Sunday Doings

My favorite thing to do on Sunday is to go to church to worship the Lord. I love being able to worship in song and discussing Bible text with different groups of people who share the same love of Christ that I have. Being able to attend church very much strengthens me and encourages me to go about the rest of the week.

Day Seven, Eight, and Nine: Playing Catch Up

So here's to catching up!

Day Seven: Shopping

One thing I am proud of this year is that I have successfully kept a budget all year. I have been keeping receipts each month and then at various points in the month, I clean out my wallet and enter the numbers into an Excel sheet. It helps me see where I am spending more money and how to do better the next month. It also keeps me more aware when I am spending money. So for shopping I thought I'd share a picture of the receipts that I need to clean out of my wallet from the past week or so. Christmas shopping mainly! (I don't always shop at Walmart by the way. Those are just the two on top.)

As I was downloading pictures from my phone I realized I really had another shopping picture there. I already shared it with you all, but there's another chance to shop this weekend. The Ceramics department is having their holiday sale. I just might make a stop over there on Saturday morning. I've technically finished all of my Christmas shopping, but it's never too early to start on birthdays for the year! Plus, I love ceramics. :)

Day Eight: Wrapping Paper

Another thing I am proud to say is that I have all of my presents wrapped. It helps that this year I have a place to keep them and I have space to spread out and wrap them. In the past there just hasn't been enough room in the dorm room to store many presents or to wrap them. Normally I use newspaper but since I bought wrapping paper this year for some reason, I wrapped them in wrapping paper. There is something nice about the uniformity of the gifts. To add a creative flare, I used puff paint to write everyone's name on the gifts.

Now you may be wondering what this particular gift says. It says Merhap Birthmas Marcus. It's a combination of Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday. My younger brother's birthday is on December 24. I know, poor guy. Even worse, for some reason my family always opens gifts on Christmas Eve. He's a good sport about it though. I typically do not combine his presents, but since I bought him a rather expensive gift this year that comes in two pieces, I decided to combine them. He'll laugh at my word play. 

Day Nine; Peace

Peace seemed like such a hard challenge to find and capture in a photograph. Then a verse from Sunday morning's sermon at church came back to me. It's the start of a letter that Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica. I've always admired Paul's letters and I wish we still wrote letters to each other like he did to his friends at various churches. Oftentimes Paul starts his letters with this phrase "Grace and peace to you". The pastor on Sunday pointed out that the word order is important to note. First we receive God's grace, which means that we receive forgiveness for disobedience or selfishness or whatever it is that we did even though we don't really deserve to be forgiven. Then we feel the peace that comes from receiving that grace. There is a calm after doing that. On Sunday I experienced that peace. I have been feeling for a while that I needed to officially join Bethel, the church I have been attending for five years. I kept making excuses as to why it was fine to just attend and not join. Sunday, I stopped making excuses and was obedient to God. I joined and I definitely felt peace. No longer was that decision eating at me. 

Well this has been a long post. I'll try not to get so far behind again. I've enjoyed reading all of your posts. I'm excited to see more glimpses into your lives. Farmer's Daughter, Captain, and I were talking last night that we should create our own photo challenge for another month. We were thinking we could each add six items to a list and we'd have 30 things to find. Maybe in a couple of months, we could do another challenge. For now, 

Granny Eyre.

Life is a Vapor

Life is scary. Life is uncertain. But life is awesome!

This past Sunday I went to church with my beau. We have been going to church together for about a year I guess, alternating. My church one week, his church the next week, and so on. It's different doing things this way, but neither one of us have felt the conviction to convert, so we're still doing it this way. But that's a different blog post subject entirely.

The sermon last Sunday was about how life is vapor and I have been thinking about it off and on all week. There were multiple lessons within his message, one being that life is short. With each year of getting older, time seems to pass more and more quickly. I have noticed this in my life...take this for example: it has been 5 years since each of the Twenty-Somethings have graduated from high school. Wow! As he mentioned on Sunday, our time to leave this Earth could come at any moment. And although we can't (and shouldn't) walk around thinking about when our time will come, we should keep it in mind so that we don't waste our life/time on things that don't matter. His second point tied in nicely with his first: when we think about eternity, our life here really is a vapor! It's merely a splash in the ocean. Really think about that for a second.

It particularly hit hard when a colleague of my Mom's found out her father has invasive lung cancer. It has spread throughout his body, including to his brain. He only found out a week or two ago and now he may only have days to live. I can't fathom the of idea of this happening to me or someone I love. It breaks my heart for their family. It seems I know of several people who have died recently or found out recently that they have cancer. That awful C word. I don't mean to be a downer, but this has been weighing on my mind today. This is just one way our lives are unexpected and scary. But...there is hope!

Back to the sermon...the pastor talked about how we must live life as if there is no tomorrow, because tomorrow isn't guaranteed. I am challenging you to live so that you treasure each moment. I am challenging you to be productive in each aspect of your life. I am challenging myself to be kinder, more thankful, more prayerful and more patient. Remember that today is a gift and we must live knowing that this life is short and eternity is long. We must make the most of our time here on Earth and suffer, love, laugh, share, and look forward to the awesome joy that is to come in the next life.

Those are my deep thoughts this week..what are yours?
The Farmer's Daughter 

That my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever! 
(Psalm 30:12)

It's the Small Things

So Granny Eyre informed me that is my turn to make a blog post, who'd a thunk it. Anyways my life has been a bit busy with classes, work, and church these past few weeks. I took the GRE (secretly known as the Grueling Rhino's Examination). It was interesting exam which I am not allowed to disclose much information about so I will try my best not to go into too great of detail about that part of my day. Which incase you were wondering I have had a fabulous weekend. It started around 5 oclock when all the children went home early for various reasons so I was able to shut down the classroom and leave early. Then meet up at church to eat a home cooked meal of lasagna and spaghetti, with a bit of salad and bread to go along with it. It was very scrumptious! The plan was to watch God's Not Dead, which after the third viewing can still say this is an excellent movie that I would recommend any one to watch. It was about 930 when the movie was finished but the night was still young. A group of us from my sunday school class where still awake and up for anything so of course we had to play Apples to Apples. I get too competitive with this game but I still enjoy it even if I only received one green apple card :(. I wake up Saturday morning ready to conquer this monstrous exam that will decidedly determine my future education plans eek. Granny Eyre spent the night because it was late and on her way to leave she handed me my own personal GRE ready bag filled with chocolate, mints, and Bubbles! I must say for those of you who do not know, I seriously hate taking exams of any sorts. It is not the content questions that bother me just the sheer amount of time it takes. I cannot sit still for long amounts of time like that so I tend to just rush through exams. Probably not the best practices to use. It did not help that I am a bit sick and runny noses are not conducive to taking exams either. In happier news my little friends at work have been super wonderful, exciting, and adventurous lately. We play lots of games and sing songs. I am going to teach you all some of these songs the next time we are all together especially the Farmers Daughter because I think she could use them in her classroom as well. Sometimes I get stuck on songs and just listen to them on repeat all day long. Right now that song is Jesus, Only Jesus- by Philips, Craig, and Dean. It is very good song that paints a picture of what it is like to know/have Jesus with you. As I mentioned in a really long ago post, if you have any songs that you like you should share with me because I love music! Another wonderful thing that has happened is someone in my dorm did my house duty for me this week :) I am not sure who or why but someone cleaned for me and it is very much appreciated because it gives me time to breathe. That is it for now. Peace to you all!

A Cliche Post

It is Thanksgiving Day and currently i am watching the Macy's Day Parade. i try to watch it every year when i remember to turn it on. For this post i am going to be a little bit cliche and write a list about what i am most thankful for.

1. Friends- especially you all fellow  twenty somethings.

2. My relationship with Jesus- i thank God for this everyday because without him i would be nothing.

3. My bed- it has green sheets and is quiet comfy.

4. My church family- a bunch of people who started out as strangers who are now some of the closest people i have.

5. Berea- My higher education has been an interesting journey to say the least.

6. Food- nuff said.

There are many more things i am thankful for that fit into various categories but these are the ones that stand out most to me in this present moment. A reminder as you are going about your busy days, remember the little things and big that make it possible for you to be where you are at right now. i hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!