Repent and Restore! Now Serve!

I wanted to talk more about the blog from Wednesday. I have been looking more into the issue as to wheather God will use you if you are broken from sin. I talked about how God gets all the glory in our weaknesses. God does use our brokeness. He uses our weaknesses. One thing I did not really talk about too much was that there is kind of a process to this.Most of us can not just be stuck in a sin that consumes us and then the very next day be ready to do Gods work. It takes a little work to be in the right place for God to use us after we have been stuck in sin. I have been looking into some more scriptures. These scriptures will be more about repenting and restoring. We all must repent. We must be restored.

Jer15:19
Therefore this is what the LORD says: "If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve me; if you utter worthy, not wothless, words you will be my spokesman. Let this people turn to you, but you must not turn to them.
The Lord commands Jeremiah to repent, then renew his call. If you have been stuck in some kind of sin, God will still use you too. Repent and restore just like Jeremiah did.

Ezekiel 18:30-32
Therefore, O house of Isreal, I will judge you each one according to his ways, declares the sovereign LORD. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. Rid your selves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of isreal? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the sovereign LORD. Repent and live!

Are you not too sure about repenting yet? How about this one. This should make you feel  good about repenting.
Luke 15: 7 "I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent."
Luke 15: 10 "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

Restore!
Jeremiah 31:18bRestore me, and I will return, because you are the Lord my God.

Nahum 2:2The LORD will restoe the splender of Jacob like the splendor of Isreal, though destroyers have laid them waste and have ruined their vines.
This is saying that the whole nation will be restored and united again.

1Peter 5:10 And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

I want to close with the same verse I started with.

Jer15:19
Therefore this is what the LORD says: "If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve me;


Tonight I ate 17 bowls of Chili at the chili cook off.I may need some help getting up from  this chair. Some of your youth made some really good stuff. Here are a few pictures of them.
Have a wonderful week!

Jr High boys aka "Super Chili Bros"

Princess Peach

Little Luigi

Wario

Jr High and High School Girls aka Super Jesus Freaks!

High School Boys aka Got Bubbles?

Not sure where they came up with that...

 Cool shirts!

 Annie was there to test taste all the chili.

Good job to all the youth that participated in the Chili Cook off!
xo-becky

Girls like shoes...

Just had to share these shoes...


These shoes are so stinking cute. I just had to share them with you. You can find them at www.joyfolie.com

Wow Wednesday #4 - Brokenness

This week I have been bothered by something someone said to me. We were talking about church stuff. This person said that they had a real problem with the following kind of situation...

There is someone who says they are a Christian. This person lives with someone outside of a marriage. This person also cheated on the other person with someone else. This person was at church camp teaching children the next week. It really got me to thinking. Can God use a broken sinning person to do his work? What do I say to this person who is not a christian? I don't really want this to be about what " I think" so I decided to just look up scripture to see if this helps answer my question. My hope is that if you are struggling with sin, you will pull out of it and do Gods work. My hope is that everyone will understand we ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It is my hope that you see that the only way to come to God is through Jesus Christ...

This story is kind of the same thing.
John 8:3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was  caught in the act of adultery.In the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" They were using this question as a trap in order to have a basis for accusing him. but Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept questioning hi he straightened up and sad to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing. Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one  condemned you" No one, sir, she said. Then neither do I condemn you." Jesus declared " Go now and leave your life of sin 
What does that say to you?
Jesus was the only one left there because he was the only one with out sin, he did not condone what the woman had done.

2Cor 12:9 "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when i am weak, then I am strong.
What does this say to you?
Human weakness provides the ideal opportunity for the display of devine power.

If you back up and read the 2Cor 12:7...To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.
I think we all have a thorn of some kind. We make God even more glorious if we use our thorn (or sin) to reach the people that are lost. We have lived through the thorns, we have the scares to show it. We should not hide them, we should show them and give God the glory for the Grace Jesus has given us to be able to overcome our weakness and still have an eternal life with our Creator.

Rom 10:9 That if you confess with you mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Happy Wednesday!
God I trust you, I trust your word. Please speak through me because I can't come up with the words to carry your message. I want you to be glorified in all I do. Use my sins to further your kingdom. Use my good stuff to further you kingdom. Take all the glory and remind me when I take any for myself.I am thankful for your forgiveness of all my sins.  I Love you. Amen.

xo-becky

Ignite

http://www.ignitestudent.com/

It has been a great weekend so far. The Lord was no doubt where we were this weekend. The Ignite student conference was this weekend in Amarillo. We had a group of seventeen students. Four of them were visitors of our students. One of the visitors made a decision to follow Christ as his Lord and Savior. One of our students made the same decision to follow Christ and one other of our students decided to re-commit her life to Christ. This week I plan to share a little about what we learned at our conference, but for now I have some very tired children to get to bed as well as myself. I will leave you tonight with this question.

"What is beautiful about the cross to you?"
Leave me a comment...

for me...the beauty of the cross is that I am free from all the sins that I  struggle with day by day...
I have more but I want to hear yours!

Galatians 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
( freedom from the slavery of the law in the old testament)

xo-becky

http://www.afshinziafat.com/
http://www.drewworsham.com/drewworsham.com/Home.html

What is up with that?

So this has been a crazy week. I don't usually like to talk much about ugh stuff, but you just have to hear about all of this. Mostly its just sickness. Taylor started not feeling good on Sunday. She just kept not feeling good for a few days. Yesterday I decided to just take her to an urgent care center because we were not able to make it to Amarillo to get her into her pedi. So I started looking for a clinic. No one would see her without a referral and our doctor was already closed. I went to two different places and the all sent us away. I didn't want to go to the ER because I didn't want to be out the big co-pay, but that was our only option. I was crying because everyone just kept saying no. Then I could not find the children's side of the ER at our hospital. We have never been there. I finally found it and then I cried because they were so nice to us! They took her blood and ran test and took x-rays and everything was fine. She was just dehydrated. They gave her an IV and after they ran a whole bag it was like Taylor was a new person. It is just amazing how staying hydrated will make you feel so much better. She even went to school today because she did not want to get any further behind.

On another note, our puppy had an allergic reaction to something the night before last. He has been pretty miserable but is getting better. I don't know what in the world he got into but I hope it never happens again. His eye was swollen and he had hives all over him. It his really fast and he looked so bad. He is taking allergy medicine for adults and it seems to help. The vet said it will take about three days for it to go away completely.

I am hoping that this weekend will be more fun than this week. We will be going to Canyon/Amarillo. The boys and I will be at the Ignite student conference and the girls will be getting some loving at Nana and Papa's house! Happy Weekend!

xo-becky

Wow Wednesday #3

Eve

I am studying the women of the Bible with my WAGOH's book club. (women after Gods own heart) We just started back on Friday. We are starting with Eve. I am going to take you along with me on my study.

These are the following scriptures we are reading this week. Read along with me.
Genesis 1:26-28, 2:18-25, 3, 4:1-2, and 25
2 Corinthians 11:3
1Timothy 2:13-15

To sum it all up for me, It seems like that there is lots going on here. I think it is pretty neat that God made us from from Adams rib. We were not made of dirt like Adam was.
All of our problems though started with Eve. Eve was the one who was tempted by Satan to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The both immediately noticed they were naked. God cursed Satan. God sent Adam and Eve away from the Garden of Eden. This is when man started to have to have to work very hard. It is also when God said that women will have great pain with childbirth. God made man also be over women.
Satan still to this day tempts us to not do as God has told us to do.


something has been eating at me today...
I have a really good friend who is married to a man who is very emotionally/mentally abusive and even financially abusive. He is also that way to their children. She doesn't really know what to do. She knows that she has TRIED to make him happy and it does not work. She tries to do what God says to do.She struggles with submitting to him because submitting to his authority would mean that she would be living out of  what God says in the Bible about how we should live.  She has been to some christian counseling in which the councilor told her that they should separate for the mental safety of the children. They did separate for a few weeks but he came back home before anything was changed. They do not get along at all. She brought him some information on marriage and relationship workshops today and told him she wanted to go. He said ok but  when he got mad at her today he ripped it in half and put it on her desk. I don't know what to tell her anymore. I need prayer for how I should be a witness to her. I need advise on where I should read about what God would want her to do. Can they pull out of this? Its been going on for about 10 years already. He says he is a Christian. Is he teaching his children who are not Christians yet that there is nothing special about being a christian and that you don't really have to try to live like Christ? Ugh...I am just not good in this area.




Something I am ok at is finding really cute thing to put on my blog. I am probably going to have the girls make their own valentine card for this year. I have some really good ideas going through my head. Can't wait till payday so we can get started.

I found these cute vintage cards on-line today. Too cute.






Here are a few Ideas for home made card as well...



WHOOO doesn't like an owl? This would work for a girl and a boy. We all know that the kids will get enough candy at the parties but my kids always lose their pencils so this would be a great substitute to the suckers.



I like these. You can use scrap fabric and glue it under the heart you cut out. Then just use some yarn or even glitter and glue to decorate around the heart. If you do not have any fabric use some cute printed paper.

Get crafty and make your own cards this year...

xo-becky

I want new vintage dresses!

I want some new vintage dresses. There is NO PLACE in my town to buy cute stuff like this.




I heard the other day that BLUE is the color to wear if you want to "get the job"! I think this one would do the trick!

Check out all the other stuff from www.thevintagefamily.blogspot.com


I don't rear red much, but this is cute and the shoes are awesome! Speaking of shoes...

I have a thing for these green shoes

I want this brides shoes so bad. I HAVE to find me some of these.
See ya tomorrow for wow Wednesday!

Bridal Expo Tomorrow

On Monday I found out that I would be putting together a booth for this Sunday at the Bridal Expo at the civic center. So I have been trying to come up with some Ideas for decorations and stuff. If you are in Lubbock tomorrow you should try to stop by and check out all the cool things there are at the expo. It looked like some really neat stuff when I went to set up today. I got some of my inspiration from this wedding. I want the green shoes! http://www.leweddingparty.com/2010/12/a-local-affair-2/

A couple of us broke out our wedding dresses to get pictures made working out in them. They are funny. I tryed to add them in to this blog but I could not get them to load so you will just have to come out to the expo to see for your self. I will post pictures all the great stuff from the show tomorrow. Happy weekend!

xo-becky

These are my diy floral arrangements for the table for this weekends expo. I just picked up some fresh flowers from Sams and used some of my mason jars. Sams did not have very much to chose from so I just used everything I could find in Purple.

Wow Wednesday #2 "A Masterpiece"

"A Masterpiece"

This has a better week. Actually a little fun. I have been busy planning a booth at the Bridal Expo for this weekend for work. Pictures and lots of fun stuff to show you. Can't wait. Be looking for it soon.


So, today the kids had early dismissal. I decided to swing by Wal-Mart and get some glitter and card stock so we could make a valentines day project. The boys of course were too busy playing the ps3 so it was just me and the girls that worked on our fun girly stuff. The girls worked really hard and they had to get it just right. They look like masterpieces to me. They only saved me one heart to decorate. The rest are all what they came up with.

Did you know that WE are also masterpieces. God's masterpieces. God's well prepared masterpieces. That's so cool. God is so big.


Ephesians 2:10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
*workmanship- The Greek for this word sometimes has connotation of a "work of art"
*prepared in advance- God's sovereign purpose and planning

Here are a few other masterpieces I found this past week. It was a great week to do some thrift store shopping.

This is the first piece I found this weekend. It was at Goodwill. They had it laying on its side, using it to display some stuff, and said the leg was broken. It wasn't really broken. Some of the decorative stuff had broken off in front of the leg but all the pieces were taped to the bottom. I decided $40 was a fair price so I bought it. It found a home in the girls room. They are out of closet space so this will help a ton!

I will get the decortive leg stuff put on it soon. Just have not had time to do it yet.

I really like the little twirly carvings.

The mirror looks like the original mirror that it probably was made with.

The second thing I found was at a little antique mall. I think it must be an old news paper stand or something. It was being used as a display for linens but it said all stuff in that booth was 25% off. It had a tag that said $34.00 FIRM. The lady at the front desk said she never even noticed this thing. I needed it for my kids bathroom. They don't have a closet or anywhere to put towels and not much space so this is perfect.

Then my next big wow thing for this week, I didn't even have to buy. It has been sitting out on my back patio sense mothers day. I thought I was getting a new non- leak roof over my patio. Long story short, it still leaks and my table was getting weathered very bad. The table is what my kids got me for mothers day last year. They got it as an antique store in Post, Texas. It was marked down to like $150.00 I think. Not too bad I guess. It was just paining me to let it sit out and ruin so I decided to move my big black table from the dining room to our kitchen that has like NO counter space, to use for counter space and breakfast table. It works out really well because it is counter height. So I just kind of switched things around a bit and the outside dining table is now the inside dining table.

All the chairs except the tow on the ends came from garage sales this summer. I paid $1-$3 each for them. The black and white chairs on the ends I got at Pier One a few years ago. (not on sale) lol

I recovered most of the chairs and pained the black one at the end. It was Pepito pink when I got it.

The black table in the kitchen is now smaller. I closed the leaf on it and only used four chairs. It got a lot of use this week. We found this really cool cook book at the book store and have made about five recipes from it this week. The kids like to help cook. And the actually LOVE the food from this cookbook!

 I also found the bigger jar for $5. It was great for my straws but the kids already broke the lid.

Oh, and I almost forgot. The China on the table I found at Savers Super Thrift Store. It is a place setting for eight. Still had the tags on it. It was marked $24 but that color of tag was 50% off for that day. They always have a different colored tag at 50% off. I only paid like $12ish. It is Mikasa Ultima Plus with a platinum ring around it. Look it up. HK301 Cameo Platinum. I'm pretty sure I got a steal.

My last wow thing for today is something I love. Old pillow cases. My mom finished some of these that my grandmother had started on before she passed away. Thank you mom for sending them.

XO-becky

Wow Wednesday "#1" second try

I dont know what was up with my blog yesterday, but it seems to be working ok today. So here goes my first Wow Wednesday...

Colossians 3:5-7 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impourity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolarty. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander and filthy language from your lips.

The begining of the year is a good time to take a good look at your life and just see if there is anything that you need to work on. These verses hit home for many of us. Actually only one man was ever able to avoid the thing listed in these verses.

Have you given you life to Christ?


Wow things for this week...random stuff

 I found this trunk at a garage sale along with another one just like it for $5. We have it sitting by the front door so the kids can throw their shoes in it when they come home. They usually still take off their shoes and leave them in the middle of the floor anyways.

 mis-matched plates sitting on a candle holder.

I found this door at a garage sale for $10

This was my great grandparents wedding gift. It was given to them in December of 1916.

My hope is that I will be able to post some wow things every Wednesday.