A Dozen Girls + Snow!!!

Snow trip 2009 has come and gone, leaving in it's wake a dozen tired, red-faced girls. Our traditional trip was a bit different this year due to the fact that when we speedily made plans with only a few short days notice, all the guys were already scheduled to spend their Saturday with Mr. Filteau learning the art of plumbing. So this year it was all girls, moms, and a few dads.

On Saturday morning we all loaded up and drove to Horse Mountain, where we were happy to find lots of fresh snow. Mr. Gross led the way to an awesome slope which we never even knew was there! Upon climbing to the top we were a bit nervous; it sure looked a lot steeper from the top than it does from the bottom! After a few minutes of: "you go!", "no, you go!", I jumped off the edge with my board and was soon followed by more girls.

We decided to make a nice sled run that would be slick and fast, so Juicy and I hiked up with the rake and shovel, thinking that to start a track, we would get on a boogie board and I would steer while she sat backwards and held the rake. Bad idea! In about two seconds, we found ourselves nose first in snow. I got up laughing and looked over to find Juicy with her face and one arm buried in the snow, saying, "I'm stuck!!" She too was laughing pretty hard as I pulled her out.

We then decided that it might be better to stay on our feet while carving the run. :)

Throughout the afternoon it got slicker and faster and all the screaming girls took turns speeding down the hill. Mr. Mayer made a nice jump, which provided for some pretty good action shots and a lot of bruises. What a fun day!!!

The view from the top!!!

The Love Of God

"God is Love.
No one but God could have revealed that to the world, for men, and we all indeed, see nothing but its contradiction in our own limited world of experience. It needs but little imagination to construe the life of hundreds of this city's inhabitants into a vehement laughter at such a declaration as 'God is love.' From shattered, broken lives, from caverns of despair where fiends seem living rather than men, comes the existing contradiction to any such statement. no wonder the carnal mind, the merely intellectually cultured, consider us infatuated, mere dreamers, talking of love when murder and war and famine and lust and pestilence, and all the refinement of selfish cruelty abroad in the earth. But, oh the sublimity of the Abraham-like faith that dares to place the centre of its life and confidence and action and hope in an unseen and apparently unknown God, saying, 'God is love,' in spite of all appearances to the contrary; saying 'Though He slay me, yet I will trust in Him.' Such faith is counted to a man for righteousness.
Look back over your own history as revealed to you by grace, and you will see one central fact growing large---God is love. No matter how often your faith in such an announcement was clouded, no matter how the pain and suffering of the moment made you speak in a wrong mood, still this statement has borne its own evidence along with it most persistently---God is love. In the future, when trial and difficulties await you, do not be fearful, whatever and whoever you may lose faith in, let not this faith slip from You---God is love; whisper it not only to your heart in its hour of darkness, but here in your corner of God's earth and man's great city, live in the belief of it; preach it by your sweetened, chastened, happy life; sing it in the consecrated moments of peaceful joy, sing until all the world around you

is wrought

To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.

The world does not bid you sing, but God does.

Song is the sign of an unburdened heart; then sing your songs of love unbidden, ever rising higher and higher into fuller conception of the greatest, grandest fact on the stage of Time---God is love

But words and emotions pass, precious as their influence may be for a time, so when the duller moments come and the mind comes to require something more certain and sure to consider than memory of mere emotions and stirring sentiments---consider this revelation, the eternal fact that God is Love, not, God is loving. God and love are synonymous. Love is not an attribute of God, it is God; whatever God is, love is. If your conception of love does not agree with the justice of judgement and purity and holiness, then your idea of love is wrong. It is not love you conceive of in your mind, but some vague infinite foolishness, all tears and softness and infinite weakness."

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(an excerpt from Oswald Chambers' book The Love of God)

(more to come)

I Need A Translator

My hands do fail to understand the language of my soul

And all my great imaginings do rarely reach their goal

I am undone, I cannot speak

I need a translator.

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Oh, that my hands would learn to play

The music of my heart!

And guide my pen to demonstrate

The sweetest poet's art!

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But they cannot.

I am undone.

I need a translator.

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Oh, that my lips would better speak

The praises of my King!

And beauteous pictures in my mind

My painting brush might bring!

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But they cannot.

I am undone.

I need a translator.

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Still, what I've recieved may I ever give;

No matter how stuttered and poor.

To truly bring my offering

I need a Translator.

"Whithersoever He Goeth"

God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. (Gal. 6:14)

"They were living to themselves; self with its hopes, and promises and dreams, still had hold of them; but the Lord began to fulfill their prayers. They had asked for contrition, and had surrendered for it to be given them at any cost, and He sent them sorrow; they had asked for purity, and He sent them thrilling anguish; they had asked to be meek, and He had broken their hearts; they had asked to be dead to the world, and He slew all their living hopes; they had asked to be made like Him, and He placed them in the furnace, sitting by 'as a refiner and purifier of silver,' until they should reflect His image; they had asked to lay hold of His cross, and when He had reached it to them it lacerated their hands.

They had asked they knew not what, nor how, but He had taken them at their word, and granted the all their petitions. They were hardly willing to follow Him so far, or to draw so nigh to Him. They had upon them an awe and fear, as Jacob at Bethel, or Eliphaz in the night visions, or as the apostles when they thought that they had seen a spirit, and knew not that it was Jesus. They could almost pray Him to depart from them, or to hide His awfulness. They found it easier to obey than to suffer, to do than to give up, to bear the cross than to hang upon it. But they cannot go back, for they have come too near the unseen cross, and its virtues have pierced too deeply within them. He is fulfilling to them His promise, 'And if, I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me' (John 12:32).

But now at last their turn has come. Before, they had only heard of the mystery, but now they feel it. He has fastened on them His look of love, as He did Mary and Peter, and they can but choose to follow.

Little by little, from time to time, by flitting gleams, they mystery of His cross shines out upon them. They behold Him lifted up, they gaze on the glory which rays from the wounds of His holy passion; and as they gaze they advance, and are changed into His likeness, and as His name shines through them, for He dwells in them. They live alone with Him above, in unspeakable fellowship; willing to lack what others own (and what they might have had), and to be unlike all, so that they are only like Him.

Such are they in all ages, 'who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.'

Had they chosen for themselves, of their friends chosen for them, they would have chosen otherwise. They would have been brighter here, but less glorious in His kingdom. They would have had Lot's portion, not Abraham's. If they had halted anywhere---if God had taken off His hand and let them stray back---what would they have lost? What forfeits in resurrection?

But He stayed them up, even against themselves. Many a time their foot had well nigh slipped; but He in mercy held them up. Now, even in this life, they know that all He did was done well. It was good to suffer here, that they might reign hereafter; to bear the cross below, for they shall wear the crown above; and that not their will but His was done on them and in them."

Anonymous

Streams In The Desert, pg. 320

Art

Here are some of my recent art attempts. I have always loved watercolors,but I recently took a little drawing class and decided that pencil drawing is pretty cool too.

I never seem to find the time to just sit and draw, but once in a while I will get some burst of inspiration which usually leads to a new wall-decoration. I like to work from photographs that I have taken, which is what the following are.

Ironness vs. Mushiness

just a thought:

If "iron sharpens iron", then mud makes mud muddier.

So let's not be mud!

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Sorry if this comes a little suddenly, but it's been too long pent up and I just had to get it out.

I don't have time to explain, but that's my thought for today! Please consider... and have a nice Monday! :):):)

A Valentine

To:

my Prince, my Love, my Savior

Jesus

You are the Rose of Sharon

You are the Lily of the Valleys.

You are my Beloved and You are my Friend.

You are altogether lovely.

You are fairer than the sons of men.

Grace is poured upon Your lips.

Therefore God has blessed You forever.

I am Yours and You are mine.

Freely will I forget my own people,

yea, my father's house also,

To be Yours alone.

Because You are my Lord, I will worship You.

I will make Your name to be remembered in all generations;

Therefore the people shall praise You forever and ever.

I love You.

Always and forever,

Your princess

A New Year

Faithful:adj 1 firm adherence to whatever one is bound to by duty or promise

syn allegiant, ardent, constant, loyal, resolute, steadfast, true...

rel dependable, reliable, trustworthy, affectionate, devoted, loving...

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If there is anything that God has been this past year, this is it. And though this definition is beautiful and I love it, I believe that the traits of God cannot be fully defined by man. When I let human definitions shape God's ways my understanding always stops short, but when I allow Him to define what He Is, there is always more. I love it.

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This past year has been amazing. I have learned so much, but through it all He constantly brings me to my knees because of how much I don't know. This year has been very much of a beginning for me. When I set out in Him, at every turn His reply was the same: "This is only the beginning; it does not stop here." Whether it be worship, prayer, communion, or anything else, "It is only the beginning; don't stop."

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As a new year begins, my thoughts are many and varied- but there is one thing that I know: God is Faithful. And I think that we need to pursue Him further, beyond human definitions, beyond human understanding, and allow Him to be more. He is ready, willing, and wanting to be to us all that He claims to be- we just need to let Him. He IS everything He claims to be, but so many times we stop short in our own finite understanding.

I love the way Eric Ludy states it:

"Don't pitch your tent"

That is exactly it; let us not pitch our tent in the wilderness or anywhere else for that matter, but let us press on the the fullness! Did you know that there is more? No, there is not more that we need to be saved---Jesus is all that we need to be saved, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."--- but you see, it is the grace that allows for more. There is more of Him; that is why we press on.

"I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" -Phil. 3:14

If we are going to be called upward to be with Him, why do we press on? Why don't we just sit here and wait? I mean, we are "saved" man-we don't need anything else, just sit tight and be cool. We're going to heaven!

We press on because there is more to be attained while we are here on earth; He paid the price so that His kingdom could come to earth! The mystery was of His kingdom: "Christ in you, the hope of glory."

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As this new year begins, it seems like it is going to be pretty crazy. So many things are happening around the world, Bible prophecies are being fulfilled, and to the world it only brings one thing: fear. They desperately search for security in the things we know are passing. The definition above is exactly what they so desperately want: something trustworthy, true, reliable, devoted, constant...

But we have the One who is faithful; our God is "the One who is holy, the One who is true."

Therefore, for us the future should only bring greater hope, greater joy, and greater peace... for we stand on the Rock.

"The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tents of the righteous;The right hand of the LORD does valiantly.The right hand of the LORD is exalted;The right hand of the LORD does valiantly.I shall not die, but live,And declare the works of the LORD."

-Psalm 118:16-17

"'Fear not, for I am with you;Be not dismayed, for I am your God.I will strengthen you.Yes, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.'"-Isaiah 41:10

"Through God we will do valiantly, for it is He who shall tread down our enemies."-Psalm 60:12

"Blessed are those who dwell in Your house; They will still be praising You. Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, whose heart is set on pilgrimage."-Psalm 84:5-6

"Truly my soul silently waits for God;from Him comes my salvation; He is my defense;I shall not be greatly moved." -Psalm 62:1-2

"Those who trust in the LORD Are like Mount Zion,Which cannot be moved, but abides forever."-Psalm 125:1

"Have you not known?"

-Isaiah 40

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Well, I could keep going on and on, but I better stop now. Oh, and I'm going to put up this week's song a day early, because it goes along with all of this wonderfully. (It is a beautiful song.)

Have a happy New Year everyone!!!