America, America!

America, America!
God shed His grace on thee. 
And crown thy hood with brotherhood
from sea to shining sea

America as a nation in general is disappointing.  We are fat, lazy, selfish, faithless, liars, sinners, thieves, always worried about getting ahead.  The internet, TV, billboards, posters, radio is all filled with sex, homosexuality, and filth.  Can you tell it's depressing me? I don't know if i'm just now noticing it or what, but it's all over the place, in my face and penetrating right through my heart.  For example:  I was walking through the mall the other day and passed a H-U-G-E sign on the bath and body works wall of a naked woman.  No, I could not see anything because she was covering them up with her arm, but still.  I was like what the crap?!  Our poor boys and men... they are bombarded with it right and left... can't even walk through the freakin mall without seeing a naked woman.  Geez.  So then last night I was watching Law and Order SVU, one of my most favorite shows and one of the only shows I ever watch.  If you don't know... they are the special victim's unit... so they handle rape cases.  After I watched two episodes of disturbing rape cases... i thought to myself  "why did I just watch that??" Really... it is not uplifting in the least bit and it only makes me afraid.  Stupid.  And not only that... they had some really not so right comments about pornography and how it's ok.  Anyway... all that to say, I shouldn't watch it anymore.  Lately I've seen and heard stuff constantly.  I think society, and Christians too have become numb to all of the filth in our lives.  Oh, they're sleeping together? Oh well... it's just reality.  Oh, there's graphic sex scenes in this movie? Oh well... i'll just fast forward it.  Oh, he's gay?  Oh well, nothing we can do about it... that's just how he is.  Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, Wrong.  Yes, there is grace and forgiveness, but there is also still God's wrath.  And I am sad thinking about what will happen to our country if we don't start praying and repenting. 

I have been reading the New Testemant, but wanted a little break.  I was ready to read some stories.  So I landed on 1 Kings (The Message).  Odd book to just land on right?  It has really been a breath of fresh air and quite convicting for me.  It starts out with David on his death bed and him passing the crown on to his son, Solomon.  So then Solomon asks for wisdom from God and God is really happy that he asked for that instead of wealth or long life... so God decides He will give him the wisdom and also throws in the wealth and long life because He was so pleased with Solomon's request.  It then goes into the story of how Solomon builds the Temple.  In great detail it describes the extravagance of this place.  It sounds really beautiful and Solomon says in 8:12 that God will dwell in this place.  It took him 7 years to build the Temple.  At first, I closed my bible and sat there on the couch... legs crossed, ready for work and started praying... "God, thank you for this day... " and I stopped... all of the sudden the words I read began to stir my heart.  I fell to my knees and told God I was sorry for not giving Him the praise he deserves.  That I just read how Solomon and David loved and worshiped God and were in constant Awe of Him and His beauty and His power, and I should too.   It was one of those moments in life where you stop, step back, and re-evaluate how you do things, how you pray. 

On a little lighter note... We are headed for Guatemala on Saturday.  I am excited and nervous at the same time.  I think it will be life changing and I'm so excited to be able to experience a mission trip with Stephen.  This is his first overseas trip.  Please be praying for our team and the people we will be ministering to. 

May Madness

First of all thank you Emily for the new and improved blog!! I am going to try my very hardest to update it more often.  Maybe twice a month instead of twice a year :)

May has been full of some madness! From bachelorette parties, to picture editing, to family time, to birthdays, to remodeling, to weddings... it's been crazy, but fun! We are enjoying our yard so much right now.  I planted a little garden.. which has turned out to be a failure.  We are getting a few tiny tomatoes, but that's about it.  All the other stuff is dead or not producing anything but leaves. 

Stephen's birthday was on the 17th.  At the beginning of May a neighbor had an old 1985 Toyota 4-runner sitting in his front yard with a big fat for sale sign on it.  That night Stephen came home and without coming out and bluntly begging me for it... told me that this was a deal of a lifetime and he has wanted one of these since he was a little boy, "just ask my dad".  In the back of my head I was tossing around the idea, but I didn't want to let him know... so I said that it would be a stupid purchase and another expense we don't need to pay.  He agreed and left it at that.  The next morning I bought the 4 runner.  Bad decision. 

why was this a bad decision you ask?  Because now the transmission is out and it's sitting in my yard, killing my grass.  Psh.  Oh well, it was fun to see him get excited.  Not so fun to see the look on his face when he realized he would have to replace the transmission. 

In other news... Adelle and Emily came to visit!  It was so fun to see them and be able to just hang out.  She is crawling around and looking oh so cute.  We get to see them again in July and I can hardly wait!!

We also had a fun time with Mark and Esther in may.  They came for mothers day weekend and stayed with us.  It was so good to spend some time with them.  And like Adelle, Hadassah and Liam are growing like crazy!  Liam laughs all the time.  at everything.  And Hadassah is now up to my hip! TALL! Liam is doing very well and has had great check-ups.  We are so very thankful for that!

Katie's wedding was also in May.  And It was B-E-A-utiful! She looked absolutely stunning.  Everything magically fell into place.  I had so much fun hanging out with all the girls.  It was very refreshing.  Below are a few pictures I stole from someone else from the wedding. 

We also had our frist trip to the Vet... which is another post in itself.  So we'll leave that one for the next post. 

That's the month of May in a nutshell folks.

Emily, are you proud?