Complaining

  This last week, I was in Colorado visiting my family. While there, I attended our state homeschool conference. On one of the nights, we decided to head on over to Burger King for dinner. While waiting in line to order, I noticed only 2 employee's that were working there. There was no one else. There was one employee who was taking the order, and making them, and another in the back helping fill the other orders. 

     I couldn't help but marvel at how quickly they worked to get things done, without a grunt or complain, or sigh. It wasn't until a family behind us started complaining about how long everything was taking, that I began to think in my head, "Wow! We're such complainers in this day and age. When we want things, we want them now, not in 5 minutes or 5 days, but now. We go through drive thru's, and get upset when they take too long. We order things online, and are upset when they don't arrive on time. It reminds me of the Israelites in Exodus 16:2, "Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness..." and again we see them complain in chapter 15:24, and in 17:3. On and on, over and over. They're never content. Aren't we all such complainers?

     Now don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not perfect by all means! I complain... a lot! But, I have no reason to complain about anything. I have a wonderful husband that loves me for who I am, I have a roof over my head, a car to drive, food to eat, water to drink freely, the Word of God to read, and a husband who has a job that he works hard at to provide for me to get things, such as a Burger, or a coffee, or ice cream. I don't have anything to complain about, but I do. Why is that? Because I'm a sinner. I'm  not justifying that because I'm a sinner, it's right... because it's not. I need to remind myself more often of all Gods many blessings that He's bestowed upon such a wretched sinner as I, who's unworthy of everything! The next time that I feel like complaining, I need to remember that I'm a wretched sinner, and that I have nothing to complain about. In what ways help you to to overcome complaining? How've you felt like you dealt with it? I'd love to hear! Please leave me a comment! :)

Pictures below are some sneak peeks of my time in Colorado with my family! :)
A Cow-girl hat that I tried on.

 Zip-lining with my dad, and half of my brothers.

My little brother... isn't he cute?!

My 17 year old brother, Austin. Yes, he's taller than me. ;)

A beautiful Colorado Sunset!

Why You should keep Hoping for Marriage

Great post from Suzanne, please read!
Keeping hope alive as a single can feel like a struggle. But what if the struggle is the whole point? 

It wasn't her words that caught me off guard. It was the way in which she said them. Resigned cheerfulness. "Well, I'm glad I won't have children," she said lightly, taking a sip of coffee. "Too many things in the world to worry about. God knows I couldn't handle it."

My single friend's admission that she had already given up on having children — at age 31 — surprised me. As we talked more, I realized something: Sometimes it's easier to embrace an unwanted outcome than to keep hoping for God to fulfill long-held desires.

Around that same time, another single friend told me, "It hurts to keep hoping. Part of me just wants to give up on marriage and get on with making my life as good as possible without a husband." I think a lot of singles feel this way. What does it matter if I want to be married if that's never going to happen? I might as well quit torturing myself by hoping for it.

Hope Is Not Lost

I was 30 when I met my husband and 31 when I got married. In retrospect, that doesn't seem very old to marry. But at the time, it felt as if I had been waiting forever. Some of my friends are in their late 30s and 40s and still unmarried; I can only imagine the temptation to pack up shop and embrace "Plan B" — life without marriage.

Here's the thing: Giving up on a godly desire (when God hasn't obviously taken that desire from you) is a form of escapism. Rather than sitting in the pain of unfulfilled longings — continuing to hope that God will come through for you — you take the less painful route of "choosing" the alternative. It's a way of taking back control — a defense mechanism of sorts. And though that illusion of control (who are we kidding here) can be comforting, it shortcuts the joys of giving God complete control of your life.

We were created for hope. Scripture abounds with verses that entreat the believer to be filled with hope (Romans 15:13 is one example). It's the reason a multi-billion dollar advertising industry exists. What do commercials offer us? Hope. When we quit hoping for a God-given desire, we deny a piece of how God created us and rob Him of the opportunity to glorify himself by meeting our needs.

Psalm 37:4 has become a sort of anthem for singles. It says, "Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart." To me, this verse always felt a little like a spiritual performance test. Was I still single because I was not delighting in Him enough? But I don't think that's the point. The point is that a relationship with God in which I feel delight in Him leads to godly desires within me, the kind He wants to satisfy.

Voices of Hope

As I asked singles (and those who married after a period of extended singleness) about the benefits of keeping hope alive, answers ranged from, "It simply feels better" to "I don't want to have regrets later" to "It's attractive to others." A few responses stood out to me. Here are their stories:
Continue reading at: http://www.boundless.org/adulthood/2015/why-you-should-keep-hoping-for-marriage?

Humblings Experiences

     Have you ever had one of those days that... NOTHING seems to be going right?... I had another one of those experiences this last week. It was one of those, "Thanks God... I needed that." moments. A moment that when I'm in the midst of strife and chaos, that Gods there, giving me the gentle nudge, saying, "Look, child! You may have a bad day, but I'm here." God knew what I needed to learn that day. It was one of those moments that I look back on, and realize that God was trying to show me patience, and having a way of humbling me when things don't go my way. God sure does have a sense of humor, doesn't he?! :)

     The thing is, the day actually started out really great! It was a Saturday... I got to spend the day with my hubby. We went with my brother and sister in law to pray at an Abortion Clinic, went to an antique sale, and then I went shopping, while Josh drove home with his brother, to get things done at home. Things were going great! ... I had a coffee in hand, and a shopping cart with a lists of things I needed to get. It was when I got home, that things just started going downhill. I stubbed my toe and made it bleed, spilled mac n cheese on my pants, swept and mopped the floor, only to spill on it a little while later. Things just continued to get worse. I literally had to sit down next to my husband, to get me calmed down. After I calmed down, I thanked God for the day he blessed me with.

     Sometimes, we just have rough days. I think God uses the good and the bad days for His glory. I kept thinking back to how I reacted when things got bad, and I wondered, what could I have done differently? Instead of clenching my fists, and and grinding my teeth, I could've just said, "It's okay... I'm still alive and well." I didn't though. 

     My husband and I were sitting down to watch a movie late last night, and I heard a loud noise, and all the sudden heard him do a little moan and groan. I went to the kitchen to find out what happened, and he said, "I dropped my water bottle, full of water." It went all over the carpet. I couldn't help but laugh to myself. I had literally done the same thing the previous day, and had the same reaction. Things didn't go the way I wanted it to, and I groaned about it. Have you ever heard the saying, "Don't cry over spilled milk"? Spilled Milk, you can clean up... the actions that you do when you spill, is something you can't take back once it's been done. If you growl and are grouchy about a spill that your 2 year old did on accident, and you start saying things that you don't mean, just because you're mad, they may not forget. However, if you calmly say, "It's okay. Let's clean this up. It was an accident." ... doesn't that sound a whole lot better?!
     I'm constantly reminding myself to do things or say things differently when I'm mad. Instead of going on this rant about what I'm upset about, I'm trying to just take a deep breath, thank God for the day, and move on. It's a lot harder said than done, I know. :) But hey, you gotta start somewhere.
     These Bible verses have been helpful for me this week. What ways do you find help you to calm down when you're upset? I'd love to know! :) Leave a comment!

Proverbs 25:28, "A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls."

1 Corinthians 10:13, "No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it."

Galatians 5:22-23, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."

2 Peter 1:5-7, "For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love."

1 Corinthians 9:24-27, "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified."

2 Timothy 1:7, "For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control."

Proverbs 16:32, "Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city."

1 Peter 4:7, "The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers."

Beauty-who defines it?

     My almost 17 year old brother, wrote this paper on beauty for school. I loved it so much, that I wanted to publish it! He explains who defines beauty so perfectly! Enjoy! :)
Beauty and the supernatural

Could beauty directly correlate to something supernatural? If so, what does beauty look like? According to what societies have been saying for the past few centuries, beauty is based on or associated with pleasure. Beauty is either subjective or objective.  If someone were to say that beauty is subjective that means that beauty is never stable and based on opinion, but if beauty is subjective, it seems pointless to even use the word. However, if beauty were to have any meaning, it would have to be objective. To say it is objective means that there must be a standard that everyone must agree upon. Standards that everyone agrees upon are nearly impossible unless there exists  a supernatural being or God that created beauty, which means that true, unchangeable beauty is objective. Objective beauty can be seen through personality, nature, art, etc. however, man sees this beauty subjectively, because it is human nature to see things as subjective, but ultimately beauty is still objective.

In order for something to be beautiful, there has to be a God because beauty is ultimately objective. Assuming that beauty is objective there also must be truths about what is beautiful and what is not. Richard Swinburne says that “If God creates a universe, as a good workman he will create a beautiful universe” (Swinburne). However, if there were no Creator that created the universe, there is no reason to assume that the universe is beautiful. If there is no Creator or God that created beauty, how does one know what is beautiful? Some might say that it is whatever society creates it to be. This argument could go several ways; however, if society creates what is beautiful, good, true, etc. then that person would be putting their faith in humanity as the ultimate source of knowledge to create definitions of what is beautiful. If this is the case, how does an individual know that beauty is actually beauty? What if “beauty” is really pure ugliness and vice versa?  If there is no supernatural being that creates what is good or beautiful, than humans can only have theories upon what is beautiful, good, or true. Beauty must be obtained from what is good or true. According to Joe Puckett, “beauty touches our emotions in ways that others cannot.” He goes on to say that there must be a God that made “beauty to experience the aesthetic power of the world around us” (Puckett 98). There is a story of Einstein proving to a professor that cold, darkness, and evil are only the absence of heat, light and the love of God. There must be a God that exists and creates beauty. Beauty relates to God because God is beauty.

Within the early nineteenth century, Einstein created a formula in math that was originally m=ec^2 that later turned to e=mc^2. What this formula did was to show how mass was created by energy. It would take a tremendous power of energy in order to create the universe's mass and that energy lies within God. Energy is everywhere and makes up everything which would in many ways explain the way in which beauty relates to God because energy is abstract just like beauty. If God is real, there must be a soul and spirit within an individual's body that shows forms of human beauty.

When humans look at beauty, most of the time it is attributed to what is on the exterior. However, beauty goes beyond the surface and lies within a person's characteristics. 1 Samuel 16:7 says, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (The Bible). It is through a person's spirit that people can see what is good or beautiful, these different forms of beauty, according to Galatians 5:22-23, are “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” This is how true beauty should be looked at. However, society has made beauty into something that pleases their senses or “flesh” which, in many cases, are ugly. Generally, society is not grateful for what they have which causes them to want more of what is beautiful in their eyes. C.S. Lewis points out in Mere Christianity that “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world” (Lewis). True beauty can only be found through a supernatural being or God. Beauty that man creates causes many people to want something more which only the Creator can fulfill and that is the point of Lewis’s quote.

There are different levels of beauty such as, natural beauty that God creates and there is beauty which are products of man. However, products of man that are “beautiful” can be seen in a subjective sense because man makes the beauty rather than God. For instance, when humans create art whether pictures or cars, their art could be seen as subjective. No matter if man creates beauty, it still has to relate to what is good which ultimately means that beauty is objective. The nature of the flesh within a human has a  subjective nature even if there is a standard of beauty. This is because man is not perfect to understand what is truly beautiful. However, no matter what, beauty is objective which means that it does relate to God

Can beauty directly correlate to something supernatural? It can and this beauty can be seen all around the earth and the universe. Beauty must be objective and, therefore, relate to God who made all things. Normally, a man looks at beauty through subjective eyes because he has no sense of what true, objective beauty is. This beauty can be seen in the spirit of an individual and also can be seen through the good characteristics. Beauty can be seen as subjective, but ultimately beauty is objective. Those who say that beauty is ultimately subjective are in many ways putting their trust in humanity for the source of all knowledge. Therefore, beauty directly relates to God and this is because God is beauty.