MARSHA!!!

MARSHA IS COMING OUT TODAY!!!! I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE HER

I am...an Israelite.

I've been reading through my Bible again (start to finish) because I just got a new one right before Christmas and figured it would be good for me. So I'm reading and loving it and I come to the part where the Israelites are newly freed from Egypt. They are so excited and probably can't stop talking about how amazing God is for delivering them! It's amazing to read, because I just can't imagine God letting me walk along the dry bottom of a huge river, you know?
Anyway, before long that excitement starts to wear off, and they start complaining. They even say that they wished they were back in Egypt! Now, I'm looking at this thinking, "What? Are you guys crazy, or do you just have the worst memory in the entire history of mankind? Look what God just did to you a couple chapters back!!! He led you out of Egypt after hundreds of years of slavery! He took you across a river on dry land! He fed you manna! He made water come gushing out of a rock! How can you forget so quickly what God did for you and turn away from Him?!" And then it hit me that I am seeing this story from a much different angle than the Israelites were experiencing it from. I read the entire story across the span of a couple minutes. Of course it seems silly to me that they forgot "so quickly". When they lived the story, it had been months or years before they forgot! That's not so abnormal...it would happen to anybody! That's just being human!
Suddenly I was convicted. How many times do I do the very same thing? When I was at Bethany, all I wanted was to be "delivered". Now that I am "free", I hit a little bump in the road and am wishing that I was back there because I figure even that was better than where I am now. If someone was reading the story of my life, they would probably be able to compare me to a forgetful, ungrateful Israelite quite easily. I am far to quick to "forget" those things that God has done for me. I am too quick to blame God for bringing me to the place that I'm not enjoying in that moment.
Nathan, in his sermon on Sunday, mentioned something that Shane Claiborne and his friends had realized. See, they were unhappy with their church and just wanted their dream church. Then they realized that all they needed to do was to have their "dream" church was to be the church that they dreamed of and longed for! That made so much sense to me! Instead of complaining and becoming bitter about certain things in life, I should just BE what I dream and hope for. It's an interesting thought, one that I haven't really put into words before now. It's something I'll definitely be pondering in the next couple weeks...

Destination: Cozy

Do you ever have those days when you're just chilled all day and no matter how many clothes you put on or how long you run your hands under hot water, you just can't warm up? That's me today. Burr!!! It's supposed to warm up on Friday thought, so here's hoping!!!

ANYWAY, tonight the youth went snowboarding and I stayed home alone to have some much needed alone time. There's just something comfortable about a night when you can curl up in a fuzzy blanket and light some candles and make some tea and either pour your heart out to God or get lost in a good book or journal to your heart's content. Well, I don't plan on the fuzzy blanket (maybe a warm bath!) or the candles, or the tea, but I AM really looking forward to pouring my heart out to God AND getting lost in a good book AND journaling to my heart's content. Mmm...what a cozy evening it shall be. I'm quite looking forward to this.

I am officially an artist...well...

Last weekend, Nathan and I stopped by Michaels when we were in the city and picked up $75 worth of painting supplies. Everything we needed to get us started in the new world of painting. We decided that small canvases would keep us much to hemmed in, so we let our paint brushes and imaginations go with a medium sized canvas. It was SO much fun! My painting started out to be the telling of a poem I once wrote while in high school and then turned into something else. Then it turned into something else yet...it ended up being a "letting go" of my control side. See, as I was painting, I wanted to keep it looking nice (like the first picture) but I decided that if I was ever going to try anything new and be truly creative, I couldn't worry about whether something turned out bad. So whenever I'm feeling like I don't want to try anything new because I want to be sure that it turns out well, I just need to look at my first painting, and know that trying something new (in painting) doesn't always turn out bad, and even if it does...it's just a painting!
P.s- This is a picture of Nathan's painting...pretty cool, eh?

P.S-

If you want to see more pictures of Nate's office (and where we spilled the can of paint on the carpet), follow the link on the side of my blog to "My Wonderful Husband".

Painting a picture...

At long last, here are the pictures of Nathan's office.

Before we painted, it was a nice, classic burgundy on one wall and a very neutral color on the other three walls and ceiling.
(See below)














Ick!
Not so bad when it was new, I'm sure, but with all it's dings and nicks, and with burgundy not really being Nathan's color...

















Tada!!!
Ok, so the pictures don't really do it justice...it looks much better in real life.
The walls are all a sage green-ish color and there is a red corner (as seen in the picture) and red also on the ceiling where there is a bit of a drop. The Hebrew is a very nice calm blue color. Rebekah, you might recognize it...it means "Set Apart." Check out Leviticus 20:26.
Nathan really wanted it for a tattoo but I wouldn't let him so now it's on his wall.
So, that's our project!
Nathan figures the new paint job looks so good that he's keeping his office extra clean to make everything look great. Unfortunately, he get more comments on his clean office than he does on the paint job!

Day 1: 2007

You know what makes me feel old? The fact that I clearly remember when the year 1997 was "new". I still catch myself thinking that music from '97 isn't THAT old. Who am I kidding? None of our youth have ever listened to Jars of Clay or Newsboys or Audio Adrenaline or DC Talk. Ah, well, at least I don't feel that way about 1987! Yeek!

So, alot has happened this year! Here's a quick run-down:

January - I was working nearly 40 hours a week (when 20-30 hrs was supposed to be the norm). It felt like too much so at the end of the month I talked to my boss and had my hours cut in half. I'll never regret that choice!!!

February - Continued on with life...

March - Invested in a new leather couch and 2 chairs for our living room. One chair came damaged so we called the store to get it replaced.

April - Bought our first house and moved in at the end of the month. Enjoyed the free cable for 10 days before it was cut off. :( Still waiting for our chair to get replaced...

May - Our first anniversary. Nathan took me away to Jessica Lake Resort (in the whiteshell) as a surprise. This year is my turn to surprise him... Still waiting for our new chair...

June - My last month of work. We planted our garden full of grass and did a bit of other yard work. We bought a lawn mower (the joys of owning a house begin with the snow all gone and the grass growing). Also waiting for the joys of a new living room chair to begin...

July - Holidays! We were in Leamington, ON for a week at our EMMC convention and then at a pastor's retreat. After that, we went to Niagara falls for a night and then to Nathan's grandma's cottage where I met ALL of Nathan's extended family (on his mom's side). We came home to freshly mowed grass (thanks to ???) and a pile of dirt on our front lawn. We made the pile of dirt into a garden in the back and leveled off the yard a bit with it. I believe we started picking apples this month too... And we're still waiting for our chair...

August - We helped Trev and Rebekah strip wall paper in their new house (congratulations, guys!). I picked up buckets and buckets of apples each day or two. I'm sure there were many more than 1000! We took off to St. Laurent (MB) for a week with a group of youth who led VBS. This was a tough week for me as I struggled to figure out where my place was in everything...not sure I ever figured that one out! We got back from that and less than a week later, we took off with pretty much the same youth to Saskatoon for Chalo. Here I felt like I knew my place a bit better because it was in my lovely homeland (one of them), Saskatchewan! We got back from that and slept. (And dreamed of having a new, undamaged, living room chair...)

September - Lennox came and the fun of training a dog began. I'm still not working at this point, but I am checking the newspaper for any openings in town that sounded interesting. OUR CHAIR GOT REPLACED!!!!! I got called into work for a couple days while the office got caught up. Our water heater busted. I was asked to work a couple more days... Youth leaders' retreat at Camp Arnes. A couple more days of work...

October - I was asked to work a couple more days...and a couple more...and a couple more...how 'bout another week?

November - Nathan and I celebrated being married a year and a half with fireworks out in a farmer's field. (Thanks to the unceasing Manitoba wind, we had to light them with the car cigarette lighter!) Nathan taught a post-secondary class at Crosscurrent. At the end of the month, Nathan left me to travel to South Carolina with some other youth pastors for a youth workers convention. Marsha didn't get to come down to keep me company. (It's been a year and a half since I've seen her!) Oh, and I'm still working, but just for another week...and another week...and another...

December - Nathan gets back from South Carolina. We had a week of Christmas parties each night. We went to a friends' wedding in Regina, caught up with some Bible school friends and my brother. Had a whirlwind tour of both our families and were home by Christmas day to be part of the service at our church. Boxing day we took in a day of shopping in Winnipeg (but weren't convinced that we need to go again next year). The day after that, we painted Nate's office (and only lost 1/4 of a can of paint to the carpet - it would have been more, but Nate acted quick and saved the other 3/4 of the can). Pictures are coming...

And that brings us to January! Wow, what a year! I'm still working (but only a week at a time) and that's good. Nathan is still loving his job, although with one of the pastor's having resigned, it'll be a bit of an adjustment over the next few months. Lennox is doing good...he's reached the 50 lb mark and is still growing! And our house? It's still standing and we haven't started any fires at all yet! (We had a number of small fires in our old apartment, so I'm glad things are finally turning around!)

So, have a great year everyone! All the best in 2007!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas morning. I woke up and looked at the clock. Good. Twenty more minutes to sleep. Three minutes later, Nathan wakes up, looks at the clock and jumps out of bed. I say, "Still fifteen minutes to sleep..." He asks when the alarm was going to go off. I look at the clock again and jump out of bed. When I had set the alarm last night, I definitely set it for pm instead of am. Oops. My bad. Now, you must understand something. Any regular Christmas morning this wouldn't have mattered at all. You wake up lazily (unless you have kids) and saunter into the kitchen and make a cup of coffee and then sit looking at the tree and pondering why this day is so special until the whole family is there and you can begin the festivities. This Christmas, we had to be the church by 9:00 and it was already 8:15. We rushed and I ended up being in quite the rotten mood. Why? One, because we had to be at the church first thing Christmas morning (I'm not going to want to do that once I have kids!). I'm not used to that. And two, because we'd slept in and I didn't even have a nice relaxed Christmas morning with my husband. Well, once Nathan left, I sat down at the piano and started playing because that is usually quite effective at relaxing me and making me look at things in perspective (good worship time) and God led me to the song, "Sanctuary." It refocused me on why we're doing this Christmas day service and why we're even in this church to begin with. It was such a good twenty minutes. It reminded me to always take those few minutes to stop running and just re-focus.

Lord, prepare me
to be a sanctuary
pure and holy
tried and true
With thanksgiving
I'll be a living
sanctuary
for you.

Almost Christmas!

I love Christmas. I think I always have. White Christmases. Not white Christmases. Real tree Christmases. Not-real tree Christmases. As I've been getting into the Christmas spirit and preparing for the upcoming holiday, I've been thinking about the real meaning of Christmas (as I do each and every year), and I've been wondering if how we celebrate Christmas is heretical and if Christmas really has become an entirely heathen holiday. Trees and lights Santa and gifts and traditions and all....hmm...

Now, I've heard of some Christians who don't believe that Christmas should be celebrated (at least not in the traditional December 25th way) because it has become so consumerized and not about Jesus. Instead, they believe that it should be celebrated each day of the year and our joy and thanksgiving to God for sending his Son should be shown each day of the year. Don't get me wrong. This is true. We should live out our joy and peace and thanksgiving and celebration all year long, but isn't God the creator of celebration, as well? In fact, if I remember Spiritual Disciplines at Bethany correctly, isn't celebration actually a spiritual discipline?? So why then should we shun the celebration just because some/many people don't celebrate for the right reasons?

I've come to the conclusion that Christmas is good.

God intended that we take time aside to be with family. This shouldn't just be for a couple days in the dead of winter each year (Christmas), but isn't Jesus' birth a wonderful excuse for additional family get-togethers?? We should appreciate family and take time for them all year, yes, but Christmas is a great time to make memories that are different from the everyday routine of going to work/school and coming home and having supper together and then doing it all over again. Christmas means more time together to make different memories from the wonderful everyday ones.

We give gifts to appreciate what God gave us. For a child, gifts are gifts. Sure, children are always told that gifts are a symbol of God giving us a gift so we give gifts to each other, but really... what child is going to get excited about a gift for the sole reason that God gave him Jesus? Maybe I was just a shallow child, but to me, gifts were about the gifts. Is that wrong? No, I don't think so, because even if Christmas gifts mean nothing more to a child than getting presents, at least it's family time and the seed is planted to know the real reason for Christmas celebrations. What a child knows in theory, an adult can realize for themself later. For adults, gifts somehow change, at least for me they have. Sure, I still get excited about getting gifts, but they are more humbling than they used to be. Maybe it's because I realize that I don't really need these things, or maybe it's because I have my own budget and realize how much tighter things can get in November/December. I can almost imagine, then, how the Pharisee's must have felt when God suddenly gave the gift of his Son. They probably thought they didn't need anything because they had their lives under control. They obeyed the law, they had things their lives together, then suddenly the truth comes out that they actually can't do it on their own? Suddenly all their work and diligence is for nothing and they need this little baby to be saved? If I was in their place, I might have felt a little guilty for accepting God's Son because I knew what it cost God to send him here to earth and I wouldn't have really felt like I needed Him. It would have been terribly humbling to suddenly realize that you couldn't save yourself like you always thought. Gifts nowadays are sometimes a bit humbling, but it makes us realize how God gave something so much larger, something that cost him so much more than anything we give for Christmas these days, to a group of people who didn't really feel like they needed it. What incredible love is that?

The decorations? I don't know the significance of that. Maybe it's good because it draws families together to decorate the tree. Maybe putting lights on your house helps spread the joy of the season to the whole town so that the whole ambiance (great word, eh?) is a reminder of Jesus' birth. Maybe it just looks pretty and cozy and wintery. For summer: cut flowers. For winter: poinsettias, lights, candles and trees. Who knows? Maybe I'll explore the doctrine of Christmas decorations next year...

Having said all this, I still believe that without the underlying joy and purpose of celebrating God's gift of his Son to us, Christmas is nothing. Family time is only special when you all realize the true meaning of Christmas. Gifts are only negative consumerism unless you give what you can without breaking the budget, and as a display of love and a reminder of God's love for us. And decorations? Decorate with family, and enjoy the ambiance of joy, peace, love, and remembrance.


P.s. - About Santa: Santa is not Christmas and he shouldn't have any more part in Christmas than a mascot has in a football game. Sure it's entertaining to some, but everyone knows it's about the game, and not the empty, lifeless costume.

P.P.S. - I'm sure I'll continue to ponder these thoughts and perhaps my views will change. If anyone wonders about something I wrote or has anything to add, please feel free to do so. I am not bound to these words for life. I am bound to God, and he reveals himself throughout life; season by season.

I've been homeless for almost a week now...

Everyone knows the cheezy saying, "Home is where the heart is." Well, since last Tuesday, my heart has been in Charlotte, North Carolina with my husband. Nathan is there with three other youth pastors from Winkler at the National Youth Workers Convention. It sounds like he's having a great time! I just got an email from him today letting me know that yesterday he won $400 worth of stuff. What good Scottish Mennonite wouldn't be having a great time?!

Meanwhile, I'm sitting at home, trying to give enough attention to my faithful companion, Lennox, and trying to keep myself busy. I don't know how those two things go together, but it's been working decently well.

God has been teaching me alot through not having Nathan around. Nathan left on Tuesday and by Wednesday I was already feeling like I was starving for his company. I actually felt hungry for his company. I never knew before what it was like to actually be hungry for anything other than food before, but now I know! And as soon as I realized that it was hunger that I was feeling, I realized that I've never felt that way about God, and yet I sing songs about how I go to him "hungry" because I know he satisfies and how I "pant" for him like a deer for water. I've never actually felt that, but now that I know the feeling, it is something to strive towards spiritually.

On Thursday night, I had supper and the evening with my parents (who were in Manitoba for the weekend) and my sister (who lives in Winnipeg) and God showed me how invaluable family is. I guess I always take family for granted, but he showed me that my family really does know me well, despite how I sometimes feel, and that they are able to support me in a different way than any friends ever could. Family has a unique place and I should respect and revel in that rather than taking it for granted.

Friday was a night to myself, which I was very grateful for after the business of the week. I don't know what I did...I think maybe I wandered around the house, waiting until it was finally a decent hour to go to bed. Not much, but it was relaxing!

On Saturday I left for the city with Patti to pick up some poinsettias from a greenhouse for a fundraiser that our youth did. I was back by 12:30 and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon from the comfort of my own blankets and pillows. I wonder if I'll ever outgrow naps...

Today is Sunday and I'm over the halfway mark of Nathan being gone. I'm so glad too. It's been sorta nice having all this time to myself, but the list of things that I wanted to accomplish since Nathan left has been left untouched because without a reason to get things done (Nathan), things just get put off. I just don't have any motivation to do anything! I talked to another wife today too who said the same thing happens to her when her husband leaves, so I know I'm not the only one. That helps!

So if anyone has any ideas about what I can do tomorrow and the next day to fill my time before Nathan comes home, feel free to let me know. I'm open to suggestions, although if housework is suggested, I've already thought of that, and it didn't work. I'm in need of something that will distract me...