[Y]ou don't really know a person until you know what moves him most deeply. It makes no sense to say that we know God when we are not acquainted with his strongest desire and with the goal that guides all his actions. But if we don't know him, then we can't worship him and we can't imitate him. In other words, if we are to be faithful children of our heavenly Father who worship him and imitate him as we ought, then we must answer [this question]."
-Pastor Jon Piper, http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/the-biggest-question-in-the-universe

Such a great reminder for me today over on the desiring God blog.  You see, our women's retreat this year was so good.  A great time of remembering how great our God is and to really have a relationship with Him, we have to know Him.  If we want to know what He wants for our life, we have to know who He is.  When we pray for others, we have to know the one that we can pray for and give peace beyond all understanding.  I was reminded of what an amazing and awesome God we serve and there is so much about Him that I don't remember half the time or even know.  If I truly knew Him like I should, how would I be able to do anything other than worship Him with every step I took.  My prayers would be more specific, more personal and worship more heart felt.  That is my goal between this year and next, to get to know the Lord, my God in a truer and deeper way.

So off I go to dig deep into His Word and enjoy the book Desiring God, by none other than Jon Piper.

The Darkness and The Glory

I am in the middle of a wonderful, challenging and eye-opening Bible Study with the women at my church. It's more difficult and "school-like" then some we've done in the past. It requires thinking and discernment.

We are looking at Christ's death on the cross in a deeper way than most of us ever have. We are truly seeing how much He suffered. I walk away from each lesson and each time of study thinking, "He did that for me?"

There is so much in the study I am still processing, but have a few things I'd love to share.

Christ showed grace in the midst of His suffering. He was being tormented physically and spiritually and He showed grace. Not just once. Three times. He asked John to look after His mother. He cried out for grace for the crowd as they spat at Him and hurled insults. He comforted the thief and extended salvation to him. A thief that moment earlier had also been insulting and taunting Him. In the midst of immense pain and grief at that moment and knowing what was to come, He chose to show grace. I'm pretty sure if my kids asked a question after I stubbed my toe I wouldn't show them grace.

He took this cup, the penalty for my sins, because I couldn't. I am totally and incapable of saving myself. He is the only one that could do this. He died for my sins. I could not bare that. He took on the wrath of God for not only me, but for all the elect.

Because Christ did this, I get to be in the presence of God for all of eternity! That my friends in an indescribable gift.

So much more. I'm trying to put into words that make sense what else I am learning.

I am so thankful to our teacher for helping us sort all of this out. For challenging us to find the answers for ourselves. She is truly teaching us how to study God's Word.

Treasure Chests

So Thomas' birthday is just a short two and a half months away. For me that means it is time to start planning a party. Now Thomas is old enough to help pick the theme and even some of the activities. A couple of weeks ago we were talking about it and he announced that he wanted to have a dinosaur party. I have to admit I was disappointed. Dinosaurs, really, what was I going to do with dinosaurs. The party is all about me and my creativity after all. Well, I sucked it up and realized it was his party after all and I would just go along with it (and he had plenty of time to change his own mind, or for me to change it). Well, he has changed it, at least for today. As of today, we are having a pirate party. Complete with a treasure map, hunt and chest and the possibility of a not so scary, Captain Hook and his little friend Mr. Smee. Now, this I can get excited about. As Thomas and I were out back collecting rocks and worms, we began to discuss just what might be found in the pirate chest. He was so full of fun ideas.

Now, with this in mind I began to read this post,

http://www.itakejoy.com/treasure-chest-of-the-soul-one-cannot-give-what-is-not-there-part-1/. I love it when God is ironic and starts to reveal common themes to change your heart or teach you something. Sometimes these themes pop up for months before I begin to see the lesson. Other times they pop up as I am learning the lesson. Today it came in the same day. As I've been thinking of a pirate chest to fill up with goodies, God shows me how my own son's have hearts to be filled. Read this part of her blog:

"During a quiet time one morning, my eyes lighted upon one of my little chests and the Holy Spirit impressed me to look at the heart of my children as treasures chests. Filling the treasure chests of their hearts with truth, beauty, love, great thoughts, books and ideas, adventures, memories, traditions, wisdom, music, art, lessons, all that I could imagine became a purposeful goal. I realized that I wanted to fill them with such an abundance of relics of eternal value, that they would draw beauty, strength, guidance, assurance, courage, love the rest of their lives, so that they would always have bounty to draw from the rest of their lives.

Realization came to me, though, that I could not give to them what I did not myself possess. If I wanted the souls of my children to be rich, then my soul needed to be rich because it was my soul they would draw from. And so the idea of intentionality began to engage the imagination of my heart.

Whatever I filled my mind with became the tutor of their education as I lived my moments in their presence. Whatever I had learned and embraced, became for them the message on my heart of my day. Investing time every morning with the Lord became the passion I passed on each morning over breakfast."

The other thing I realized, as I sit here writing this post, is that I have also been trying to look at the eternal value things hold. How I spend my time, where I invest my energy, how I talk with friends and family. Does most of it, if not all of it, have eternal value. How appropriate that I was, just hours ago, thinking of trinkets to fill the treasure chest with that I come face to face with the idea of filling the treasure chest's I've been given in the hearts of my sons, with things with eternal value.

Wow! There's my life-changing challenge for today!

The Reality of Kids

"I remember so many years when I just obeyed what I was supposed to do without feeling like doing it. Because I loved my children, I made decisions to cultivate what was best for them. Because I was committed to loving Clay, (and loving God), I acted, as a choice of my will in the best interest for Clay, by faith, not by feelings. As I look back, I am so glad that i learned to put one foot in front of the other, because usually my feelings would follow and I am grateful the Lord kept me going in the right direction by the convictions I held and followed. If I had followed all of my feelings, the results would have been disastrous."

by Sally Clarkson, I Take Joy Blog

http://www.itakejoy.com/join-the-sober-club/

Then she followed that up by talking about her "Sober Club." Sick Of Being Responsible. I like it!

Thoughts on Potty Training

First, thought is I should have tried this a year ago. When you try sooner, they are less opinionated, for the most part, will follow what you ask. It would have been harder to train his bladder, but now I'm training his attitude!

Next, you know that saying, "he's more afraid of you than you are of it". Only applies to spiders, not to potty training. In this situation, I'm definitely more afraid of the work of potty training, than Thomas is. This, what I thought, "horrible situation" that I thought was worth avoiding... not true. I could have saved at least one jumbo pack of diapers if I would have just sucked it up!!

Finally, it's amazing the pride you feel when you see your little guy running around in big boy pants, even if he just peed in the last pair! Jared and I just smiled at each other with the twinkle of pride and a smidge of sadness over the fact that he's growing up.

Now, we are no where near being done with this whole process. Just two days in really. He has yet to poop in the potty. He has learned already: how to take his own clothes off, go by himself, that peeing-on-a-bush-just-because-you-can-really is a lot of fun.

I still wonder if one day in the next couple of weeks he would have just done it himself, but with this baby coming, I'm glad we've given it a go this week. And I must admit... all you friends out their in facebook world have kicked my butt! You're efforts stirred up the competitive/ afraid to-be-left-behind side of me. There's no way my son was going to be the last one. So thank you, for sharing that you were doing it and letting my petty, well if they can do it, so can I attitude come out! I know, I know, that's the mature way to go about making decisions, especially for my children. But hey, if it got Thomas on the toilet this time...

I'll keep y'all posted.

Family Trip to Mt. Hermon

Awesome week!!! We got back a couple of days ago from 10 days away! 3 days just Jared and I and then 7 with his family. It was great, and it was needed. Now we are back home, looking thru the 1100 pics taken and thinking through what all we learned while at Mt. Hermon. There are so many things to blog about, so many pictures to share!! For now I'll just put up what challenged me the most and later get up some pictures!

They are 14 questions to a test I will one day take before the Judgment Seat and what a test that will be. All worthless things from my life will be burned away, only what I have done for God will be left. I will be judged for the good I have done. As scary as that sounds, when all is said and done, He will find something to praise me for!! God up above, the creator, will find something to praise me for! (1 Cor 4:5 Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.) Amazing and humbling all at the same time! The speaker encouraged us by saying that we have the notes for this test, we have the questions and then he went straight to the Bible and gave us this list:

14 Things We Will Be Judged On

By Mark Hitchcock

Given at Mt. Hermon, Dallas Week 2009

1) How we treat other believers. Hebrews 6:10, Matt. 10:41-42

2) How we employ our God-given talents, abilities and opportunities. Matt. 25:14-29

3.) How we use our money. 1 Tim 6:17

4.) How we accept mistreatment and injustice. Matt 5:11-12

5.) How we endure suffering. James 1:2, Rev. 2:10

6.) How we spend our time. Ps. 90:9-12, Eph 5:16, Col 4:5, 1 Peter 1:17

7.) How we run our race. 1 Cor 9:24, Heb 12:1, Phil 2:16, 3:13-14

8.) How we control our fleshly appetites. 1 Cor 9:25-27

9.) How many souls we witness to and win to Christ. Dan 12:3, 1 Thes 2:19-20

10.) How much the doctorate of the rapture means to this (are we motivated by this?) 2 Tim 4:8

11.) How faithful we are to God’s Word and his people. Acts 20:26-28, 2 Tim 4:1-2

12.) How faithful we are in our vocation/the work given to us. Do we do it with joy? Col. 3:22-24

13.) How hospitable we are to strangers. Luke 14:12, Matt 25:35-36

14.) How we use our time, words, tongue. Matt 12:36, James 3:1-12

(Last one, more for those who preach/teach the Bible. Were we accurate, did we live it out?)

I don't know about you, but I walked out of the saying, "yikes!!" Lord help me grow in even just one of these areas! But now my task is before me and only with God's help and the Holy Spirit's guidance can I begin to even think about working my way down the list. Something to think about, huh?! Hope and pray this encourages you as you walk in the Word and the life He has planned for you!!