What God is Teaching Me Now

         It is really funny and strange because I felt like God was teaching a lot to me about Love and Trust. He could, also, be teaching me to be happy with who and where I am right now and will be in the future. I had so many talks with people and so many verses pointed out to me yesterday that it was, honestly feeling like God was talking to me throughout the day. I will write the verses and quotes out and see what you all think. It also helps me think right so I can make sense of it because I know God is trying to tell me something. 
        Here are the verses:

Luke 16:10-  
“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.

1 Sam. 16:7- 
"But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

        This is a way that a person explained this verse in a different way and I thought it was a pretty get way: "Since God looks at the heart of a person and knows it, maybe we should look to God to know that person.:

Palms 18:31-32 (MSG)-
"Is there any god like God?
    Are we not at bedrock?
Is not this the God who armed me,
    then aimed me in the right direction?"

1 Cor. 15:58-
 "Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain."

Psalm 90:12-
"Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom."

Matthew 6:33-
 "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

Mark 12:30-
" Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength."

      Then one of my favorite authors wrote this in a daily calendar that she wrote and that I have started using everyday or at least try to use everyday: 

"Yes, Jesus says we can do all things through Him-but He never says we have to do it all!"-Holley Gerth

       It is funny when we see verses like Phil. 4:13 that talks about doing everything in and with Christ. We can take it for real sometimes, when really God is just reminding us that He is there for us when we need to go through a lot of things. We don't have to make ourselves go through a lot. He never says we HAVE TO do everything. 

Then I have been thinking a lot about what hospitality and perfection really mean. Here are the meanings from a resource better then me:

         Perfection: the state or quality of being or becoming perfect or a quality, trait, or feature of the highest degree of excellence.

        Hospitality: the quality or disposition of receiving and treating guests and strangers in a warm, friendly,generous way or the friendly reception and treatment of guests or strangers.

Some Dreams

       "Some dreams are worth dropping other dreams for sometimes."- Tiffney Wilson

        It is amazing what I come up with while talking to friends whether it is face to face or over the computer to them. I say things to them, sometimes, that I need to take into consideration myself. Those words of wisdom or great ideas don't come out until I can tell or write them out. One of my friends had to give up one of their dreams to do another dream that they want to accomplish. I know that we have all our life to live and that we, hopefully, have time to make all our dreams to come true but we never are for sure about that.
       This dream my friend had was a dream that they have been doing for awhile but decided to do something for one day in a different way.  My friend had to give something up to accomplish another dream and it was a personal dream. A dream that needed to be done for my friend, not for everyone else. Sometimes we need to do things like that. It is nice to do things for people but often times we forget about ourselves and let ourselves down but we need to learn not to.
         When I thought about what I said to my friend, I thought about my life and what I have given up to move onto the dream I really want. The dream that I really want is working at a "normal" preschool and being a stay at home mom. I never really appreciated my "normal" preschool job until I found another different job way off of what I am use to. I really appreciate the job that I have now and I love it. I wouldn't trade it for the world.
         I had a dream about being a missionary and going to different countries and take care of other children but then lately I have been thinking about something different. Yes, that traveling would be neat to do but we have children here that need that same about of care. Plus I found a job that was kind of like being a missionary and I liked it for the 2 and a half years I was there but it really wore me down as a person. I got really sleepy every night after work, I didn't care about my friends or spend time with them, and I gained a lot of weight because I was stress eating. I had really bad anxiety and I worried about the children non-stop.
          I had to leave the children behind at the shelter, when at a preschool, the children leave me to a good home and I know that for a fact. It is just a better feeling that I can live with plus I can spend time with my friends and people that matter to me. I can say the right things to and encourage people again. I can use my energy to get to know people and just invest more in people. I feel more alive with a preschool job. Some dreams are great for a few months or years but sometimes we have to give those dreams up to go where God wants us to go and who He made us to be. I know for a fact being a missionary was on my plan, not God's. Being a preschool teacher at a real preschool was God's plan for me for now. Then next I know it will be a stay at home mom or I hope that is what God has planned for me next.
          I gave up a lot when I worked for the shelter and right now I don't think I can give up anymore so that is why I moved on. That is one of the reasons why I found a "real" preschool job.  I feel like I'm saying the same thing over and over but you all get it.
          "Some dreams are worth dropping other dreams for". That quote can also say: "God can lead you off the road and put you on another road" or "We try and know what is best for us but God knows what is better and the best."
       
         

God has a Strange Way of Doing Things

        Go back to the past 3 years starting in Oct of the year 2012 in my life and you will get why I titled this entry what I did. To me, since then, things I have felt like I'm in the doubting stages of things and have been for awhile now. Things haven't been so great for me in the past 3 years. Yes, things have changed, good and bad, and I have changed a long with those things. I've changed only to become stronger and trusting in God more but it is still strange how God does it because these past three years have been nothing like I have planned.
        Go back the Oct. 2012, when my Grandad passed away. This month marked the 3rd anniversary of his passing. and when you think about it that is when everything starting going downhill for me. That is when I lost my first job here in AR that Dec. but I started a new one in Jan. 2013, which I thought would last longer then it did. I think I lost my first job because I was so stress and hurt by the lost of my grandad and thought that was God telling me that I needed to move on to something else. I was happy that I started the job and was really looking forwards to spending a lot of time there.
         Then came Nov. 2014, when the farmer that was a grandpa like figure to me passed away. To tell you the truth, it still hurts and will for a long while. After his passing, I could tell things started to get stir up again. I started to look for a new path or a new way of life. Trying to go away from everything I knew if I hadn't already. Things just got worse at the job that I thought I would love and be at for a long time.
         Then came July 2015 and I lost that job that I had for 2 and a half years. During all this time, I was trying to figure out how to handle myself and my anxiety about life. If that wasn't enough, after losing my job at the end of July, my last grandparent (grandma) passed away the 1st of August of this year. If that wasn't enough I had some financial things I had to take care of and worry about through all of the things going on since July. I had to fight for something that I was passionate about and lost that. I really had to get back up on my feet because after being put down like I was, I didn't think I could do another childcare job.
          I looked at a lot of retail store jobs while looking at more daycare jobs and I would take whatever came first. I felt lost and discouraged. I felt like God wasn't helping me anymore. I felt alone. I changed my anxiety meds because I thought the meds were the problem. Then I would have to say there was a day where I saw a friend's status about how my friend was a dummy. It didn't say why, it just said my friend was one. I honestly felt that same way about myself because of everything I was going through but I knew my friend needed some encouragement right then and there so I emailed my friend and reminded my friend how God was on their side and how God would help with whatever was needed.
           After I emailed to my friend, I reread it to myself and I was like, "duh!" that was right on point for me too. I was telling my friend to believe all this stuff and here I was not believing it myself about myself. I took that letter that I wrote and just prayed it to God that night. Then after a few days things started to changed and look up for me. I started to get hopeful again and thought no matter what happened God will put me where He wanted me to be. God does everything for a reason even if we don't know that reason just yet.
           The past 3 years for some reason, I have been feeling like I am in some kind of bondage but now I am feeling much freer then ever before. I know I was trying to be someone else for the people around me and things like now but now I don't care. I will live my life the way I want to and be happy with that. I feel like I'm a lot more open to be me. I might not have very many people around me or to talk to but the people that I do have around me and talk to are the people that mean the most to me. I am an introvert so we only have a few close friends and like it that way. We don't like big groups with a lot of people that we just have small talks with.
           As my recent Bible studies are called: "Breaking Free", "Breathe", and "Called to be a Keeper". It is also funny how God can put the Bible studies that you need for that moment in your life plus make the titles make sense when you put them in order or that is, at least, what He did for me to tell me something.
          God does have some strange ways of doing things but one thing we can always count on from Him is that: It will work out in the best interest for us rather we know it or not. God alway knows what is best! He has things mapped out even before we are born for us so why do we worry. He won't change it when we ask for our own way because He knows what is better for us then we do. Keep trusting Him! :)

Lessons from my Fall Trip

        I learned a lot of lessons on my trip to the east coast. I went with a bunch of older people and they would be like grandmas and grandpas to me. It was a whole bus full of those people so I got a lot of wisdom on the trip but most of the lessons came from my old babysitters. I don't know how much more simple you can get when you are on a trip with a simple country women as a "grandma". I just saw my whole life flash before for eyes on that trip with her.
          When I say my life, I mean my childhood again and my future. I really saw that what researchers say about children learning things and their personalities before 5 age of years is so true. Someone that I really cared about, which was my babysitter's husband, we talked a lot about him on that trip. There was something that my babysitter said about him and that was: "He was sweet and outgoing just like his mother." That brought me back to all the times I would go out and do farm work with him or just sit on his lap. She had a mother in law that was sweet and outgoing, if you know what I mean.
          My babysitter also said: "He would take things as that came nice and calmly." Now for some reason I missed that part but I would love either to live that way or find people that do. She also said that "no matter where he went, he would always dress up to go there." She also asked me, probably the 2nd or 3rd night, "What do you miss about him?" My answer was "driving in his truck while we were selling and giving things like eggs and milk to people they both knew."
          Then there was a lot of things that I did and hear on that trip from my babysitter, herself and here are some of those things. All of them were really encouraging. Every time I see her, she keeps saying those things over and over but they never get old. One of the things were: "that Mr. Right is out there and he is sorry that he is missing you." Another one was: "You are beautiful and smart." Usually, I just shove those two things off but since the things that have been happening in my life, those were things that I really needed to hear especially the "smart" part.  She also called me "Sis" a lot on the trip. I think it was more "Sis" then my name.
            Those are some of the lessons that she reminded me of and here is some more.

                      -"Don't ever say I'll do it, just do it because you will regret it as you get older."

                      -"The only thing that will keep you young is your mind."

                      -"You know what makes you beautiful? The inside, your sweet heart."

              That is it on the talking lessons. Now for the action and personality lessons. There were a lot of things that she did during the trip that made me think of myself now, when I was little, and how I want to be in the future. I will say that she talked to every dog she saw on the trip because she missed her 5 dogs at home. If it wasn't dogs, it was of course, children. She loves dogs and children. It was funny but fun for me because the only things she would watch on the TV when we had time were children shows like "Sophia the 1st" and "The Muppets" and there was another one that she watched but I can't remember the name of it now. Then one the bus one day, she played a little game with me that she use to play with me, when I was a little kid. That game was where she would pretend a spider was climbing up on my arm and it had a saying to go with it and then at the end of the saying it would tickle me under the arm. Guess what!? It still gets me to this day.
              I also found out that, when she was going to church and she still is some, she was really involved in the decorating for holidays or just every Sunday, meal preparing, and anything behind the scenes work like that at church. Does that sound like someone? :) The church called the"club"" The Glind". She teased me a lot about taking pictures of the pretty Fall leaves and mountains we were passing on the trip but then I told her that she helped make me that way. Loving the outdoors. I know that comes from all areas of my life.
              I also found out that she isn't very sociable and things get awkward for her easily if it's not something she is very passionate about. Hmmm........? Does that sound like someone too? Remember I spent the 1st four years of my life with her during the day. There were mornings that I would just lay in my bed very quietly and watch her read her Bible before I got up. The first night on the trip she read Palms 23 and the chapter about the widow giving all she had to Jesus to me. She explained how the widow had little and simple things but yet she gave everything and I thought that was a really good way to explain "farm life" especially for her.
            Then the last thing is the games that we played on the bus while we were riding around. She played tic tac toe with me and we drew pictures, not very good ones though. We, even, looked out the window and looked at the clouds to see if we could see any shapes or pictures in them. I remember my babysitter finding a dog, a horse, and some other things. It just, also, reminded me of the summers I use to spend with her. I use to go to her house for a week during every summer when I was little. Even though we were on the road, without the dogs around and not in my "blue" room, it reminded me a little bit of those weeks. Those weeks when I use to get up at 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning because the dogs would come jump on my bed to wake me up. To tell you the truth, I missed that every morning while on the trip. I missed walking the dogs and doing chores and things on the farm.
            To me, the whole trip was about how simple life could really be if we just let it and not worry about anything even how much money we have. To my babysitter, she told me that I showed her how to be content in where we are in life. I guess we both helped each other out then. It took me back to my childhood and how simple things were back then and I want things to be that way again especially for my future children, God Willing, if not just for me yet. It also helped me understand a lot of who I am and why I am the way that I am. The first 5 years for a child does make a huge impact on them.
           All this to say: I miss the simple, farm life and I'm, for sure, this kind of life is what I want for my future life.
           
           

Mission-like Faith

         I know that I am going out of order for a little bit but this is just something that I need to write about and get it off my mind. Something that I feel like God is teaching me but not in the way that I wanted Him to but it could only be better because it is His Way and not mine. It all as to do with my financial situation. I'm not going into detail because that isn't right but it is strange in some ways. It is strange when you see your whole life was dependent on money when you had but when you don't or not that same amount, it really worries you.
         You are freaked out all the time and really have to be careful on how you spend it because you don't have that money to waste. For me, it is more time alone in my apartment because I can't go eat out or have coffee with friends. Sometimes I wonder if that wasn't my problem before everything happened that recently has happened to me. I wonder if I got so caught up in money that I just didn't care about what job I got or what as long as it paid good. I will admit it got to the point where I was worrying about getting my raise at work.
           It shouldn't be that way, though, should it? You need to trust God and He will get you through those tight spots. Well, now I guess I am paying for that. The title is Mission-like Faith because isn't that how missionaries field while they are on the field. For me, it should have never came to that point and I don't know what made me that way. Still trying to figure that out. I know I needed to be there for the children and just the children so why was money so important to me.
          Well, now as you can guess I'm trying to rebuild my bank account with this new job. While I am doing that, it is making me see that money isn't everything and that life can be lived in a simple way. I love the simple way of living when I have the choice of spending the money but when I have to leave it because I don't, that is the hard part. It is a BIG lesson in TRUSTING God with everything even the "little" things like money. I only got a taste of what missionaries feels like sometimes and how they have to trust God and churches to give them money. I, even, understand how starting your own business can be hard when you don't have the money and you have to trust the people around you and God and yes, that would build your faith stronger especially if it is turning out better then you ever thought it would.
           Don't know if He is getting me ready for some mission like business or if He just wanted me to see how it feels so I could "relate" to those people. I think my last job was a mission in itself and you know missions sometime have a certain time limit and mine was 2 years and I lost some money in those 2 years and I have to learn to get back on my feet after "coming back" from that mission. I wanted to be on a mission and I asked God and He gave me the whole package but in His Way, not mine. I think it is going to take me the rest of this year and maybe some of next year, just to get settled back down if God will let me.
            Another mission thing about it is God knew I was getting too comfortable that so He wanted to move me so I would trust Him again. It seems like that has happened since I have graduated college. Just as I get comfortable, God moves me on to the next thing. I had a mission between my "real" preschool jobs but now I am back and ready to teach again. The funny thing is it was in the states, not in another country. At the same time, though, it is also sad that I can do mission work like I want to in the states where we have all the resources but that is for another rant and another time.

My Fall Trip-Part Two

        I said that I was going to tell you about my thoughts on this trip because it was the first one that I had in a long time where I actually felt calm but I still have some things to tell you about the places we saw. I will tell you about the cruise first and then tell you about the famous peoples' houses we also saw. Some of the pictures are up on computer if you want to read and compare them. Maybe about half of them are up now and the other half will be up by the end of the week. I promise.
         The cruise I was was on was on a small port boat on a lake in Maine. I said on a lake because I can't say or spell the name of the lake to where you could understand it. It was a luncheon cruise so that means we had lunch on the boat. It wasn't a fancy cruise at all. It was a cruise where we just had lunch and heard the captain talk about what we went passed and other things but you couldn't hear the captain very much. I will agree, though, it was just fun looking out on the lake and seeing the land and mountains pass by you. It was also very windy and that wind was very cold so we couldn't stay outside the cabin of the boat for long.
          The food on the boat was okay. They had choices to pick from and the choices were: turkey, pasta (which was really good), salad, bread roll, mashed up squash or mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce and also stuffing with a pudding cup for desert. It was like a Thanksgiving meal on a boat. For me, it was just nice a calm, just to get out on a boat and just feel the wind below against you, even if it was cold. It was just the feeling out on a lake again that I haven't been on for so long. Seeing beautiful water and mountains and trees. Just everything around us was beautiful. It was funny because right after we got off, there was a wedding party getting on the boat. I think they were actually having the wedding on the boat. Don't know if I would like that but hey, it's not my wedding so it's okay. That was about it on the cruise.
           Now for the famous buildings and houses we saw for famous people. We saw the Bushes' summer home on the port of Maine, almost near where we took the cruise. We saw Paul Revere's house in Boston. We saw the Kennedy's houses, all three of them, while we were on Cape Cod. We also saw the house that Rose Kennedy grew up in and the church that she grew up in and was baptized. I'm sorry but for a history freak like me this was all interesting, whether or not I liked them or knew little about them.
            We saw the Old North Point Church where it is said that Paul Revere saw the light from. It was really funny. They still had services in it but they left the inside like it was back then. The pews were actually square boxes. They are free now for anyone member to sit in but back then, in Paul Revere's time, if you wanted to become a member of that church you had to pay for a square boxed pew and the more you pay the church the closer up front you would get to the front. Back then, you could also decorate it however you wanted to but none of them are decorated now. That church had a really old but beautiful organ in back and I think it still worked.
           We saw JFK's memorial and it was a pretty and simple one. All it was was: close to the ocean and had a pretty view of it, seemed very calming, and fountain in the middle of this concret slab like a sidewalk to walk around.  It also had a small brick/stone wall with his picture in metal on one side and the president seal i mental on the other side. We just saw the old state house in Boston because I think it was still being used as a state house so we couldn't go in.
          I think that covers all of the sites that I saw on my Fall Trip. The next entry will be about what I learned on that trip both through everything we saw and just being with the people that I was with. Some very, very, very wise people. I had time to think on this trip so I will write about some of my thoughts. It felt good to get all my thoughts out and/or sorted out but you won't know what they are til next time.
         

My Fall Trip

         I am back from my week and a half Fall trip on the east coast. I got back a day ago but I have been busy catching up with family. It was a blast and I got to see some pretty neat and dreaming things. I wish I could tell you all about it in one entry but it will take more then one. It might be all I talk about this month or these next two weeks. I went with an old friend that could be my grandma, in fact that is what I called her because I didn't want to explain the whole story to strange people. She was actually my old babysitter and I went because her husband passed away last year.
         It was a strange feeling since I just lost my last grandma a couple of months ago but then again it was a good feeling I still had a person that age that could be my grandma if need be. Anyways, I have learned some life lessons from the trip and from her that I want to write about but now I am just going to write some about what we did on the trip. That is easier to understand and it is just the background that might help later one. We saw 4 major landscapes and then a lot of memorials.
         The first one we stopped and saw was the beautiful Niagara Falls. I went on the boat called "The Maid of the Mist" and got wet with the mist of the Falls. I had to wear a plastic raincoat to wear on the boat. You know the beautiful pictures of the Falls with the rainbow? Well, I got to see that rainbow and got a beautiful picture of it but it doesn't do justice of the real thing. I took a lot of pictures of it.
          Next, we stopped at my favorite place, which was the Vermont Teddy Bear Company. Yes, I did buy a teddy bear from there. It, even, looks like a cow but a cute cow. It was just a break from sitting on the bus so we didn't get to do much. There was a tour that we could do but we didn't have time. We just shopped if we wanted to.
         Then, after that stop, we went to a place where they made maple syrup in VT. It was out in the mountains and almost on top of one. It was really neat because you could look out and see a long way. It was just pretty because it was Fall in the mountains so there were colored leaves all around this little syrup place. We listened to the main owner, when we got there, about how the maple syrup was made. It was pretty interesting! I also got to take all the grades of syrup too and all of them were good.
         We got to stop in Plymouth City at the Mayflower 2 and Plymouth Rock. The Mayflower was like a short museum we went through. They had people dressed up and on the boat like back in the day and they had to talk like that and we had to ask questions that could only be about the 1620s. The top of the boat was fine but the 2nd/bottom of the boat really smelled of mold or mildew like it would have in the days. I thought it was also neat because it had a Bible on one of the tables on the boat. The Rock was just a rock with the year on it.
         On the last to 2nd day, we got to go to "The Breakers" House in RI and that was the house that the Vandervilts lived in. It was so amazing and beautiful! I took a listening tape tour of the house so that was kind of different too. It was too decorated to be a real house but it was. I took a picture out of a window where you could see the ocean from. That is the only thing I could take pictures of but it was all so pretty. There were real gold in some rooms. There were marble walls in some rooms. There were pictures on the ceiling. It had a lot of decorations from a lot of different countries that were given to the people that lived there. It was a house that just took your breath away! I could have spent all day there just standing in one place and room and look at everything because it was so detailed!
         Then on the last day we went to Hershey, PA and of course stopped at the Hershey Chocolate Factory. We got to ride a little train inside the Hershey building that took us through the journey on how they made the chocolate. It was fast because it was made for little children but it was interesting at the same time. I did buy a bear from there too that had Hershey Chocolate World on it.
          I have some other activities and things I want to tell you about that I did but I think it will have to wait until later this week. I went on a cruise and saw some famous peoples' houses/summer homes along with famous buildings and memorials but that is for later this week. There are also a couple of special things that I did with just my friend that I want to share so stay tuned this week for that entry.