march verses

"My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires."
-James 1:19-20
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“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts."
-Isaiah 55:8-9

I've got a page with all the verses I've got through since last year. It's very encouraging to see how far we've come and motivation to keep going!

He restores

I started this post a while back (August of last year to be exact) -

And I can't remember why I started writing it... !

This is a prime example of something we talked about with friends last night:
If you are a crock-pot (it takes you longer to process things you're learning, etc) you can't let the thoughts simmer so long that they rot!
I am quite guilty of this tradgedy!
I'm trying to be purposeful in thinking through my thoughts with intention and writing them down or getting them out of my mouth before they rot in my brain!

With that said, these words that I wrote a couple months ago are still something I'm thinking about, and am coming around to actually doing something about them:

"I've had my fair share of apathetic attitudes with God in my short life.

And sometimes it's not apathy, but plain laziness.

But there are many times that I haven't done anything because I saw someone better equipped for the job volunteer for it first.

It's so much easier to let someone else take the lead when I'm so unsure about myself, my talents, my abilities."

Wow. This is definitely an issue in my life.

My ability to serve others has been so hindered by my own laziness and insecurity! My ability to veiw myself as God sees me has been none exsistence through most of my life. I've been so focused on myself and my weaknesses that I couldn't possilbly see that I have strengths and that God wants to use them.

I am now in the process of writing a mission or purpose statement for my life. It's going to be hard for me... I still don't feel like I have a clear cut career or vocation driven goal in my life. That's really hard for me because I see so many people who do, who know what they are really good at, and have purpose in it. I don't think I'm quite there yet. I know there are a lot of reasons I'm not there, but I'm determined to get some clarity soon. I know prayer has to be very involved as that's been something I know I've desperately been lacking.

But I found a verse that made the light blub come on in my brain last night that I know God was pointing me to:

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation."
-2 Corinthians 5:17-19

I love making old things new.
I love being able to look at something and seeing the unending potential to remake it or make it better or new again.
Love it!
And God knows all about that!
He renews, restores and reconciles us into new people!
How wonderful is that?

new year's eve in españa

I'm sure a lot of you have already seen the photos from our New Year's Eve party -

(if not, go here: Emily's blog)

Most of my photos are the same but I just haven't gotten around to putting them up until now.

I wanted to say how much I enjoyed being able to decorate and "show off my home" that night!

(it just so happens that I randomly own a lot of red, yellow, and white things - perfect for our theme!)

Not showing off in the sense that I wanted to brag but because I'm proud of my ability to look at something and see the potential to make something new of it.

I kinda think one of my strengths (in Strengths Finder) might be Restorative...

I certainly don't like problem solving the in sense of Mathematics or Engineering or what-have-you...

but in other realms of life - I think it kinda fuels me...

This made me excited to have more parties at my place, even if I don't always decorate for them!

what do you truly long for?

I wrote this a couple weeks ago and forgot to post it:

I often times don't make time to sit and process through my sermon notes through the week.

Part of that is due to having not as much free time, part of it is due to not making the time for it. This year I'm starting to do that for myself and so that my crock-pot brain can get muster up something more to say during community group. :)

One of the questions from a couple weeks ago was something like:

"If you were honest with yourself, what do you truly long for?"

Purpose. That's what popped into my head.

I'm constantly searching for something to make me feel satisfied, purposeful, or fulfilled...

If I let my life get away from me and I loose focus on what I'm living for -

I feel like I have no purpose for being around.

God made us to glorify Him.

That's my purpose and I keep forgetting it!

I'm starting to pray that this year I start to remember that faster -

In the times I'm tempted to shut down...

When I'm too tired to make time...

At the moments I just don't want to go that extra mile...

I'm made to bring glory to God!

I pray that in that clarity I'm able to love God & others more fully, devote myself entirely to what He wants me to be, and figure out just what it means for me to bring glory to His name.

Stay tunned for more on this subject...

;)

five years...

It's hard to believe I've been married for five years...

(on the 29th, that is)

Sometimes it feels like I've always been married...

other times not that long at all!

I want to avoid writing a sappy post about how much I love my husband, because, really,

you all know how much I love him!

But I will say that when I look back on the years that I have known him, I can't thank God enough for the story He wrote for us to meet and eventually marry and be where we are today.

I love our story...

and that it is continuing to be written.

I pray it just gets sweeter with time.

Staying married to someone for five years these days isn't done quite so commonly.

I have to choose every day whether or not I'm going to continue loving him.

Some days it's easier, some days it's harder -

But it's always worth it.

We couldn't do it this well without our community.

We are so thankful that God has us in Tucson, at Second Mile,

around the people that we are blessed to call our family.

They encourage us, challenge us, pray for us, and love us unconditionally.

And we certainly couldn't last in marriage without God being there with us.

I pray that we'd allow Him to be more and more apart of it

in the coming years we have together.

christmas 2011

Since I've got over a week of free time on my hands, I'm trying to catch up on my blogging!

Andrew and I take turns with our families for Thanksgiving and Christmas. This year was our turn to go to South Dakota for Christmas.

We had our Dunning family christmas celebration the weekend before:

Here's Gracie eating a popsicle (yep, popsicles in December!)

I couldn't get a good photo of Isaiah - he's a wild man!

Vonnie

I think they were watching "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"...

Here's Nefertiti, my parent's newer puppy:

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I took some photos of our decorations at home before we left:

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We flew to South Dakota the 23rd and will be here till the 28th. We've been hanging out in the abnormally warm weather! Feels great to us!

The three musketeers:

We played some Christmas afternoon football (well, the boys did):

...the girls ran after:

Miss Maizie:

Uncle Alex with the girls:

Maranatha:

Andrew tuckered out after the game:

The sunset was beautiful that night:

We went to falls park to look at the lights. They do a pretty great job, really:

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas, friends!