….the purpose of the Lord will stand….

Proverbs 19:21

Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.

I do want to write, at the same time I don’t.  I have opened and minimalized this page at least 5 times now before I got the first two sentences typed.  It is not that I am overly saddened, but I am tired and I really don’t want to think about what I am about to share but I think it is important, so I am typing and posting.

Today a wonderful family, who many have been truly blessed by, is moving out of our community, and back to their home in Ohio.  This family has not only become close friends of mine, but it is my Pastor his wife and children.  They have played a bigger role in my life, and I am confident in others, in the last 3+ years than they realize.  I would be honored if you would join me in this prayer below praising God for them, and asking for His guidance in their lives.

All knowing God,

Your ways are higher than our ways.  You have the perfect plan for your people.  I thank you for the plan that you have in the Weller household.  I praise you for the people that they are, and the lives that they in all seeking your will.  I thank you that you blessed our church and our community with their friendship, the involvement, their guidance, their leadership and their love for the time that you have.  I trust that was glorifying to you.

I pray for them as a family, that this move brings them even closer to each other and to you.  Be with them, hold them tight.  I pray for safe travel for them and a sense of peace in this stressful time.  Lord, be with them once they arrive, giving them a new sense of home and belonging in their new jobs, and in their new community.  Help them to adjust quickly and smoothly.  I pray that Nathan blesses his new church as he did our church.  Fill him with your spirit and your will.  Also give him a time of rest in the time before he starts with the new church and help this to be a good time of adjustment for the family.  I also pray for Holly, help remove the stress in her life, as she establishes her new home and her new routine.  Be with her to settle into her new job, and time away from their girls.  I pray that the girls grow happy and healthy in this new area.   Help them adjust to their new home and new daycare program, help them make friends and always grow in you.  Lord, you know all things.  When we run out of words, you know the prayer of our hearts, so fill in the gaps.  Be with the Wellers in all places and all times.

We are trusting in you.  In Jesus Holy Name, Amen!!

B&B Day Dreaming

Today seems to be a Bed and Breakfast day dreaming day.  Can I really make this dream a reality?  Right now what I see as my biggest hold up is money.  But isn’t this all too often the case.  I know it will be a lot of hard work, but I think I would really like it, I mean it has been a dream of mine for YEARS now.  But things can change, dreams can change, and only God knows the future.  “I know the plans I have to you declares the Lord…”  Jeremiah 29:11). I really want to start making rough plans for this, and stop calling it a dream, but call it a plan, or a goal.  Really there is no harm in starting to plan; it is not like a need to take quick action on this plan.  I spend enough time day dreaming about it, that I could/should be using that time in a useful manner, even if my dream (plan) doesn’t come to fruition, I will at least know that I considered an looked at the option, rather than just day dreamt about it.

Crushes

I am thinking about are crushes, we have all had them. You know what I am talking about those butterflies while admiring someone from afar, and day dreaming about the “what-ifs”. And is this wrong? No I don’t think so; I think it is very normal, for single people to have crushes. What does the Bible have to say on this? Well the closest I could find is in 2 Timothy 2:22 “So flee youthful passions and purse righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.” So again, I think it is very natural, but at the same time “crushes” are “youthful”. Youthful, naïve, childlike, and therefore should be outgrown.
A crush is very naïve, in the sense that you don’t really know the person, hence admiring them from afar. And as we develop as people, as Christians, and within relationships these crushes need to be fled from. Relations cannot be built upon a crush; they do need to be built on knowing one another, not being naïve on who the other person is. Time and understanding need to be invested. I am not saying that attraction shouldn’t be there, but it should not be an immature infatuation. Relations are built on “righteousness, faith, love and peace”.

Unedited.

It has become apparent to me that people are reading my blog.  Not a ton, but it is cool that it is being noticed.  But it also is starting to make me self-conscious that I do not proofread my posts, probably not enough that I will start editing them.  But enough that I feel that I should explain why I do not proofread them.  Am I just horrible at grammar?  Yea, maybe a bit.  Am I just lazy, that I don’t reread it?  Umm, well no, because I usually do reread them later, and find the mistakes.

The reason I don’t, is I don’t want to second guess my thoughts.  If I really studied it, or concerned myself how people would perceive it I would be seconding guessing my thoughts.  This would cause me to change parts, to make it sound better and make myself sound better.  I really want this blog to be raw, honest me.  So I do apologize that it is frustrating to read unstructured sentences and poor grammar, but it keeps it honest.  Hope you continue to read, thanks.  I do appreciate it.

13.1 MAYBE

Yesterday’s run made we think that it is possible.  This past week I found out that my Pastor and his family will be moving away.  This is sad news for our church, as we love them.  (Side note:  We are excited for them, and how God is working in their lives.)  But with the move we know that we will miss them.  My Pastor’s wife is a really intense, inspirational runner (great women).  And she asked a friend (Brianna) of ours to come to the town that they are moving to, to run a half marathon.   A HALF MARATHON?!?  (That is 13.1 miles… WHAT?)  The other girl is all in, so proud of her.

Going to see my Pastor and Holly (wife) and their family, made it really tempting, but really I am far from being able to run 13.1 miles.  So I unfortunately thought, there is no way, so they told me that there is a quarter marathon.  Somehow for some reason, that sounded really lame to me (a half of a half of a marathon).  Okay think about it though, a quarter is still 6 miles, that is nothing to scoff at.  If you have done that, well, really be proud, that is awesome!  That is farther than I have ever ran.  So, I was like okay, I will work on that.  6 miles, May 31^st, I can do that. Okay, good goal.

That was until yesterday.  Okay, this isn’t going to sound big, but to me it is huge, I ran 5 miles yesterday!!  5 miles!!!! It wasn’t even planned; I met Brianna for a run at the Montour Trail to run.  I really thought we would go 3 or 3.5 miles max, as we have been running 3 miles together recently.  But we got to the trail (still very sorry I was late Brianna) and you could literally have ice skated in the parking lot,  it was a flat sheet of ice.  My car slid into the parking spot.  The trail was hardly any better.  You could tell that many people have ran, cross country skied and even a truck was driven on it.  There was ice everywhere.  We have to start off by walking the first 1/8^th of a mile on the sides of the trial in the snow.  We both started thinking that we would hardly make it a ½ mile and half to turn back, not to fight the ice.

But then it started to clear up some, some areas were ice, some was snow and a little bit of sand.  As long as there was some snow or sand we could run.   A few times we did have to walk, but really ran most of it.  We got to 1.5 miles, were we would turn around if we were going to do 3 miles, but then we decided to keep going to the next mile marker.  If we would have turned back at the next marker we would have totaled a 4 miles.  But we were running, and kept running, and the next marker never came.  We started to think that maybe we passed it, but maybe not.  We didn’t want to cut short at this point, but we were also thinking that we had to keep were the sun was in the sky in mind.  We did not want to be running in the dark, on the ice.  We were starting to debate to turn back.  And then Brianna said that she saw and mile marker.  So we decided that we had to get to it.  So we ran ahead, it wasn’t that much farther.  We got to it and realized that we had ran 2.5 miles.  And we had 2.5 miles too run back.  So we did.  At times we had to walk due to ice, or maybe in part due to my sore muscles.

So long story short, Holly and Brianna I am working on a half marathon.  Not promising but I am working on it.

Again this isn’t edited.  Just my thoughts of last night’s run from my head, through my keyboard onto your screen.  Thanks for reading, hope it wasn’t too frustrating being unedited.

God’s stewards

I already mention you are enough!  You are “fearfully and wonderfully” made, created by God and loved by God!

To expound upon that, every creation, you and me, are called to take care of what has been given to us.  That is your body, and mind.  Do not take these things for granite.  “For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.” (Titus 1:7-9)

What we are not called to be is: “arrogant”, conceited, egotistical, “quick-tempered” or a hot-head, “drunkard”, or “violent”, ferocious, “greedy”, avaricious.  We all fall into times of pride, agitation, or over indulgence but this is not where we are called.  Praise God that we can be forgiven, because face it, we all slip up.  What we are called to be “above reproach”, blamelessness, “hospitable”, welcoming, “self-controlled”, orderly, “upright”, honest, “holy”, pure, and “disciplined”.

Further, it is clear that we are God’s stewards, taking care of what He has entrusted us with, what He gave us was more of a lease, than an outright giving.  “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;” (1 Corinthians 6:19)  Caring for your body is as caring for something which God created, loves, entrusted you with, and dwells within.  This is not something that should be taken lightly.

This is something I feel pretty strong about, and wish I was much better at.  You will probably be hearing more about this…

enough!

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” Psalm 139:14

You are fearfully and wonderfully made.  Seriously let that sink in, the Creator of the universe made you!  Down to the last detail, He made every single part of you, designed you (hair color, eye color, height, every detail).  He is the creator of everything from the grass to the galaxy, yet He made YOU!  And He made you special; you are like no other person.  You are “fearfully and wonderfully made” in His image.

Know how special that make you, and if you are that special to God, please treat yourself as such.  No one’s opinion of you matters, because you matter to the Creator.  The God of the universe, the King of King love you.  Do not let other’s opinion of you, affect your opinion of yourself.  If our Heavenly Father made you the way you are, and loves you the way you are, then you are enough.  You are always enough, you are more than enough; you are a child of the Lord.

Quotes

If you know me, you may know that I love quotes.  I am not sure why but I do.  I will share some of my all-time favorites.  I will not include Bible verses (that would get lengthy).

“You are a beautiful person, you deserve a beautiful life.” Water for Elephants

“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it.  The time will pass away.” Earl Nightingale

“Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.”  GK Chesterton

“People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.”  To Kill a Mockingbird

“If seeds in the black earth can turn into roses, what might the heart of man become in its long journey toward the star?” GK Chesterton

“Behold the turtle.  He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.” James Bryant Conant

“You don’t have a soul.  You are a Soul.  You have a body.” CS Lewis

“In every job that must be done there is an element of fun.” Mary Poppins

“Never say goodbye, because saying goodbye means going away and going away mean forgetting.” Peter Pan

“Without ambition one starts nothing.  Without work one finishes nothing.  The Prize will not be sent to you.   You have to win it.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Oh man, I am sure there are so many more….   Well I guess I will just have to share more of them, and why some of them are my favorites at a different time.  Hope you like them!

Not held back!

I do not like to be held back in life.  To be honest very few times did I feel that someone or something has held me back, other than myself.  If I want to be able to do something then why should I let myself get in the way?  Yet it happens.

Right now in particular I am thinking about running.  By no means am I a good runner, it is somewhat embarrassing to call myself a runner at all, considering that I am not very good.  My fastest 5k was 27mins and some seconds.  I can honestly say that I really have not gotten better since then, and I really want to.  So why should I get in my own way of doing that?  Yes I can use the excuse that I have feet problems, which I do.  Or I can blame the fact that the weather is crummy and all the gyms are too far away from my house, but I won’t.  (Sorry mom, I will still complain about my feet.)  I am not stopping a 5k, with some effort many people can run a 5k.

I am not saying that it isn’t a large accomplishment.  I remember the first time I finished a mile, without walking, it is a very large accomplishment.  And every mile marker after that is huge. The first official 5K I did, I felt like after that I could do anything.  Well, that was 2.5 years ago and since then, I have only added like a mile and a half to that to 4.5 miles at the farthest.  That is the embarrassing part, in 2.5 years all I added was 1.5 miles.  This year I will get up to a 10K (6.4 miles ish)!! I will!

I don’t care that it is winter, if it is above 25 degrees I can run, as long as it isn’t raining.  (I will make that excuse.  I will not run in the cold rain.)  Before the end of summer I will run a 10k.  I am not asking anyone to join me in this challenge.
But if you decide you do want to accept any form of a running challenge, more or less than mine, please let me know so that we can encourage each other along the way.