All About Josh

This weekend, for us, is all about Josh.  His birthday is Monday, so this is his birthday weekend.  We started something a long time ago that has now become a tradition.  The family member who is having the birthday, gets to choose most of what we do for the weekend.  We will typically eat out a couple of times, and they get to choose the location.  So Josh has planned his weekend.


Tonight we ate at Subway, which is one of his favorites.  Tomorrow he is having a friend over, and then later in the day he wants his family (grandparents) to come over and help celebrate his day.  Sunday, he's getting baptized.  He thinks it will be neat getting baptized this close to his birthday, and I agree.  I'm thrilled to both hear, and witness how excited he is about being baptized.  His teacher said that he has been talking about it at school.  And I've also heard him mention it to several people.  As I wrote in a previous post, it is so much fun walking this walk with him.  We are so thankful that God blessed us with his life, and thankful that the Lord has invited us to walk through life with HIM.

Miss Anything Else, but Don't Miss My Voice

Our eight year old son, Joshua, wants to be baptized.  He initiated it.  He has set the date. He is telling people about it, and he's been talking about it a lot.

What I love most about Him talking about it, is that when he refers to it, He does it mostly from a "relational" stand point.

Last night, before bed, He was talking about hearing God's voice.  He brought that up, not me.  He said from His little eight year old heart and mind something to the effect of "I think I'll have more conversations with God once I get baptized."  He then said, "I think that sometimes during the day, I'll just stop to listen."  Then He followed that up with,  "How will I know if I'm hearing His voice in my head, or if it's just my thoughts?"

I thought to myself, "Great thoughts, and great question."  I told him that the more He gets to know Jesus, the easier it will be to recognize His voice.  I also told Him that God would never say anything that would go against the Bible, like He probably would never tell you to go hit your friend as hard as you can, and hurt them just for the fun of it.

But the truth is, and I will talk to Josh more about this too, don't most of us struggle sometimes with knowing whether something is our own thoughts, and knowing if it's Jesus?  And I do think it has become easier to discern the more I've walked with him, but there are still those times that I have to say, "Lord, is this me, or is this you."  Quite frankly, that's one of the determining factors for me.  If I have to stop and ask that question, then most often it's God.

There's a lot more thoughts I have on this, and a lot more I'd like to share, but I have to prepare for a mtg this morning, I just wanted to throw this out there because it was on my heart this morning, AND because I'm reading a book called "Come Away My Beloved" by Francis J. Roberts, and what I read this morning went right along with my conversation with Josh, and I loved it, so I wanted to share.  I read this:

"Miss anything else, but don't miss my voice. Other voices may introduce disharmony, but My voice will always bring peace to thy heart and clarity to thy thinking.  For ye shall hear My voice behind thee saying:  This is the way, walk ye in it, when thou turnest to the left hand or to the right."

May we stop and listen today.

A Few Things I Would Miss If I Left Our Church

I'm not planning on leaving our church, but if I did, it would be things like this that I would remember about our church, and things like this that I would miss:

1.  Travis Beltz and Mike England standing in the congregation and calling praise team member's cell phones right after we start worship.  They think that's funny.  :-)  We have had to LEARN to make sure our cell phone are OFF!

2. People, on more than one occasion, not letting me out of the sanctuary.  (Travis) The praise team leads during 2nd and 3rd services.  In the 3rd service the praise team is dismissed prior to offering.  I stay and play the keyboard through offering, and then leave during the sermon to fellowship with the rest of the band. That is, if someone is not standing on the outside of the door, holding it so I can't get out. :)

3.  Getting stuck in our bathroom behind the stage.  enter at your own risk.  You might not come out.  ha. (the door sticks)

4.  I miss Karen Keim's Sunday School class.

5.  And even now, though I am there every Sunday, I miss having the chance to sink deep, ONE ON ONE, with  people in our church.  Those conversations would typically happen in Sunday School or on Wednesday nights at Bible study, neither of which I have been able to attend in recent years due to scheduling conflicts of ministry duties.

I love the church family.  Which in all seriousness doesn't look much different than a regular family.  There are good times, hard times, happy times, sad times, goofy times, annoying times....but doing life with my FCC Family is a special gift to me.

You Are Never One of Many to Me...

"You are never one of many to Me. You are precious and dear to My heart, yes, even as a very special treasure. For I love you more than you can ever comprehend, and I long to gather you in My embrace and hold you close to My heart. Do not hold Me at arm's length because you have a sense of unworthiness. Have you not read that the redeemed are brought near by the blood of Christ? Your sins are not covered: they are washed away!! They are not only forgiven: they are forgotten!!"

Adapted from "Come Away My Beloved" by Frances J. Roberts

I read this today and loved the way the writer reveals the heart of God.

"You are never one of many to me."

A Quick Trip...

As I type this I am driving, okay not driving, riding in the van on our way home from Nashville.

Denny and I had a GREAT time last night in Nashville at a fundraiser for S.E.E.K. a ministry that helps people in Kenya. We had been talking about wanting to get away for an evening, just the two of us, when we received the invite to this event. It was an excellent benefit put on by Barbara Mandrell's daughter Jaime.

We got to see our friends Matt and Christy again. We always love hearing Christy sing, and Matt was tearing up the mandolin (impressive).

We also loved hearing Mike Farris and The McCrary Sisters. Oh my. SOOOO incredibly talented. I had never heard of them prior to this, but obviously others have, because Mike has won a Dove Award. Which is probably the most prestigious award given to Gospel Artists.

And I also THOROUGHLY enjoyed watching my musical hero, Barbara Mandrell, enjoying the evening. If there was a "congregational worship leader" present, she was it!

I haven't heard any totals, but I know that there was a lot of money raised. Glad we traveled, and got to be a small part of God's plan for this ministry.

Here's some pics from the evening.

Mike Farris and The McCrary Sisters

The Mandrell Sisters...still lookin' GOOD!

Matt and Christy