Saturday, August 23, 2008

Beth Moore

Beth Moore was in San Antonio this weekend - and all I can say is WOW!!

That woman can preach. Her enthusiasm for the Word is downright contagious!

And the worship was incredible. Travis Cottrell and his worship team were there - and as my friend said, it was one step away from heaven. There is nothing quite like 10,000 women in one place singing praises to our God. It was so moving!

I have been looking forward to this weekend since last year, and I wasn’t disappointed. I have done about 8 different Beth Moore studies over the last 5 years, and they have always challenged me in my walk with the Lord and really pushed me to take the relationship to a new level. Her love for the Lord and His Word is OBVIOUS, and I am always amazed at her humility despite her incredible popularity.

This weekend she spoke on Psalm 16 and her message was that we are heirs (or heiresses) of God and we have a beautiful inheritance waiting for us. She had so many good points and I know I will probably be mulling over it for days and weeks.

One point that I wanted to share is that because we are heirs of God, we can be secure. If we are looking for affirmation and affection from other people, we are setting them up in the place of Christ in our lives and they will never be able to make us feel completely secure. If we truly grasp the fact that we belong to God and we are his heirs and He is ALL WE NEED - life would look very different for so many of us. We would be focused on following God and obeying Him instead of pleasing people.

There is nothing more attractive than a secure person who doesn't NEED people. Think about that one for awhile! Only Jesus can identify us - not society or other people.

This is one of those principles that I have heard a million times. And every time I think I am getting better at it, God shows me yet another area that needs improvement. Proving one again that I am a work in process!

It was a great weekend and God really stirred up a new enthusiasm for what He has called me to do.

So, if the adorable and amazing Beth comes to your area - you don’t want to miss it!!

Sunday, August 3, 2008

My baby turned 4

I think I am still in denial. How could my baby boy be 4 already?? I don't know where the time has gone, but I suddenly have a "big boy" in the house. All week, I have been hearing how he can now do this and that because "I am 4 now!" We were at Target a couple of days ago, and every toy he saw was suddenly something that we needed to buy because he was 4 now. Pretty funny!!

We had a birthday party for him yesterday with some of his friends from church. With the family there as well, we ended up with 21 adults and 13 kids. Sounds crazy but it actually went very well. We had the party in the front yard and did a beach theme.

I saw this very cute cake in my Family Fun magazine a few months ago:



I had already been thinking about a beach themed party, and when I saw this cake it just sealed the deal for me!

The recipe sounded easy enough. But I was obviously over confident, because my first attempt on Friday night did not go very well! The recipe calls for you to make an 8" square cake that you then use to cut the top two circles. I knew I was in trouble when it came out of the pan in several sections! But I was determined to make it work, so I fit it back together and cut my circles. I then tried to use the icing to hold my circles together. You can imagine how well that went! So I decided to use some round glass dishes and I baked two smaller cakes and then went to bed while they cooled.

I woke up at 5:30 on Saturday morning to attempt the assembly one more time. Finally, success:




We had several "beachy" crafts and games and the kids seemed to have a great time. Tanner is now on new toy overload!!