I betcha all thought I was still waiting for Stephnette and Tammy

It's such a bummer to be so busy that I don't get to blogging. I realized today that it's coming up on my 2 yr. anniversary of blogging. WOW and I've never made my blog all fun like everyone else. O well I'm pretty boring anyway. SO let's catch up.

I did make it to retreat. Now keep in mind that Debbie Alsdorf is one of my all time favorite Bible teachers. In fact she really is one of 5 that I will actually listen to any chance I get. If you are not familiar with her then you need to ck her out or better yet book her for your retreats. I promise you will not be disappointed. Retreat for me was really great. I had 2 defining moments that filled me to overflowing.
1. What I believe when something happens will determine how I walk through it.
2. I am blessed beyond measure to be an 'everyday vessel' - nothing special just someone who loves Jesus and that I love to serve Him anyway I can. To hear Debbie put words to my heart was so rich for me.
Debbie also talked alot about finding the "sparkle" in everything. This was so great because ever since I walked along side my sweet Donna in those last couple of months I learned this most valuable lesson of looking for Jesus everyday. It's like a treasure hunt. Everyday I find Him and everyday my heart smiles and is filled with so much love, joy, and hope. So when Debbie was talking about the 'sparkle' i so got what she was saying.

GLASSES GLASSES GLASSES - yes 3 times for 3 pair. Aaron and I are now both 4-eyes. this is a long story but it would only lead me to complain about an incompetent eye Dr. and I need to be more focused on praying for her salvation then in her horrible bedside manners.

School is soon to be over!!!!! can I get a big loud HALLELUJIA on this one. We are in the home stretch and soon it will be summer break. So let's see Aaron's greatest accomplishment this school year, he memorized 76 Bible verses. Sure he learned math, language arts, science, history but WOW 76 verses is pretty stinkin impressive.

MY Heart Issue: let's see if i can summarize this. about 9 weeks ago now I had a hard racing heart for about 6 hours one night. Very scary. Through that night I prayed / read the Word alot. Begging God to speak to me and help me in this awful feeling that I was having. He began to show me my sin. How I have dishonored His Temple, my body eating things I know my body is allergic to and with that carrying to much weight / being foggy headed all the time / felling chronically tired / just basically feeling all around yucky all the time. Then as I was in His Word I started so see how much I have become a person that worries and is stressed out. This whole season that our country is in and knowing that things will never get better that we are in those last days before we deny Israel and become a nation greatly judged by our God, really started to freak me out. Instead of finding hope in Jesus knowing that we are living in the prophesy of the end I was instead terrified. Secret sin. Praising God with my mouth over seeing the end in sight but terrified as to the kind of life we will be soon living. Terrified that my son is so ill-equipped to live in a socialism country that will be at war with it's self once again. Where we will really begin to know real persecution for our faith. I was and in some ways still am terrified. Sure I can block it out and keep myself so distracted with other things but it was always there nagging me. So that night I began to break, to sob before my Lord as I realized I was living in such gross sin. I made commitments to the Lord that night. My life changed that night. how I would like to say that is the end of the story well it's not. weeks later after my heart was 70% better I ended up in the ER. After many test and many more test to be done by my Dr. we still can not see that there is anything wrong with my physical heart. Most would be thankful for that but somehow for me it is bitter sweet. You see if this is all my spiritual heart then this means I am living in sin still. This is a hard thing for me to wrap my mind around. It's just as bad as having to have heart surgery especially when i really am not sure what I am doing. I know in time God will show me but right now were I stand I am struggling with this.

Missing Donna - so this is where I really only talk about this. well I'm not gonna there really just isn't any words right now. I am just sad -sad alot - sad through the smiles and laughter just sad. Some people don't understand why I don't talk about it but what they just don't seem to understand is I don't know what to say about it. I'm just really sad, missing her like crazy. In a couple of weeks it will be the anniversary of Peggy passing away and I've been thinking so much about her too. so this is me missing my 2 friends and being sad in that hidden part of my heart that just doesn't know how to come to the surface. How lucky they are to be in Heaven with my Jesus where there is no sadness, no pain - but the whole in my life still isn't closed up with Jesus yet and with that I'm JUST SAD!

EXODUS STUDY - this one has been fantastic. We are studying the life of Moses and talk about the perfect book to go through while living in the day that we are under our govt. I'm gonna post separately some of the applications that I have been getting since I'm sure by now I have lost most of the readers on this one.

So there it is the ups and downs of my life over the past while. But the greatest thing ever is that the God of the Universe loves me like crazy - oooooo that reminds me I need to post about the book I just read. Crazy Love. - look for that later - trust me you will want to know about this book.

always remember.......
keep chasing righteousness!!!