Christ's love emulated truly...

174. True believers loving as Christ does

So again today I was brought to tears. Our community group gave me a card with money in it for my trip to get my sister. What kindness and generocity, goodness, selflessness, true love, I can't even fully describe how I feel right now with what they have given! I have heard sermons preached on how the hardest thing to change in a Christian is their wallet. Money is a tough thing, we need it to survive, to pay the bills, buy food, etc. and it's not always easy to make and I guess we feel we work hard for it so its hard to give away, but how great it is to give. And how humbling it is to recieve the gift of other people's hard earnings! I feel so amazingly blessed to have our community group in our lives, what a great group of friends we have! My heart is overwhelmed with love! Thank you Jesus for the precious gift of community. I wish I had a picture to insert of our group, but sadly I don't....
Imagine a group of awesome people with big smiles and awesome hand gestures and craziness and love pouring out of their hearts.....

175. skype, hands free face to face free chat with hubby :) yay
176. free stuff
177. ability to give free stuff to others in need such as the food pantry and pregnancy center.

I wish that I could really explain how completely and utterly blessed I feel right now. I am so happy to have my sister coming and getting out of a not great relationship and to know that she will see and feel and know Christ's love here fully! God is so good, He is behind this whole ordeal and to God alone be the glory! He has worked everything out in this and made it good and I am so thankful for His love and provision.

A few other examples of God's goodness and provision:
love:

our precious kids

sun:

water:

trees=o2

friends and playtime

family:

art: in this case dry erase markers in the bath tub



grace

162. Grace, I am so thankful for grace! grace from Jesus and grace from my kids and husband!
I fail so much with grace, with my mouth, my words are harsh and uncalled for at times and my poor family suffers for it, yet a 4 year old has the capacity to show me grace through tear stained cheeks! It really shows me how amazing the free gift of grace is! I am so impressed that I can yell at my son and be so angry and make him cry and then when i calm down apologize and he smiles at me and says "it's okay mommy I forgive you, I know its hard to be nice sometimes" yeah wow right! What a true blessing my kids are! I feel like such a bad mom in those moments, and he loves me anyway. Think of how much more Jesus loves us!

In church today we ended with a thought about how there is nothing that we can do to make God love us less, and likewise there is nothing we can do to make Him love us more, how comforting is that--not a crutch by any means, but good reminder that works don't work and the only thing we can do is try our best, when an opportunity presents itself to show grace and love, take it, seize it and show Christ's love. Unlike I did...Jesus forgive me for having a pretty sucky parent moment.

163. worshipping God with singing, tears, smiles and prayers all at once---even when its not Jimmy leading :)
164. becomming a more emotional person, unable to control the tears from flowing in a moment that calls for shedding a few
165. new friends
166. my sister's phone calls that tell me she is strong!
167. blogs about how to make the best iced coffee--a must in this hot hot state! can't wait to get the supplies and have iced coffee in the morning!
168. fat pants feeling slightly loser woo hoo
169. ice
170. my walgreens friends

Today after church we went to walgreens to get the deals of the week and we were excited to see our friend Amy, she had special stickers jsut for Tanner, she is so sweet! Tanner held her hand and walked a bit and said that he loves her, how stinkin sweet is he!

171. feeding ducks, i love to watch kids doing it as much as I love to watch the ducks try to get the bread, i always try to get my pieces to the kids, motherly instinct I guess (ironic considering my horrible actions this afternoon)

Kenni threw up this afternoon and I have no idea why, she may have choked on something I am not sure I was getting all the hair off the vacuum brushes and heard her start throwing up, anyway T was so sweet and concerned for her, until she looked like she was going to throw up on him and instead got me. poor baby!

172. watching my kiddos play

silly boys
173. boys with jeans and no shirt!

Oregon trip

I have been slacking on writing blogs so I wanted to go ahead and share our Oregon trip. We were there in the middle of July and were able to be there for Dad's 50th birthday bash, it was so nice to see everyone. The weather was lovely that day! It rained a bit while we were there which was unfortunate (in all my life living there it has never rained in July-and it prevented us from doing some of the activities we had planned). However, it was so beautiful and so nice to enjoy a lttle rain while Texas so desperately needed it!
We were camping and on the morning of our 2nd day it started to rain.
156. motorhomes

We ended up hanging out for a while in Grandma and Grandpa's motohome, which was so nice for Kennadi not to be in the rain. The men were outside all bundled up around the fire having man talk while the women and children read and played in the motorhome.
I went walking with K and Granpa S and his wife Darlice showed up just in time for us to decide to pack up, with thunder storm warnings I didn't think it would be much fun with a baby at night so sadly there was no playing in the river or watching the kids play on the sandy beach part (this year there was no sandy beach part because the water was so high)

157. Boys with dogs










158. Man time =chips and sticks


159. Baby enjoying licorice








160. See what I mean, seriously Oregon is beautiful, what a gift to experience it, smell it, feel the cool morning around a campfire sipping delicious coffee made in a perculator yummmy....

161. Watching 4 generations of family members together

Nina loves!

Never seen a dog love water so much, our dog hates it, but not Mr. Gusterson (Gus) He loved being in the water and chasing whatever you would throw in for him, he actually retrieves sticks and then Tanner was throwing rocks and he ended up scooping one up with his paw and retrieving that as well, it was so fun to watch him!

(Un)answered prayers

"Sometimes I thank God, for unanswered prayers, remember when you're talking, to the man upstairs, that just because He may not answer doesn't mean He don't care, some of God's greatest gifts, are unanswered prayers...."~Garth Brooks--awesome country singer p.s.

Well this is not one of those time, fooled ya right. Today is a day to rejoice in a very dear to my heart answered prayer! My sister has been in a string of bad relationships for the past 6 years of her life and she is 24 mind you....and in 8 days I am flying to get her and drive her back to our home in Texas to live with us! Praise Jesus!!!!! The closer it gets, the more real it becomes! I can't wait to wrap my arms around her in a bear hug!

Now I am not a big cryer or very emotional in many ways, but I can tell you that the dam is about to break and the waters are going to pour down over the rocky wall the the shallow, half dried up, pool below. When I let myself think of what a special gift my Texas friends are!
152. My texas friends

They are what true, genuwine, good hearted Christians ought to be like! They are so supportive and loving, a true mirror of Christ's love! Thank you so very much for your kindness and goodness and I thank God for placing you all in my life!

A special thanks goes to my great friend G! You melt my heart with your kindness towards my sister! You pray for her daily, and make sure to do so with a post it note you move each day, I honestly don't believe I was even praying every day for her, sad I know. You are showing her Christ's love and God has used you as a tool in this whole thing and I am so so greatful. My other friends have been amazing too, but your understanding and prayers have really done it in for me and for her! I can't even now contain the tears because I am so overwhlemed with feeling Christ's love-through Him and through you, Thank you so very much G from the bottom of my heart!
153. G!!!!!

154. oregon visits, surprise sister visits

155.papa and gus enjoying camping