Thursday, December 31, 2009

Praises



"O God, You are my God; early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.
"So I have looked for You in the sanctuary to see Your power and Your glory.
"Because You loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You. Thus I will bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips." ~Psalm 63:1-5

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Winter Sports


:: After intercepting the ball Gunner Johnson heads down the court to score ::



:: Jason Johnson puts the ball in the basket ::



:: Brandon Larson looks for an opening after receiving the ball from teammate Jon Bristow ::



:: Caitlin Robinson dribbles around a player from Wadena Deer Creek ::



:: Bobbi Jo Mathe goes up to score against Wadena Deer Creek ::



:: Blake Petrich, Staples Motley's 145, takes down his opponent ::



:: Double leg take down by Sam Duberowski ::



:: Sam Duberowski on his way to defeating his opponent from Detroit Lakes ::

Saturday, December 26, 2009


"Blessed is the man whom You instruct, O Lord, and teach out of Your laws, that You may give him rest from the days of adversity." -Psalm 94:12-13

While worrying about making the right decisions in my life the Lord gave me this verse. He told me that the only decision that I really need to make is the decision to seek Him. If I seek Him, He will give me the wisdom and understanding to make the right choices in my life. Never ever lose sight of the fact that it's all about Him!

Thursday, December 17, 2009

ABC's

:: Don't stop here....::

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has it's own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, or the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if on tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity." ~Albert Einstein


"I don't think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday." ~Abraham Lincoln

DON'T STOP LEARNING!

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

The Beginning of Knowledge

"I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me, You are My Son, Today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You the Nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.
"Now therefore, be wise, O kings; Be instructed you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little.
"Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him." ~Psalm 2:7-12

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." ~Proverbs 1:7

After watch the movie "Amazing Grace" the other night I read the first scripture. I had been thinking about the things that humans have done to each other (slavery, abortion, wars, the list goes on). While reading the verse, "Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling" I felt this awesome fear of the Lord, but at the same time, I felt His overwhelming love for me and the rest of His creation. It occurred to me that before I had always felt the two emotions separately, and viewed them as such, either the fear of the Lord, or the love of the Lord. But they really come together. It says to rejoice with trembling, even in our worship and love of the Lord we still feel His awesome power, and we should fear. The fear of the Lord provides the motivation for the things we do or don't do, but the love of the Lord provides the hope we need to carry on. Without the fear of the Lord we would not have the incentive to stop sinning, but without the love of the Lord we would lose the hope of having the ability to change.

The next morning in our family "church" time we were talking about..... the fear of the Lord! We read Proverbs 1:7; without the fear of the Lord we can not know truth. To be wise, and to have the ability to discern what is right or wrong, we must first have a fear of the Lord. If we fear the consequences of judging something or someone in a manner that is not truthful, we are much more likely to take this seriously!

Another interesting thought is that in the absence of the fear of the Lord, other fears have room to take over. Consider our society, and the phobias and fears that govern peoples lives. After the 9/11 tragedy the public was in enough terror to give up many of their rights for bodily protection. But this goes even farther than fear of physical dangers or death. Many people are afraid of things such as certain relationships, not getting a certain job, failing at a project, letting someone down. We have traded a healthy fear of an an awesome God for a multitude of fears that take hold of our lives.

The Lord that we should fear and love reveals Himself to Moses in the book of Exodus:

"And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.'" ~Exodus 34:6-7

Friday, December 11, 2009

"Offensive Wrestling"

"Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, "Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it." -Numbers 13:30

"But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it." -Numbers 14:24

When the Israelites came to the Promise Land for the first time they sent spies into the land; The 12 came back saying that the land was great but the people in it were too many, too strong and the children of Israel would never be able to take over. All 12, except for two. Joshua and Caleb.

God was displeased with the peoples' lack of faith, and he punished them by keeping them in the wilderness for forty more years , saying that they would never see the promise land, only their children would be allowed in. Except for Caleb and Joshua. He was pleased with these two because they had a different spirit.

My Dad talks about being an over comer, and that the over comers are going to be the ones who inherit the earth. In Caleb's case it was a small part of the earth, but eventually when the Lord comes back the over comers will reign over the whole earth.

Caleb's "different spirit" was that of an overcomer ["for we are well able to overcome it."]. A few nights ago I was shooting a wrestling meet for work; I later started thinking about what it is that makes a good wrestler. You can survive a wrestling match by being a defensive wrestler, defending your opponents moves, but you will never pin or overcome your opponent fighting this way. Until you switch to offense and start making the first move will you come away with a pin.

I've realized that this is the way that I've "wrestled". Too often I am in defensive mode, ready to defend the take down attempts from this world, but until I switch to attacking I will never really be an over comer.This is scary for me, because when I am defending I am doing it out of necessity, the need to survive, if we don't defend we will be overtaken. But when you turn to offense make the move out of your comfort zone by choice, this is no longer a necessity but a decision. The decision to overcome the world. A book I was reading told teenagers, "Don't be known by the things you don't do but be known by the things you do." *

Don't be known as a defensive fighter, but go on offense, because to these "offensive wrestlers" Jesus writes amazing promises, ones that I want to be a part of!

To him who overcomes:

"I will give to eat from the Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God." (Revelation 2:7) "He shall not be hurt by the second death." (verse 11) "To him I will give power over the nations, He shall rule them with a rod of iron." (verse 27) "He shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels." (3:5)

And:
"I will grant him to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne." (3:21)

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Double the Troube..... but Triple the fun!


A little over a year ago our family was blessed with not one baby, like we were expecting, but "two babies!" Oh my. They've sure been double the trouble, but they are triple (or more) the fun. Each one makes the other even cuter! Last night we were all playing on the floor, so I grabbed my camera to record one of the many many things I'm thankful for, and start writing "thank you cards"

"It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
And to sing praises to Your name, O Most High;
To declare You loving kindness in the morning,
And Your faithfulness every night.
O Lord, how great are Your works!
Your thoughts are very deep."
Psalm 92:1-2, 5



:: Mark and Kathryn ::


:: Elijah James and Kathryn Elise =D ::




:: Mark and Fuzz (aka Elijah)






:: Four of my siblings, Elijah, Mark, Amy and Kate ::



This one goes kinda like this..... "No Fuzz, YOU can't come up here, 'cuz your not big like me!" ~Rachel



:: Fuzz loves to ham for the camera, He gets pretty excited when it comes out ::



:: Ooop, here's the serious look::





:: Hamming it up again ::


:: Two of my gorgeous sisters ::


:: And here he is again, trying to push the chair ::

Friday, December 4, 2009

Thank You Cards



“Every blessing you pour out, I’ll turn back to praise // and when the darkness closes in // Still I will say // blessed be the Name of the Lord. ~ Matt Redmond

Tonight while playing this song on my guitar I began to really think about these words. Every blessing. Watching my three littlest siblings, two of whom just turned one, singing this song, I contemplated how many of my blessings I actually turn into praises to my God. Sixty percent? Fifty Percent? ummm, 25 percent? maybe?

I look at the huge blessings in my life, such as the twins and my nine other siblings, but so many things pass me by every day, unnoticed. When we receive a gift, say for a birthday, we will usually write a thank you to the person who remembered us on our day. But God remembers us every day of every year, yet how many times do we stop to write Him a thank you card?

Although Thanksgiving has come and gone, let’s still remember the blessings God has poured down on us, and not only remember them, but turn them into praise!

“Let the high praises of the Lord be in their mouth.” Psalm 149:6

“Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous, And give thanks at the remembrance of His Holy name.” Psalm 97:12

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Sunshine or Stars


“No, you’ll never be alone, when darkness comes I’ll light the night with stars; hear my whispers in the dark.” ~Whispers In the Dark, Skillet




I’ve been realizing more and more that God isn’t here to make all our problems go away, but here to help us live a full life, and deal with the problems we face. I first started thinking about it when I read this quote from Donald Miller (A Million Miles in a Thousand Years):


“Growing up in church, we were taught that Jesus was the answer to all our problems. We were taught that there was a circle-shaped hole in our heart and that we had tried to fill it with the square pegs of sex, drugs, and rock and roll; but only the circle peg of Jesus could fill our hole. I became a Christian based, in part, on this promise, but the hole never really went away. To be sure, I like Jesus, and I still follow him, but the idea that Jesus will make everything better is a lie. It’s basically biblical theology translated into the language of infomercials.”



Jesus said to come for Him for, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” He never said that all our problems would go away, or that it will always be day time, or that our burden would be lifted; but when the night comes He will light it with starts, or when we have burdens He will be there to help us carry them. I think sometimes our problem as Christians is that we think Jesus died to take our problems, instead of our sins, or that when we are washed from our sins, we think we are washed from all our problems and that life will be blue skies from now on. So when there difficulties show up in life we second guess ourselves, “What did we do wrong in our relationship with Him?” or even second guess God, “Why has He left me?” or “Why isn’t He fixing this, I’ve prayed hard enough!” I started to realize all the expectations I had put on God.


But what was hardest for me to grasp, though, is that the same goes for “inside problems” as well. For me I always expected outside troubles and hardships, but thought that life inside would be smoother sailing. But that’s not the case. When I would have character issues, or when God would show me things about myself, I would expect them to change. like that. But I have begun realize that there will always be a battle, and it’s inside and out.


There won't always be sunshine, but when there isn't He will provide the stars!

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Colored Pencils and Me




So. I'm facing the fact that I'm an adult.

And that I'm have to make decisions that might affect how my "picture" turns out.

When I was little I had a obsession with sharp colored pencils. If they were sharp I had to use them. Ok. I'll admit I still do. But I also was one of those "realistic" colorers. Everything I colored had to be true to life. I think that still affects me today, some kids were like "Who cares if the turkey has purple feathers?" I worried when I didn't have the perfect color for a subject.

Now I worry that I might not have the perfect job for my life, or the perfect relationship with the Lord, etc. etc. the list can go on. Remember when you weren't sure if a color was the right one? So you'd make a little scribble on the side of the page to test it out? I hated that.... but sometimes you have to try things. Those scribbles on the side of the page don't have to ruin your picture, it could make it more artistic. I live in fear of trying something that might not be right for me. Or trying something that I'm not 100% sure is Gods will.

I'm not saying that we should go and try everything, and not seek Him for it. But at times I think He wants us to go forward, learn new things, and step back to decide if this is the color we want our "picture" to be.

The Lord didn't mean for life to be all one color! Let's learn to color with the pencils we have, but have fun doing it.

So here's to coloring with Jesus! Don't miss out.