First install

Well...Shaun started his first install for Your Space Works today :)...He has his next one on Friday. God is good...ALL the time!

I'm 30!

Hmmmm...can't believe it! This past Sunday I turned 30! Already 30 years on this earth. I am so blessed. Here is a picture from the fun weekend. :)

What if...

What if...

God were to remove, from our lives, every last thing that we have not given thanks for? What would you lose? Your fingers? Your back? Your friends? Your kids? Your spouse? Your house? Your feet? Your country? What would the list be?

Idleness or is it idol-ness

I have not been sleeping well lately...I have been reading the Bible, and although I have been a Christian for a long time and have diligently sought Him all of my life, I feel like when I open the Word of God He shows me so many jewels that I never get very far reading but I get a treasure store. I also have had some heavy things on my heart plus I've listening to these sermons and after they are over, in the evening, I am so fired up and my mind is going FULL STEAM ahead that it takes hours to settle down enough to sleep.

Anyway, if I think about it I'm pretty tired. I can't just take a nap whenever I feel like it with two lovely and very active toddlers. In the latter part of this week I was getting VERY frustrated with my tiredness level and a "need" to do nothing...to be idle...that is not a luxury I have anytime really. Now I know this is not a "need" because when I am diligent to seek God in the mornings and do my devotions He is faithful to give me more than enough energy and joy to not only make it through the day but see the beauty of the day and all my blessings. Anyway, in my "feeling sorry for myself" mode I kept telling myself "oh well I can rest in heaven" to try and cheer myself up to make it through the day...what a strange thing to say ....I mean really. But none the less that was what I was telling myself.

You know God whispered to me in an instant after I said that to myself..., "You were not created for idleness...in heaven you will not be idle. In heaven you will be ruling and reigning with me...but mostly you will be worshipping ME." Not created for idleness...as I sat down to write this in my journal I spelled "idleness" idolness"...it was a simple spelling mistake but I think it was a bit divine because in that one simple mistake God whispered to me again..."When you want to be idle you go back into wanting self-rule. You make yourself an idol" Matthew 6:24 says, "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other..." In the Greek the word idleness is "ataktos" it means disorderly... What made me start to think on this this morning was Shaun read 2Thessalonias 3:6 which says, "In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you received from us." Proverbs has a lot to say about idleness. Synonyms are words like sluggard and lazy...(see Proverbs 6:6-11; Proverbs 10:4; Proverbs 10:5; Proverbs 10:26; Proverbs 12:9; Proverbs 12:24; Proverbs 12:27; Proverbs 13:4; Proverbs 14:23 )...all very interesting.

hmmmmm...Tama

Waves

Well...I haven't blogged in awhile. I have had so many lessons on my heart that God is teaching me...that honestly I think maybe it is a time to be quite and reflect. Plus, I got tired of myself talking about what I was learning...and I felt God gently prodding me to take it in and then live it awhile instead of trying to share everything and blabbing on and on.

So I don't have much to say except for one exciting thing...Shaun got his first 2 jobs today....one big one and one little one. It's been interesting! Money is beyond tight of course, but God has supplied all of our need and many wants :). Some days we have wondered if we went down a road called crazy and hadn't heard God correctly...other days we rested easily in peace and joy no matter what was going on around us drawing on the POWER of the word of God...we were in the draw of a wave (Don't know what the technical term is for it). More accurately we were in a battle. A battle for thankfulness and joy no matter what the circumstance...

Matthew 6:34 says this, "34So do not worry or be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have worries and anxieties of its own. Sufficient for each day is its own trouble." This is the context for that verse...Matthew 6: 24-34 says this, "24No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink;or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendorwas dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field,

which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

About 2 weeks ago I told Shaun that I could see the wave of work coming towards us when I prayed but that it wasn't quite here yet. Well you know how you can see a wave coming from a distance and then right before it starts crashing all the water that is near you goes strongly out towards the sea? Well that is where we have been at the draw before the crashing wave. hmmmmmm I just thought of that. How many waves have I watched in my lifetime?...so so many. My favorite and most comforting sound is crashing waves. Isn't God good how He shows us what He is doing in our lives with pictures that are so real and comforting to us...gentleness! Well the crashing wave is upon us. Shaun put an add in Cragslist on Friday and he has gotten, I think 10 e-mails from that add. Now this is a beautiful thing because #1 IT'S FREE...the ad. It takes about 5 minutes, and for the last 2 weeks Shaun has been going around and handing out fliers to condos and townhouses. I don't know...he just keeps getting more and more and more and more (you get the picture) requests for quotes and now the work is crashing in. :) We are so thankful...and now another learning curve begins...how to manage all this work efficiently. How to actually do the jobs. And then keep the marketing part going. Do we hire someone to do the work? Does Shaun do it and the marketing etc etc etc etc etc...on and on it goes :). It's a beautiful thing thing thing we call trusting God. :)

Proverbs 3:5-12 says, "5-12 Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own.Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he's the one who will keep you on track.Don't assume that you know it all. Run to God! Run from evil! Your body will glow with health, your very bones will vibrate with life! Honor God with everything you own; give him the first and the best. Your barns will burst, your wine vats will brim over.But don't, dear friend, resent God's discipline; don't sulk under his loving correction.It's the child he loves that God corrects; a father's delight is behind all this."

You know it was interesting at the ICCC conference that we went to in the middle of February this lady prayed over us (and really Shaun) that he would have so much creativity and think of new ways of doing things. That was awesome...we hadn't even thought to pray that. :).

Anyway, the ways of God are unending, beyond our understanding, satisfying, full of purpose, filled with joy, unfathomable, ....beyond description.

delighting in my Friend,

Tama