Friday, March 15, 2013

Genesis 28:22

"...and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth".

Wowza, did I learn something yesterday or what?!
Let me fill you in on some things before I tell you the importance of this bible verse.
1. I've been job searching for about 3 months here in lovely Washington.
2. I've come close to numerous jobs.
3. I've been super hopeful in getting a job at a gym of any sort.
4. I've been waiting to hear back from L.A. Fitness for 3 weeks, when they had told me they needed someone A.S.A.P. at the time of my interview.
5. I have trust issues.
6. I'm still learning a lot about my faith.
7. My husband is currently our only household income, and I worry about making moves monetarily when he isn't sure about something.
8. I have a church back home that I miss dearly, and a church here that the husband and I are not too sure about.
9. I come to random conclusions that could have made just as much sense if I'd figured them out months ago.
10. God's timing is the only timing that matters.

Anyways, I was reading my bible yesterday (I'm trying to read beginning to end, as well as doing a "Bible in a Year" app on my iPhone). As I read I came across this and those three words hit me hard. "you give me", meaning God gives us all we have, it's only fair to give Him what He asks so that He doesn't take away all we expect when we don't always deserve it. 
I sent a picture of my highlighted (in two colors) and underlined three words to my husband. All of a sudden, as soon as I hit send, I had an idea! Neither of us are too sure about the church we are currently in but we know God wants us there right now, so it's been hard to give let alone a full 10% financially that God asks for. I asked my husband if he is ready to deal into God's hands starting this check and that if he wasn't comfortable with us tithing to our current church then we could send our tithes to our home church if that made him more comfortable. He agreed and said we need to just keep the faith. (P.s. I love what God is doing to us personality wise. We are learning so much and gaining faith every day!) 
So once I had the go ahead from the head of the house, I began re-budgeting. I put our tithes at the top of the list; above rent, groceries, all bills, "fun" money (non-existent most checks). LITERALLY the moment I got done budgeting and just left our money issues to God in my head, I got a cal from LA Fitness saying I had been hired. 
Three months of job searching, three weeks of hearing nothing from LA Fitness. All I did was do as my creator expects, I PUT HIM FIRST. Maybe to some of you this is just some coincidence, but whatever it is, it makes me want to keep doing as my heavenly Father wants me to do.
I'm just blown away.
Dare you: Tithe in your full 10% so that God can bless you the way he wants to!   
  

Friday, March 8, 2013

Toddling with a Toddler

I just wanted to share some photos from mini-me and I on our walk yesterday. We took advantage of the briefly nice weather and these awesome things my sweet girl found.



Pine-cones "cone-cones".


Flowers "Fwowers".


A fire hydrant.
And she decided to give me her first self-allowed "cheese" so that I got a good picture.

I just love her. She is growing too fast.



Monday, March 4, 2013

Church, Family and The Job Hunt

Procrastination

Well, I've done it again. On both of my blogs, I've not logged in months but feels like years. Adjusting to having a full family of three again is proving to be a task. Arranging time as best as I can and there is still not enough time in a day. If my kiddo doesn't need me then my husband does, and if he doesn't then the house does. If it's not one of the aforementioned, then it's our dog, grocery shopping, or a church function of some sort. E.X.H.A.U.S.T.E.D. I love it every day, but am definitely no expert at time management.

Lovebug and I have found a temporary church for our remaining time here in Washington. We attend Capital Christian Center. We've signed up and are about to send in for our certification for a program called Prepare & Enrich so that we can be marriage mentors to our first Small Group focused on Marriage On The Rock by Jimmy Evans. Prepare & Enrich is a program designed to help couples prevent and deter common issues that often lead to divorce that are avoidable when you take the time to prepare for a marriage based on more than just love. Once we get our certification back, Lovebug and I would be happy to try out being your facilitator and help you learn how to better your relationship!

https://www.prepare-enrich.com/webapp/pe/overview/template/DisplaySecureContent.vm;pc=1362446557769;jsessionid=244AE626F7BE9D83750C0111F0AC0C45?id=pe*prepare_enrich*introduction.html&emb_org_id=0&emb_sch_id=0&emb_lng_code=ENGLISH

http://www.marriagetoday.com/

Our church has twenty-five couples who attended certification classes for this program to help marriages within the church, and around our community. I am elated each time that it is announced at church or spoken of within ear shot of me! Sign-ups began this weekend and we have already got two couples in our group which is astounding to me since we are not well known within this church yet. One of the couples IS my husbands friend/co-worker as well as our roommate and his newlywed wife. The fact that we have the chance to change things for people here is enormous. Families, marriages, children and communities will be forever changed through this beginning. I encourage everyone (single, married, divorced, old, young etc. to read Marriage On The Rock even if you cannot get into a small group devoted to this book. I plan on keeping everyone updated on this process.

I'm thinking about getting these for everyone in my group, not sure just yet.

 

My little family has been consumed by church here lately, and I just love it! We are learning and growing so much, I am just humbled by what we were not noticing before accepting Christ as our Savior! Our God is good, so good.

My mini-me turned two at the end of February and has made great advancements in speaking sentences and showing us her interests. Right now she is into Cars, Dora & Diego, Princess', Care Bears and baking! She gets the beat of the ABC's and even gets some of the letters right! When she first began "counting" she would say 2, 9, 2, 9, 2, 9!  Next it was all of her even numbers when we would help her count aloud, but for it has changed to 4,7,8! Today she got her first official hair trim and her curls are more bouncy than ever. She has even been riding a bike! She melts my heart.

(Now mommy wants a bike like this one!)

 

My husband did own a truck for the past month, but it was quite the beater. a '76 Chevy Cheyenne to be exact. It had a "mexican rebuild" for a motor that ended up blowing out on him a few days ago. While we had two cars in the family it was very nice! I started my job search and have been on quite a few interviews and now am not sure what this means for me quite yet, but I have not given up hope that I can enter the working world again.

We're trying to decide on quite a few things about our PCS to Fort Hood. We will be there by the end of July and I cannot wait to make it there! Being two hours away from familiarity and his family will be amazing! Hopefully he can fall in love with his unit so he doesn't find bad days running him over as often as what we have experienced so far. We shall see.

Maybe I should get this thing!

 

I really want to get back into school. We both think this marriage mentor thing is awesome. We've also found out we've both spoken with friends separately about being counselors of some sort. Assuming this is our forte, I'll eventually be going to school to get my degree after a long awaited approval from the man upstairs on my career path and dreams. Thank you God for the affirmation and determination! First thing is first, I have a loan to pay off from school before!

Well, here is a little of what has gone on lately:) Enjoy!