This place is not our home

Sometimes I really struggle with feeling like I don't belong anywhere. It's hard to remember to live with the perspective that this life is short and that our lives will mainly be lived out in eternity in Jesus' kingdom. Loneliness can be debilitating. I am trying to remember that in heaven there won't be fear, there won't be anxiety, there won't be a struggle to find purpose in each step of life. There will be peace and security and contentment. I will belong and I will feel fulfilled. I like downhere's song "free me up"

You free me up to live this life far from any earthly sense of home. There's a place where I belong and there's nothing here I really own.

When the days, hours, minutes and seconds just seem too long, with the help of my savior I will rest in the knowledge that I belong with Him.

Back to Work

So I'm getting settled into two new jobs. I have enjoyed the two shifts I've worked at the restaurant and am looking forward to working there more often when it gets a bit busier again. I never thought I'd really enjoy waitressing, but it's a fun atmosphere and I get to run around and multitask..two of my favourite things to do! I've worked more often at the florist and am getting quite acquainted with the business. I am doing whatever needs to be done there, from cleaning to cutting flowers to displaying giftware, to inventory and pricing. I'm enjoying the different work and the fact that it's physical work rather than mental work is a nice change. I've started to get into more of a routine again. I'm doing my best to run 4 days per week as I plan on running a 10k and a half in spring. These next couple weeks will be a bit tough to do that as I'll be working full time at the florist during the valentine's rush. I just finished up a skype session with my bible class group and it's almost time for bed. I am thankful that I can skype in to bible class instead of having to drive out to Winkler for it. Right now we're studying how to prepare a message. Typical outline with main idea and supporting ideas etc. It's interesting to think about how the writers of the Bible organized their thoughts and ideas. Ok, time to hit the hay..need to get some rest before a new day!

The Busy Season is Over

Last time I posted was just before Christmas busyness hit. It's been crazy and I am now officially feeling rested. :) I finished my job at the Credit Union on the 31st of Dec and have been applying at a few places around here. It's been a good two weeks of rest and relaxation bordering on boredom. :) I have a part time position at a little restaurant in town, which I will start on Friday and I have an interview for a job at another little restaurant in Gretna tomorrow. I'm excited to start something new. :) It's more than a little difficult to not see my friends at work everyday and I'm feeling a bit secluded right now, but while I wait for life to get moving again in new workplaces, I am doing my best to just rest and enjoy being alone. Time to recharge. Life has changed drastically a few times in the last year or so and I definitely need the down time. It's a good time to reflect and think about changes I'd like to make in my life. It's a great time to spend with God, learning more about who he is and who he wants me to be. I am a person who wants to live and go go go, but I also need time to recharge, so it can be a bit hard to balance. My cat Eliot is loving having me at home. He uses me as a mattress as often as I'm sitting down.

Christmas was really nice and relaxed for my family this year. I really enjoyed spending time at my parents and just being home in every sense of the word. Home smells good, tastes good, is warm, comfortable, relaxing and invigorating all at once. My Birthday was also nice and laid back this year. I spent New Year's Eve (after work) and New Year's Day at home and just recuperated. The weekend after my birthday, my family went to the Forks and went skating. Afterward we went out to the Old Spaghetti Factory for supper, which was super.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season as well!

Bah humbug

Well I've managed to get sick just in time for the start of the busy season. Yup. I have great timing. Haha
Tonight is my work Christmas banquet. Tuesday night is another work party in the city. Next weekend I write my exams.
I managed to get a bunch of studying done today. It looks like I should manage to pass. :) I'm really glad my work banquet is in my town this year. I can go straight home and sleep after. Definitely a bonus. Ok. Time to get moving. I hate being sick! Achy, cold, tired, sneezy..ick.

Change..is good? right??

Goals are planned changes in life. Life has definitely been changing for me in the last year. I moved to my little town a year ago. I decided to work only part time at the Credit Union in April. Now for the big changes..I handed in my notice at work and will no longer be an employee at the Credit Union after December 31st. I have decided to finally pursue something that interests me. I am working towards becoming a certified personal trainer. Of course, since I was homeschooled, there was some housekeeping items I had to take care of in the way of a graduation certificate..I don't have a diploma. So..I have been studying like mad to prepare to write my GED exams. I will be writing my exams next week. Yikes! Scary stuff..haha. Next plan of action is to find a couple low key part time jobs in the area to make ends meet while I study. So..onward and upward into a new career focus. It would be so easy to stay in the safety of my current career. I know I'm good at my job, I am comfortable there and I have a work family, but it's now or never so here I go!
Well, those are the changes that are foremost in my mind at the moment. I'll try to share more later.

Great Expectations?

Sometimes expectations drag you down. I've been discovering that more and more! Expectations of myself, expectations of my friends, family, coworkers, God, the server at the restaurant..and the list goes on..
Ok, so I'm not saying that it's wrong to have expectations or standards, but sometimes I tend to go a little overboard. I have always been a competitive person and so I have high expectations of myself to perform well in whatever I'm competing in. Problem is, sometimes I make life a competition. haha
I seem to spread myself a little thin and the biggest problem is that I'm still not happy with the results! I'm not happy about how I prioritize and what takes precedence. So I've been thinking a bit about simplifying. Why do I make life so complicated? So I started thinking about what God's expectations of me are.
First and foremost, he expects me to love Him and love people. Simple right? Ok so that rearranges some of my priorities. In order to love God, I need to spend time with Him and nurture my relationship with Him. Read His word, praise Him and thank Him and involve Him in my life. Even if He knows what's going on, He still wants me to communicate with Him.
In order to love people, I need to have the perspective of God. All the more reason to spend time with God. I can't know God's perspective and how he wants me to view people, unless I actually know Him intimately! I know that God's love for people is unconditional. God expects me to love people as He does..that means unconditionally! Ok, now things might seem a bit harder. The problem is that most of the time when we love people, they love us back. :) We like to be selfish in love. We want to get something out of our love of others. We want to feel good!
Loving people is not as easy as loving God. God is perfect, people are not. People disappoint us..uh oh. There go the expectations again! Expectations are pretty much impossible to get rid of. They seem to be ingrained in us. Human rights, fairness and everything else that gets hammered into us from a young age. I'm not saying that all expectations are bad, but that we have to Expect to be disappointed as well. People are not perfect. People are all different and have different standards (not necessarily wrong, but different).
I guess I've come to the conclusion that I need to weigh my expectations. I need to gauge how appropriate they are in relation to myself and other people. I also need to expect to be disappointed and even hurt. Making oneself vulnerable to pain is completely against human nature..yet another reason to be in communion with God. He is completely set apart from human nature. How much pain is he vulnerable to each and every day? He has expectations that we disappoint, but yet he loves unconditionally and maintains a faithful relationship with us from his side.
I guess my challenge now is to allow myself to be vulnerable to hurt and disappointment, because loving God and people is how I need to live.

Just some food for thought. :)

Resolutely

Hey everyone. It's been a long time..again. I'm not going to even try to tell you about everything that has been going on in my life. :) The main things are I have moved to Morris and I am now working part-time. I would really love to get back into writing! I was doing my daily bible reading this morning and I am currently in the book of Luke. I read Luke 9 and a verse stuck out while I was reading, that I have never noticed before and a few things clicked together in my head about the life of Jesus.

I apologize in advance if my thought processes are slightly disconnected. Like I said, it's been awhile. :)

Luke 9:51 is the verse that caught my eye this morning. It says: As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.

So, what about this verse struck me as special? The fact that Jesus had to have resolve to set out for Jerusalem.

I teach a Sunday School class for grade 2 and 3 and over the easter season (Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday) we did a quick timeline review of Jesus' life. I got the kids to tell me all about Jesus starting with his birth and as much as they could remember until he died and rose again. During the discussions I did my best to explain that Jesus came to earth as a man and that he was both fully God and fully man. I wanted the kids to understand that he experienced life just like we do. He was born, he grew up, he faced fears, he made friends, he was tempted, he had friends betray him. On top of all that he was also God, he was perfect, he was obedient, he could perform miracles, he raised the dead, he healed people, he calmed the storm, he walked on water.

So in explaining this to the kids I was trying to help them understand that it wasn't easy for Jesus to die. He didn't want to die. He didn't want to experience pain and death! He struggled with it! So this verse caught my eye because it shows another example of Him not eager for suffering. He didn't want to go to Jerusalem, but he had resolved to go. He had firmly decided to go. Why? He loved each person (past, present, and future) so much that he knew he had to go through with the plan, to be able to offer a way of Salvation to all who believed in Him as Saviour.

I think that sometimes we can skim over just how difficult it was for Jesus to go through with his decision. He prayed that the cup be taken from him in the garden, but he was obedient to God's will. He was obedient to the decision that he had made at the beginning of time!

You can imagine the interesting conversations that arose in my Sunday School class. It is impossible for our human minds to fully grasp the amazing truth of God as man in the form of Jesus. Children will come up with very creative thoughts in an effort to understand something. One thing one of the kids said was "I want to see Him!" I agree with that. I want to see Him too! I want to see this God/Man who decided to give up himself so that he can be with me in eternity!

So that was my thought for you. Here's a challenge for me and for you. If Jesus decided to die for me, doesn't it make sense for us to decide to live for Him?

Rediscovery

I rediscovered my blog this evening while talking with a friend. I think it's time to dust off the thoughts and see if I can't make a go of this thing again. I'm pretty sure most of you have given up on ever seeing a post on here again, but I don't feel so bad because I've noticed that a few other friends have also stopped posting for awhile.

The biggest thing going on in my life right now is that I'm trying to sell my house. I've decided to downsize and clean up some of the debt. I need a little room to breathe financially and also would like to have a bit more flexibility otherwise too.

I recently got back from another trip east to visit family and friends. My parents and I headed to Timmins first after a quick stop over in Wawa. I hadn't been to Timmins for at least 5 years. It was time to get back there and visit my Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles. Grandpa is not doing well health-wise, but he's still hanging in there and we did have some good days with him while we were there.

We spent a week with Josh and Jenna. They had another baby girl August 17th and named her Hannah Alison. It was great to see the kids and get caught up with Josh and Jenna. It is so hard to be so far away from them!

This year has flown by and I can't recall most of why it's been so busy. I've started another memorizing challenge for this year. We'll see if I can do it. I'm doing 145 verses from the book of Hebrews. I've done Hebrews in quizzing before, so maybe this will be easy...

Hebrews 1:1-3, 5,8-9,&13

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by His Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by His powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

For to which of the angels did God ever say, 'You are my Son, today I have become your Father'?, or again, 'I will be his Father and he will be my Son'?

But about the Son he says, 'Your throne O God will last for ever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.'

To which of the angels did God ever say, 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet'?

Isn't it great to know that Jesus is 'sustaining all things by His powerful word'? Those first couple verses make me think of John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made, without him nothing was made that has been made.

These verses affirm that God's Son Jesus created the world and is sustaining the world today.

Jesus has been at work on this earth since the day it began. He created it, he provided salvation for its inhabitants and he continues to sustain it until the day comes when it will be destroyed and a new heaven and new earth take its place. Glad to know we're in good hands right?

This chapter gives us another pretty good picture of Jesus' roles in the trinity. It is amazing that God gives us these glimpses of how things started, and how things work.

Well those are my verses for chapter 1. These are the same key verses as what were used when I was in quizzing. This is pretty much review for me. It's good to know that all that work I put in years ago is still paying off today.

Vacation with Hilde

Wow what a week! We picked up where we left off three years ago and really enjoyed talking and just being together. :) We spent some time hiking and walking and biking and swimming. Here's a few pictures that sums it up.

Mmm..Salmon and Salad.

Of course she had to try true mennonite food!

St. Malo. What a perfect day for the beach!

Hiking in the Valley

Enjoying the Pembina Valley

We spent a lot of time just reading and talking too!

Food was a very important part of this vacation. :)

Making Waffles.

Enjoying a sunset in Winkler

All the pretty flowers and gardens in Winkler

:) :) :)

Wasn't quite sure what to name this post, but the smiles seem appropriate for what I have to share with you. Work has still been busy as usual with plenty to do and always new projects to figure out. I decided to take a few more online courses through work as well which I will be working on in the evenings when I have time.

It's already been more than a month since I was on vacation and it has flown by. I'm hoping the next month will fly by too, because.....

Hilde is coming to visit me on August 16th and is staying for a week!! Yay! She will hopefully have her flights booked soon so I know exactly when to pick her up. In the next month I will be doing some renovations in the spare room. I picked up some paint and supplies last night and will hopefully be moving furniture out today so I can wash walls and prep to paint. I didn't pick really exciting colors, but I think it will look really nice when it's done.

I'm doing shades of white and then I'm planning on doing a few paintings with green and brown to accent. I picked out two shades of white in two different finishes with plans of being slightly creative on one wall. I'll be doing a warm creamier white color in eggshell finish as the main color in the room and then I'll be using a slightly cooler white in semi-gloss to texture or add an artistic touch on an accent wall.

Does anyone have a little square or round table that they don't want anymore? Let me know if you do!

I guess I'd better get to work..have a great weekend!