I am loving my family today… February 1, 2010

I already know what you are thinking, shouldn’t she love her family all of the time? The answer is yes, and yes I do, but there are moments of contentedness and extra-fondness (is that a word) that sneak in and warm your heart. For instance;

• Gavin has decided that he would rather wear underwear then pull-ups or diapers this week, and is in the process of mastering the toilet! The crowd goes wild.
• Gavin also, has been coming out of his cranky two’s and has been entering a sweeter stage. He loves to snuggle under his letter blanket, and his personality is starting to show like crazy. Just the other night he told me he saw God in the wall, I have no idea what he was talking about, but he is funny.
• Ava wonders the funniest things aloud. Like can we ever go to a restaurant church, I am not sure what that would look like, dinner theater? But we told her she would have to start it.
• Ava wants to be a Mail lady, Fire fighter, and a pilot. I asked her where she would sleep and she informed me that she would stay with the other mail people. But she would deliver mail to Josh, myself, Gavin and Ashton.
• The kids and myself have been taking walks around the neighborhood in the wagon, and Ava and Gavin like to pull Ashton instead of being pulled. On these same walks we are always on the lookout for trash in the neighborhood to pick up and throw away. Gavin and Ava “work as a team” to walk down into the wash to pick up bags stuck to bushes and such.
• Gavin no longer says panpakes, for pancakes. He very clearly enunciated pancake this evening… he is growing up.
• Ava got a booster seat and cannot believe that she gets to use a seatbelt like an adult!
• Ava is also excited about starting Kindergarten in July. She keeps telling people that she is almost 5, but really she is only almost 4 1/2!
• Ashton is walking around like a mad man. He can turn on a dime and become quite the walker.
• Ashton’s nickname has changed from shoe (because he used to sleep in the pack n’ play in our closet) to bobblehead! If you have ever seen Ashton’s new dance then you would understand.
• The kids have been recently practicing the Lord’s Prayer after we pray, and then we sing a Benediction. I love their sweet hearts and their spontaneous songs to God.

And most of all I have a husband who works hard for the church, and loves people, but ultimately wants to serve and bless his family and be a light to those who come in contact with us! Our family is far from perfect, but we love each other and are trying to enjoy the small things.

Sunday Morning Review: Leading and Laboring Neh. 3 January 31, 2010

If you missed last night then you missed a really awkward moment; we all experienced No Show Saturday. All of our regular volunteers, except Planet Rev workers got the night off. We wanted to show the church how much really gets done by volunteers, and how we would cease to exist without their help. The awkwardness started in the parking lot, with no directional signs, and continued with no signs to point anyone anywhere. The lobby and bathrooms were not “dressed”, and the whole not was really paired down. Paul lead worship from acoustic guitar, and only one screen came down for the first worship set(that last part was not planned). I think that the impact will be lasting and hopefully our volunteers will know how much they mean to the mission of Revolution and to Josh and myself personally. And now on with the show…

Josh started out the night, after bringing in his own table, taking about the fact that the reason we are preaching through Nehemiah 3 is because all scripture is profitable for teaching, and is God-breathed. It is not just a list of names, but a list of ordinary people that God chose to do extraordinary things, when they came together. If Nehemiah only had a vision then he is just a guy with a dream – without the list of people then wall does not get rebuilt.

Josh then went on to introduce all of the team leaders at Revolution, and they, each in turn, showed how many people are needed each week to fulfill the rolls that are currently needed. The total number is 36, which is a third of our weekly adult attendance. Which means that we need EVERY ADULT serving at least once a month in at least one area of our church to function. To me, the crazy thing is, as we continue to grow, that number will continue to grow too. I feel passionately about people finding their giftedness and serving, because it is a huge part of my journey. Realizing that I had giftedness that i never had tapped into and using it for God’s glory can really add a dimension to your life that you never thought possible. It will not always be easy, but it will be exciting.

Josh goes on to talk about the leadership principle of working in and on the wall, as well is calling our church to step up and help to build something that will outlast us. The desire is that we will be able to see amazing things happen at Revolution, but that when Josh retires we will be able to say that Revolutions best days are ahead. Amen, and Amen. Listen here to get the full story.

Asian Roll Lettuce Wraps… January 19, 2010

I just told a friend about this recipe, and since ground turkey is on sale this week through Wednesday at Sunflower Market I thought that I would take time to share it. Josh and I made it a few months ago, ate half and froze half to eat later. I hope that you enjoy it as much as we did.

Ingredients:

1 lb ground turkey

1 Tblsp soy sauce

1 tsp minced garlic

2 tsp minced fresh ginger root

1 cup brown rice

1 cup water

16 large lettuce leaves

1 cup shredded carrots

1 cup green onions, thinly sliced

1 cup sliced red bell pepper

1 cup sliced radishes (I put out radishes, but omitted them the second time.)

1/3 cup soy sauce

1/3 cup water

3 Tblsp fresh lemon juice

2 tsp minced garlic

1 Tblsp minced fresh ginger root

1 tsp sugar

1. In a medium bowl, mix together first 4 ingredients. Form into 16 meatballs and roll into ovals. cover and refrigerate. (I did not make the balls, instead I kept it ground, mixed the ingredients and just browned it.)

2. In a medium saucepan over med/hi heat, combine rice with 2 cups water. bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes, or until rice is tender. (We made fried rice instead of the brown rice… if I remember correctly)

3. Preheat the grill or broiler. Arrange rice, lettuce, carrots, green onions, radishes, and red peppers onto a serving platter. In a med bowl, mix together last 6 ingredients. Divide into 4 small dipping bowls.

4. Thread 2 meatballs onto each 10 inch skewer. Grill or broil for 10-12 minutes, turning occasionally to brown all sides. If broiling, line broiler with aluminum foil and drain fat after 6 minutes.

5. To eat, place a leaf of lettuce onto the palm of hand, spoon on a little rice, then a meat roll, and a few of the veggies. Roll up and dip in dipping sauce or spoon sauce over.

Enjoy!

“Sunday” Morning Review January 19, 2010

Prayer & Planning: Nehemiah 2:1-8

Last week Josh talked about prayer in the life of Nehemiah, and how he prayed not only with his words, but prepared for those prayers to be answered through his planning. 

How long would you be willing to pray for something? 30 days, maybe 100, but what if God doesn’t answer your prayers the way you want Him to, or in the timing that you want Him to. Josh said, “God sometimes answers prayers immediately. Does that mean we don’t need to pray and just make things happen ourselves, or do we just wait around praying hoping that God calls someone to action? This past week Josh did a great job of showing the need not only for prayer in our lives, but for planning and action as well. Has God not answered your prayers because you are not ready for Him to?

Listen to last week’s sermon here, and you will not be disappointed.

“Sunday” Morning Review on Thursday! January 14, 2010

We started a new series at Revolution Church this past Saturday night called; Building a City within a City, a study on the book of Nehemiah. We have been doing quite a bit of background work to launch this series, including an 80+ page study guide, which you can download here. It would definitely be worth the listen, but I will give you the brief overview here.

Nehemiah is a Jewish man who works for the king of Persia as the cup bearer, a position that brings much wealth, prestige and a close connection to the king. The book of Nehemiah is said to be an excerpt from his personal journal, and we meet Nehemiah as he is asking about the city and walls of Jerusalem. When he hears that the walls are still in ruins, he is devistated and weeps and mourns for days. The odd thing is that the walls have been in this same state for 141 years, so this was not new information for him. Josh asked the question, Do you see the world as God sees it? Something had to change in Nehemiah for the sudden change in heart, Josh believes it is because he started to see things the way God does. For our hearts to break for the city around us we need to have our hearts intertwined with God’s. This is the only way that we will see things like God and live for His glory not our own.

Nehemiah, in his mourning, is broken not only by his sin, but by this sin of the whole nation of Israel. He confesses all of those sins and then prays big, specific prayers. Not that someone would rebuild the wall, but that he would be successful in rebuilding the wall. For more you will have to listen… I hope that you enjoy.

What I Have a Blog? 2009 in Review January 13, 2010

This last year has been a frenzied blur of activity and new experiences. Probably two of the biggest things that happened this past year have been the birth of our 3rd baby, Ashton, on February 10th and celebrating the 1st year anniversary of Revolution Church that Josh, my husband, relaunched in September 2008.

Life with 3 kids has been challenging and rewarding. I once thought that I could have at least 6 kids, coming from a large family, now I no longer think that! Having the last two only 18 months apart has stretched me, literally and figuratively, in ways that I never imagined. I have had to become even more organized, patient and creative, while having less sleep and more little people in my life!

Josh has made some huge changes in his life over the last year. For starters he has made date night a huge priority, so NO MATTER WHAT, we have a date night each week. (Click here for more information about our last series on relationships.) This has made huge deposits into our relationship when we have needed it most. He has also been training for a half marathon and has made getting healthy a big priority in his life and in our family’s life, so he has lost a significant amount of weight. It is incredible to watch someone close to you, not only transform before your eyes, but take something so seriously that they actually do something about it. Complaining about something is really easy, but doing something about it takes a lot of courage. So; hat’s off to Josh.

One of the things that has hit me the most about last year are the internal shifts that have happened in my life revolving around relationships. Previously, I used to go to church, volunteer at church, attend a mom’s group at church, lead a small group for church, and go to a Bible study in church. I was spending ALL of my time with people who know Jesus, or who are aquainted with or pursuing Him. I think that I needed that for a season, but things have changed for me now, I am still involved in church and use my time, gifts and talents to honor God, but I am spending much less time with women and people who already are invested in the Kingdom. I intentionally have made a decision to reach out to those who are close to me, who don’t know God, so that I can make a difference in their eternities. That means that some of my relationships with people I already know have taken a bit of a back seat, but in ways that I am not even able to express, I am more filled because I am living my life not just for myself now.

I have been able to reach out to a handful of families in my neighborhood in extremely practical ways; blessing two families with a few meals after the birth of their second child, passing off some extra chocolate cake to the teenagers down the street, lending and borrowing things as a way to connect and share resources, and most of all trying to be the Light that God calls us to. This past week at Revolution Church, Josh asked us as a congregation to list 3 people who we could intentionally invest in and invite to church; a year ago, I would not have anyone to write on that card, but it made me excited that last Saturday night, I had to decide and think through who of my non-christian friends or acquaintances I would be investing and inviting.

I know that this may not sound like much, but for me, it has been a long journey. Getting to a place where I can hold loosely to some of the relationships that I want to cling to, so that I can spend more time with people who have a greater eternal need. I don’t want to come across all holy, because if you know me, you know that I am a far cry from perfect or even good for that matter. But God has started to change my heart toward the city of Tucson… and this is only becoming clear through Revolution’s study of Nehemiah. A book about a man who’s heart was changed by God for the city of his ancestors. I pray that my heart too, will be broken for the people who are swimming in the hurt, self-loathing, and anger that God has graciously pulled and is pulling me from.

Tomorrow I will post my “Sunday” Morning review about the first sermon from our new series; Building a City Within the City, a study on the book of Nehemiah.

Here’s to God changing your heart to be more like his and a resolution to blog with a little more regularity!

Sunday Morning Review December 6, 2009

Tonight was the last sermon in our series How to be Rich. Josh really nailed the sermon tonight on Matthew 6:25-34! 

American’s tend to be stressed about everything: big things, little things, things that we cannot control, and things that we directly influence. The actual meaning of the word anxiety or stress in this passage is to have a mind divided. This passage starts out with the word therefore, so before Josh dove into the passage he reviewed Matthew 6.

Matthew 6:1-4 What are you doing with your money? Are you honoring God with your money?

Matthew 6:5-15 How do you see God? Do you see him as father?

Matthew 6:16-18 Fasting… do you  take time out of your life to focus on God and center yourself?

Matthew 6:19-24 Why are you saving? Is it for yourself or to move the kingdom forward? Do you have an eternal perspective?

If you are doing these things then you won’t be anxious.

You will definitely want to listen to the sermon to get the whole scoop!

A call to helpmate… after your husband’s sexual addiction October 28, 2009

A few weeks ago I started a series of blog posts based off of a sermon that Josh Reich preached at Revolution Church, you can listen to it here. I started to read, Every Heart Restored: A Wife’s Guide to Healing in the Wake of a Husband’s Sexual Sin, By: Fred & Brenda Stoeker, and because of the message, and the questions that I got from other women in our church, I felt the need to blog through most of the book. If any of these posts have hit a cord with you, I strongly urge you purchase the book and read the whole thing. I am not promising that it will be easy reading, but I am sure that it will jumpstart a journey into healing and restoring your heart and hopefully your marriage.

The previous posts are as follows:

Is Porn or Sexual Addiction a Problem in Your Marriage?

Understanding your Man’s Sexuality: Eyes

Understanding Your Man’s Sexuality: He Feels Love in between the Sheets

His Sexual Addiction is NOT about You!

His Sexual Addiction is NOT about you! Part two.

Rebuilding Your Marriage after His Sexual Addiction…

How do you keep your heart and role as helpmate during the road out of your husband’s addiction? That is a great question and one that we will dive into here, on our last blog post from Every Heart Restored.

I would like you to take one more good look into your heart’s mirror and ask yourself this question: How am I doing in my role as helpmate? It is in this roles as helper where most wives make their biggest mistakes in marriage. Let’s return once more to Genesis and review why we were created as women:

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care if it… The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”… For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. (Genesis 2:15, 18, 24)

Why was it not good for man to be alone? I can assure you it was not because Adam needed some help hanging vines or running a backhoe in the garden. And it was more than Adam’s needing someone to talk to or have sex with.

God know what sin was about to do to Adam and to all who came after him. He knew the wounds that would be meted out on innocent bystanders through the sin of friends, families, and even churches. He’s even seen ahead to the days when Internet porn would enslave millions of men. He had to have known all this was going to happen, because that’s what being omniscient means. Given that He knew what the future would bring, He knew it wouldn’t be good for Adam (and his future male offspring) to be alone.

As we’ve said, the word helper in Genesis comes from a Hebrew word that means “a help as his counterpart.” So what does a helper do? Fred explains it this way: as a helper, a wife’s role is to help lift up her husband-boost him, assist him, encourage him- to Christian greatness, whatever that may entail. This isn’t an easy role to fill, even when your husband is asking for your help. 

It is hard to play our helper role when our husbands are asking for help. But what are you supposed to do int that role when your husbands are not asking? What happens then?

It can be confusing, and most of that confusion revolves around the choice between these two courses of action:

1. When your husband needs your help, but he obviously can’t see it, should you simply be quiet and pray for his insight to improve, submitting in silence for the sake of peace?

2. Or should you bravely speak up directly and forcefully in the face of his blindness to challenge him to Christian greatness? What is your role?`

Maybe it would be useful to step back and take a look at the roles your husband should be playing alongside your own. It can be enlightening to see howe interrelated our roles as husband and wife really are.

Each of us has two major roles in marriage. Fred plays the headship role and is the overall leader in the home. He’s also been called by God to be the high priest of our home, the spiritual leader responsible for building a normal Christian home.

As his wife, I play the parallel submissive role to Fred’s leadership at home, and the parallel helper role to prod, lift, and strengthen him to carry out his roles as head and high priest.

Not how God expects the husband and wife to play essentially the same spiritual role for the other spouse. As a high priest, Fred is to lead me into Christian greatness. As a helpmate, I’m to work alongside the Holy Spirit to lift Fred to Christian greatness. Sadly, we’ve noticed that both of these roles are routinely ignored in Christian homes these days, although for different reasons.
It is so vital that we both play our roles well in marriage because sin is rampant everywhere, and the percentage of folks in our pews with little Christian heritage is growing rapidly. Most of us just don’t know what normal looks like anymore.

Brenda knew what normal was, and she love me enough to fight on until I could see it for myself. As my Christian sister, Brenda had a right and a duty to speak out truthfully(and even sharply) to me when I was still living in the futility of my thinking, darkened in my understanding and separated from full life in God because of my ignorance of normal Christianity.

And when it comes to your husband’s sexual sin, you have every right to stand up and help him win. To be a helpmate means that you will never allow your husband to drift to his lowest level. Instead, you’ll help him be great.

His Needs: Admiration October 26, 2009

Two Saturdays ago, Josh and I taught together in Part 4 our series I Want a New Marriage. We used the book His Needs, Her Needs as the framework for our talk. This week as a way of following that up, I’ll be doing posts through that book, some of the things we said, how to figure out if this is a need your spouse has, how you are doing at meeting that need and how this applies to your relationship.

You can listen to it here.

I’ll be looking specifically at his needs and how a wife fulfills those needs. To see her needs and how a husband fulfills those, check out Josh’s blog.

Need #5 Admiration:

I purposefully waited until today to post this blog about admiration until after Saturday’s message, “From this Moment“, to give it some context. Unlike women, men do not speak or listen in the language of LOVE, instead they speak in the language of respect and admiration. Early in our marriage, Josh and I attended a conference by Emerson Eggerichs called Love and Respect, this changed forever how we communicated and dealt with each other. If you have ever read Wild at Heart you know that a man’s deepest desire is to be used and found worthy of a great adventure. This is one of the reasons that they like to do things at 500 miles an hour and love adventure and risk. So what does this have to do with Admiration? Well, I am so glad that you asked:

• Your husband needs you to be proud of him. If you fail to give the appropriate words of affirmation to your husband he feels like a fake, and regardless of his true value, will begin to believe that at any moment someone will realize that he is not worth his salt and kick him off the team or fire him from his job or if taken to the very end… will start to look to other women to fulfill this need in their lives. Which will end up with disastrous consequences.
• Willard states, “Honest admiration is a great motivator for most men. When a woman tells a man she thinks he’s wonderful, that inspires him to achieve more. He sees himself as capable of handling new responsibilities and perfecting skills far above those of his present level. That inspiration helps him prepare for the responsibilities of life.” “For some men admiration also helps them believe in themselves.”
• For the most part men know that you love them, they do not need the atmosphere of affection that we as women do to feel constantly reassured of our man’s love. But the thing that will speak to him will be words that edify, respect, admire, and lift up your husband. He wants to know that he is worthy of the adventure that is calling, and he can overcome the obstacle that is staring him in the face.
• “An environment of carping and criticism is dangerous to your mental health. Those who support and encourage you bring out your true potential and spark your genius.”
• “Never fake your admiration. The first step in learning how to express admiration it so learn how to feel admiration. When you achieve that, you can express these feeling.”
• For me learning to feel admiration was not something that came easy at the beginning of our marriage. It took practice and an intentionality that I did not think would be necessary. Don’t feelings of love and respect come naturally in the arms of a committed relationship? Unfortunately, the answer for me was no. When Josh and I got married God was working on my heart in a huge way, but it took a few years for God to take my heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh. In the mean time I decided to write down all of the little things that Josh did that should have sparked the feeling of Love and Respect in me. After the exercise of writing things down, I was able to more naturally recognize and then express my appreciation and respect toward Josh.
• Willard says, “Therefore her admiration depends on his ability to meet her basic marital needs.” This statement at the outset may ring true, but it rubs me the wrong way. In Eph. 5:33 we as women are told to respect our husbands. There are no qualifiers to it. Josh says you respect him until he becomes respectable…
• Willard goes on to endorse an activity to communicate to your husband what you admire and what destroys your admiration for him. I would strongly caution you about taking the step to list out all of the things that destroy your admiration for your husband and give it to him unless it is done in a clinical setting. From the depth of my toes, I believe that this could really destroy your man emotionally. Can you imagine, oh, by the way here are all of the things that I hate about you? Please NO! I would suggest thinking and privately journaling those things that bother you about your husband and try to figure out if there is a common thread throughout. Is it his lack of responsibility with the kids, or time away from the family or you? Next, make it your mission to find him doing right things in this area, if he shows a hint of moving in the right direction notice it, mention it, praise him for it, throw a party about. Also, you should be having those iron sharpening iron conversations where you are pointing out sin and areas that he can improve in his life/walk, but those conversations should not be how you always talk to him.
• Work on developing an attitude of respect and admiration for your husband. Let him know this week how much you appreciate him working and bringing home the bacon. How much you love the man he is and the man that he is becoming. Start with pointing out those things that he does that communicate love to you and how much you appreciate it. That will go a long way in expressing your admiration for him.
• In the book Whale Done, they discuss that in order to train a killer whale you have to affirm the things that he is doing well or on track with to encourage more like behavior. I think that the same principle works here, affirm your husband in the things that he is doing that you already like, so you can see more of those same behaviors.

All quotes are taken from Willard F. Harley Jr’s book His Needs Her Needs.

Sunday Morning Review… October 25, 2009

And so we have made it to the last week of our I Want A New Marriage Series! Hard to believe that we have spent 5 weeks dealing with all aspects of marriage. If you have not had the opportunity to listen to all of them I would strongly suggest that you do that. I think that they all build on each other in a very strong way without being too obvious.

This week we ended with the topic of Headship and Submission. definitely something that “church people” have an opinion on. In conservative circles men use this passage like a bat, in liberal churches they ignore this passage, and society as a whole does not recognize or understand the importance of roles in marriage.

Josh did an excellent job of explaining what submission is and is not, while holding men up to the very high standard of leading their homes and being responsible to God.

He explained what headship and then gave some very practical ways to gauge yourself (men) on how you are doing at leading your home.

Josh ended with the picture of Adam and Eve and God ultimately held Adam responsible for the sin that entered our world.

All-in-all some pretty heavy stuff. I hope that you enjoy.

PS. This week I will be doing some follow up posts about what submitting and respecting your husband looks like. I will cover the last need from His Needs Her Needs; Admiration, as well as look at your role as helpmate in dealing with your husband’s sin and addiction. Take time to notice your man this week and sing his praises!