Excerpt from The Hole in our Gospel by Richard Stearns

"There are things in our lives that can ...."possess" us in an unwholesome way.  For the follower of Christ, anything that becomes more precious to us than our relationship with the Lord becomes destructive... And these things may , indeed, be good, but they become stumbling blocks when they begin to possess us, when they divide our hearts and compromise our commitment to the Lord.  "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matt. 6:21)."

In with the New...

Out with my running blog, in with my faith blog.  This one is just basically research that I am doing regarding Christianity.  Most of it will just be me posting video and articles or blogs I find online that I think are outstanding.  Visit if you have time! :) 

http://boastinchrist.blogspot.com/

The Hole in our Gospel

I can't wait to read this book.  Man, did the Holy Spirit just totally convict me.  I've been cleaning this morning, de-cluttering and re-arranging furniture.  As I go, I've rekindled the need to finish the decorating of my house, of which I put on hold for many reasons.  One of the main reasons is that God convicted me during our pastor's Radical series, of how we are so indulgent with our money here in America, while others starve who are not as privileged to be born and raised here in the States.  It's a revelation only from God.  How can we know any different as we are raised in this culture and do not see or notice many other cultures outside of our own?  Well, as I search ebay on deals for various trinkets that we "need" to make our house look great, I had Moody radio on as I always do.  Midday Connection was on and they were interviewing Richard Stearns today.  Amazing.  He is a born again Christian and was CEO of Lenox China.  Amazing Story.  He came from nothing, poverty, and through education, worked his way up to a CEO position in his 30s.  Making over a million dollars a year, living in a 10 bedroom farmhouse with his wife and 5 kids.  He got a call from an executive recruiter to throw his hat in the ring for the President of World Vision.  He resisted, and resisted, and resisted and eventually, through the Holy Spirit's prompting, took the position as he was chosen by the board as the best candidate for the job.  His pay was cut by 75% and he moved his family across the country to be the leader of an organization that battles world poverty.  He wrote this book and I can't wait to read it!  The first sentence is "What does God expect from us?"  Such a question.  Such implications.  In the interview he said that God wants to work through us here on earth and that sometimes as Christians, we are so busy focused on the Heavenly that we do nothing here on earth.  So true!!  I can't wait to read this book and am so thankful for the convictions of the Spirit this morning to renew my mind, once again, and focus on God's plan for me instead of my plan for me.  Praise God.  

First Camp-out

We decided to take the boys camping last night for the first time.  We have this great state park about 15 minutes from the house, so that's where we went.  Our plan was to just stay one night and acclimate them to camping and see how they did as we really weren't sure if Walker would be old enough.  We got there and set up our tent, played around, went on a walk, looked for deer, built a fire, roasted hot dogs and then Smores for dessert, looked at the stars, talked about snakes and answered a million questions from our little questioners.  We had a great time and the boys loved it.  However, around 12:30, Walker started coughing in his sleep.  It was very humid so I'm really not sure what happened, but he ended up having a croupy cough until he threw up.  So, we took them and went home for the night, where he slept cough free for the most part.  Tony had to get up this morning and go get all of our stuff. But overall, we had a great time and will be going back for more trips this summer I'm sure.  

In the pictures, the boys are looking for dinosaurs and posing as "dinosaur hunters."  At one point, they had set up all of their dinosaurs around the camp.  While we were sitting around camp, Jordan told me we were waiting for dinosaurs to come so we could shoot them and that the toy dinosaurs he had set up around the camp were decoys.  Hilarious.  You can tell his dad is a hunter.

May 1st!

Jordan's class had a Mother's Day Breakfast at his preschool, and later, he was practicing on his skateboard.  Hope everyone is enjoying May so far!

These are Jordan's teachers, Ms. Patti and Ms. Meg.  They are the sweetest, best teachers he could have had.  They love him well!