God and Me-1

For those of you who don't know, for the last two years, I have tried my darndest to send out weekly emails to friends and family. Those emails stemmed from a mission trip to Peru. During that trip, I saw the Church as I had really never seen it before; it was real and alive with constant concern for souls and their places in eternity. I had read all the New Testament stories of miraculous conversions and the church as a living breathing dynamic body but in Peru, I experienced the New Testament church like I never had while living in the States. The church we worked with indirectly challenged me to be more transparent in my life and to constantly view life as something with the shadow (or light) of eternity cast upon it. I decided that I would begin emailing my friends and family every week to tell them what God was doing in my life that week. My goal was two fold: for my friends and family to consider their spirituality at least once a week and for friends and family to feel like they could diaglogue with me about faith and God and their lives. Now that I've started this blog, I'm still sending out my weekly emails. But I also plan to post similar style posts on my blog. So this is the post version of my email from last week.

This week I mananaged to make it upstairs to get my prayer journal and actually write in it! It has been sitting upstairs for two weeks but I was just too lazy to go up and get it when I was doing my devotions. Stupid, I know. If you don't keep a prayer journal, I highly recommend it. Even if you don't like writing, it really helps to focus your thoughts and keep your brain from wandering. I got D a book called Praying in Color a while back and it suggests doing an art journal as a prayer journal. It has you basically doodle and create art as you pray. D hasn't used it yet but I hope he does because I know praying is hard for him and I think this would really help.

Writing those words "praying is hard for him" really makes me see how much D has grown spiritually. He is fairly comfortable praying. (Although having to be in a small group at church with Warren Wiersbe just about did him in one time! Those of you who are our church folk will know exactly what I mean.) I'm very thankful for the way my husband has grown. Watching him grow as been good for me too. I'm naturally a take charge, get outta my way, I've got a plan type person. It was easy when we were first married to just barge in and take over. As D has grown spiritually, he has also grown in his ability to be a leader for our family and I've really worked at letting him lead and not complaining if it's not the way I would have done it.

Update-took my prayer journal upstairs again. Haven't brought it down yet. Didn't pray or do quiet time for two days because my journal was upstairs. Totally ridiculous!