This link was post by our pastor, thought it was pretty thought provoking and awesome!
COMPLETING AND REMEMBERING 2010
Review the list of all completed projects:
What was your biggest triumph in 2010?
Beating Leavenworth and winning WVSSL Championships!
What was the smartest decision you made in 2010?
Breaking off an unhealthy relationship.
What one word best sums up and describes your 2010 experience?
forgiven.
What was the greatest lesson you learned in 2010?
Once again, who my true friends are.
What was the most loving service you performed in 2010?
Helping friends out (moving, wedding, etc.) offering my service in childcare at church.
What is your biggest piece of unfinished business in 2010?
Reliv.
What are you most happy about completing in 2010?
Gearing up for Africa.
Who were the three people that had the greatest impact on your life in 2010?
Jenny Leigh, Courtney, and Ryan Jacob.
What was the biggest risk you took in 2010?
Giving my heart to someone who ripped it apart.
What was the biggest surprise in 2010?
The amount of my so-called "friends" who turned their backs on me.
What important relationship improved the most in 2010?
Jenny Leigh.
What compliment would you liked to have received in 2010?
You are a Godly Woman.
What compliment would you liked to have given in 2010?
You've always been there for me.
What else do you need to do or say to be complete with 2010?
God is faithful!
CREATING THE NEW YEAR
What would you like to be your biggest triumph in 2011?
Helping alot of people with great nutrition and income.
What advice would you like to give yourself in 2011?
I don't know what 2011 holds, but I know who holds 2011...God is in control!
What is the major effort you are planning to improve your financial results in 2011?
Set and write down goals for advancing my business!
What would you be most happy about completing in 2011?
Nourishing our world.
What major indulgence are you willing to experience in 2011?
Backpacking trips!
What would you most like to change about yourself in 2011?
Be strong.
What are you looking forward to learning in 2011?
To be on mission with the Gospel daily. Applying the Gospel to every decision.
What do you think your biggest risk will be in 2011?
Investing in relationships.
What about your work, are you most committed to changing and improving in 2011?
Being a leader.
What is one as yet undeveloped talent you are willing to explore in 2011?
Backpacking in the mountains.
What brings you the most joy and how are you going to do or have more of that in 2011?
Swing dancing! Find me a good partner bahaha ;)
Who or what, other than yourself, are you most committed to loving and serving in 2011?
Pouring out my love to disease-infected orphans in Africa and to the kids on swim team.
What one word would you like to have as your theme in 2011?
Joy!
Showing posts with label Holiday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Holiday. Show all posts
1.08.2011
7.03.2010
Happy 4th!!!
♫ ♪ ♪ "I thank God for my life, For the stars and stripes, May freedom
forever fly, let it ring. Salute the ones who died, And the ones
that gave their lives, So we don’t have to sacrifice, All the things
we love..." ♪ ♪
like our Chicken Fried
:D
forever fly, let it ring. Salute the ones who died, And the ones
that gave their lives, So we don’t have to sacrifice, All the things
we love..." ♪ ♪
like our Chicken Fried
:D
12.15.2008
Home
Wow, I am so overwhelmingly full of joy to be home! On Friday me and my cousin Samantha drove over to Sioux Falls to stay the night since I had an early flight. I didn't sleep a wink. we didn't get to bed until almost 2 and had to get up at 5. I was so excited to go home and nervous about flying that didn't sleep well.
I hate flying. The last time I did was 3 or 4 years ago. So I kinda had forgotten, but I know I don't like it! I had to get n 3 planes on Saturday to get home. It was stressful and it got worse for my last fl light from Seattle to Wenatchee. It was this small airplane...so I was like already freaking out! I talked to m parents when I could throughout the day I knew that they and my friends were praying for me. My dad told me they served complimentary wine on this last flight and to have some to relax me. So I did and was doing better. We were seriously almost to Wenatchee when the pilot's voice spoke over the loudspeaker and said we were turning around to go back to Seattle. The landing gear door had open and slammed shut during our flight and that was abnormal. Everything else was fine, but as a safety precaution it would be better to land on a longer runway that wasn't covered with snow so we turned back. I almost lost it there, so close to home and I was fading fast from all the stress of flying! I hate it. Got on another plane and I just sat the whole way with my eyes closed and didn't open them until we landed!
My welcoming party consisted of all my 8 wonderful siblings and 3 of my other friends! I was so overwhelmed with emotion I was like shaking for a full 3 minutes and had to sit down! I was home! And my wonderful family was waiting for me to get home...had to a little longer because of the plane turning back.
Went to church this morning then got went and cut down our Christmas tree! It is the sweetest tree ever. I found it and it was exactly what I pictured! Perfect. It is a little taller then me and the branches are nice and even,y distributed all around it...i love it!
I am so happy to be home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It really feel like I never left! It will be hard to leave again in 3 weeks, but I don't want to think about and will make the most of every minute I have while here!
It also helps me alot to be home after everything that happened with people in SD. I have amazing friends here who love me and are so understanding, I can trust them!
I have to do a little work with my relationship with Kristen though...there has been a little drifting apart since i've been gone.
Okay I am going to sleep now...plan to bake an apple pie tomorrow :)
I hate flying. The last time I did was 3 or 4 years ago. So I kinda had forgotten, but I know I don't like it! I had to get n 3 planes on Saturday to get home. It was stressful and it got worse for my last fl light from Seattle to Wenatchee. It was this small airplane...so I was like already freaking out! I talked to m parents when I could throughout the day I knew that they and my friends were praying for me. My dad told me they served complimentary wine on this last flight and to have some to relax me. So I did and was doing better. We were seriously almost to Wenatchee when the pilot's voice spoke over the loudspeaker and said we were turning around to go back to Seattle. The landing gear door had open and slammed shut during our flight and that was abnormal. Everything else was fine, but as a safety precaution it would be better to land on a longer runway that wasn't covered with snow so we turned back. I almost lost it there, so close to home and I was fading fast from all the stress of flying! I hate it. Got on another plane and I just sat the whole way with my eyes closed and didn't open them until we landed!
My welcoming party consisted of all my 8 wonderful siblings and 3 of my other friends! I was so overwhelmed with emotion I was like shaking for a full 3 minutes and had to sit down! I was home! And my wonderful family was waiting for me to get home...had to a little longer because of the plane turning back.
Went to church this morning then got went and cut down our Christmas tree! It is the sweetest tree ever. I found it and it was exactly what I pictured! Perfect. It is a little taller then me and the branches are nice and even,y distributed all around it...i love it!
I am so happy to be home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It really feel like I never left! It will be hard to leave again in 3 weeks, but I don't want to think about and will make the most of every minute I have while here!
It also helps me alot to be home after everything that happened with people in SD. I have amazing friends here who love me and are so understanding, I can trust them!
I have to do a little work with my relationship with Kristen though...there has been a little drifting apart since i've been gone.
Okay I am going to sleep now...plan to bake an apple pie tomorrow :)
11.26.2007
Thinking about my Jesus
Terry read this story at Fike Club...then on Thanksgiving I read it to my family. I still can't read it without getting emotional every time. How can someone be strong enough to do this!?! I am now trying hard, and it is my desire, to think about my Jesus...and how He has been oh so good to me!
Mabel's Story
It can be helpful to see how God brings about transformation in the lives of ordinary people, so I would like to introduce you to a friend of a friend of mine. Her name is Mabel. This is what my friend, Tom Schmidt, wrote:
“The state-run convalescent hospital is not a pleasant place. It is large, understaffed, and overfilled with senile and helpless and lonely people who are waiting to die. On the brightest of days it seems dark inside, and it smells of sickness and stale urine. I went there once or twice a week for four years, but I never wanted to go there, and I always left with a sense of relief. It is not the kind of place one gets used to.
“On this particular day I was walking in a hallway that I had not visited before, looking in vain for a few who were alive enough to receive a flower and a few words of encouragement. This hallway seemed to contain some of the worst cases, strapped onto carts or into wheelchairs and looking completely helpless.
“As I neared the end of this hallway, I saw an old woman strapped up in a wheelchair. Her face was an absolute horror. The empty stare and white pupils of her eyes told me that she was blind. The large hearing aid over one ear told me that she was almost deaf. One side of her face was being eaten by cancer. There was a discolored and running sore covering part of one cheek, and it had pushed her nose to one side, dropped one eye, and distorted her jaw so that what should have been the corner of her mouth was the bottom of her mouth. As a consequence, she drooled constantly. I was told later that when new nurses arrived, the supervisors would send them to feed this woman, thinking that if they could stand this sight they could stand anything in the building. I also learned later that this woman was eighty-nine years old and that she had been here, bedridden, blind, nearly deaf, and alone, for twenty-five years. This was Mabel.
“I don’t know why I spoke to her—she looked less likely to respond than most of the people I saw in that hallway. But I put a flower in her hand and said, ‘Here is a flower for you. Happy Mother’s Day.’ She held the flower up to her face and tried to smell it, and then she spoke. And much to my surprise, her words, although somewhat garbled because of her deformity, were obviously produced by a clear mind. She said, ‘Thank you. It’s lovely. But can I give it to someone else? I can’t see it, you know, I’m blind.’
“I said, ‘Of course,’ and I pushed her in her chair back down the hallway to a place where I thought I could find some alert patients. I found one, and I stopped the chair. Mabel held out the flower and said, ‘Here, this is from Jesus.’
“That was when it began to dawn on me that this was not an ordinary human being. Later I wheeled her back to her room and learned more about her history. She had grown up on a small farm that she managed with only her mother until her mother died. Then she ran the farm alone until 1950 when her blindness and sickness sent her to the convalescent hospital. For twenty-five years she got weaker and sicker, with constant headaches, backaches, and stomachaches, and then the cancer came too. Her three roommates were all human vegetables who screamed occasionally but never talked. They often soiled their bedclothes, and because the hospital was understaffed, especially on Sundays when I usually visited, the stench was often overpowering.
“Mabel and I became friends over the next few weeks, and I went to see her once or twice a week for the next three years. Her first words to me were usually an offer of hard candy from a tissue box near her bed. Some days I would read to her from the Bible, and often when I would pause she would continue reciting the passage from memory, word-for-word. On other days I would take a book of hymns and sing with her, and she would know all the words of the old songs. For Mabel, these were not merely exercises in memory. She would often stop in mid-hymn and make a brief comment about lyrics she considered particularly relevant to her own situation. I never heard her speak of loneliness or pain except in the stress she placed on certain lines in certain hymns.
“It was not many weeks before I turned from a sense that I was being helpful to a sense of wonder, and I would go to her with a pen and paper to write down the things she would say. . . .
“During one hectic week of final exams I was frustrated because my mind seemed to be pulled in ten directions at once with all of the things that I had to think about. The question occurred to me,
‘What does Mabel have to think about—hour after hour, day after day, week after week, not even able to know if it’s day or night?’ So I went to her and asked, ‘Mabel, what do you think about when you lie here?’
“And she said, ‘I think about my Jesus.’
“I sat there, and thought for a moment about the difficulty, for me, of thinking about Jesus for even five minutes, and I asked, ‘What do you think about Jesus?’ She replied slowly and deliberately as I wrote . . . : I think about how good he’s been to me. He’s been awfully good to me in my life, you know. . . . I’m one of those kind who’s mostly satisfied. . . . Lots of folks wouldn’t care much for what I think. Lots of folks would think I’m kind of oldfashioned. But I don’t care. I’d rather have Jesus. He’s all the world to me.
“And then Mabel began to sing an old hymn:
Jesus is all the world to me,
My life, my joy, my all.
He is my strength from day to day,
Without him I would fall.
When I am sad, to him I go,
No other one can cheer me so.
When I am sad He makes me glad.
He’s my friend.
“This is not fiction. Incredible as it may seem, a human being really lived like this. I know. I knew her. How could she do it? Seconds ticked and minutes crawled, and so did days and weeks and months and years of pain without human company and without an explanation of why it was all happening—and she lay there and sang hymns. How could she do it?
“The answer, I think, is that Mabel had something that you and I don’t have much of. She had power. Lying there in that bed, unable to move, unable to see, unable to hear, unable to talk to anyone, she had incredible power.”
Here was an ordinary human being who received supernatural power to do extraordinary things. Her entire life consisted of following Jesus as best she could in her situation: patient endurance of suffering, solitude, prayer, meditation on Scripture, worship, fellowship when it was possible, giving when she had a flower or a piece of candy to offer.
Imagine being in her condition and saying, “I think about how good he’s been to me. He’s been awfully good to me in my life, you know. . . . I’m one of those kind who’s mostly satisfied.” This is the Twenty-third Psalm come to life: “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.”
For anyone who really saw Mabel—who was willing to “turn aside”—a hospital bed became a burning bush; a place where this ordinary and pain-filled world was visited by the presence of God. When others saw the life in that hospital bed, they wanted to take off their shoes. The lid was off the terrarium. Then the turn came, with a catch of the breath, and a beating of the heart, and tears. They were standing on holy ground.
Do you believe such a life is possible for an ordinary human being? Do you believe it is possible for you? This is promised in the gospel—the Good News proclaimed by Jesus: “The kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” The good news as Jesus preached it is that now it is possible for ordinary men and women to live in the presence and under the power of God. The good news as Jesus preached it is not about the minimal entrance requirements for getting into heaven when you die. It is about the glorious redemption of human life—your life.
Mabel's Story
It can be helpful to see how God brings about transformation in the lives of ordinary people, so I would like to introduce you to a friend of a friend of mine. Her name is Mabel. This is what my friend, Tom Schmidt, wrote:
“The state-run convalescent hospital is not a pleasant place. It is large, understaffed, and overfilled with senile and helpless and lonely people who are waiting to die. On the brightest of days it seems dark inside, and it smells of sickness and stale urine. I went there once or twice a week for four years, but I never wanted to go there, and I always left with a sense of relief. It is not the kind of place one gets used to.
“On this particular day I was walking in a hallway that I had not visited before, looking in vain for a few who were alive enough to receive a flower and a few words of encouragement. This hallway seemed to contain some of the worst cases, strapped onto carts or into wheelchairs and looking completely helpless.
“As I neared the end of this hallway, I saw an old woman strapped up in a wheelchair. Her face was an absolute horror. The empty stare and white pupils of her eyes told me that she was blind. The large hearing aid over one ear told me that she was almost deaf. One side of her face was being eaten by cancer. There was a discolored and running sore covering part of one cheek, and it had pushed her nose to one side, dropped one eye, and distorted her jaw so that what should have been the corner of her mouth was the bottom of her mouth. As a consequence, she drooled constantly. I was told later that when new nurses arrived, the supervisors would send them to feed this woman, thinking that if they could stand this sight they could stand anything in the building. I also learned later that this woman was eighty-nine years old and that she had been here, bedridden, blind, nearly deaf, and alone, for twenty-five years. This was Mabel.
“I don’t know why I spoke to her—she looked less likely to respond than most of the people I saw in that hallway. But I put a flower in her hand and said, ‘Here is a flower for you. Happy Mother’s Day.’ She held the flower up to her face and tried to smell it, and then she spoke. And much to my surprise, her words, although somewhat garbled because of her deformity, were obviously produced by a clear mind. She said, ‘Thank you. It’s lovely. But can I give it to someone else? I can’t see it, you know, I’m blind.’
“I said, ‘Of course,’ and I pushed her in her chair back down the hallway to a place where I thought I could find some alert patients. I found one, and I stopped the chair. Mabel held out the flower and said, ‘Here, this is from Jesus.’
“That was when it began to dawn on me that this was not an ordinary human being. Later I wheeled her back to her room and learned more about her history. She had grown up on a small farm that she managed with only her mother until her mother died. Then she ran the farm alone until 1950 when her blindness and sickness sent her to the convalescent hospital. For twenty-five years she got weaker and sicker, with constant headaches, backaches, and stomachaches, and then the cancer came too. Her three roommates were all human vegetables who screamed occasionally but never talked. They often soiled their bedclothes, and because the hospital was understaffed, especially on Sundays when I usually visited, the stench was often overpowering.
“Mabel and I became friends over the next few weeks, and I went to see her once or twice a week for the next three years. Her first words to me were usually an offer of hard candy from a tissue box near her bed. Some days I would read to her from the Bible, and often when I would pause she would continue reciting the passage from memory, word-for-word. On other days I would take a book of hymns and sing with her, and she would know all the words of the old songs. For Mabel, these were not merely exercises in memory. She would often stop in mid-hymn and make a brief comment about lyrics she considered particularly relevant to her own situation. I never heard her speak of loneliness or pain except in the stress she placed on certain lines in certain hymns.
“It was not many weeks before I turned from a sense that I was being helpful to a sense of wonder, and I would go to her with a pen and paper to write down the things she would say. . . .
“During one hectic week of final exams I was frustrated because my mind seemed to be pulled in ten directions at once with all of the things that I had to think about. The question occurred to me,
‘What does Mabel have to think about—hour after hour, day after day, week after week, not even able to know if it’s day or night?’ So I went to her and asked, ‘Mabel, what do you think about when you lie here?’
“And she said, ‘I think about my Jesus.’
“I sat there, and thought for a moment about the difficulty, for me, of thinking about Jesus for even five minutes, and I asked, ‘What do you think about Jesus?’ She replied slowly and deliberately as I wrote . . . : I think about how good he’s been to me. He’s been awfully good to me in my life, you know. . . . I’m one of those kind who’s mostly satisfied. . . . Lots of folks wouldn’t care much for what I think. Lots of folks would think I’m kind of oldfashioned. But I don’t care. I’d rather have Jesus. He’s all the world to me.
“And then Mabel began to sing an old hymn:
Jesus is all the world to me,
My life, my joy, my all.
He is my strength from day to day,
Without him I would fall.
When I am sad, to him I go,
No other one can cheer me so.
When I am sad He makes me glad.
He’s my friend.
“This is not fiction. Incredible as it may seem, a human being really lived like this. I know. I knew her. How could she do it? Seconds ticked and minutes crawled, and so did days and weeks and months and years of pain without human company and without an explanation of why it was all happening—and she lay there and sang hymns. How could she do it?
“The answer, I think, is that Mabel had something that you and I don’t have much of. She had power. Lying there in that bed, unable to move, unable to see, unable to hear, unable to talk to anyone, she had incredible power.”
Here was an ordinary human being who received supernatural power to do extraordinary things. Her entire life consisted of following Jesus as best she could in her situation: patient endurance of suffering, solitude, prayer, meditation on Scripture, worship, fellowship when it was possible, giving when she had a flower or a piece of candy to offer.
Imagine being in her condition and saying, “I think about how good he’s been to me. He’s been awfully good to me in my life, you know. . . . I’m one of those kind who’s mostly satisfied.” This is the Twenty-third Psalm come to life: “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.”
For anyone who really saw Mabel—who was willing to “turn aside”—a hospital bed became a burning bush; a place where this ordinary and pain-filled world was visited by the presence of God. When others saw the life in that hospital bed, they wanted to take off their shoes. The lid was off the terrarium. Then the turn came, with a catch of the breath, and a beating of the heart, and tears. They were standing on holy ground.
Do you believe such a life is possible for an ordinary human being? Do you believe it is possible for you? This is promised in the gospel—the Good News proclaimed by Jesus: “The kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” The good news as Jesus preached it is that now it is possible for ordinary men and women to live in the presence and under the power of God. The good news as Jesus preached it is not about the minimal entrance requirements for getting into heaven when you die. It is about the glorious redemption of human life—your life.
2.14.2007
The Greatest Valentine!
For God so loVed the world
that He gAve His
onLy
bEgotten
SoN
That whoever
belIeves in Him shall
Not perish but have
evErlasting life.
What do the red letters spell?
that He gAve His
onLy
bEgotten
SoN
That whoever
belIeves in Him shall
Not perish but have
evErlasting life.
What do the red letters spell?
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