Happy Birthday, MOM!

Saaaayyyy whhhaaaatttt???? I'm 30 min early for my mom's birthday! But...November 5th....a great day to celebrate an amazing woman. She's the best. Ever.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!

Steve Jobs...

#1-It's been a long time since I posted anything on this blog. I apologize.

B-I know this is a little bit of time after Steve Jobs' death, but it's just been on my mind...

An article was in our Omaha newspaper shortly after his death (as I'm sure it was in many cities' newspapers across the US). One thing that caught my attention was a little piece that said after asking his pastor, at the age of 13, if God knew there was poverty and hunger in the world (I am taking this from memory because I am sure my dad has already recycled that paper so it is not verbatim) and hearing his pastor's response, he never returned to church since then. I was saddened by that, as I am whenever I hear of a brother or sister in Christ walking away from Jesus.

But as I continued to think about it, I wondered...did Steve Jobs ever donate to charity? Did he ever give his millions or billions of dollars to someone who could really use it? I looked up that sort of thing and many people criticized him for never donating to charity, some suggested maybe he donated anonymously, and some said that him creating jobs through Pixar, Apple and creating items to make our lives easier was charity enough.

Then I thought about something I read in a book (I believe it was "The Case for Christ (or Faith) but I'm not 100% sure) that the question was asked, "How can God be so good if he just lets poverty and starvation happen here on Earth?" The responder said, "1st thing, since we've been shaking our puny fists at God saying we're gonna do it our way...that's just what God has let us do, it's our choice to run this Earth our own way. 2nd thing, that being said, can't God ask you the same question? If we're so worried about poverty and starvation, then why don't we do anything about it?"

So if Steve Jobs was so worried about poverty and famine and all things bad, I sure hope he didn't just sit there and blame God and then do nothing on his own with his billions of dollars.

Fighting...

Hello.

So recently I've been fighting with myself and with God. I have 2 things I want to do...both have their positives and negatives. For both of them, though, I've been laying out the positives and ignoring the negatives and expecting God to just throw the correct answer my way. I'm learning quite a bit of patience here...and it's frustrating.

Option #1 - Go back to school next semester (next semester meaning Spring semester since I've pretty much missed the fall one). I'm looking at Methodist Health College and Clarkson College to go into a nursing program.

Option #2 - Apply to go with my church to Mali, Africa for 1 week and have an amazing experience there. The 1st mission trip my church went on when I got back to Omaha was to China...which I would have died if I had been able to go there...I want to go to China so badly, but I don't think my heart was ready and I don't think my wallet was ready either.

Mission trips are one-of-a-kind experiences and I would absolutely love it. My heart has been wanting to go over seas or just out of the country to help and experience the Lord in different ways. I think my heart is crying for the Lord and it knows from previous mission experiences that is where I am completely immersed in his love and glory for children and people other than myself. My heart breaks every time I look at a picture of my sponsor child from Rwanda and hear the prayer requests he asks me to pray for him. I want to go through Compassion and meet him.

I need school though. I need to finish and get a degree now. I always throw in that I could finish and get a degree in nursing, then with that degree travel around the world to third world countries and help them there with my complete knowledge and training. I would be happy doing that.

I'll just keep praying and wait for an answer....grrr patience.

Hello.

A beautiful thing is never perfect.

~Egyptian Proverb

Happy Father's Day...

Hello.

Late yet again...but this is for my dad. I never met a guy who can equal my dad. My mom is the luckiest woman in the world. He's the best Dad in the whole world...hands down.

(And no we are not about to drink in the picture...we are at a wax museum...being goofs...as usual.)

Not A Religion...

‎"Christianity is not a religion. Religion is looking at our lives and seeing what we have done and then offer it to God as if it were a job resume. Christianity is saying to God that I have nothing to offer you and then replacing our resume with Jesus'." -Mark Ashton

Love it.

Mother...

Hello.

So, I am one day late, but I say better late than never right?

Happy Mother's Day to the most beautiful wonderful mom in the whole wide world. She really is amazing. She is a Proverbs 31 woman and I admire her completely for it. I can only that someday I am 1/2 as awe-inspiring as my mother. Thank you, God for such a wonderful woman.

I'm So Gracious...

Hello.

So I went to Bible Study on Tuesday. It felt great and if work allows me, I hope to continue going every Tuesday evening.

We were talking about when Peter tries to rebuke Jesus, and Jesus then says, "Get behind me, Satan!" and we were startled about why Jesus chose such harsh words when he was talking to Peter. Probably caught the poor guy off guard. We talked about that...but that's not what this post is about...

We got on a lot of tangents while we were having discussions and this is where one came in. One of the girls brought up language in the Christian religion today and how our terminology is already different and harder for other people to understand (i.e. I asked Jesus into my heart...), but over time we have twisted some of the ways we say things almost to glorify us for being Christians. One example of that is "I asked Jesus into my life and became a Christian."

Who are we to say we let Jesus into our lives??? We are so gracious we decided to allow Jesus into our lives? No, when we become Christians, we should be saying, "I became a Christian because Jesus is allowing me into His life and His plans! He is the gracious One!"

That stuck in my mind all day today, and I know this post is short...but it's what was on my mind.

Child-Like Awe and Wonder...

Hello.

A quote my high school youth pastor told me once when I came to him with some questions, “Christianity is probably one of the simplest religions this world has, yet it is the most difficult for humans to grasp.”

Why is this? How can something be so simple, yet people don’t understand it, refuse to believe it, go their whole lives arguing against it, and/or do everything they can to make fun of or bash it?

We as humans are full of questions. As we get older, know all about science and philosophy, we try to explain Christianity through complex research for proof. We study history, we read ancient writings, and we look at the studies and discoveries in Biology. We dig as deep and wide as we can to find answers to these impossible questions.

You are probably saying in your head about now, “OK, Jaimie? What is your point?”

I recently read a book called Heaven is for Real. It is a real story about a 4 year old boy, who during surgery, was taken up to heaven to see Jesus. He never died, but got to spend some time with his Daddy above, for as he said, 3 minutes. He astounded his parents with descriptions of exactly where his parents were in the hospital and what exactly they were doing while he was in surgery, his story of meeting John the Baptist (asking if his dad knew that Jesus had a cousin who baptized him…what 4 year old knows that story?), how he met his great grandfather who had died when his dad was about his age, how the angels sang to him, and even descriptions of heaven that John wrote about in Revelation. He talked about being able to sit on Jesus’ lap when he was scared. Of course any person out of pure curiosity, whether a Christian for their entire life or a skeptic, would ask what Jesus looked like. His father asked him and this is how he responded:

“What did Jesus look like?” I asked.

Abruptly, Colton put down his toys and looked up at me. “Jesus has markers.”

“What?”

“Markers, Daddy…Jesus has markers. And he has brown hair and he has hair on his face.” He said, running his tiny palm around his chin. I guessed that he didn’t yet know the word beard. “And his eyes…oh, Dad, his eyes are so pretty!”

He went on to explain that Jesus was wearing white clothes with a purple sash, and he was the only one in heaven wearing purple. He also described the crown Jesus was wearing, but again he would return to Jesus’ markers. Finally his dad asks him what he meant by markers:

Suddenly, I had it. “Colton, you said Jesus had markers. You mean like markers that you color with?”

Colton nodded. “Yeah, like colors. He had colors on him.”

“Like when you color a page?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, what color are Jesus’ markers?”

“Red, Daddy. Jesus has red markers on him.”

At that moment, my throat nearly closed with tears as I suddenly understood what Colton was trying to say. Quietly, carefully, I said, “Colton, where are Jesus’ markers?”

Without hesitation, he stood to his feet. He held out his right hand, palm up and pointed to the center of it with his left. Then he held out his left palm and pointed with his right hand. Finally, Colton bent over and pointed to the tops of his feet.

“That’s where Jesus’ markers are, Daddy,” he said.

His dad went on to point out that most 4 year olds wouldn’t be able to tell you that. If you can get them to come out of Sunday school with the fact that Jesus loves them and He died on the cross for them to save them, you’ve done a pretty swell job. It is pretty rare for them to know the gruesome details of the crucifixion and to know that Jesus had nails in his hands and feet that left scars. Colton did not know that the “markers” were really scars and where they came from, but he knew where exactly they were.

As I read this, it was impossible to not be completely in awe of the details this little boy recalled of heaven; the stories he told. The entire time it made me even more eager to meet my Jesus and to see heaven for myself. But, it was amazing to hear these things from a child’s point of view. A call-it-as-you-see-it description, simple wording, and innocent outlook were what caught my attention the most throughout the entire story.

It got me thinking about all the science and studying that goes into Christianity and trying to prove it. Maybe it would all be so much simpler if we could all just go at it with child-like awe and wonder. It’s OK to ask questions, but to ask such deep ones when all we need to know is why God did this for us and why Jesus wanted to be the one to save us. I mean for me, sometimes all I need to know is that God loves me more than I can ever imagine and that He would send His Son to die on the cross for someone as insignificant as me; that Jesus loves me SO much that He wanted to die on the cross for a sinner, someone as undeserving as me. We as humans just need to simplify things and then Christianity won’t be so hard to grasp.

Happy...

Hello.

All my life I've done everything I could to make other people happy. I mean, I wouldn't say I've made huge sacrifices every time to make someone happy, but they've always been little sacrifices...and after 20 years (almost 21) it's really built up. I tried so hard to make everyone happy-my parents, my sister, everyone in my family, my friends, my teachers, my babysitter growing up, my classmates-that if someone ended up not happy, I would beat myself up over it; I would feel terrible that, that one person was not happy.

I feel terrible saying this, maybe a little selfish too, but I'm going to say it anyway: I'm tired of making everyone else happy. When other people are happy, it makes me happy. When someone is not happy-whether it's with me, or because of me, or because I think it is because of me-I am miserable. Now I'm not saying I don't want other people to be happy, and I'm not going to try and make them happy, but if a decision I'm making to make me happy, makes someone else upset...well, too stinkin' bad. After 20 years, I am making myself happy.

Now I just need to learn what makes me happy...

Submission...

Hello.

“Wives submit yourselves unto your husbands…”

Ah the controversy over that verse. No matter what version of the Bible one reads, the verse is often ignored by people who believe Paul was just a male chauvinist, while others base their entire marriage around it.

I chose this topic because my Dad and I were in the car when a woman on KGBI 100.7 started talking about it (I believe the big topic was marriage as a whole), and it really caught my attention.

NIV: ²² Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. ²⁴ Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ²⁶ to make her holy, cleansing^[a] her by the washing with water through the word, ²⁷ and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. ²⁸ In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— ³⁰ for we are members of his body. ³¹ “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”^{[b] 32} This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. ³³ However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

KJV: ²²Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.

²³For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.

²⁴Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

²⁵Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

²⁶That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,

²⁷That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

²⁸So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.

²⁹For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:

³⁰For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

³¹For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.

³²This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

³³Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.

“Submit.” What does God mean with this word? Why did he choose such a powerful word? The One interpretation could be that women should be servant-like towards their husbands. They should stay at home, cooking and cleaning and doing whatever their husbands say. There are probably those who would agree with this interpretation.

To be honest…I don’t agree with this interpretation. Now, I am not saying that no woman should ever lift a finger, she should never clean, do laundry, or cook. I’m not saying that if her husband asks her to do something her response should automatically be, “Heck no! I am not your servant!” I am saying that should not be only her job. It is not her house, it is their house. It is not solely her duty to clean and take care of everything. The husband should help as well. He has hands; he can clean up the dishes some nights after dinner, he can even cook dinner every once and a while! I see this example in my own father. He and my mom share in everything; housework, money, choices, etc. My mom is never left to cook and have dinner on the table by 5, and then clean the dishes afterwards while my dad sits in the living room reading a newspaper and watching football. When decisions are made, I know my Dad never says, “Well this is how I want it and since I am the head of the household, you will do as I say.” It is always an agreement.

The woman on KGBI made a good point as well. She said that the woman should not be taken for granted. She holds so much power in her hands in the marriage. It is amazing how much power the woman, wife, mother (however she is labeled) has to either make or break the man and even the marriage. To “submit” is not for her to be a servant in her own home, but is an exhortation to her to build her husband up; paint him as best she can for her children, her community, and her church. She should be there and support him, to encourage him as he builds up not himself, but his family; his children. She talked about how her dad came to her one day and told her that he owed all of the love his children had given him to his wife. He said that he felt he had never been a good father and was never really around a lot, but she continued to build him up for them, talked only good things about him, loved him no matter what, and for that he owed his children’s love.

When I was growing up, I remember my Mom saying my Dad was her superman. She would say she didn’t need a superhero to save her because she already had one. For quite awhile I honestly thought my Dad was a superhero. As I got older, I realized he was not really a super hero, but to this day he is still my hero. Now, my Dad was around a lot and there was no doubt in my sister’s and my mind that we were loved unconditionally by our Dad, but I also know that I have never heard my Mom say one bad thing about my Dad.

I really dislike hearing someone say a woman “belongs in the kitchen.” For some woman being a homemaker is their life choice. For some families, that works well and I am not saying they are wrong. It really does depend on the family. I hope my husband doesn’t expect a perfect homemaker because I know for a fact that I will never live up to those standards. Sorry, future husband.

Pastor John Piper, of Bethlehem Baptist Church, had a sermon on this verse (http://www.soundofgrace.com/piper89/6-11-89.htm). He points out that Paul states that a man and woman’s union (verse 32) is a mystery. Why? Paul answers it later in that verse by saying that marriage is an image of Christ and the church. Marriage’s deepest meaning had been partially concealed, until now. Pastor Piper goes on to say that marriage is like a metaphor or an image. It stands for the relationship between Christ and the church.

Verse 28-30 describes the parallel between Christ and the church being one body and husband and wife being one flesh. “In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church-for we are members of his body.” So in a sense, what the husband does to his wife, he also does to himself.

Pastor John Piper states that when sin entered the world, it ruined the harmony of marriage NOT by bringing headship and submission into existence, but it twisted man’s humble, loving headship into aggressive control and/or apathy into men. It twisted woman’s intelligent, eager submission into either scheming obedience and/or shameless disobedience. Sin only distorted them. Therefore, headship is not a right to command or control. He says, as does the Bible, that the “husband’s role through headship is the responsibility to love like Christ; to lay down his life for his wife in servant leadership.”

Submission for the wife is not slavish, forced, or cowering. Christ would not want us to respond to his leadership in the church that way. He wants it to be free, willing, glad, refining, and strengthening.

The passage that Paul wrote does two things for us: 1. It protects against the corruption of headship by telling husbands to love like Jesus; as well as 2. It guards against the humiliations of submission by telling wives to respond the way the church does to Christ.

Headship, as Pastor Piper says, is the “divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christ-like, servant leadership, protection, and provision for the home.”

Submission, he says, is the “divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband’s leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts.”

As said in Luke 22:26, (NIV) “But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves.” Or (KJV) “But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve.” Husbands are not to stop leading but turn all their leading into serving. The responsibility of leadership was given to him to build his family up, not himself.

Verse 21 says to submit out of reverence for Christ, or fear of God. Submission, thus, does not mean that the husband’s word is absolute, because only Christ’s word is absolute. No wife should follow her husband into sin. How is that in anyway in reverence to Christ? Pastor Piper goes on to say, “Submission does not mean no input on decisions, or influence on her husband. It does not come from ignorance or incompetence. It comes from what is fitting and appropriate (Col. 3:18) in God’s created order. It is an inclination of the will to say yes to his leadership and a disposition of the spirit to support his initiatives, because there are times that even the most submissive wife will hesitate at a husband’s decision.”

Husbands, unlike Christ, are liable to err and should admit it. Husbands should want their wives to be excited about the family decisions, just as Christ wants us to be excited about following him and not just follow reluctantly. Pastor Piper concluded, “Because when God designs a thing (like marriage) he designs it for his glory and our good.”

A God Sized Hole In My Heart...

Hello.

So I've had a lot of bizarre dreams lately. I mean I've always had weird ones, but these may be winners out of all my dreams. One that has really stuck out in my mind has been one that was completely centered around a bouquet of flowers. That is mostly all I remember from the dream actually. It was a huge bouquet and every single flower was at full bloom, full of color, and very healthy; all but one. There was just one that drew my attention because all but this one were up right and beautiful. This one was hanging over the side of the vase, wilted, and starting to turn brown.

I don't really get into trying to decipher dreams, because everyone has some meaning or another to try to explain dreams and most of it is a bunch of bologna. But this one just really made me curious.

Most everyone says that flowers represent health, whether emotional or spiritual. A healthy, bright flower can indicate vibrancy in life and many of them together can mean growth-in a career, personal life, or in the spiritual area. While a wilted flower can symbolize a thirst in the soul or possibly a cry for spiritual health.

I feel like all of mine has to do with the spiritual aspect of my life right now. My spiritual life was on a quickly falling slope last year. I have been working a lot to really put Jesus at the center of my life again. It's still in progress though. Sometimes I feel like I've pushed Him so far away and gone so long without Him, that I don't remember what it is like to have everything revolve around him. My soul thirsts for God to fill the void in my heart.

Pretend I Have a Cool Topic...

Hello.

I'm not sure anyone even reads my blog anymore. It's nothing fascinating. Buuuuuuut...I will keep posting because if someday somebody comes back to read it randomly, something will be there for them to read. A glimpse into my mind from 2011. I don't really have much I want to write about. I'm not creative in coming up with some super cute or awesome topic everyday (sorry), but I wanted to post a song. I recently discovered it, but apparently he's been around for a little bit. I really like him though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx_CD64zSrw

(sorry I don't know how to post videos...?)