Many of you know that my husband and I are currently going through the New Testament with our church  We were asked to speak on our experience at church on Sunday and since Norm has gone on a retreat last minute, it got left to me (with some input from him!).  Here's what I'm wanting to speak about and I thought I'd share:

In Chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians Paul compares our bodies to the church body.  Paul says, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!”

This reminds me of a bumper sticker Mike pointed out to me one time that said “I used to think my brain was my most important part; until I realized what it was that told me that.”

I feel that our society often tells us that we need to be independent of each other.  We need to be able to do things all by ourselves with little to no help from anyone else.  We tend to forget that this is not what God had intended for us.  He wants us to work together. God designed us to be more effective and efficient when working with others to accomplish great work within our personal, professional, and especially in our church life.

When Mike and I first learned that RCC was going to be reading through the New Testament in 2008 we thought it was a great idea and decided it would be a great experience for us to do it as a family. 

Five times a week, the four of us come together and divide up the verses so that we can take turns reading out loud.  After reading the chapter, we take some time to reflect about what was just read. Not only do we get to delve into God’s word, but we’re working together to get closer to God.  It’s been such a rewarding thing to experience this with our children and to hear their perspective on what we’re reading.  Sometimes our discussions are short and sometimes they’ve gotten a bit heated, but we come through each time learning something about God and His Word.   Another unexpected bonus we’ve noticed is that when the sermon focuses on more “adult” issues, we’ve already prepared our boys for it from our discussions the previous week.

Sure, there have been times where one of us has been a bit lazy and not felt like digging in, but the great thing about doing it as a family is that while some of us are being couch potatoes, another will pipe up and ask if we should do our Bible reading and go grab all the Bibles.  Even Rachael has her part and she helps by putting them away when we’re done!  We’ve been accountable to each other which has helped us keep on task with this challenge!

By including the whole family we felt we would get different perspectives; the hands and the feet, so to speak. We’ve looked at things in a new way and found that every part of God’s word is important as it lends prevalence to the other parts.  It has been such a gift that we’ve been able to share this experience with our children.

Paul continues in verse 12, stating,  “Those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable and the parts that we think are less honorable, we treat with special honor.”  Going further, he states, “God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it… If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it”

What a great reminder of how we need to be!  We need to honor and rejoice in every person that comes into our lives, no matter how insignificant.  We are all part of the body of Christ and only by working together, can we truly honor Him who deserves it.
 

Happy Birthday to me!

I feel so lucky!

No school because the weather is sucky

How they love me!

 Ok, it's lame, but it's all I could come up with!  No school because it's so very cold out and I'm cooped up in the house with 5 kids (3 of my own and 2 daycare kids) Lucky, lucky me!

~Sarah 

Before Norm beats me to it, I thought I'd share some very cute pictures of our little French Poodle! 

 Isn't she cute?  I'd post pictures of her  brothers, but I don't have their costumes quite finished yet.. They're going as "Stick People"!

 Enjoy!

~Sarah 

Do you know what I really dislike doing?  Laundry.  I hate that I have it all clean and folded and within 8 hours have another load to do. Or, even worse, when I have tha last load in, am feeling pretty good about having it done and then one of the kids forgot to bring their dirty clothes downstairs.

I do feel good when it's all clean, folded and put away, though! 

That's all!

Currently, I work in a medium sized daycare center and usually have one of two people that help me in my room.  The person helping me today is a younger guy who is a little mixed up.  He's wonderful with the kids and they absolutely adore him, but he has some interesting ideas about things.  This morning I was making conversation with him and mentioned that a lady from church had been kind enough to give me a grocery bag of apples and I had made some applesauce to freeze for the family.  He looked strangely at me when I said church and  stated that he'd never been very interested in "religion" and didn't like it when people preached at him.  He also went on to tell me that he was exploring his religion "options" and had found one that seemed interesting and he had planned on pursuing it further.

 Being the curious person that I am, or maybe because I'm naturally a "chit-chatter", I asked him what "religion" he was exploring.  You can imagine how my mouth dropped open when he told me "a form of satanism, but it's not bad."  Umm... dude.  I cautiously asked him how he could justify satanism being anything but bad and he told me it was all about being his own  God and if he wasn't hurting anyone, how could it be evil?

All of a sudden I felt a sense of peace come over me and with an elequence that I don't think I can ever repeat, I looked at him and said, (and I'm paraphrasing here), "S******, you realize that this world we live in doesn't belong to us.  It belongs to Satan and his goal is to get as many people to turn away from God as he can.  I'm not worried about your mortal life here on Earth, I'm worried about your eternal life.  If you chose to follow in this path, your eternal life will be damned and I would hate to see that future for anyone."  I then quoted a couple of Bible verse that I didn't even realize I had memorized.  I told him I didn't want to be preaching to him, but since he opened up this avenue of conversation, I needed to be frank with him and tell him what was on my heart.  Then I left it alone.  

I don't know if I got to him or not, but I DID feel used by the Holy Spirit!  What a magnificent feeling and hearing the Truth coming from me!  God used ME!  I hope He decidesto use me again soon!

So, brothers and sisters, please keep this co-worker of mine in your prayers.  Pray that he turns from Satan and sees the truth that can only be found in Christ.