Celebrate 2016, Happy 2017

For wrapping up 2016 I always take time to pray and thank God for another year. It's a NYE with the Lord which is a party all by itself!! Each year is a gift never meant to be taken for granted. My idea of ringing in the new year now is to hang out with friends or now my family while writing and reading through journal entries from the last year. I did it driving to Dallas today because we will be celebrating at a wedding tonight!

It’s always so overwhelming that no matter where I am, how I feel, what I’ve been through—through the pages of a year I watch God unfold my days. I see what I asked for last year. The goals that I set and now get to date and check off, praising Him for each one I got to meet. It’s crazy to see that only 1 was not answered but it is because I made other choices and moved on from it.  Sometimes not meeting a goal is a good choice because they are ever evolving as we come across challenges and have to make new goals and say WAIT. There were definitely 2 that were wait because they would have been rushed to meet them.

Here’s my list cause that’s my style from 2016:

-  CSM (PT conference)- Anaheim, CA

-Disneyland- I had NEVER been! Go Mickey! Hey Yoda! The light show was awesome!!

 March- watching our B-ball team go to regionals
      
  Skied spring break at Steamboat

   
Helped lab assist with APTA women’s health courses (3)- fun stuff love to travel: took to to Houston, St. Louis, and Little Rock. (I really like Arkansas y’all!)

    Port Aransas-1 week vacay with family. Kids had a BLAST and we love the water. Surfing next time

 Deep sea fishing- caught 2 red snapper

    Returned to Steamboat- because it is just in my blood. Good food, good friends, good hiking. Got to fly fish this trip and now I know what I’ve been missing!
 Have a 3^rd grader and a kindergarten kiddo

Signed these kids up for more than I can handle: chauffeur city! Musical theatre x 2, gymnastics X 2, ballet 2x/week, indoor soccer. Learned I love to do this and cram my bible studies and reading into every free minute in parking lots!

Went to a Beltway SHAPE retreat: studied more on spiritual gifts and met some sweet ladies

Completed ARMOR of GOD and ACTS (by Lisa Harper). Gracious y’all- if you add anything to your list for 2017- DO THESE 2 bible studies!!!

Found a Life group we love!

 Had the blessing of being included in a life (changing) event.

Went Dove hunting for the first time!

Celebrated 12 years of marriage to an AWESOME man!

 Wrote some chapters, reviewed more articles than I count. Studied more anatomy because it is just what makes me feel alive.

Decided to keep on despite some unexpected events

Developed more as a mentor: this is giving of yourself freely because it’s who you are, what you love, and because we have to offer the best possible care out there. Because sometimes it’s just scary what the options are. 

 Read some productive books, encouraging books, bettering me books, and most of all some really good junk books (I have to call them this because they are fiction, have no work relevance, and basically benefit no one else but me. These are important too!)

Started planning this summer’s family vacation! There’s too many places we want to go! J Stay tuned!

HAPPY 2017 EVERYONE!

Set your goals. Give them to GOD. Let HIM water the garden of your life. (I cannot wait for Kari Jobe's new CD to come out!) 

But produce MUCH FRUIT over the next year to the GLORY of HIS NAME.  

*apologies for the awkward editing for the list. Tried to fix it several times but when it posted it was still off. smh. Happy NYE!

Boldness

What do you think of when you hear the word BOLDNESS?

There are many faces and pictures that flash through my mind. Boldness is a word that many try to define. The greatest picture of boldness was painted by a man who humbled himself. He came to earth to live a perfect life and died a death that we deserved. Even though we may be good, hard working, and try to do the right thing ....realizing that God is Holy and nothing we could ever do would be enough.  Nothing that would be the equivalent of pleasing himself enough to earn or win our salvation and seat in heaven next to Him. No, it took a perfect, spotless Savior. It took a man who considered equality with God something that could NOT be grasped (as Jesus....we have no hope with our selfish, haughty attitudes). It took Jesus knowing why He was born.  To come to earth to die and take on Him the sin of the world. Each one of us in the world. SO that we could stand before the Lord, covered in the blood of the Lamb. What a boldness Jesus had to know what He had to do. AND STILL CAME. He didn’t just come. But he LIVED. He spoke, taught, preached, delivered, saved, raised, healed, discipled, and made it his mission to full-fill His purpose. Boldness that prayed, Let this cup pass from me. Not my will, but yours Lord. Boldness that was NOT OF THIS WORLD.

(Phil 2: 5-8)

That is a boldness type that this world does not know what to do with.  Jesus defines boldness in how He lived. What a boldness. What humility. The courage he exhibited with his life should always serve as our example.

Why do we look or strive so hard to please this world? Why do we exhaust ourselves so much toward missions that have deadlines that never fulfill us? Instead set our sights, our hearts, and goals on Jesus. And living with the kind of Spirit filled boldness to live as Christ lived. Knowing that God was God. There was only one. And Jesus came as the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE. He is the only way to the Father. By no other name are we saved from our wretchedness and our hopelessness. It is the True, King Jesus. The King of Kings and Lord of Lord that is coming again! Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!

Revelation 19:16

Phil 2: 12-16

Phil 3: 20-21

We wrapped up a fabulous bible study by Lisa Harper called Believing Jesus. I wrote this at the end of the study to remember so many things that He taught me through this study of Acts. Wow, just WOW! We need to not just be saved, baptized with water, but baptized through the Holy Spirit! The stories in Acts of how the Spirit moved and the beautiful record of JUST HOW MUCH the Spirit did and still does has to be told. And that is just the beginning if we will latch hard to the gospel of This TRUE King Jesus. The Spirit ignites us. The study also reminded us to Be regospeled. Remind yourself of the what Jesus did for you that is worth telling. Share your testimony. By the blood of the Lamb and the words of your testimony we each have a Gospel to share. Nothing is the gospel like the gospel of Jesus. (There's nothing our life could add to the gospel. The gospel is all about Jesus. That His life, death, and resurrection demonstrate a Savior that loved us before we could love Him. But He still died a death that no one would want. To SAVE us and provide us a way to God the Father.) The untainted story that needs no addition. That powerful story that Jesus came. Did the most incredibly powerful events, miracles while He was here. But when He left, He left us His trusted Holy Spirit and told us that He was leaving so that the Spirit could come. Because unlike Jesus who covered only land now called the Holy Land, The Spirit is everywhere all the time. With each of us. It makes this power in the name of Jesus possible because we have the Spirit living in us. Come Spirit come. And bring us Jesus! 

The Rise of Superman

The Rise of Superman By Steve Kotler

What an unbelievable book! Well written pulling me to the edge of my seat every time I opened it. There is something I love deeply about adventure sports. I love to ski, a daredevil I am not.  Which may strike you as odd that I love this book as much as I do. If you’re an adrenaline junkie in any form, this book is easily addictive. As Steve describes Danny Way’s jump off the China Wall or how a surfer can “know in flow” what to do at the last second to save him from certain death and one wrong move, this book is for you. Throughout the book he tell athlete after athlete that musters up the inner strength, the mental control, the emotional cam in flow to do what has never been done before. To break barriers that most would say is impossible. Crazy. Completely stupid. The underlining message throughout the book, in every story is taking a closer look to see how “flow” is possible in our everyday life. There is such a powerhouse message in this. To tap into flow is to push our mental boundaries of imagination, to look into history at those that came before us and learn from them. To then “stand on the shoulders of giants” (as I have written before in a previous blog several years ago after CFMT testing) and launch ourselves, our fields, and (for me) our faith FAR past what we imagine is possible. To imagine ourselves there is to see it, dream it, and watch it happen. 

That’s where I will leave you with this thought. In the book, Steve addresses that certain athletes have to have a “zone” where faith cannot enter. That sole focus must happen to channel you into the zone so far that you are committed to the task, the feat, the abyss in a sense and for faith to enter that is just shear distraction. (If you know me, hang with me!) I would have to agree. Faith is what centers you first. It is something that you have done business with far beyond entering this kind of zone. It is something you have squared away and know where you stand with God and daily you are working your faith out with fear and trembling.  Faith, for me, is what fuels that zone. I’ve done the mental, spiritual, emotional business because to bring that in once your attempting to enter the zone or flow would be just that. Distracting. It makes you second guess. Instead of KNOWING that you enter the zone with God, business taken care of, faith grounded, you don’t have to second guess that entering your zone. You can just let it FLOW. And here’s the greater challenge still. Knowing that you are squared away with God, planted and rooted in HIM, who tells us daily that with HIM NOTHING is IMPOSSIBLE. This should be your new zone. You now enter flow with more than your ability and yourself. You enter with the Holy Spirit. And if that does not launch you into spiritual flow and your zone, I don’t know what else would. Because that is a supernatural power source. Plugged into Him, letting Him release your true ability and flow….now that is tapping into the realm of ALL things possible. That’s the kind of daily flow I want to live. Knowing that God is building something bigger and better and I just have to be a focused, disciplined, willing vessel to fall into a zone where I can be used to level far above my ability! Anything IS possible.