Friday, July 30, 2010

The Evolution of Love

Yesterday we celebrated our 5 year anniversary. It's crazy to think how much has changed in the time we have been married. I think we would both agree that we are different people now than we were on this day five years ago. We have both changed and grown dramatically as individuals and together. I am so thankful for where God has brought us, and I can't wait to see what's in store for the next 5 years! I love you babe!

Year 5...celebrated by going out to Joe's Crab Shack and then grabbing some ice cream at Sebastian Joe's

Year 4...time at the cabin

Year 1...weekend in Minneapolis

Was hoping to post pictures from every year, but they're not all on this computer so I guess that's not happening. Year 2 was spent on the Oregon coast and year 3 was spent fishing on the Rainy River.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Cornerstone

I've been thinking about this whole concept of Jesus as our cornerstone for quite some time now. It stems from my earlier thoughts on the Pursuit of Rightness. If Jesus is the cornerstone of the Christian faith, will all our "houses" look the same? If Jesus is the cornerstone, the rock, the foundation...if everything boils down to Him, will every person's faith look the same? Will all of our beliefs, biblical interpretations, practices, convictions, and so on be clones? I don't think so.

And I think that is the beauty of the Christian faith...diversity. In my own life I have built up, torn down, and started reconstructing the framework of my belief system. The house is still in the process of being built. I don't know if it will ever be complete. I'm sure there will be plenty of remodeling and possibly more demolition in the future. I used to hold firm to every little detail...from the structure, to the paint color, to the moldings, down to the placement of the furniture...nothing could change. Now I hold firm to the what started it all...the cornerstone...Jesus. I may like the way my house is looking and prefer things a certain way, but I am also willing to let those things change with time.

An event that really triggered this thought process for me was the passing of my Grandpa. As I was staring out the passenger window at the stars over eastern Washington on our trip back to Minnesota, I was thinking about my Grandpa. I was thinking about how much he loved Jesus. I was thinking about how different our houses looked, yet we had the same cornerstone. I could get so frustrated with my Grandpa because he viewed things so differently than me. I could never understand why he was so stubborn. As I sat there that night in the car with tears in my eyes, God taught me a valuable lesson...our houses may have looked different, but our cornerstone was the same.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Sonshine

For those who don't know, Sonshine is a big annual Christian music festival held in Willmar, MN. It's a pretty big deal in these parts. To kick off the festival, they have a free concert the first night. We went with the youth and young adults to this free concert last night. Remedy Drive and Family Force 5 put on a great show. It was a fun day of traveling and hanging out in some beautiful weather listening to some good music.


Friday, July 09, 2010

Starting Small

Someday, Jeff and I would love to have a big garden. Over the past two years or so we have become more conscious consumers. Part of that has been trying to pay closer attention to what's in the food we eat as well as where the food is grown and by who. We by no means are perfect with this and still have SO MUCH to learn, but we are trying to be better at it little by little every day. One way to be certain bout the growing conditions of our food is to grow it ourselves, so to be able to produce our own food (at least some of it) is a goal of ours. We are excited for the day when we will no longer have to buy veggies at the grocery store. But...that's not going to be possible for a while. Living in a parsonage connected to the church means we do not have the land to have a garden (not even a small one). Thankfully a friend of ours here, Tim, was incredibly generous and made us a cedar planter for out little porch. We were able to fit two pepper and two tomato plants in it (it was too late in the season to start from seed). It's an exciting part of my day to check on the progress of our plants, and recently I found one little tomato starting to grow. Today we found a few more. I can already taste the salsa...

Friday, July 02, 2010

Quick Update

We have been crazy busy the last week or so with moving, church events, job hunting and painting. I will be updating soon...I have not forgotten goal number seven :) Until then, have a great day everyone.

proof that im not just making excuses :)

my puppy while we were packing the car...so sad :(