Wednesday, November 24, 2004

i am not my own mentor...

last week was beth's birthday and thankfully pat came up with the best present ever... otherwise i would have had nothing! beth is just one of those girls who really doesn't ask for much. anyhoo. we (mattie, pat, thom, laurie and i) wrote a song for her and recorded it onto a cd. oh my friends, it is funny! beth and i listen to it at least once a day, and it is so catchy that it is always stuck in your head. it's really hard to hear me singing most of the time as those boys were way louder. but i did get one little solo. "if i ever want to spoon, you are there for me. if one of us were a boy we could get married" followed by mattie saying very seriously "but you're not" oh i love it. plus we got her a little tree. a ficus benjamina, which very sadly is losing all it's leaves. mattie and alex had one in first year and he said that all the leaves fell off. we are very sad. also, to get the tree i got to go on a veyr hot date with thom and laurie. laurie whom i had just met the night before, but i insisted that the 3 of us ride up in the front together. i love those campbellford- (and surrounding area) ites. i love meeting more and more of campbellford.
tomorrow thom asked me to go to the museum with him to go learn about dinosaurs. he is mentoring me and teaching me all about the things my dad never did. oh it is so much fun! on of the lessons i have received thus far is that my mentor is always one step ahead of me, and last night when i went to take the ice cream out of the fridge, i discovered that i had already done it and i said "oh look i am one step ahead of myself, i could be my own mentor!" and thom, being a very good mentor indeed, did not chastise me until i dropped the ice cream container under the table. i learned my lesson, i am not my own mentor.
mattie and i were supposed to go on a hot date to listen to a presentation on the boreal forest but it looks as tho he is skipping out on me. ah well it will be a good time on my own. plus james raffan will be there talking a bit about the canoeing part of the event. HURRAH!

we had sweet cell last night about baptism. about how this is what God says:
to be saved you need to:
Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. (Romans 10:9)
when you are saved your old nature dies.. it is exchanged for a new nature.
Then to throw off that old nature you need to:
Be baptised in water. (Colossian 2:12)
also, 1 Corinthians 10:1&2 shows us a picture of moses coming thru the sea. when they reached the other side, the waters washed over all that was behind them. killing all the
enemies in the army (the whole army!) and cutting off everything from their old life. they could not go back.. only forward.
in baptism in water we are burying our old selves so we do not need to carry around a dead body forever.
Then to be equipped you need to:
Be baptised in the Holy Spirit (acts 1:4&5)
this is what beth once said ... (i am adding to it a little) but becoming a christian is like all of a sudden being aware of a moving river. being baptised in water is like getting in a canoe on the river. you are now moving and leaving your old self behind on the bank, and being baptised in the Holy Spirit is now you have a paddle and you can move faster and with purpose and order.

i believe very firmly that it is these three things that needs to happen to all who believe. i believe it because of acts 2:38. i do not believe that acts 2:38 means that you recieve the baptism of the Holy Spirit just by being baptised in water... (you can while you are being baptised in water, but it is not because of the water baptism). there are far too many examples in acts of people not knowing about the Holy Spirit baptism (and they are have been baptised in water) or people who have been baptised in the Holy Spirit and not in water yet. whatever they had not recieved, the apostles prayed for. (ie. acts 19:1-5, acts 10: 44-48)

i love baptism. it is so cool. i love to hear noah talk about baptism.. it his favourite thing next to talking about the body of christ. which is the church. church is not a place or a building.!

i think that is all for now.

love.

Sunday, November 14, 2004

i see joshua camped on the plains of jericho...

i see walls collapse and people marching in. the Lord in our midst is mighty. (part of a song by cecily from the church in vancouver)

ok. first things first i need to quote trevor from long ago, "God is sweet.... BOOYA!"

he is... he really really is. the meeting this morning was so amazing, God is doing some good things here. i was so overwhelmed with God's love for us this morning. i nearly burst! i could only shout when i prayed. and then we sang that song by cecily and it is all about our history! and really it made me think how Jesus said we would do greater things than him.... GREATER!!! i mean really... think of what Jesus did! he healed the sick, he taught so many, he spoke truth and life and he raised people from the dead and we will do greater than him! (john 14:12) imagine toi! it is so cool.
this is what i realized about God's love this morning. it is more than enough. way more than enough. and we were singing the banqueting table song and when we sang the part that goes 'i am my beloved's and he is mine', i just realized again how much God loves us. and not just like a father or a friend (which he also does), but he loves me in the way that he is pursuing me everyday. that Jesus is the most romantic person in the world, and that he has been wooing me and courting me since the day i was conceived. i mean the Bible says things like lover of my soul! to me that is very cool.
i love life. i love God. no matter what he is so good. and not just today when things seem so good. but all the time. regardless of anything.
in the words of biblical hair sara "huzzah!"

today keegan beat mattie in a handstand competition (keegan is 8 and mattie is 21), victoria (7) said(again) "stop! in the name of the Lord!" while they were making the shields for the armour of God in kids work, and tom taught me about an allosaurus.

all in all it just really was the best day ever, and i can say without a doubt that tomorrow will be even better.

i leave you with the words of a defeated boy
" you've won this round keegan." -mattie kennedy

bye!

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

God shines his light.

ok... there is nothing better than watching God send amazing, beautiful lights all across the city with your 3 favourite people. if only tom had been there! then it would have been 4 of my favourite people. anyhow. God is so good, we had cell tonight and it was lovely. marie shared about being real with people and just sharing God with them by telling them about your own relationship with Jesus and not needing to add anything else. just being real.
then we came back to watch shrek 2, but lo and behold God had better things for us to watch. such as his lovely northern lights, or as pat would say the dolores borealis. oh pat, always muddling up the english language. but they were grand, and the backdrop... a beautiful starry night sky. i saw no less than 3 shooting stars and one with a beautiful long tail. as mattie said 'those ones are the best'.
people, i love the capital. it is a swell place to be right now. i pray that everyone is growing closer to God and learning about how much he loves you. i pray that you are allowing him to move so much wherever you may be.

ya.

Thursday, November 04, 2004

tut tut tut it looks like snow... FINALLY!

sometimes my blog titles seem lame and little compared to other people's, but that's ok. in fact, it's me... as i am sure most of you can imagine, i did just look out my window and say that to myself. good times, good times.
these days i see less and less of beth as she has commenced a romantic liason with school. i miss her on wednesday nights, i miss her on thursdays, and i miss her on fridays, tho to be fair, friday is my doing. tho to tell you the honest truth, if i were in ottawa on friday it would then still be her fault! really. anyway.
halloween... not the worst ever... but definately not the best. it would seem that halloween in ottawa really isn't that spectacular. or perhaps i still compare all halloweens to my last one in saskatoon, when jill and i dressed up as cowboys and made a killing... and sue said "you did not just go trick or treating!" but we did. and it was the best ever.
i just got a lovely card from jill. to go to her reception. i feel left right out of that girl's life, but she surely wrote me a lovely note inside it. i miss her. i wish i could see her and tell her of my life from the past 4 years, and to hear of hers. oh, it just brought tears to my eyes! geez.
anyhow, halloween. we were too late (again) to go to paul martin's and adrienne clarkson's for trick or treating, (next year, i swear!) but mattie and tom came over and mattie carved a wonderous pumpkin, and tom made some lovely pumpkin seeds, and then mattie made me beautiful fairy wings. i laid on the floor and shed some tears about not being able to go trick or treating. but maybe we will have a fairy party done the road. that would be lovely.
last night i had supper with duane, it was such a good catch up time, he is such a lovely lad and we talked about how i could go work for his parents next summer in the green house!!! imagine toi! we'll see. so far not much is planned except for 1 million and 1 weddings. well really only 5 but seriously. oh yes the number has increasedi very much forgot to say awhile ago that josh and april got engaged!!! at the cn tower.. which may sound cheesy, but april is american so i am sure that she loved it. i love those two.
mary's engagement ring has been on the bathroom shelf a few times over the past little while, and i have decided that if i had to choose an inanimate object to be in love with i would choose that ring. i even tell it that i love it "i love you little ring, you are so pretty, yes you are, i just love you and i love you." seriously, i am losing it. at least the wedding dreams are no longer!
after supper with duane we had a fantastic music practice and noah taught me a new strum and i learned how to play D/F# which is so sweet because it is in every worship song practically, plus we played 'evermore' and then it was just such a good night.
life is good. despite bad midterms which has taken a serious toll on my mind... this is the after effects... at cell the other night this was the observation i made "everyone's hair keeps getting longer or shorter" oh dear.
anyhow, today is a day to clean, quilt, and not worry about exams.
i'm out.