Scripture Memory {Verse 5}

I'm finally back on track (for now) with posting my verses here on the blog. I am five verses into this scripture memorization project for the year and I am truly enjoying it. I never really thought that something as simple as memorizing a few bible verses could really be life changing, but it is. Don't believe me? Try it for yourself and see what happens :)

P.S. - In case you missed the explanation on what I am doing here...short version: I'm memorizing 24 bible verses this year in order to help me get more into the gospel and grow spiritually. Long version: Read my blog post about it here.

My fifth memory verse for 2015 is Psalm 27:14...

Are we sensing a trend here? If you are thinking that I tend to choose a lot of verses that relate to patience, God's plan and waiting, then you are correct. Clearly, this is an area in which I struggle. When it comes to my personal life, I am a planner. I like to be in control, make a plan and execute it according to schedule. Then life intervenes and my whole plan goes up in flames. Ultimately, I have to end up being patient and waiting on God to execute His perfect plan for my life instead. And I suck at it. I am not good at being patient, or releasing control over my life plans. Ironically, I used to be a middle school teacher which requires an insane amount of patience. In the classroom, I had patience for days. And yet, in my personal life, I have zero patience. My journey in learning to have more patience and faith in God's plan is going on years now, but I'm constantly working hard at it and improving each day. Hence the verse I have chosen here.

I love how this verse instructs us to "wait on the Lord" twice in the same sentence. Because only one time is simply not enough. It's telling us right off the bat, "wait on the Lord", and then just in case you didn't hear it the first time, it's ends the verse by telling us once again to "wait on the Lord". It's almost as though the words are standing right in front of you, waving a red flag and telling you to look over here, the answer is right here! All you have to do is wait on the Lord. Simple, but easier said than done, right? Oh, and while you are busy waiting around on Him, you also need to "be strong and take heart". In case waiting on Him isn't difficult enough already. This other reminder is just as important as being patient in the first place. In the midst of "waiting on the Lord", we often tend to lose our courage, our faith and our hope, especially if the waiting takes what we deem as being too long. The longer we have to wait, the harder it is to stay strong, faithful and hopeful. However, keeping our faith and hope during the wait is what keeps us going. Without faith and hope, we will ultimately give up on ourselves and even give up on God.

It took me losing all of my strength, faith and hope during what seemed like the longest wait of my entire life to make me realize how desperately I needed them and God. By memorizing this verse, I hope to remind myself that when I am faced with an obstacle in my life plan, that I must wait on Him for I know that His plan is a greatest of all. And while I am waiting, I must stay strong in my faith and believe that He will see me through. I must stay hopeful in what is to come because even though I do not know what He has in store for me, I must have hope in that whatever He has waiting for me is going to be better than I ever could have imagined. So if you are praying to God about something and wondering why He won't answer you, remember that sometimes you just have to listen and wait.

Scripture Memory {Verse 4}

As usual, I'm a little behind on posting my verses, but I promise that I'm still going strong with memorizing them on schedule. The verse I have chosen for #4 is one of my favorites, which I'm sure that you will think is strange once you read it. It's not pretty or uplifting or sentimental, it's convicting. The first time I ever read it, I immediately felt convicted. That's when you know you've found a great verse. Every time I read it, I feel the exact same way...which is why I am choosing to memorize this verse. I need to be reminded of it constantly.

P.S. - In case you missed the explanation on what I am doing here...short version: I'm memorizing 24 bible verses this year in order to help me get more into the gospel and grow spiritually. Long version: Read my blog post about it here.

My fourth memory verse for 2015 is James 1:19-20...

If you read this verse and think, "I totally do all three of those things all the time", then you are probably lying to yourself. I can't think of anyone I know who does these things consistently, especially myself. In fact, I tend to do the exact opposite of these things more often than not. Don't we all? Personally, I think that our culture actually promotes doing the exact opposite of what God is calling us to do in this verse. When someone says something that you don't agree with or that offends you, what is your initial reaction? Do you wait and listen to what they have to say, then think about and choose your words carefully, staying calm and understanding of their feelings? Well, that's what God is telling us we should be doing if we want to glorify Him. However, I know how most of us probably react when someone offends us or disagrees with our opinion...we immediately stop listening to whatever they are saying and start building our argument in our head, we get all pissed off and just start spewing our "better and correct" opinions from our mouths like word vomit without even thinking about what we are saying before it comes out. Guilty as charged.

So the next time you are confronted with a difference of opinions, remember this verse. We should stop whatever we are doing or thinking right away and listen, truly listen, to the person who is talking. Not sit there staring at them pretending to listen, while actually building up our defense against them in our head instead of listening. Once they are finished talking, you don't have to open your mouth and say something right away. Yes, a little silence for a minute might be awkward, but not nearly as awkward as when you don't think before you speak and end up saying something stupid or hurtful. When I was a teacher, I would encourage my students to T.H.I.N.K. before they would speak. (Is what you are about to say True, Helpful, Inspiring, Necessary, and Kind?) I hate to say it, but even though I would hold my students accountable to this everyday, I definitely did not practice in my personal life what I was preaching in the classroom. Even as adults, I feel like we should follow these same guidelines and based on James 1:19-20 I think that God would agree.

Hence the reason I am memorizing this verse. I want to challenge myself to follow these instructions, rather than reacting in my normal manner. Have you ever gone off on someone, getting angry, saying hurtful things, and thought to yourself afterward, "I feel so much happier now"? Probably not. Anytime I let myself get angry and either say something hurtful or even just think it in my head, I always feel like crap afterward. Negative thoughts and feelings only produce more negative thoughts and feelings. Being negative does not produce positive results. The next time I am faced with a challenging situation, I hope to call on this verse from my memory and think about how God would want me to react to the situation before I open my big mouth.

Scripture Memory {Verse 3}

I have been keeping up with memorizing my verses, even though I am late on posting about them. For verse #3, I decided to keep it short and sweet. Even though this verse is fairly short, it's still very powerful. Every time I read it, I wish I had memorized it sooner. I can think of so many past instances in my life where I truly could have used this verse. However, it's better late than never and I'm glad that I found my way to it eventually.

P.S. - In case you missed the explanation on what I am doing here...short version: I'm memorizing 24 bible verses this year in order to help me get more into the gospel and grow spiritually. Long version: Read my blog post about it here.

My third memory verse for 2015 is Romans 12:12...

This verse has three distinct instructions that I need a lot of help reminding myself of on a daily basis. Be joyful in hope. It's really easy to lose hope when things aren't going your way, but it is essential to remind ourselves to have hope and to be joyful in all of the blessings that we do have. If we only dwell on the bad things in our lives, then we will all be miserable. Been there, done that. It sucks. If we focus more on the hope of what is to come and being joyful in the possibilities of what God has in store for us tomorrow, we will be much happier and life will be a lot more fun!

Patient in affliction. This one might be the most difficult of all...for me at least. When something is not going the way I want it to, I am so impatient. I want the "bad time" to be over as soon as possible (obviously), but sometimes these things take time and we have to wait. The best example of this in my life was when I was struggling with my infertility. I made myself miserable every single day because I was so pissed off that I wasn't pregnant yet. I basically missed out on enjoying two years of my life because I was so focused on wanting my infertility to end. Looking back, I now realize that God was going to take care of me...in His time. I probably would have been a much happier person if I had just been more patient with God during that difficult time. I should have been more joyful in the hope of what he had in store for me, which turned out to be Peyton...my greatest blessing of all.

Faithful in prayer. I'm getting better at this one. Have you ever noticed how we tend to go to God last with all of our problems? We try every which way to fix things on our own until we are completely out of options and then we finally turn to God once we are exhausted and ready to give up. It's probably best to go to Him first, don't you think? Since the outcome is ultimately up to Him anyways? You might as well cut out all of that extra effort, worrying and distress and go right to the source from the beginning. I used to be one of those people who would basically make myself miserable over something that was bothering me and then maybe think about praying for it, if I had nowhere else to turn to. I'm currently working on going to God first with everything, the good and the bad. I ask Him for help and guidance, praise Him for something good, or even just vent about something that's irritating me. Even if my prayer isn't answered right away, I at least feel better about the situation and I am able to be more patient in the interim.

Overall, this verse is a perfect one for me to memorize because it serves as a good reminder of what I need to do when I'm faced with a difficult situation. Instead of just getting pissed off right away and freaking out, I can stop myself and remember to stay hopeful because God has got my back, be patient and wait for Him, and always go straight to prayer as my first line of defense.

Scripture Memory {Verse 2}

I have successfully memorized my first verse, hooray! I must say that I'm pretty proud of myself, since memorizing things has not always been my forte in life, unless it was choreography for a dance routine. Put on the music for a song I had a dance to in 8th grade and I can probably still remember most of the choreography...could I actually do it, probably not, seeing as how I am grossly out of shape and no where near as flexible as I was then. (side note: anyone else notice how much pregnancy diminishes your body's flexibility? No fair.) Anywho, now we are on to verse 2 and I am very excited about my new verse!

P.S. - In case you missed the explanation on what I am doing here...short version: I'm memorizing 24 bible verses this year in order to help me get more into the gospel and grow spiritually. Long version: Read my blog post about it here.

Now, back to my new verse. Of course, there is a long-winded story about how I came across this verse and why I have chosen it as one of my memory verses. However, I'll let you in on the verse itself first in case you aren't in the mood to read my extensive ramblings about how I arrived at it. Alas, my second memory verse for 2015 is John 13:34-35...

Story time! First you need a little back story here before we get to the verse. So my church had us fill out these "gospel transformation" cards two weeks ago where we made goals for how we wanted to be transformed spiritually this year. Also on the card, we were to list one thing we want to "quit" this year that will help us in our transformation. My "quit" for this year is negativity. I want to rid my life of anything toxic...people, thoughts, and experiences that make me feel negative. I'm so guilty of whining, complaining and judging others and none of these things ever make me feel any better, just more negative. Therefore, I want to try and be more positive about everything. To surround myself with positive people, flood my brain with happy thoughts and focus more on what is going to make life more of a joyful experience rather than always dwelling on the negative. It's easy to judge others, to complain when things don't go your way, and to just focus on the negative things that are raining on your parade. And I am sick of doing that. Why do I always let one little stupid piece of negativity block out the overwhelming number of blessings in my life? I have so many things to be grateful for and yet, one little thing doesn't go the way I planned it and my whole day is ruined. How pathetic. I'm notorious for letting a bad situation or someone else's negative attitude bring down my spirit, well no more. I want to be happy, positive and nice as much as possible, even when shit hits the fan. I know this is going to be very challenging and I know that I will by no means hit the mark even by the end of the year, but even a little progress is better than none. I want to try and try my best I will. 

Pardon the side road there, but that's important information regarding my verse. So here is how I came about it. I picked out my verse on Wednesday, the day before I had to submit it on the LPM blog because I'm a planner, that's what I do. I picked out a lovely verse (Philippians 4:6-7) and was all ready to go with that on Thursday morning. 

I woke up Thursday morning and opened my Bible app to do my daily reading (yes that's right, your favorite Bachelor-watching, wine-loving blogger also reads her Bible every day) and the verse of the day was: "Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen." (1 John 4:20 NIV) I felt very convicted by this verse as soon as I read it. I thought, yikes, they are talking about me. I claim to love God and yet there are plenty of people out there who I truly dislike and can't stand. Girl just got called out. Ah. So I continued my daily reading which coincidentally happened to be in the book of John that day and it all just kept coming back to the same theme, love and forgive others, no matter what. If Jesus can love and forgive everyone, then so can you. Hmm, well they do have a point there. Next, I opened up my Instagram and the very first picture that popped up was a graphic from She Reads Truth that said "Love each other. John 13:34", and the caption below had the entire verse from John 13:34-35. As soon as I read it, I knew that had to be my verse for the next two weeks. 

I have chosen this verse because I need the reminder, everyday, all day, to love others. It's easy to love the people that you actually like...your spouse, kids, family, friends, etc. It's not so easy to love the people you dislike...that annoying co-worker, neighbor, family member, acquaintance, "frenemie" (don't lie, you all have one), random person in the grocery store line, random person driving slow in front of you when you are late for work, etc. It's really hard to love those people because heck you don't even like them, and maybe they have even done something really bad to you which makes you feel like you have every right to hate them. However, Jesus loved everyone, even the people who betrayed him and murdered him. Now, that's impressive. Trust me, I'm not trying to compare myself to Jesus or claim that I can be like him. Yeah, right. However, I do know that I am capable of trying a little harder to love others. Let's be real, what do you get out of being rude to someone or talking trash about them? Basically nothing. I've noticed that when I'm negative towards other people (even just in my own mind) that I feel crappy and negative too. And when I'm nice and positive towards others, then I feel so much better and happier. Alas, my verse. I want to use it to fight off the negative thoughts in my head. When I see someone doing something that I think is stupid or ridiculous, I want to replace that negative thought with my verse. Who cares if some girl wants to post a billion photos of her baby on Instagram (guilty as charged), I'm going to love her anyway because she is doing what makes her happy. And why does it matter to me if some crazy girl wants to write ridiculously long-winded blog posts (also guilty) and think that she's cool enough for people to actually want to read that garbage, well I will love her too. Challenge accepted. 

I see that what started out as a blog post has now turned into a short novella, sorry y'all. However, this verse just really has me going here. I promise that this is last point that I am going to make about it, so hang in there. The final line of the verse, "Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples", also spoke to one of my gospel transformation goals for this year. To share my faith with others. I'm not a huge fan of people throwing religion into random conversations. I am not one of those people who is going to come right out and ask you about your church, or try to force mine upon you because I just don't feel like that is my place and I don't really even know how to approach that. So I have been looking for ways to share my faith with others without just randomly throwing something like, "Hey, so how 'bout that Jesus guy" into a casual conversation. I feel like this verse finally gave me a little direction in that department. It says that simply by loving others, I can share my faith with the world. Well, that sounds like a manageable task, even for me. Ultimately, loving others seems to be like a pretty good idea in my book so I'm committed to making more of an effort. Love to you all, and free hugs for everyone. (That one is for all my fellow Bachelor fans out there...here's your free hug, don't worry you can get a coupon and redeem it later) 

Have a spectacular weekend and go share some love :)            

Scripture Memory {Verse 1}

Yesterday, I shared one of my New Year's Goals on the blog, and now it's time to get started! If you missed my explanation of the Scripture Memory Team, read that post first before you read this one so that you understand what I'm referring to here.

I chose my first bible verse to memorize on January 1st, but I haven't gotten around to writing about it on the blog until now. However, I have been working on memorizing it! I've basically got it down already and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to remember. By the end of New Year's Day, I pretty much had it. I typically say it to myself all throughout the day, every day, to make sure I don't forget it, which in turn helps me keep all the negative and toxic thoughts out of my head as well! I'm sure this will get more difficult as I add additional verses throughout the year, but I will be working hard to retain them all.

I will be choosing each verse carefully and with purpose because I want to make sure that I really get as much out of this experience as possible. Therefore, I want to share my thoughts about each verse that I choose because I think that reflecting on what we read in the gospel is just as important as reading it in the first place. So without further adieu...the first verse that I am going to be learning for 2015 is Jeremiah 29:11

I thought that this verse was fitting for kicking off the New Year, since the beginning of a new year is always a time that people spend planning out their goals and resolutions for the upcoming year. When starting out a fresh year, we all tend to make our own plans. We plan out what we want to change about our lives, habits we want to quit, or projects we want to start. We plan those things out for ourselves. However, what we tend to forget is that God already has a wonderful plan for our lives, one that we have no control over. So while it's still great to make your own plans (trust me, I certainly do), remember to look to God when making your plans because he already has done a lot of the work for you. Alas, my first reason for choosing this verse. As I sit down to make my plans for 2015, I was to remind myself to ask God for guidance when doing so.

Reason number two...I'm addicted to planning. I recently wrote an entire blog post about my agenda planner. I have to plan everything. I wrote a birth plan for my delivery with Peyton, It was one full page typed. You should have seen the look on the labor and delivery nurse's face when I handed her 5 copies of my birth plan (one for her, the doctor and each member of my delivery team). And you know what, Peyton's birth absolutely did not go according to the plan I had written, but being able to walk into the hospital with a plan in hand maybe me feel prepared and calm, and helped me stay that way throughout my entire delivery. That is why I plan. I tend to over-think, over-react and freak out about things that have not even happened yet. Therefore, I plan. If I plan it out ahead of time, then I can enter the situation calm and prepared (and with about 30 possible back up plans).

However, I've realized over the years that when my long-term plans (such as getting pregnant) are repeatedly and severely disrupted over time, I don't cope well. Over a year ago, I finally learned how to let go of my life plans and learn to rely on God's plan for my life. This was a difficult pill for me to swallow and it took a lot of effort and prayer on my part to get me there. I have made huge progress in this department from where I started about 18 months ago, but I have fully embraced the "let go, and let God" mantra. That being said, I always want to remember to do so. When life gets tough, it's hard to not get easily overwhelmed and upset with God. It's easy to blame him for everything. I blamed him for years for my infertility. I blamed him for taking my dad away from me. I blamed him for FSU losing football games (just kidding, but seriously). I blamed him for everything in my life that did not go according to the grand plan I had created for myself. Which is why I desperately need this verse, Jeremiah 29:11, in my life. I need it to remind me that God had a plan for me, and it's a good one. He's not trying to mess with me or screw up my plans, he just has a better plan for me than I had for myself.

I want to start off the year with this verse, and I want to promise myself that no matter what life throws at us this year, that I will be prepared with this verse to remind me of God's plan.      

Scripture Memory Team

One of my New Year's Goals for 2015 is the memorize 24 bible verses throughout the year. What is the point of this you might ask? Well, a friend of mine at church sold me on the idea. I figure this is one way to help me focus more on the gospel instead of all the other crap that I tend to read on a daily basis (Facebook, garbage on the Internet, etc) when I have a spare moment on my phone. Plus, it gives me something to focus on when I'm getting frustrated or angry. When I get into a situation where I'm feeling overwhelmed or frustrated and I can't think of what to say, or do, or even think...I just start repeating my verse in my head and it immediately calms me down and makes me start thinking about all the wonderful blessings I have, rather than whatever it was that had me pissed off in the first place. Alas, this is why I have decided to take on this goal for the New Year.

Along with a group of girls from my church small group, we are participating in Beth Moore's Scripture Memory Team (through Living Proof Ministries). Basically all you do is choose a bible verse every two weeks (on the 1st and 15th of the month) to memorize. It can be any verse you would like and it's easy because you only have to do it twice per month...which results in 24 total verses by the end of the year. The idea is that you choose your own verses so that you can pick ones which relate to whatever is going on in your life at the time, or maybe just verses that you have always wanted to learn.  

I'm sure you're wondering how memorizing 24 verses will help you get into the gospel more. Well, in order to find verses to memorize, you have to read the bible to do so! I mean, yes technically you could Google "most popular bible verses" and just memorize all of those but then they wouldn't be personal so you probably wouldn't get anything out of it or quit before the end of the year. On January 1st, I had to choose my first verse to memorize so I started searching my bible app for key words and topics that I thought I could relate to and find the type of verse that I wanted. I read through verses for probably two hours (spread among small chunks of time throughout the day) before I found the perfect one. So right there is two extra hours of reading the gospel that I probably would not have done on New Year's Day otherwise. I also stumbled upon a lot of good scripture that I really enjoyed reading and thinking about along the way. 

I am loving this project so far because it's easy and manageable as far as time commitment. I have until the 15th to find a new verse so I can squeeze in little bits of reading/searching time when it works with my schedule. And if I don't have time to find a verse, I can always go to Beth Moore's blog to see what verses she suggests or which ones any of the other participants (already over 19,000 women!) are learning as well.

Overall, I feel like this is going to be a great way to keep me connected to the gospel and positive throughout the the year. Anytime negative thoughts enter my mind, I start thinking about my verse and I feel instant relief. I wish I would have started doing this sooner! 

I've already memorized my first verse for the year and I have it posted everywhere to help keep it at the forefront of my mind at all times. I have it written in my planner, on a sticky note in my car, on a sticky note on my bathroom mirror, in my Scripture Memory Team spiral notebook (where I will be collecting all of my verses for the project), as well as a picture of it on my phone so that every time I look at my phone (which is a lot) I see it. 

I can already feel it transforming me and making positive changes in my life. Not only will I be posting my verses on Beth Moore's blog every two weeks to "check-in" with the team, but I will also be posting my verses here on my blog, along with a reflection and explanation as to why I chose each particular verse.

If you would like to join me on this journey, it's not too late to start! You can sign up through Beth Moore's blog if you want to be official, or you can just leave me a comment that you want to join me and we can do it together! I promise you, this will make positive changes in your life and it will transform you. I've only been doing it for 8 days thus far and I can already feel it! Also, I would love suggestions for verses to memorize so if you have a verse that you love, please share it with me in a comment below. 

For more information on joining the Scripture Memory Team, check out the info posted on Beth Moore's Blog. I look forward to sharing my journey with y'all, and I can't wait to be able to recite my 24 verses by the end of this year!

Peyton's Baptism

Jared and I were overjoyed to be surrounded by our amazing family and friends for a very special occasion with our daughter last weekend. Peyton was baptized at our church, Good News Church, on Sunday, July 20th during the morning worship service. She did extremely well and didn't even mind the water on her head! This was her very first time at church and I was relieved that she was so well-behaved for the entire service. Thank you to our pastor, Andy, for baptizing our daughter. It was a beautiful moment that we will never forget.

It is the practice of our church to perform baptisms during the regular worship service, not private baptisms, because we believe that the entire church congregation plays an integral role in supporting and loving those who are baptized like an extended family. In fact, part of the baptism ceremony involves the entire congregation standing and vowing to encourage and take care of those being baptized. This was my favorite part of the ceremony. I loved getting to see all of the people in our church, in addition to our friends and family, making that promise to help us raise our daughter and nurture her love for Jesus. It truly takes a village to raise a child and I'm so glad that our "village" is full of faithful Christians.

Prior to Peyton's birth, I was already thinking about her baptism. I really wanted her to wear my christening gown that I was baptized in, so I knew we were going to have to baptize her at a time when she was still young enough to fit into it since I was 6 weeks old when I wore it. When I realized that July 20th fell on a Sunday this year and that Peyton would be around 5 weeks old by then, I knew that was the day we had to baptize her.

We lost my dad two years ago on this date and it also happens to be his birthday. Although July 20th has become more of a sad and difficult day for my family over these past two years, I wanted to have my dad there with us spiritually for this important day in Peyton's life. It was also significant to me for Peyton to wear my christening gown, mostly because I just really love family heirlooms, but also because the last time it was worn was when my dad held me in it when I was being baptized, so I wanted Peyton to have a little piece of him on her special day.

Peyton's baptism was such a special occasion for our family and one of my favorite moments as a parent thus far. For Jared and I, one of our priorities has always been that when we had kids we wanted them to grow up with a close-knit church family and we have been lucky enough to find the perfect church for us.

I think that Peyton's baptism was an overwhelming and wonderful occasion for Jared and I because she is our little miracle. After battling infertility for a year and a half, part of me started to think that I would never be blessed with this ultimate gift of motherhood. Thankfully, we had the love and support of our family, friends and church to help us through that difficult time. I firmly believe that the months and months of prayers from all of those people are what finally brought Peyton to us. Therefore, it was so important to have all of those people there with us for this special moment. She is truly a gift from the Lord and we are so blessed to be her parents.

My mom hosted a luncheon at her house after the baptism to celebrate little Miss Peyton!

Motherhood is the greatest gift I have ever been given. 

4 generations of my family 

4 generations of Jared's family

This is only part of our church small group, but that group of people is such an incredible part of our lives. They have been a huge support to us during this entire journey and we are so thankful for them. The ladies of our small group prayed with me week after week for months and held my hand while I cried waiting for the good news of this pregnancy. I can't wait to raise our kids together since Peyton will now have two new girlfriends in this group!! Lindsey and Eric (not pictured) welcomed baby Mary Claire in June, along with Rebecca and Mike (pictured above on the right) who adopted baby Lorelei Elizabeth yesterday! Mary Claire is only 2.5 weeks younger than Peyton and Lorelei is 6 weeks younger than Peyton. I'm so excited that these three little girls are so close in age and that we will all be able to watch them grow up in our church together.  

Peyton with her maternal grandmothers and great-grandmothers on both sides!

I love how all these guys were fraternity brothers in college and are now daddies together! We are thrilled to be living in the same city as our college friends and that these Kappa Sigma babies will get to grow up together. 

Kappa Sigma wives and babies club! 

Left to right: Baby Hall {12 weeks preggo}, Peyton {5 weeks old}, Adelyn {4 months old}, Joseph {7 months old}, and Jackson {5 years old} 

Children are a gift of the Lord.

Psalm 127:3

Intentional Relationships

In church today, our pastor talked about intentional relationships. He spoke about how Jesus intentionally created relationships with people rather than simply preaching or performing miracles from a far. He was able to reach and transform people because he got to know them personally and he got to know them on purpose. As I was sitting in church listening to this message, I couldn't help but think about my dad.

In this regard, my dad was a lot like Jesus. If you knew my dad, you would know that Jesus is not the first thing that comes to mind when you interact with him. He liked to go fishing with his buddies, drink beer and tell dirty jokes...not exactly "Christ-like" qualities, but he was a believer. I'm sure that even he would find my comparison of him to Jesus a little far-fetched as well. However, my pastor always preaches about how we all have spiritual gifts, and today I realized that my dad's spiritual gift was intentional relationships.

Most of us (especially me) go through life just passing people by. We don't stop and take the time to build an intentional relationship with people who aren't our family or friends (and sometimes we don't even build a relationship with the people who are already in our lives). For example, take the person who bags your groceries at Publix. You might see them once a week, exchange the cordial "hi, how are you" and then go about your day. Although you see this person over and over, week after week, you know absolutely nothing about them. Why don't you know anything about them? Do you not have time? Do you just not care? Do you have too many other things to worry about? If we all acted more like Jesus, we would take the time to get to know the people we interact with throughout our day and build an intentional relationship with them.

This is how my dad was like Jesus. My dad got to know every single person he came in contact with. Sometimes he would go to Winn-Dixie for one item and he would be gone for two hours. Why? Because he took the time to engage in a meaningful conversation with each person he interacted with at the Winn-Dixie. He knew every person that worked there. He knew their names. He knew about their lives. He built intentional relationships with these people. Why? Simply because he was friendly and he liked talking to people. And the employees at that Winn-Dixie loved him. Everyone in the store would light up when they saw him come through the door.

When I was a kid, going somewhere with my dad (even somewhere as simple as the grocery store) was like a four hour expedition. My dad stopped and talked to every single person we interacted with. He would ask everyone what their name was and introduce himself. At the time, I found this really annoying. I remember thinking, "why is he doing this? No one cares who he is. Why does he care who this person is? He doesn't know them." I kept wondering why he always wanted to stop and have a "real" conversation with these strangers. I kept wanting to say to him, "just say 'hi' and keep moving".

I don't know about you, but when I go to the grocery store, I try to not engage in conversation with other people. I want to get in and out as fast as I can, so I go for as little interaction as possible. How terrible is that? What is so important in my life that I can't slow down and take a couple minutes to have a meaningful conversation with my cashier, ask her how her day is going and be willing to actually listen to the answer? Maybe I need to be more like Jesus, more like my dad.

Moral of the story: take the time to build intentional relationships with the people around you. Get to know the person who bags your groceries, your next door neighbor, and the barista at Starbucks who makes your coffee every morning. Get to know them and do it on purpose.

Here is my challenge for you this week...go out of your way to be friendly to a complete stranger. Find someone you see around semi-regularly (a neighbor, employee at a business you frequent) and intentionally start a conversation with them that goes beyond a cordial greeting. You might just make their day :) 

A New Path

Throughout our lives, we embark on a lot of new paths. We grow-up, graduate, get married, start careers, have kids, send those kids off on their own, retire, and then make our way to meet our Heavenly Father. Each new path brings its own set of challenges and joys. Often times we are presented with a number of paths to choose from, so we hope and pray that we choose the right one. Sometimes we do and sometimes we don't. I have recently learned that if I put my faith in God, He will lead me down the right path. The more "life experience" I get, the more I realize that there are a lot of things, even in my own life, that I have absolutely no control over. I just have to believe that God's plan for me is better than the one I thought I wanted for myself.

Jared and I embarked on a new path in our lives today. We officially became members of our church.

Last month, I wrote a post about our journey to find the right church for us. We started attending our church last summer, but we were apprehensive to jump in and commit to membership right away. We wanted to give it a lot of thought, prayer and time before making this big commitment. 

I know that we made the right choice. I am so overjoyed to officially be a part of our new church family. I have to believe that God brought us to this church for a reason and I cannot thank Him enough for this wonderful blessing.

Today has been a very joyous day in the Roche household and I can't wait to see where this new path will lead us. Have a spectacular week!

Reading Goal

Do you know what the #1 best selling book is every single year? The Bible. Have you ever read the Bible? Like the entire Bible? I am a huge reader. I read dozens of books every year. I am a Christian. I go to church, take my Bible with me and follow along during the sermons, but I've never actually read the thing in it's entirety. Well here goes nothing...

The #1 item on my Bucket List has always been to read the Bible cover to cover. Why you ask? Because in some ways I feel like I am supposed to. How can you correctly practice something without reading the manual? I feel like all Christians should read the Bible...all of it, not just the good parts. I also want to read it because I feel like it will be interesting and I'll learn something (or a lot of things) from it.

The Bible I currently own is 1773 pages long and I plan on reading every single page. I know that seems like a lot, and it is. However, I read War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy in one semester of college which is over 1400 pages and horribly boring, so I feel like there isn't anything I can't read.

My goal is to read the entire Bible by the end of 2013. I am hoping to actually finish it way before that, but I want to give myself a reasonable goal so I won't become overwhelmed and give up.

Today is Day 1. Here is page 1 of 1773 - Genesis 1:1 all ready to go!

I am also going to be using this handy dandy ap on my iPhone called YouVersion. It's a Bible ap that has a bunch of nifty features. You can use it to track your progress (which is what I am using it for), it will read aloud to you, give you daily Bible verses and lots of other cool things. I thought about reading the Bible in chronological order (the order in which the events happened historically by time), but then I decided that I wanted to read it canonically (the order in which it was written) instead. So instead of jumping around throughout the text, I will be reading from page 1 to page 1773 straight through. 

Don't worry, I'm sure there will be many updates along the way. Wish me luck!

Battle of the Religions

When you get married, there are a lot of compromises that have to be made. Where are you going to live? Who is going to be in charge of paying the bills? How will you split up the holidays between your families? And one of the most challenging compromises to make...which religious denomination are you going to follow? Now, if you and your spouse both come from the same religious background, then that's a no brainier. However, what happens when you come from different or even opposing religious backgrounds? Which one is the "right" one?

I don't usually get into these serious topics on my blog, but I know a lot of people who are going through (or have gone through) this "battle" with their significant other, so I wanted to share my story.

Jared grew up in the Catholic Church and I grew up in the Methodist Church. We both attended church on Sundays with our families growing up and both of us went through Confirmation in our respective churches. Once we met in college, the topic never really was a big deal because neither of us regularly attended church at school. When we went home for holidays, we would attend church with our families, but it was never a major part of our relationship. We were both Christians, so which "type" of Christian we were really wasn't an issue at that time.

Prior to our wedding, we had to go through marriage counseling with my family's pastor to get our marriage license. He was the one who ended up marrying us since we got married in my hometown. During the counseling, we decided that we would obviously raise our children in Christianity, in a church that we would decide on together. At the time, we just weren't sure which church that would be.

Once we got married, the search for the right church began. At that point, both of us had attended Catholic and Methodist services multiple times and we knew one thing for sure...I did not want to be Catholic and Jared did not want to be Methodist. Well, that's inconvenient. So things became a bit more challenging. I guess I always assumed that when I got married, either my husband or I would take on the other person's religion. Being that we live in Jacksonville, and my family already has a church here that I grew up in, I thought that I was going to win this battle. I was wrong. And I must say that I gave in very easily to losing my home field advantage. As soon as Jared said that he did not think that our Methodist church was the right one for us, I agreed and we moved on. I was determined to find a church that both Jared and I enjoyed and were comfortable in. I learned that this is not a battle to be won by either party.

Alas, our new dilemma became...which denomination is right for us? We know we don't want to be Catholic or Methodist, but which denomination do we want to be? So we went through them all to find the right fit. And guess what, none of them were the right fit. Fail.

This was our ah-ha moment. We realized that we shouldn't be looking for a denomination or a label for our religion. Being able to say, "We are Catholic" or "We are Methodist", means nothing. We discovered that we needed to find the right group of people to worship with and when we found them, that would be our church;  no matter which "label" the church had on the sign out front.

After more than 3 years of marriage, we finally found our church last summer. At first, I felt like I was abandoning the Methodist church by not staying with that denomination, but I realized that all those years of saying, "I am Methodist" just gave me a label, but didn't make me any different from any other Christian out there. Our new church is technically under the governing body of the Presbyterian Church, but for months I actually thought this church was non-denominational because they don't actively advertise their "label".

I never would have imagined that I would end up at this church. It's not very traditional. People wear whatever they want. There are no fancy pews or stained glass windows, but I still love it. And what I love about it has nothing to do with the building the service takes place in, but the people who are inside it. The first time we ever attended service there, I knew right away that it was the right fit for us. For probably the first time ever, I actually related to what the pastor was saying. It wasn't like he was up there preaching to me. It was more like he was one of our friends and we were just having a conversation. I got more out of that 30 minute sermon, than I have in 25 years of attending church. And every week that I go back, I learn something new.

The idea of raising my children in this church makes me excited because I am hoping that they will benefit greatly from the wonderful community that our church has to offer. The people in that church are the people who I want my children to be exposed to and learn from. And when my children grow-up and get married, I hope that attending a church that doesn't focus on a "label" will ensure that they won't have to experience this identity crisis like I did of having to leave behind my labeled religious denomination and find a new one.

So my advice to people who are going through this "battle" with their spouse is this...

Neither of you has to win or lose this battle. You are not abandoning your religion. Don't join your spouse's religion just because you feel like that is the "right" thing to do. Find a church that fits the two of you as a couple, no matter which "label" it has.

Instead, find all the churches in your area and every Sunday, go to a different one. At the service, talk to the people in the congregation around you and the pastor/priest/religious leader/whatever you want to call them and ask yourself if you can relate to these people. Do you feel comfortable around them? Would you want to be friends with them outside of church? After the service, talk to your spouse about the sermon. Did you get anything out of it? Did you actually learn something or did you feel like you were just sitting in church because it is what you are "supposed" to be doing on Sunday morning? Don't pay attention to what people are wearing or what the church looks like. It doesn't matter what denomination the church is. If it feels right and comfortable, and you feel like you are actually getting something out of it, then you know it is the right fit for you. Happy Sunday :)