's approval. So often I have traded in things like purity, modesty, self-control, kindness, submission, and forgiveness, to name only a handful, for things like broken relationships, lengthy and silly explanations, excuses, guilt, and regret. So often I have traded in time basking in God's grace and learning from Him for extra moments of sleep or a movie I won't remember three weeks later.

So often I have been left with so much worse than chalk in the mouth.

But oh, how we don't have to remain in regret and despair! How I wish Judas could have understood that, and how grateful I am that God has revealed this to us through His Word!

I cannot end this without a reminder of the glorious grace of God in Jesus Christ!

While Judas unfortunately didn't seem to understand Christ, we have been assured in His Word that He is perfect at forgiving and that He can impute righteousness to the unrighteous. In our moments of trading in Christ for coins, we can be assured that Jesus has already paid for our mistake and that we can quickly confess, turn from our sin and live for Him with glorious joy and freedom again.

It is "Christ Jesus, [that] God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption." 1 Corinthians 1:30.

When you taste that chalky substance in your mouth, join with me in remembering that it is Christ alone that makes us righteous, and that He is quick to forgive and abounding in love to those who call upon His name!

Oh, and if you ever get the desire to buy me a candy bar, make it a Snickers :)

PANCAKE BREAKFAST FUNDRAISER IN MORGANTOWN!!!

CHRISTIAN HELP'S PANCAKE BREAKFAST FUNDRAISER
Saturday, August 11th
Applebees
7:30-10:00am

For only $5 you can enjoy a pancake breakfast made by someone else, and cleaned up by someone else, and help those who will be in financial need in Morgantown this year! If you would like a ticket, please contact myself or Christian Help.

Hope to see you there!

Putting it back in perspective...

There seems to be a context influx of noise in my life and sometimes, if I'm not careful, I start believing thoughts that aren't true.

Some of the non-truths I have unfortunately believed at some point or another in my lifetime are:

- Credit card information gets stored on hotel key cards
- Toe jam is really tiny little invisible worms that you can't see so wear socks to keep them from crawling up your legs
- You urine will be clear if you are getting enough water (uh - that means you're getting TOO much water)

One of the more recent non-truths I have bought into in my subconscious is that children are really just a lot of work and deciding to have them means deciding to end your so-called life :)

Now married, the idea of children isn't just something that "may occur in the very far away future," but something that could occur at any time if God should so choose. To be honest, that scared me to death.

While some fear is healthy, God is teaching me that my fear is not from Him at all and that I need to be careful not to take others opinions as more than what they are - opinions.

Psalm 127 says: "Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!" (vv. 3-5).

Twice now God has brought that passage to me, and I believe to fulfill a specific purpose. My outlook on bearing and raising children had become dreadful, and honestly, sinful, and therefore, He wants to dispel it.

Carolyn Maheney conveyed truth to me this way in her book "Feminine Appeal":

"What words or images come to your mind when you think about your children?" (or for me, the possibility of them) "Are you inclined like I was to think: work,, responsibility, sacrifice, burden, more work?

Look at the words the psalmist used to describe children: heritage, fruit, reward, arrows. Then he followed with this exclamation: 'Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!'"

What a timely message for me. How faithful God is to renew our minds with truth, removing our doubts and replacing lies with truth.

Children do require work and sacrifice and responsibility but God says to gain life, we lay ours down. How I hope that in His perfect time He will give me this blessing, and that in the deepest core of me I will hold on to the truth that they surely are a reward that I do not deserve.

If you have children, may I encourage you to remember today that they indeed, though time, emotion and energy consuming, are primarily a reward and a blessing? Remember and tell them.

Lions, and tigers, and bears - Pt. 2

So yesterday Daryl and I spent the day at the Pittsburgh Zoo. We love going to the zoo!

I must confess I felt a little funny when we finally found a parking spot and were getting ready to go in and someone needing a spot asked, "Coming or going?" We of course had just arrived, and as they drove away I felt a little bad for taking a semi-close parking spot when we don't have any children or strollers to unload. Not bad enough to change spots, but bad. :)

Anyways, it was a blast - I am amazed by God's ability to create such awesome animals with so many neat little distinctions. I also was amazed by God's kindness - in this first picture you will note that the rare snow leopard is looking right at us. When we arrived, he was dead asleep with his back turned. (see right)










I asked God to please wake him up so we and the sweet little kids next to me yelling, "Wake up! Wake up!" could catch a glimpse of the animals grandeur and I would give Him all the glory!

Here's what happened...



I am so grateful for such a loving Father! Isn't He a wondrous Creator and generous Father?!!!!

Here are some of my other favorites...



How cute is that little guy?

One of my personal favorites - the massive and yet adorable polar bear. Have you ever seen the paws and that thing???? I'll show you - then think - REALLY BIG!


















Daryl's favs...














The hammerhead shark - aggressive and named after a tool. You can't get much more manly than that!

He also loved these wild African dogs. They aren't tamable, and their bark is much worse than their bite, which is a definite good thing since they are typically silent and when they do verbally communicate they sound like a squeaky toy going bad!



And the animal that won my heart the most this time, the sea otter.

















This little guy was so precious. He would dive and swim and stretch! I love how he's rubbing his face here!


How cute is he?! I think he also endeared me because he would come right up next to the glass where I had my face pressed against and let me wave at him. I'm sure he couldn't even see me, but it felt like we connected somehow! :)



Finally, the craziest animals in the whole park...



Lauren and Daryl

So, now that we've shared our favorite animals with you, what are your favorites?

New puppy GIVEAWAY

Hey guys,

We bought a dacshund because they look so much like doberman's - colorwise anyways. Unfortunately he and Simon don't get along very well. Simon seems afraid of him. We can't figure it out - Simon's way bigger and the little guys is just so endearing.

I know I'm always trying to get rid of pets on here, but, want him? We don't like to see Simon so stressed out.



Hee hee.

I got that picture from an e-mail a long time ago. It cracks me up every time I stumble across it. For those of you who know Lauren Byrer, make sure you show it to her - it's her favorite ;)

Tick Tock

Daryl has been talking to me a lot about perseverance lately as he has been coming across that subject a lot while he's been spending time in the Word. I've known it was important, but this week, in the midst of trying to keep my life in balance in so many areas, I've realized that maybe I need to hit the big book and study that a little more too!

When we got married we sat down and created a very detailed budget and when the cash is out - no more spending! Last week we also decided to make something similar for our calories - when we've had the amount that we need for the day - no more eating! :)

I've also been trying to make sure I stay on top of house work, make sure I wake up early enough to have my quiet time, eat breakfast and spend time with the Lord (and look nice for work out of respect for both my husband and my co-workers!), maintain good relationships with others, and exercise at night - oh yeah, and read some helpful materials and pray for my friends needs.

The budget was fun and exciting the first month. Counting calories and staying under was fun the first day. Working out is much more fun with friends.

But guess what - I can't ever stop. Sure it's okay to sleep in occasionally. I'm sure we'll break into our "emergency fund" one day for a non-emergency. And yes, someday I plan on eating the biggest ice cream sundae drizzled in chocolate that I can find!!!

But perseverance is a must. And I think maybe I need to shift my focus a little bit. It seems more helpful to focus on the fruit of persevering and maintaining self-control (like feeling better about my body, not being in debt, and growing in godliness) than on "I have to do this," or "I can't do that."

I am so thankful for God's Word and how it helps me.

Here's one of my favorites He let me slide across again this weekend...

"Have you not known Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint," (THAT'S ME!),
"and to him who has no might," (over that scrumptious looking chocolate bar), "he increases strength, even youths shall faint and be weary and young men shall fall exhausted, but they who WAIT FOR THE LORD shall RENEW their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not be faint."
- Isaiah 40:28-31

He has all the power I need, I just need to wait for it...er...wait for Him.

Thanks for helping me babble about this to come to some really helpful solutions! Enjoy waiting on Him - let me know what happens as you do!

Our first camping trip...

So after vacations of the more luxurious sort, we finally decided to try roughing it, although I'm sure my dear friend Andrea would laugh at me for calling camping in a campsite with hot showers less than a half mile away roughing it!

But to us, it was roughing it! We had to laugh at ourselves. Our shelter looked hysterically large compared to our tent. We had SO much stuff - a huge shelter, a
campsite table to hold our stove and lantern and that even had a cool sink, coolers,
chairs, and so on and so forth, that when we were trying to pack everything back into our Audi sudan the camp ranger was like, "it ain't going to fit." Then there was are very small two man tent...

My mom says they call it that because it was not designed for women. Daryl and I came to that conclusion on our own the first night when I awoke in a panic muttering or shouting, I'm not sure which, "I HAVE TO GET OUT OF THIS THING!" We had the fly on because it was raining, so I couldn't see out, I couldn't sit up or roll over because it was too small, and I was getting MUY clausteraphobic!

The next night I was fine because it didn't rain and so we didn't use the fly and I could see out and feel the fresh air.

We're leaving for another, longer camping trip on Wednesday morning which I am so excited about because lots of friends are going, but I'm hoping I don't get clausteraphobic again! Daryl and I are going to use that as our one final trial. We're going to see if I can handle the tent size or if we'll have to e-bay our tent and get a bigger one. It's so great though and he loves it so I hope we don't have to. Pray for me! :)

Anyways, here are some things we learned for our next trip:

1. Set up the shelter FIRST then unload all of our stuff from the car. This will ensure that we don't get everything soaked while trying to set up the shelter and a huge rain storm comes through.

2. Make sure we have large enough pots to cook our food in. That 5 piece set from Target just doesn't cut it.

3. Know the checkout time of your campsite so you don't look silly and surprised with a hot dog half way stuffed in your mouth when campers approach you saying they just got assigned your site.

4. Don't inflate my air mattress all the way. I just roll off and make myself closer to the top of the tent which does not appear to be beneficial for me.

5. Enjoy learning lessons - they are funny and make good memories.

Headed to make our camping menu....