Wildfire

Gloria Copeland once said, "You don't get what you deserve.  You get what you believe for."

Tonight, we had a major breakthrough in our youth group.

We have been involved with the youth for about 10 years now, and Jason has been the youth pastor for almost 4 years.  We have never seen anything like what is happening right now.  When we first stepped into the position of youth pastors, we talked about, wrote down, and prayed about the vision that God had given us concerning our leadership with the youth.

One thing we really wanted to see was unity.  We wanted to see them become a family that truly loved each other in a way that the world doesn't understand.
We wanted to see acceptance.  No cliques.  We wanted anyone to be able to walk through those doors and feel like they belonged and had a safe place to be who they are.
We wanted to see them changed.  We did not want them to attend year after year and remain the same, with no true change in their real, everyday life.  We wanted them to hear the word and then do it, not just hear it and leave unchanged.  
We wanted them to understand how to worship.  We wanted them to know the freedom that happens when they truly forget about who might be looking at them, and just worship God.  


Last summer at Forward Conference 2010, we had 8 who were filled with the Holy Spirit, with the evidence of speaking with other tongues.  This was in our rooms after the services.  We also had several who were set free from addiction.  We had some who really heard from God about what they were supposed to do with their life.  It was an amazing time that I can not possibly put into words.

You wanna know the difference between this "summer camp" and the 9 we've been to before that?  The fire that God put in these guys is still going.  It's been 9 months and they are worshipping with more passion than they were when they came back from Forward.  We have never seen anything like it.

Rewind for just a second...

About 2 years ago, a few of my friends and I got together once a week to pray for our church.  We prayed for every area of our church.  The reason we did this was because we felt an urgency to pray for the passion of the love of God to be awakened in our church like it was being awakened in all of our hearts.  I remember saying something over and over again, every time I would talk with them about it, and every time Jason and I would talk, even during prayer.  I would say, "I believe that passion will be awakened in our church, and it will spread like WILDFIRE, and I believe it's gonna start with the youth."  I truly believed that in my heart, and so I would say it whenever I thought about it.

Back to Forward Conference...

When we came back home, these guys were so excited about what God had done, they started telling their friends about it, and so we had more being filled with the Holy Spirit even after we got "back to reality".  It was awesome to watch.

In the past, we've watched them stand there during worship with their arms folded, just watching the band play their hearts out.  But since Forward, every week we notice them worshipping more and more. It's to the point now, where we have a full house, and there are hands up all over the place.  It's one of those things you just stand back and remember when you were thinking about what else you could do to get them to really enter in to worship, and you realize that what you've been praying and believing for is within eyesight.  It's breathtaking.

Over the past few weeks, we have had several (not sure how many exactly) salvations, but they haven't all been in our services.  These guys are sharing Jesus with their friends and getting them saved left and right!  It's spreading...

This past Sunday night, Daniel Eric Groves was at our church, and our youth got ministered to in a BIG way.  Some of them were called out, but the most exciting thing to me was what Daniel said.  He shared with them about how he hates the "youth camp" fade out, and that the FIRE had to be alive inside each of them.  He said they could have the best youth pastor in the world, but it didn't matter.  They had to have the FIRE in them to minister to EACH OTHER.

We decided to have a testimony night tonight in The Loft.  We knew that God had done some things in their lives and we wanted to give them an opportunity to share that with each other.  Our service starts at 7:00.  We had to stop them and tell them to leave at almost 9:00.  At 8ish, we stopped and told them that church downstairs was out, and they could leave if they wanted to.  Nobody moved.  At some point in the middle of the service, we had 5 make decisions to either be saved or rededicate their life.  And then they kept getting up and sharing testimonies.

Wanna know the best part?  They were sharing about how they felt so accepted and loved when they started coming to this youth group.  When they felt so out of place at their school, they felt like they fit right in when they came to The Loft.  They were sharing how God was putting it on their heart to talk to some people at their school about Jesus, that they had decided they didn't wanna just make it through the day anymore.  They wanted to make a difference because they feel like they have a purpose now.  This wasn't just one or two...this was nearly all of them!

Some call it a revival.  I call it an AWAKENING!  Salvation, the infilling of the Holy Spirit, and passion is spreading like WILDFIRE in our youth group!  The flame has been lit, so church, get ready to burn!  It's happening!

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Why Do You Worship?

Today, Daniel Eric Groves ministered at our church.  He shared some of the amazing things that God has done for him and his family.  The reasons why he worships.  Then he asked the question, "Why do you worship?".  Worship is real when you have a reason.  If you worship just because you're supposed to, there's no freedom in that. You're just going through the motions.  I don't wanna go through the motions...

I worship because I have a born again, spirit-filled husband, who loves God (and me) with all of his heart, and chooses every single day to sacrifice his life for his family just because he loves us.

I worship because I have 3 beautiful, healthy, obedient children who are following Jesus.

I worship because God continues to amaze us time and time again with His loving provision. His way-making, when there seems to be absolutely NO way.

I worship because Jesus has set me free from sin and the guilt that comes along with the regret of that sin.

I worship because my family is restored and free from addiction.

I worship because I know there is more restoration and freedom to come.

I worship because salvation is spreading like wildfire in our youth group!

I worship because of my God given friends that still love me and don't judge me, even when I don't deserve their love, mercy, and forgiveness.

I worship because of God's mercy in my life every single day.

I worship because even when I've been hurt, God shows me how to change me and become stronger still.

I worship because God loves me, and I don't deserve it.

There are not enough words to express how thankful I am for God's goodness in my life.  I'm so glad I have worship to do that!  Worship is one of the single most important things I have to express my love and thankfulness to God.  He really is SO GOOD to me.

Why do you worship?

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My Assignments

 Homeschooling is the best decision I have ever made for my kids.  Yes, we have challenges.  Daily.  But I believe these are the types of challenges that will make us stronger as a family.  I found myself wishing for a break today, and I realized that I don't really want a break.  What I want is to overcome these challenges and see my relationship with my children become stronger than it ever could have been otherwise.

Jessi has been having a hard time focusing on her schoolwork.  It's really more of a "I don't want to do any work, anywhere, period" type of thing, along with an "I'm 8 years old going on 13" type of thing.  You mix those two together with my Jessi and you've got MAJOR DRAMA.  I also believe she's fighting for attention in this crazy household.  I think she'll take any kind of attention she can get at this point, even if it means a fight with her mommy.

But I'm ready for this fight.  I want her to know that I'm not going to give up on her and let her have her way.  I'm not going to stop helping her understand all the whys of what she's feeling and what she's going through.  Sometimes she feels like I don't understand and I'm so glad that I have the opportunity to walk her through these precious years myself and that I have this precious time to spend with her that will all too quickly be gone forever.  I can't imagine trying to teach her and guide her through these years if I only had a few hours before dinner and the weekends to spend with her like I would if she were going to school elsewhere.

For me, being a mother is so much more than cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, grocery shopping, and driving people around.  It's about teaching them how to live and how to learn in every area of life.  It's about teaching.  I am so thankful that God has provided an opportunity for me to teach my children all day long, every single day.

I believe my children are receiving the absolute best education possible.  I always know every area they are struggling with, so I can help them through it.  And they never get left behind when they don't understand something.  I love the fact that we can focus on those things more, and breeze through the things they understand already with ease.  And who better to do that than their mother, the one who knows their strengths and weaknesses the very best?  There is no one on earth more equipped to teach my kids than me.  I believe God assigned my children to me for a special reason, and I am graced by Him to teach them the way they learn best.

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WHY???

I felt the need to share this, but also felt it might be too much for some of my Facebook friends to handle.  They can click over at their own risk.

So this morning I was awakened to a laughing baby girl who had not only performed a #2 in her diaper, and not only took the diaper off, but also chucked it outside her crib because obviously that doesn't belong in there.  Oh, and this was after it got smudged all over the sheets, bed, bumper pad, and herself.  GOOD MORNING MOMMY!

Also, my eldest child woke up complaining that her foot was hurting so bad that she couldn't even walk. Then shortly after I mentioned that we probably shouldn't go to the park today since she couldn't walk, she said, "My foot has healed up to the point that I can walk on it, and the faster I walk, the less it hurts.  It's really just when I stand still that it hurts the most."

Mhm.

This will be a 3 cups of coffee day for sure. (maybe more)

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Homeschooling

I've been wanting to share my thoughts on homeschooling for a while now, and I still plan to, it's just that, at the moment, I can't put 2 thoughts together before I'm peeling Lena down off the dining room table or something.  So stay tuned... 


Until then, here is a great post by one of my favorite blogs!


Not Inadequate » Blog Archive » More Homeschool Q & A

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Brand New Man

Our first trip to Disney World as a family was AWESOME!  My sister and bro-in-law are annual passholders, and they go many times every year.  It was great not having to think about what to do and just letting them pull us around and show us the highlights.  We didn't have time to do everything, but we definitely hit the hot spots!  We were ALL completely exhausted the whole time but it was SO MUCH FUN!

We stayed at the All Star Movies Resort in the Toy Story section.  The kids loved it!

We had to do Small World twice because Lena slept through it the first time. (told you we were exhausted)

But she loved it.  She kept pointing and saying "baby" to everything.  So CUTE.  But that was her second favorite.  Her absolute favorite was the Country Bear Jamboree.  The child nearly exploded with excitement.  She was dancing, standing up, sitting down, clapping, laughing out loud, standing up & sitting down again, it was hysterical.

Jessi loved the roller coasters, of course.  The first day she got a little sick (mostly just tired), but we got her some Motrin and she was good to go.  The second day she started feeling icky and had a little fever but we got some Tylenol and she was on the Rockin' Roller Coaster in minutes.  The enemy really tried to squash her fun.  I knew it was serious because she wanted to go back to the room and sleep.  Well, we were NOT having any of that!  We sent that sickness back to where it came from in a hurry.  She recovered quickly and still had the time of her life!

Jessi and Eli went to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique and got pampered.  Princess Jessi got the full package.  Hair, makeup, nails, crown, dress, shoes, fairy dust (glitter) everywhere, a wand, photo shoot and all.  She LOVED it.

Sir Eli got the Knight's Package and got glittery things in his hair that we had to wash out in the bathroom of the Rainforest Cafe before dinner.  He's such a boy!  It was super cute though, and he loved his sword & shield.

This part took us ALL by complete surprise.  I believe Disney World changed Eli's life.  His favorite ride? You ready? You won't believe it.

The Haunted Mansion.

Seriously.  He rode it 3 times.  Another shocker?  He rode the TOWER OF TERROR.  And he knew what it did before he got on there.  He's watched the videos of it and everything!  And he liked it!  He rode Space Mountain too, and would have ridden the Rockin' Roller Coaster if he were tall enough.  He also hugged and talked to every character he had the opportunity to meet!  If you know Eli, you know what a feat this really is!  I was so proud of him!  The kid shocked us all, and I believe he had the best time of anyone.  He is a brand new man!

I have to say, I really regret not making this trip happen sooner.  I'm so glad we finally went.  We will definitely be going back very soon!

Here are a few of the video clips we took.  The video clips we took would not load on here for some reason.  Maybe later...
            

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Thoughts Collected

I know it's been a while since I've posted, but lately it seems my thoughts have been very uncollected.  By that I mean, just randomly floating circling darting around in my head.  There's been SO much going on with me and around me it's been very difficult to just focus.  Today is the first day I've had a glimmer of focus in months.  And until today, I couldn't figure it out.  Here's why.  You ready?  It's a MAJOR revelation.

I've been sleeping in.

As a homeschooling mother of 3 children with 2 additional at home jobs (not to mention youth pastor's wife), this is NOT OK.  I need my rest, but I need my QUIET time with my Lord even more.  I've been in the Word and praying, but in spurts during my day, if my day doesn't get completely turned upside down, which happens pretty often.  I know better than this, and the Lord has been dealing with me about it for a while.  I've just been putting Him off.  It's so easy to just roll over and snuggle up in those warm blankets in the morning.

Last week I was very sick, and this week I've been recovering.  My husband has been so great, taking care of EVERYTHING.  But for the past couple weeks I haven't spent any quiet time with him.  Sure, we've talked, communicated the necessities to each other and stuff, but I realized yesterday just how much I missed spending quality time with him.  There's been plenty of quantity, but not much quality.  And I realized that's EXACTLY how I feel about my time with the Lord.  Quantity just isn't going to cut it for me.  I NEED quality time.  Quiet time.  Intimate time.  And that's just not happening when the kids are up.

I got up at 6:30 this morning and got a little bit of quiet time.  It should have been about an hour, but of course the first day I get up early is the first day in months my kids have awakened before 7:30.  But that's ok, I'm believing for them to sleep later tomorrow (and every day after that).

That hour of sleep just isn't worth the uncollected thoughts and the missing Him.  Today has been a very busy day with lots of things on my to do list (including paying 178.50 for a speeding ticket I got a couple months ago for putting the pedal to tha metal at a whopping 35mph. yep), but it has been one of the best days I've had in months.  I feel very focused, and very collected.  I'm not saying my days still don't get turned upside down, but when I give God the first part of my day, He helps me with the rest.

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Did that really just happen?

This Christmas Day started off really great.  And it ended even better.

First of all, Lena was hilarious the whole day.  She loved everything.  Our Christmas morning starts off by the kids coming into our room and climbing up into our bed to empty the stockings that we leave filled by their beds.  This is my absolute favorite part of the morning.  Lena was so cute sticking her entire arm down into that big stocking to get out her stuff.  She was so excited.  There's just nothing like watching a baby's first real Christmas when their little faces light up from excitement because they have no idea what's going on but they know they like it.  I'm sad that part is over now.

Then we all run into the living room to see what Santa (they know it's us) left and to open gifts.  Fun stuff, yada yada yada.

Then we all get dressed and ready for the day and head to Mimi's house in Headland for breakfast.  Only this year we had to move it across the street to Jason's sister's house because his other sister (who lives at Mimi's) was sick. :(

Then we head to Grandnonna's house for lunch.

So we're opening presents at my mom's and we always go youngest to oldest.  We start opening the ones from my sister, bro-in-law and niece, and I notice the gifts are a little...well...not the usual gifts they like to give.  I know that this has been a really great year for them financially, and I'm noticing that these gifts are like $10 or less...maybe.  At first when the kids were opening, I just thought that maybe they were trying to be nice and get us inexpensive gifts so we wouldn't feel bad for not getting them really expensive ones, but by the time it got around to my mom (remember, youngest to oldest) I realized that we're all getting these really janky tools.

Ok, before it sounds like I'm being ungrateful, please realize this is not something that bothered me, but just something that I noticed.  So they "forgot" they had another bag of gifts in the car after all the opening was done and they brought it in and passed out one more box for everyone to open.  They said we all (me, Jason, Jessi, Eli, my mom, my dad, and my brother) had to open at the same time.  I'm thinking, aw how sweet, they got us all something really nice like a gift card or cash, what a smooth little trick with the janky tools.  Nuh-uh...

WE ALL GOT 2 DAY PARKHOPPER PASSES TO DISNEYWORLD.

WOW.

I couldn't help but immediately remember the list that Jason and I made and prayed over about a year ago of things that we are believing God for.  Glory be to God, we have been able to scratch off many of the things on that list this year.  Today we got to scratch off a big one.  Disneyworld.  We actually had some extra money come into our hands this month and we immediately talked about using it for Disney, but we prayed about it and really felt the Lord showing us something different we needed to do with it.  We knew the most important thing was to obey God and trust that He would take care of Disneyworld for us at the right time.

We got in the truck to come home and I just looked at Jason and said, "Did that really just happen?"  It still feels like a dream.  I'm so thankful for God's goodness and His love for us!

Thank you Scott, Sandy, and Lauren!  We're all goin' to Disney!!!

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December 16, 2010, 4:07pm (cst)

So I glanced out the back door to see what J & E were up to...

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Hooters

So I took Jessi to a birthday party today, and after we left, we stopped by Captain D's for some fried pickles before we ran a few errands.  I turned the wrong way leaving there, and so I just turned around in the parking lot next to it, which was Hooters.  Jessi asked me why we had never been there before and so I told her that the girls that work there just don't dress appropriately, and it would be uncomfortable for all of us.

She understood, and then said, "Why don't they just wear owl costumes? Because that would be appropriate."

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