Finally!

Yes!! This morning I got a phone call from the library. I have a job!!
I begin next Tuesday at 4:00 pm. I finally won't be bored anymore.
Anyway...since the last time I wrote on here...I had a great Christmas! It was awesome to see Josh and Nat and Candice. It was also good to be busy for a little while.
Our Christmas program on Christmas Eve went off very smoothly (surprisingly). Also we had a birthday party for Heather last Wednesday.
We had a blast playing games and watching movies. The highlight of that night was seeing Warren fall backwards in his chair. :)
Now I need to figure out what to do for my birthday. If it snows some more, maybe we can go sledding.
Well..I've gotta go.
ttfn

I Love Christmas!!

This past week has been one of the best weeks ever! Christmas must be my favorite time of year! It used to be that it was the best because of all the great presents and stuff, but now it's more about relationships with other people and with God.
At Christmas everybody gets together to do stuff and it feels like we all get just a little bit closer personally. Josh is coming home tonight and Nat and Candice will be around a bit more for the next couple of weeks. I guess now, after they have moved out and away, it is more special to have them around.
Right now for me it seems like everything I say, do, read, sing and whatever, are a lot more clear. I guess I'm just paying more attention.
Tonight I was at Alex and Julie's place for supper and we were talking about how long they have been here. We've known them for about three years and to me it seems like I'm just getting to know them. It's the same way with a lot of other people. I've been babysitting Natalie Klassen for over 3 years and it seems like just a few months. I've been friends with Heather for 10 years. Wow!
How does time go by so fast? I've been saying that "I'm getting old" but I don't think that's quite the feeling. I'm not old, but I've let a lot of things pass by without thinking about them enough and enjoying them to the fullest. All too soon somebody else will be babysitting Natalie and Ryan because I won't be around to do so. Heather and I will always be friends, but so many years have passed already and things will never be quite the same. I was actually talking about moving out next fall! :O
I want to go back to being 15 and just stay that age and have nothing change, and yet I want to go on and see what else God has in store for me. I hope I will appreciate life a lot more as I get older.
Here are the Lyrics for a great Christmas song:

"I Celebrate The Day" by Relient K
And with this Christmas wish is missed
The point I could convey
If only I could find the words to say to let You know
How much You've touched my life
Because here is where You're finding me,
In the exact same place as New Year's Eve
And from the lack of my persistency
We're less then half as close as I want to be

And the first time
That You opened Your eyes did You realize that
You would be my Savior
And the first breat that left Your lips
Did You know that it would change this world forever

And so this Christmas I'll compare
The things I felt in prior years
To what this midnight made so clear
That You have come to meet me here

To look back and think that
This baby would one day save me
In the hope that what You did
That You were born so I might live
To look back and think that
This baby would one day save me

And I, I celebrate the day
That You were born to die
So I could one day
Pray for You to save my life

God Bless! ttfn

It's That Time of Year

It's that time of year when we all go crazy and enjoy doing so.
This week looks like it will be quite busy. My dad just got home Saturday night and it already feels like he wasn't even gone for a day, never mind three weeks. Last night we had an awesome college and career games night in Altona. Tons of fun!! (If you weren't there, you should have been). Tonight is Worship Team practice. Tomorrow night is Celebration Night at WBC. Thursday night is carolling. Friday night is "adult" dessert night. Saturday night I'm babysitting Natalie and Ryan. (Yay!)
I guess for this week it might be a good thing that I don't have a job. :)
I got my shopping done earlier this year than normal. Last year I waited till the week before Christmas to do my shopping. Boy! Was that stressful! I think my parents are out buying a tree right now. I can't wait to set it up and decorate it. We haven't done any decorating in our house yet. I guess it just didn't feel right to do that while Dad was gone.
I'm really looking forward to seeing Josh, but he doesn't even know when he's coming yet. :( It'll be good to see him.
Well I've gotta go figure out what to do for supper since the parents aren't home yet.
ttfn
Oh yeah, I almost forgot :) Here's a verse to help keep you mindful of the reason for the season. (he he)
Matthew 2:11
On coming to the house, they saw the Child with His mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped Him. Then they opened their treasures and presented Him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.

You've Won My Heart

Hey! I thought that since Warren never put this song on his blog that I would just steal it. So this is my "Lyric of the Day".

At The Foot Of The Cross

At the foot of the cross
Where grace and suffering meet
You have shown me Your love
Through the judgment You received

You've won my heart
You've won my heart

Now I can
Trade these ashes in for beauty
And wear forgiveness like a crown
Coming to kiss the feet of mercy
I lay every burden down
At the foot of the cross

At the foot of the cross
Where I am made complete
You have given Your love
Through the death You bore for me

You've won my heart...

Sorry Warren, but you forgot and I love this song!

Wonder upon wonder

I was just recently reading in Isaiah and came upon a passage in chapter 29:13-14. It says:
The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder;"
He goes on to tell what He will do in order to win His people back from their sin.
I read about the Israelites and kinda laugh and think "What is wrong with these people? They were given Miraculous signs over and over again and they still turned away!"
Yet on the other hand I'm exactly the same. I don't think that I can say that I would be different in their situation.
God gives us wonder upon wonder in so many things. John 1:12-13 the right to become children of God, John 16:7-8 He sent the Holy Spirit to us to guide us. The whole Bible points toward the wonder of salvation through Jesus, there are many more "wonders" that would take hours to write down. God has shown me all these wonders, but I constantly take them forgranted. When I sing worship songs I am often too "busy" thinking about other things rather than using the time to actually worship God with more than my mouth.
To be brutally honest, I could probably look at one of those pharisees that I always laughed at in sunday school, and see myself. (horrors)
The other day I was complaining to my mom about how complacent all the Christians in Winkler are. I realize that is a really general statement, but sometimes it really feels like that's the way it is. We have missionaries come to our church every once in a while and it just feels like a normal thing. Or we have special speakers come to town and it gets advertised in the newspaper and all the pastors are made aware of it but only a dozen or so people show up at the meetings.
I'm exactly the same way though. As long as nothing wrecks my world I'm happy. I was probably complaining more about myself than anyone else. I'm all for people doing mission work or helping out with money, but when it comes to me, I brush it off saying, "someone else will do it."
I'm a terribly self-righteous person and always find some way to forgive myself for my actions or lack thereof.

As I lift my Hands by Philmore

Lord I know my own righteousness is as filthy rags to You
so change me, cleanse me, purify me, make me white as snow
And even if I run one thousand miles away from You
I know that You're always just one step away

As I lift my hands before You
Jesus, oh how I adore You
I worship You, I worship You

Isaiah 64:6

Now after stating all these things maybe I can try to do something about them in my own life. Please hold me accountable. :)

Does It Ever Sink In?

Have you ever said anything that made you feel really stupid? That if you had thought it through a bit more you wouldn't have said what you did?
I had that experience this morning. Tim was pointing stuff out to me and naming them, trying to be funny. He pointed at the thermostat and said, "That's the thermostat" then he pointed at the smoke alarm and said, "that's the smoke alarm" finally he pointed to the doorbell box and said "that's the doorbell". Then I (not trying to be funny but managing very well to be exactly that) said, "Really? I didn't know that." The sad thing is that I really didn't know. I had never really thought about where the sound for the doorbell came from. It had never been important enough for me to think about.
Too often I am the same way with other things that are far more important. I just happened to have the song "People Need The Lord" stuck in my head today. My Dad often goes around the house either singing, humming, or whistling this song. He would also remind me that "people need the Lord" whenever I would comment on all the junk happening in the world. So whenever I would hear the song I would think of all the unbelievers out there who "need the Lord". Just today I finally stopped to think that believers need the Lord almost just as much as unbelievers. Yeah, we're saved eternally, but we still need God to continue to save us from the power of sin each day. I think it's going to take a lifetime for that to sink in.
I Corinthians 10:13
"No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."
ttfn,
Beth

Prayer

Hey everyone!
I guess I haven't been on here in a while. Not that I'm too busy or anything. I just haven't thought about writing lately. A friend reminded me on Sunday night. (Thanx Steve :) )
I guess I'll say something about the message at Celebration Night last Tuesday evening. Again it was a great time and Phil Bock came to speak to us on prayer. Yay Phil! The main thing I got out of it was that often times we pray when things are rotten and we feel let down when God doesn't answer our prayers the way we expect Him to. But as we continue to pray, maybe our situation won't change, but we begin to change. As we continue to give the situation prayerfully over to God, asking that His will be done, our hearts can change and we trust God to guide us through. Proverbs 3:5-6 are great verses to live by. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight."
As I live I can't depend on my "understanding" of a situation and tell God what He needs to do to make things come out right. I need to "acknowledge" that He is the authority and that He will work things out in His time. His way may not be my way, but His way is always the best way. As we draw near to God in prayer we come to know Him more intimately and therefore step by step His will becomes our will.
I don't know if this makes any sense to anyone else but it helps me to be able to thrash it out like this. :)
A good song is:
One Heart One Mind
If you will see with my eyes

If you hear with my ears

Then you will speak with my voice

And when I laugh you will rejoice

Then you and I

Will be one, we will be

one heart, one mind (x2)

If you despise what I hate

If you esteem what I love

Then the world will know me through you

Give to them what I give to you

I've gotta go now. ttfn.

Tired

This past weekend was great! We had an awesome Quiz Meet and of course an awesome time of worship. Our quiz teams did fairly well and we all had a great time, but now I feel so tired. Its almost like I did a week of hard labor even though I actually didn't do much at all.
My parents left yesterday to spend a couple days at a Pastors and Wives Retreat. I hope that my Dad will take it easy and actually rest. Anyway, Tim and I get the house to ourselves which is always fun. Not much to do though. I probably should be working on correcting school work but I don't feel like it.
I think I need some exercise to wake me up so I'll be going for a walk soon. I'm rambling so I'll just finish with with an appropriate passage of scripture.
Matthew 11:28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

"peace be still/ I am with you/ rest in me for one more night/ peace be still/ I am with you/ replace your tired heart with mine."
Tired Heart by Bleach

I'm back and I'm done!...school that is

Hey everybody!
I finally have a free moment where the computer is free and I can be on here for more than a...a moment I guess. :) I finally finished my school last week Thursday. Wow am I happy to be done. I have a life again. Sort of. :) This weekend we have a Quiz Meet. I am super excited about it but also a little..well..worried. I haven't had enough time to memorize as much as I wanted to and it seems like a lot of people just haven't wanted to memorize. Oops. I guess that sounds a little harsh. I guess I'm also kinda concerned about the whole coaching thing. Our teams from Winkler don't have enough coaches. I guess the A team (Tim and I) can always go without. One thing I am not worried about is the Praise and Worship time. It is going to be so good!! I'm super excited about our Worship Team playing. Sometimes I get frustrated with myself for worrying about things that I don't need to worry about. I actually just memorized a passage from Matthew 6 that talks about worrying. Jesus is speaking in his sermon on the mount.
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we wear?' The pagans run after these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:25-34.
It takes so little time to memorize God's word but it takes a lot longer to apply it to my life. I wish I had an alarm that went off every time I started worrying. But I guess I would need a whole lot of alarms or buzzers to go off for all the times I do something wrong. It would probably end up being more confusing than it began.
Anyway...I've gotta get moving. Maybe I'll have more time now to write on here. But I won't worry about that right now. :)
ttfn (ta ta for now) as Tigger always says.

Rooted?

Hey Everybody!
Yeah I'm going to try this blog thing. It might not last long since I hate writing but I guess we'll see.
Last night I went to Winkler Bible Camp for Celebration Night. It is always a great time of praise and worship and they always have good speakers.
The theme of the evening was being rooted in Christ.
The speaker spoke (wow he spoke!) about us as Christians needing to be rooted in Christ so that we can grow in him. He gave an example about trees and how the Douglas Fir grows into a huge tree and its roots go down deep and interlock with other Douglas Fir tree roots. It would take a lot to uproot them.
This subject of being rooted has kept on popping up in my life since May Long Weekend. While I was on a canoe trip with some staff from Pembina Valley Bible Camp the question of how trees could live on rock came up. We were in Ontario and often saw tall scraggly looking pine trees growing on what seemed to be bare rock. We all too often came upon these trees blown over and blocking our path. These trees couldn't root themselves deep enough into the rock so that when the wind came off the lake it wouldn't get blown over.
We as Christians need to be like the Douglas Fir rooted deep in the earth and not like the pine just on the bare rock. The only way we can be rooted so deep is to listen AND obey God's words.
I have a hard time doing that. I finish Bible reading and prayer time in the morning and then I go and do my own thing, totally forgetting about what I had just read.
You can all feel free to pray for me anytime. I need it. :)
A simple verse that sums this all up is:
James 1:22 " Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says."