The Best Days in History

Christmas is a comin and the goose is getting fat!  I can't believe it is almost here.  Another year has gone by and so much has changed.  For the first time in my 22 years of living I will not be going home the week before Christmas and I will certainly not be enjoying a 3 week break from school.  Yep that is right folks...I am an adult.  UGH!

For the first time in my life I sent Christmas cards out to everyone.  Over the Thanksgiving Holiday I got my mom to take a picture of me and Emmett.  It turned out so cute and everyone that I sent them to has told me how great they were.  Sending Christmas cards is great but I will tell you that receiving Christmas cards is even better.  We are up to about 5 cards now and every time I get one I feel more at home and more grown up.  It is a great feeling.

This Christmas I will be traveling home on Christmas Eve.  That part of the Holidays is still new to me.  I have always been home about a week or so before Christmas and I have certainly never had to pre-purchase and pre-wrap all of my Christmas presents.  I even bought my FIRST role of Christmas wrapping paper.  Do you know how difficult it was to pick out paper?  There are so many to choose from.  How is a person supposed to pick their favorite?  Then you have to remember to get name tags as well as tape and boxes.  It is a nightmare to have to remember all of this stuff.  That is why I was so lucky to have my mom at home with me every year so that I could just go and steal her stuff. : )

But never-the-less I will be filling my truck with packages, my dog and a wonderful family of 3.  I have the pleasure of inviting one of my friends and her 2 kids to come home with me for Christmas.  I am so excited to get to open up my home to them and show them all around my hometown.  My parents are very excited and we have so much planned.  The car ride will be interesting since my 80lb German Shepherd usually insists on taking up the entire back seat but we will make it work.

I am so blessed this Christmas Season.  I have a wonderful job, wonderful family, wonderful friends and a wonderful church home.  I could not ask for anything more this year.  God has truly poured out His blessings on my life and I am so excited to see what will be in store for 2012.

Now to leave you with a little Christmas Cheer.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLfetb55O8o

I have been working at NORTHchurch for almost a month now and I can't even begin to tell you the journey I have been on.  God has given and He has taken away but He has started molding me into the woman that He wants me to be.  This process has been painful but SO rewarding.  I am so excited to see what God has in store for me now.

Last thursday our staff had the pleasure of being taught coaching skills by Sam Farina.  The event lasted all day and I learned so much from it.  Not only did I learn how to properly "coach" someone but I also figured some things out about myself.  We had the opportunity to coach each other and that was very beneficial to me.

At the end of the day we went into a room where there were several pictures laid on tables.  We were told to pick two.  The first picture was to represent where we believed God saw us on the inside.  The second picture was supposed to represent where we thought God wanted to see us in a year.  I walked into this room with a thought about how I saw myself.  I pictured myself as frustrated and a mess but then God decided to show me other pictures.

The first picture that caught my eye was this...
When I saw this picture I chuckled a little because I thought it was funny but then I took a closer look.  I realized that this is exactly how God saw me.  I am His little girl who is trying to do things by herself.  He looks at me with excitement because He knows that I am going to do great things but He also knows that I am going to need His help.

I feel like I am just getting started in ministry without my training wheels.  I have my knee pads and elbow pads on to protect me from those fears of failure that I may encounter along the way and my Daddy is holding the back of my bicycle steady as I pedal forward on my journey.  My face is filled with excitement for the future ride but I am also confident that if anything happens along the way, my Daddy will be there to pick me up.

The second picture that I picked up was much easier to choose...
NO! I do not plan on having a child by this time next year...but I do plan on having something small that I am in charge of.  That is what this picture means to me.  God wants me to start something and be nurturing it this time next year.  This could mean that I start something at my church like a food pantry or it could mean that I start mentoring someone.  No matter what it is I feel that God wants me to take one of my many ideas and actually do it.

There are several things that I need to do in order to start this process.  One thing I need is a mentor.  I need to find someone that I can share all of my ideas with and we can narrow it down to one or two really good ideas and get started.  I also need to keep growing in Christ so that I will be able to understand and hear what God is speaking to me.  I also can't succumb to my fears of failure.  I have to just see it through and if God wants me to succeed then I will.

These pictures are strange to look at now especially the one for the future but I am very excited to see where I will be in one year.  I have a lot to do in a short amount of time so I guess that means I better get started!

Ok so reason #1 why being an adult sucks.  It is those lovely letters that you get in the mail.  Some people like to call them bills.  I would rather call them "fun sucking monsters."  It seems that every time you get a little extra money SOMETHING always comes up.

For example, yesterday I received my first paycheck from my full time job.  I was really excited.  My bank account had not seen those kind of numbers in a long time.  I had all these plans for what I could do with that money.  I could save some, use some and use some more on fun things that I had been wanting.  That was the child inside me saying "you are practically Bill Gates right now...go to the mall!" NO!  I had to resist because I am now...an adult. yuck!

So here is what I did.  I sat down and figured out all of the bills that I have.  It came to a whopping total of 410.00 for the month.  eeek!  So I looked at my pay check.  Immediately took out my tithe. (notice you take out your tithe BEFORE you pay bills!) Then I started to pay them.  I noticed that those Washington's were dropping like flies!  Phone bill...check, gas bill...check, utility bill...check, rent...double check, cox...check, new tires...che...UMM SAY WHAT?????  NEW TIRES?????  Yep that is right folks.  New tires....

Just one more thing added to the list of expenses right?  I have been needing new tires for a while now and ever since I had my flat the urgency has gotten higher.  So yesterday I shopped around, let the tire salesman give me there 700.00 estimates, and settled for the off brand set of tires for a whopping 522.10!  "Welcome to adult hood Callie, we have been waiting for you."  When I handed over my credit card I felt like someone had punched me in the gut and taken my first born.  I wanted to curl up into a ball and sink into the pitch black nothingness of my newly drained bank account.

Needless to say I am still recovering from that loss.  But today my day gets a bit brighter because I have put aside a little money and I am going on a women's staff shopping trip tonight to have the equivalent of Clint and Stacey tell me what not to wear.  It is going to be so much fun and the best part is that I get to let the little kid inside of me out for a few hours.  WHOOPEE!!!!!!!!!!!

I have been pondering a question for a while now. "Do you think you intimidate guys because you are so independent?"  My answer is...yes.  However I don't see it as the kind of independence that is like owning my own home or making my own dinner.  I see it as a spiritual independence.

Now I know that most people think that women are supposed to be much more spiritual than men.  Well that is not how I see it.  In the Bible it is clear that women are supposed to submit to their husbands.  "As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything." Ephesians 5:24 To me this means that I need to be led by my husband spiritually.

So if I am to be led by my husband spiritually that means that I need to find a guy that will be so intertwined with God that my heart gets tangled up along with him.  How awesome would that be to just be a heart tangled mess with my husband and God.  Sounds like a plan!  There is only one problem....we have trained our men to not be emotional and show their passion for God.  GREAT!  So now I have to look even harder to find him under society.

Another problem is the fact that I am growing spiritually everyday.  God is rocking my world right now with blessings.  I can't even imagine turning around and going back to who I used to be.  So not only do I have to search for a guy that will show his passion but now he has to have more passion than I have...and I am pretty passionate.

My goal is to become the Proverbs 31 women.

 10Who can find a virtuous and capable wife?
      She is more precious than rubies.
 ¹¹ Her husband can trust her,
      and she will greatly enrich his life.
 ¹² She brings him good, not harm,
      all the days of her life.

I don't know about anybody else but this phrase scares me.  The thought of only having a short amount of time to save the world makes me want to curl up into a ball and scream.  Our world is filled with so many evil things and our people are falling into the Devil's trap every day.  It makes my heart ache whenever I look at the world through the eyes of God.  When I look at the hungry and the homeless I wonder how we got to this point in our world?

I wonder what would happen if we took all of the money spent on the lottery or all of the money in the lottery and gave it to people in Africa who have now started to number their children instead of giving them a name because the loss of a child is so common.  We know about all the problems in the world and we have the abilities to fix them but we don't.  Why are we so selfish when it comes to money?  Americans have not felt the stabs of hunger pains that many people in the world have.  Americans have to decide between vitamin water or VOS water instead of having to walk 3 miles to a waste filled watering hole.  I know that we have our fair share of problems and pain in America but it will never add up to the problems of other countries.  We are so blessed to live here however we still manage to find something to complain about.

I have recently been blessed to work at a wonderful church who has a heart for people but I am beginning to realize that you can't help everyone and that is one of the hardest lessons that I will ever have to learn.  I see commercials advertising child sponsorship all the time and wish that I could devote my entire paycheck to the cause.  I am starting to learn this difficult lesson that I must be responsible with what God has given me but I am constantly frustrated with my overwhelming amount of people that I can help and my dwindling amount of resources.  I really wish that I could win the lottery and then spend it all on things that we really should be spending it on.

I am just a young girl getting started in ministry and trying to figure out who I can help.  I realize that I can't save the entire world but I promise that I will try my hardest to save as many as I can.