My son looks like a monk. Or perhaps like one of the Beatles from this album cover.
http://www.boskowan.com/www/jirka/beatles/covers/with.jpg
I went to the lake this weekend to spend time with the graduating seniors of the youth group and left Marc home with Isaac. It went just fine until Marc got the idea to cut Isaac's hair. It was a good thought. Let's just say I'm hoping to get it fixed today. Pictures to come.
Anyhow, it felt truly relaxing to get away for a night. Unfortunetly, I came home and feel like I need more of that.
My mom used to always clean the house frantically before leaving on vacation or on a weekend to chicago. I never understood that until recently. I despise coming home to a messy house. Nothing jerks me back into the reality of the daily grind like a kitchen covered with dirty and clean dishes, bottles and yogurt containers sitting on the counter instead of in the recycling bins, mail scattered about, shoes taking over the entry way, and random toys littered about the entire room. And that's only the kitchen!
The reality of living with now 7 people in this house is getting to me. I need a break (I have a feeling that this summer when Tim & Jung have left and Jen has gotten a place that I'll be writing a post about how empty my house feels & how I long for more people around!) Not only am I working full time and being mom to Isaac, I am trying to maintain a very large house with 4 other adults living in it! That's a lot of extra food to buy at the store, a lot of extra dishes in the sink, and a lot of other peoples random stuff around the house.
I love every single person in this house, and they all bring a ton of life, joy, diversity and love into this house. It is truly worth it all, it's just in the chaos of May I am longing for a slower pace with less on my plate. Or more hands. Or more help. It's days like today where I wish I was a full time mom and not working outside the house. Then I wouldn't have to take a vacation day just to clean my house.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
We're gonna party like it's 1999...
Monday, May 18.
6:00pm-9:00pm
Gradutation & Goodbye Party for Tim Kim & Jung Hoon Kim.
Reserve the date.
6:00pm-9:00pm
Gradutation & Goodbye Party for Tim Kim & Jung Hoon Kim.
Reserve the date.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Days I long for
Today was the type of Saturday I long for more than I get. I had a meeting at church at 8, but came home around 10 to most of the house starting to wake up. We drank coffee & made a big brunch of pancakes, bacon & eggs. We all ate together & then did some spring cleaning around the house. We loaded up the van & went to Tim & Jung's soccer game (they tied) and LOVED being outdoors for a few hours. Isaac loved the pathway near the field & just ran back & forth most of the time. Back home to grill & cook a big meal and then most of the family went off to a movie. Isaac and I stayed home & played in the church parking lot for a while chasing a little blue ball, then had a bath & played a bit downstairs before bed.
So, here I sit, in a quiet and mostly clean house, very content and tired.
Off to bed I go!
So, here I sit, in a quiet and mostly clean house, very content and tired.
Off to bed I go!
Monday, April 13, 2009
The Resurrection & daily life
I will never forget a sermon I heard years ago by Pastor Dale VanDyke from Harvest OPC. He told the story of a radio talk show program where a woman called in with a question about her relationship. She said that her and her fiance had a few different religious views that bothered her. This woman believed in the actual resurrection of Jesus Christ, and her fiance did not.
The talk show host asked her "Does your belief in the resurrection, or his disbelief in it affect your daily life together?"
The woman responded saying, "Well, not really, I guess".
The talk show host concluded the call with hopes that things would be okay with their relationship because their beliefs didn't affect their daily life.
HOW SAD.
We celebrated Easter yesterday, and perhaps focused on Jesus life, death and resurrection a bit more over the last few weeks, but I hope we allow the resurrection of our Savior to affect our lives each and every day.
The talk show host asked her "Does your belief in the resurrection, or his disbelief in it affect your daily life together?"
The woman responded saying, "Well, not really, I guess".
The talk show host concluded the call with hopes that things would be okay with their relationship because their beliefs didn't affect their daily life.
HOW SAD.
We celebrated Easter yesterday, and perhaps focused on Jesus life, death and resurrection a bit more over the last few weeks, but I hope we allow the resurrection of our Savior to affect our lives each and every day.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Republica Domincana - Hopes
When I did Mission Year, my mind became completely focused on living a 'missional' lifestyle. I became obsessed with practicing social justice in the name of Christ. I was angry at rich Christians. I was angry at rich churches. I didn't understand the ignorance of some belivers (even though I was 'one of them' just a year prior). I didn't understand churches that didn't 'do' outreach, or didn't focus on poverty, AIDS and other justice issues.
After meeting and marrying my husband, I think I have become more aware and angry about other issues in Christianity that deserve my attention as well. Marc knows more about the Bible and theology than I think I ever will, and he has continually brought me back to the Scriptures and has challenged me in ways I'm not sure he realizes.
I Timothy 4:11"Command and teach these things. 12Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity. 13Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching."
What happens when we start practicing social justice as the church but loose sight of the main objective of the church - to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, some would say doing these good acts is preaching the gospel ('Preach the gospel, and if necessary use words' - St. Francis of Assisi.). I would agree to some extent, but still believe wholeheartedly that it's possible to do these good deeds without truly understanding why we are doing them. We cannot neglect preaching the word and knowing the word.
Michael Horton wrote a book called 'Christless Christianity' (read an excerpt here: http://www.christlesschristianity.org/images/CC-Book-Excerpt.pdf) in which he talks about the incredible problem in American Christiainty of preaching good morals and being a good person without the preaching the good news of the life, death and resurrection of our Savior. I believe this can be a result of becoming so focused on other causes - even good causes, and then we make the assumption people already know the redemptive story of the gospel. Some highly influencial Christian leaders are calling for 'Deeds, Not Creeds'. I'm sure these leaders to not intend to completely neglect the Creeds, but how about some balance, huh? Don't we need both? Did not Jesus himself do miraculous wonders AND preach the gospel? Matthew 4:23 "Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people."
I was focused on 'deeds' when I came home from Mission year. Marc has helped me to see the significance and importance of 'creeds', and I am so grateful to him for that. I think I am finally at a point in my faith that I'm seeing how these can work together, without becoming grossly imbalanced. This is extremely important to me, especially as our church is striving to become more 'mission minded' in our community.
My hope for this trip is that this core group of church members will have our minds and hearts challeneged to not only BE the hands and feet of our Savior, but to truly KNOW our Savior and his word. I hope we can come back to GR with more understanding of what that might look like as we support our brothers and sisters in the DR, and also as we engage in our community.
Our Bible study this past week (Beth Moore's study on Daniel) had a lesson which touched on the sufficiency of Scripture and how God has given us His Word which contains all we "absolutely must know and must have". It was a challenge to me and I had to ask myself how much I really know of the Bible. It's easy to be deceived into thinking you know a lot after years in the Christians schools & working in a church, but I know it's not true. I was challenged to start memorizing scripture again. I spent almost every lunch break when I lived in California looking over note cards of scripture. My goal was to memorize Philippians. That is still on my list of 73 things to do before I die (coming up with 100 is hard!). I've decided that I'm going to start working on this goal again. Feel free to ask me how it's going when you see me!
We leave in 22 hours from Grand Rapids, please pray for us as we journey to and from the DR!
After meeting and marrying my husband, I think I have become more aware and angry about other issues in Christianity that deserve my attention as well. Marc knows more about the Bible and theology than I think I ever will, and he has continually brought me back to the Scriptures and has challenged me in ways I'm not sure he realizes.
I Timothy 4:11"Command and teach these things. 12Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity. 13Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching."
What happens when we start practicing social justice as the church but loose sight of the main objective of the church - to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, some would say doing these good acts is preaching the gospel ('Preach the gospel, and if necessary use words' - St. Francis of Assisi.). I would agree to some extent, but still believe wholeheartedly that it's possible to do these good deeds without truly understanding why we are doing them. We cannot neglect preaching the word and knowing the word.
Michael Horton wrote a book called 'Christless Christianity' (read an excerpt here: http://www.christlesschristianity.org/images/CC-Book-Excerpt.pdf) in which he talks about the incredible problem in American Christiainty of preaching good morals and being a good person without the preaching the good news of the life, death and resurrection of our Savior. I believe this can be a result of becoming so focused on other causes - even good causes, and then we make the assumption people already know the redemptive story of the gospel. Some highly influencial Christian leaders are calling for 'Deeds, Not Creeds'. I'm sure these leaders to not intend to completely neglect the Creeds, but how about some balance, huh? Don't we need both? Did not Jesus himself do miraculous wonders AND preach the gospel? Matthew 4:23 "Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people."
I was focused on 'deeds' when I came home from Mission year. Marc has helped me to see the significance and importance of 'creeds', and I am so grateful to him for that. I think I am finally at a point in my faith that I'm seeing how these can work together, without becoming grossly imbalanced. This is extremely important to me, especially as our church is striving to become more 'mission minded' in our community.
My hope for this trip is that this core group of church members will have our minds and hearts challeneged to not only BE the hands and feet of our Savior, but to truly KNOW our Savior and his word. I hope we can come back to GR with more understanding of what that might look like as we support our brothers and sisters in the DR, and also as we engage in our community.
Our Bible study this past week (Beth Moore's study on Daniel) had a lesson which touched on the sufficiency of Scripture and how God has given us His Word which contains all we "absolutely must know and must have". It was a challenge to me and I had to ask myself how much I really know of the Bible. It's easy to be deceived into thinking you know a lot after years in the Christians schools & working in a church, but I know it's not true. I was challenged to start memorizing scripture again. I spent almost every lunch break when I lived in California looking over note cards of scripture. My goal was to memorize Philippians. That is still on my list of 73 things to do before I die (coming up with 100 is hard!). I've decided that I'm going to start working on this goal again. Feel free to ask me how it's going when you see me!
We leave in 22 hours from Grand Rapids, please pray for us as we journey to and from the DR!
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