Anticipating...

Let me just say that if you have never been to Sight & Sound Theatre in Lancaster county, you are REALLY missing out! I love, love, love that place! Combine that experience with Shady Maple and I am one happy girl! (Have I mentioned this before? I am feeling repetitive...oh well!) By far, my favorite show was Ruth. It's such a beautiful love story and amazing picture of how Christ has redeemed us! I just finished watching Ruth on DVD for the umpteenth time. I was so thrilled that they put it on DVD, but disappointed that it will never be live on stage again. At least I got to see it live 2 times! :) Watching it on DVD gives you a new perspective because you have different angles and close-up views, but there is nothing like seeing it live!

(Click on the picture to hear a clip of one of my favorite songs)

Now I am greatly anticipating the newest production of Joseph - another amazing story in the Bible. March 2010 can't get here soon enough!!! Anybody want to go along on a Sight & Sound/Shady Maple trip with me?! Let's plan a date!!!

(Click on the picture to go to the website)

Though None Go With Me

Tonight as I was taking sermon notes at church, I flipped to the back of my notebook, and found a quote that I had written down after hearing it on one of the movies I own. It's a great movie called "Though None Go With Me."

This young lady named Elizabeth is going through a rough time because her fiance is going off to war as a chaplain. The quote I wrote down is from the last sermon he preached before leaving on the train for Korea. It really helped Elizabeth finally surrender her life over to God and follow Him unconditionally. Little did she realize all the struggles she would face in the future.

"Our personal power is limited, but God's power is infinite. All that is required is one simple prayer, 'Not my will, Lord, but Yours.' Why are we so afraid of turning our lives over to a greater will? Why do we seek guidance, yet fear what that guidance will say to us? Because it means that we have to say to God that I accept whatever it is that You have chosen for me, and I trust that You will give me the strength to deal with it. There's an old hymn that says it far better than I can, 'Though none go with me still I will follow - No turning back, no turning back."

I would highly recommend both the movie and the book. Obviously, the book is better and goes to a deeper spiritual level than the movie, but both are excellent and may just bring you to tears! I have both so if you ever want to borrow either, feel free to ask!

*Edited* I was getting tired of the movie trailer immediately starting up each time I opened my blog, so I decided to just post the link...if you want to watch the trailer you can click here.

5 Minute Chocolate Cake

Clicking that "Stumble" button on my Mozilla Firefox browser has been an interesting adventure so far. You never really know what you might stumble upon next! Tonight I discovered the 5 minute chocolate cake. I was rather skeptical at first, but decided to give it a try.

Ingredients:

4 Tbsp. flour
4 Tbsp. sugar
2 Tbsp. cocoa
1 egg
3 Tbsp milk
3 Tbsp oil

Mix flour, sugar and cocoa together in a large mug. Spoon in 1 egg. Pour in milk and oil, and mix well.

Put in microwave for 3 minutes on maximum power.

(Don't you just love my snowman mug? I am ready for fall weather...not too sure about snowman weather yet!)

Wait until it stops rising and sets in the mug. Tip cake out of mug and enjoy!

I added some chocolate chips to the mixture because I wasn't sure if I would have enough cocoa. It turned out rather tasty! However, I am BIG on texture, and it didn't have the same texture as a regular cake - it was a more heavy, spongy type texture. But for a 5 minute microwave cake, I can't complain too much. :)

So next time you are hungry for chocolate cake, but don't have enough ingredients or the time to make a regular-sized cake, try this recipe on for size!

Let me know what you think! :)

Change

Why do I cringe whenever I hear that word? Change can be good!

• I just changed my hairstyle = good change
• I recently changed jobs = turning into a good change :)
• I change my clothes every day = ALWAYS a good change!
• Tonight I changed my blog background = good change
• Fall is around the corner = DEFINITELY a good change...CAN'T WAIT!!! Fall is by far my most favorite season of the year...the season of changing leaves :)

Life will always be full of change...some good and some scary. However it is always reassuring to know that...

"For I am the LORD, I change not..." Malachi 3:6a

"Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever."

Hebrews 13:8

The Grass is Always Greener

Yesterday I was curling my hair, getting ready for church, and I made a "rash" decision. I decided I was going to get my hair permed. I was tired of having to curl it all the time to make it look nice. I had a $20 awards card from the hair salon I go to that had to be used up before the beginning of October, so I decided to go today. The reason I decided to go so soon was mainly because this Wednesday is picture day at our church's school. Even though I am not a teacher this year, I still need to get a picture because I am on staff. Well, if I was going to get my hair permed, I might as well get it done in time for picture day, right?!

So after about 3 hours in a hair salon, (definitely my record so far!) my hair is officially curly. Although I didn't get much cut off, the curls make my hair look shorter. Besides the fact that right now my hair has that lovely "perm smell", I think I am going to like it. I just need to learn how to work with it. My last perm was about 10 years ago, and I basically let it do whatever it wanted. Yeah, not pretty!

Yes, I know...girls with straight hair want curly hair, and girls with curly hair want straight hair. We are never content, are we? :) The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence!

The Before and After shots :)

I'm 9 years old today!

On September 11, 2000, my life was changed forever. I would like to share with you what God has done in my life. Back when I was five or six I remember "praying the prayer" of salvation, but it was just out of fear of Hell. As I grew older, I realized that was not true salvation. I didn't really worry about it though. I trained my mind to think that all was okay, and that such a loving God would never let such a "good girl" like me go to Hell.

When I got in the youth group, it got very hard to convince myself I was all right in God's eyes; deep down inside my heart I knew nothing was right. Salvation messages concerned me even more than they did before, and I got concerned enough to do a Bible study with my Mom. As I went through the Bible study, my heart really wasn't in it. All the things we went over were familiar things I had known for a long time. I certainly had a lot of head knowledge about salvation, but definitely no heart knowledge. I did not see myself as God saw me, which was a filthy, dirty sinner in need of repentance, but a "good girl" who had to search really deep to find anything wrong with her.

After the Bible study was over, my Mom told me whenever I needed to talk, she would be available. As I heard salvation messages, I would get really scared. I would talk to her because I was so afraid the Lord would return and I would not be ready. Message after message went by, but I would just push my nagging thoughts away. I thought I had plenty of time to worry about getting saved.

We had a winter camp in January, 2000, and I went thinking that this could be the time, but I ended up leaving because I got sick. Why did I have to leave when I could have gotten saved? Was it too late for me to get saved? During that summer, our Assistant Pastor asked me point blank, "What is the condition of your soul?" I told him I knew I was lost, I truly wanted to get saved, but didn't know what to do. He told me that if I desired to get saved, I should ask God to save me right then. I immediately began to think, "The Lord won't save me right now." I pushed off the opportunity to get saved again! I couldn't fall asleep right away that night because I was trying to figure out why I could not get saved.

A new school year began, and our pastor started off the year preaching a message on salvation every day for two weeks. The messages seemed to be directed right to me. One question that stuck in my head was, "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" That Sunday I again heard a message about salvation. The invitation song that followed went like this, "Why do you wait, dear brother? What will you gain by a further delay? Why not, why not, why not come to Him now?" I could not understand what was wrong with me. Why could I not come to Him now?

During the afternoon I decided to try to figure out again why I could not get saved. I got the sheet with all the verses we had gone over in the Bible study, and looked up all the verses I could find about faith and repentance. I thought, "There had to be something I was missing," but all the verses I read said the same thing, you must repent and believe in order to be saved. My Dad saw me reading my Bible, so he thought it was the appropriate time to start playing this song on the piano, "The Savior is waiting to enter your heart, why don't you let Him come in? There is nothing in this world to keep you apart. What is your answer to Him? Time after time He has waited before, and now He is waiting again. To see if you're willing to open the door. Oh, how He wants to come in!"

That night I could not get rid of the conviction like I had been able to other times. The next morning, September 11, 2000, I woke up around 4:30 a.m., and could not go back to sleep. I just tossed and turned, so miserable under the conviction of my sin, and I felt such a pressure to do something. I heard my Dad get up, and I nearly leaped out of bed to go talk to him. "What is wrong with me, Dad?" I asked. "I am so confused about everything. Why can't I figure out what to do?" My Dad showed me the verse in Isaiah 55:8, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord." He told me we couldn't figure out salvation because God does not think like we think. All we need to do is trust that He knows what He is doing, and just come to Him. I was still confused, so he gave me a pamphlet. He told me to go back to my room, read it, and really think about it.

I went back and started reading the pamphlet, but it was all the familiar verses I had read the day before. They were all about repentance and faith. I knew my Dad had told me God does not ask you to figure out salvation, but I was still confused. How could I get saved without figuring out what to do? At the end of the pamphlet it said, "Your choice is clear - it is either sin or Christ. What will you do? Receive Christ now into your heart as your Lord and Savior and have eternal life OR Reject Him now and continue on your road to Hell?" I knew I didn't want my sin, and I saw I was a very wicked person who didn't deserve such a wonderful Savior, and I wanted to be His child. Of course, the devil did not want Christ to be my Savior, and he started filling my mind with his deceitful lies. What if I was the only one that Christ did not want to save? Everyone else had this wonderful salvation, but I would never have it.

My parents tried counseling me, but the devil had me around his little finger. No matter what my parents told me about God loving me, I was convinced I would never be able to get saved. I remember my Dad saying, "You are going through a battle, Becky. The devil doesn't want you to get saved, and he and the Lord are fighting for you now. Whatever you do, Becky, do NOT let Satan win!" They prayed with me, and sent me to school.

I went to chapel that morning determined to talk to someone after the message. Our pastor began preaching about knowing the will of God in your life, and I soon began to relax. Maybe I would not have to worry about that annoying conviction since this was a message to those who were saved. Then I heard him say, "It is not God's will that you remain lost." After I had gone through all the doubting that God didn't want to save me, that statement made me realize my thinking was definitely not right. Pastor Hammett had us turn to two passages. The first one was 2 Peter 3:9, "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that ANY should perish, but that all should come to repentance." Then we turned to 1 Timothy 2:3-4, "For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." Those verses certainly convinced me that God truly wanted me to be saved, but I still had that question, How?

As if he had read my mind, the pastor looked right at me and asked, "Becky, if I asked you to come up here what would you do? All I could think to say was, "Come up there." Then to everyone he said, "That is all God asks is that we come to Him." I don't remember anything else from the message except that I was determined to remain seated after the message, and ask to talk with someone. As I clung to my seat I began wondering, "What if God won't save me?"

My friend, Kristin, came to talk to me. I told her how much I truly desired to get saved, yet how worried I was that God would not save me. She turned to John 3:18, "He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." She told me that I had to ask God to save me, believing that He would. If I did not truly believe He would save me, I was really guilty of unbelief.

When she said that to me, it was like a "light bulb" turned on, and I knew what I had to do. She asked me if I wanted to pray or just leave, and I told her if I left again I probably would not have another chance. Right then and there I surrendered my life to the Lord, I repented of my sins, and believed that God would save me.

After I prayed, Kristin quoted Romans 10:13, "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." I knew I had done exactly that, and at that very moment a tremendous peace flooded my soul. I knew for the first time I was God's child, and was on my way to Heaven. It was definitely not something I had done on my own. My "good works" had not gained a relationship with God; it was only God's amazing grace that could save a wretch like me.

The Stories Behind the Sayings

I am sure you have heard of Aesop's Fables. He wrote the well-known fable about the "Tortoise and the Hare" with the moral being - Slow and steady wins the race. Ringing a bell? Anywho, as I was "stumbling around" on the Internet tonight, I came across a site with some, if not all, of Aesop's Fables. You ever wonder where certain sayings come from? As I was browsing through some of Aesop's Fables, I discovered that a few of his fables' morals were sayings that I have heard countless times. Enjoy the stories behind the sayings!

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A boy put his hand into a pitcher full of filberts. He grasped as many as he could possibly hold, but when he tried to pull out his hand, he was prevented from doing so by the neck of the pitcher. Unwilling to lose his filberts, and yet unable to withdraw his hand, he burst into tears and bitterly lamented his disappointment. A bystander said to him, "Be satisfied with half the quantity, and you will readily draw out your hand." Do not attempt too much at once.

A fox one day fell into a deep well and could find no means of escape. A Goat, overcome with thirst, came to the same well, and seeing the Fox, inquired if the water was good. Concealing his sad plight under a merry guise, the Fox indulged in a lavish praise of the water, saying it was excellent beyond measure, and encouraging him to descend. The Goat, mindful only of his thirst, thoughtlessly jumped down, but just as he drank, the Fox informed him of the difficulty they were both in and suggested a scheme for their common escape. "If," said he, "you will place your forefeet upon the wall and bend your head, I will run up your back and escape, and will help you out afterwards." The Goat readily assented and the Fox leaped upon his back. Steadying himself with the Goat's horns, he safely reached the mouth of the well and made off as fast as he could. When the Goat upbraided him for breaking his promise, he turned around and cried out, "You foolish old fellow! If you had as many brains in your head as you have hairs in your beard, you would never have gone down before you had inspected the way up, nor have exposed yourself to dangers from which you had no means of escape." Look before you leap.

A farmer placed nets on his newly-sown plowlands and caught a number of Cranes, which came to pick up his seed. With them he trapped a Stork that had fractured his leg in the net and was earnestly beseeching the Farmer to spare his life. "Pray save me, Master," he said, "and let me go free this once. My broken limb should excite your pity. Besides, I am no Crane, I am a Stork, a bird of excellent character; and see how I love and slave for my father and mother. Look too, at my feathers-- they are not the least like those of a Crane." The Farmer laughed aloud and said, "It may be all as you say, I only know this: I have taken you with these robbers, the Cranes, and you must die in their company." Birds of a feather flock together.

Two game cocks were fiercely fighting for the mastery of the farmyard. One at last put the other to flight. The vanquished Cock skulked away and hid himself in a quiet corner, while the conqueror, flying up to a high wall, flapped his wings and crowed exultingly with all his might. An Eagle sailing through the air pounced upon him and carried him off in his talons. The vanquished Cock immediately came out of his corner, and ruled henceforth with undisputed mastery. Pride goes before destruction.

A middle-age man, whose hair had begun to turn gray, courted two women at the same time. One of them was young, and the other well advanced in years. The elder woman, ashamed to be courted by a man younger than herself, made a point, whenever her admirer visited her, to pull out some portion of his black hairs. The younger, on the contrary, not wishing to become the wife of an old man, was equally zealous in removing every gray hair she could find. Thus it came to pass that between them both he very soon found that he had not a hair left on his head. Those who seek to please everybody please nobody.

A boy was stung by a Nettle. He ran home and told his Mother, saying, "Although it hurts me very much, I only touched it gently." "That was just why it stung you," said his Mother. "The next time you touch a Nettle, grasp it boldly, and it will be soft as silk to your hand, and not in the least hurt you." Whatever you do, do with all your might.

Backyard Family Fun

Yesterday for Labor Day, we had my grandparents and my aunt over for a picnic. My great uncle and aunt showed up as well, which was a surprise to us because they are from Maryland.

Instead of just sitting on the porch and chit-chatting, we wanted to play some "backyard picnic"games.

Alas, we couldn't locate a badmitton net, but our clothesline did its best to substitute...

No picnic of ours would be complete without a couple of beanbag tournaments.

Here is a picture of my lil' sis and I as we are practicing "loving our enemies" during the first tournament :)...we are such good fakers!

My Pop-Pop even played bean bags yesterday. My Nannie did too, later on, and she and Andy won...which made her rather happy. :)

After playing badmitton and bean bags for awhile, we attempted a game of croquet. I've played before, but its been awhile...let's just say, the womenfolk didn't do nearly as well as the menfolk....

And this would be why!! Notice the color of the ball Andy is getting ready to whack a mile away?! Yep, it's mine....if he hadn't done that I am *sure* I would have won the game! Hahahaha...

Croquet is such an old-fashioned "picnicky" sport. All I can picture is ladies back in the early 1900s or so, in their long dresses and parasols, daintily tapping at the ball as they sip their cool glass of lemonade. The gentlemen would be standing by, assisting them as need be. That didn't exactly happen yesterday...although the men did try to give us "helpful hints". :)

As we attempted the game of croquet, this scene from the old Disney movie "Summer Magic" kept playing in my head. The scene starts about 1 minute into this clip, so you just gotta wait for it. :)

Reach for the Clouds!

In my 2's and 3's Sunday School class, I like to have "role call" time where I call a child's name, and they will raise their hand calling, "Here!"

However, you know how it is...one child starts something, and they all have to follow. One of the first weeks I started doing "role call", one child decided to cover their eyes when I called their name instead of raising their hand. Apparently at this age, they think that because they can't see me, I can't see them...haha!

After awhile it got to the point where every.single.child was covering their eyes instead of raising their hand. A child would then yank on their friend's arm to get them to raise their hand, and seeing how I didn't want to really encourage arm pulling, I knew I had to come up with a Plan B.

About a month or so ago, I finally came up with Plan B. Instead of telling the children to raise their hand when I called their name, I would tell them to "Reach for the clouds!!" This seemed to inspire them to raise not only one, but BOTH hands, stretching up as far as their short, little arms could reach! Since then, to provide some variety, we have also reached for the stars, birds, trees and last week it was even "Reach for the cats and dogs!" (apparently they were either climbing a tree or flying in the sky...never did figure that one out!)

Anywho...there is a point to all this :)

This morning in my devotions, I read this verse:

"Thy mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds." - Psalm 36:5

Immediately, this made me think of my Sunday School kiddos holding up their short little arms, straining themselves in the futile effort of reaching for the clouds. They may groan, moan, and strain all they want, but they will never truly succeed in reaching the clouds.

However, my Lord is SO faithful and SO merciful that we can't even dream of reaching the heights to where His faithfulness and mercy can take us.

I also read this verse this morning:

"O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" - Romans 11:33

So many times I find myself limiting my Savior. I stretch my arms up as high as I can reach in a futile attempt to "reach for the clouds", and think that is as far as the Lord can reach as well. However, His judgments and ways are unsearchable and past finding out! His faithfulness reaches unto the clouds. How dare I think that God can't handle any situation that arises in my life?! He is GOD! He has made this entire universe, and there are NO limits as to where He can go, and what He can do! All He asks of me is that I stop trying to accomplish things on my own (like reaching for the clouds!), and ask for His help and strength. His grace is sufficient for me, for His strength is made perfect in my weakness.