you know that person in a group of people that always gets drowned out by everyone else talking?

you know, the soft spoken one that no one stops to listen to answer a question or share their thoughts.

it's the one you can only hear if you sit really close to them and move your ear really close so they can talk right to you...

the one you sometimes get frustrated with because you have to tune everyone else out in order to listen to them.

Do you ever find yourself getting frustrated when you can't hear God?

you know, the One that always gets drowned out by everyone else talking?

you know, the still small voice you don't stop to listen to answer your questions because you're too busy sharing your thoughts?

the One you can only hear if you sit at His feet and turn your heart to Him so He can talk right to you...

the One you sometimes get frustrated with because you have to tune everyone else out in order to listen to Him.

Take time to listen for the voice that speaks in the silence!

Best Friends

This is what best friends look like.

London is absolutely obsessed with his Dad. All day long he talks about him and looks for him in the house. He's the first person he asks for when he wakes up, and the only person he wants to put him to bed. He screams in delight when he comes in the door, and cries the saddest tears when he has to leave.

He is 100% a daddy's boy, and I think that's just how it should be. I love it!

"practice" makes perfectly dangerous

Yoga. A term that splits people down the middle. They love it, they hate it...they hate to love it, they love to hate it...

I started doing yoga shortly after I had London. It was a way I could exercise without exerting too much energy (since we all know how hard that is to do after having a baby). I had never really known much about yoga, and the workouts I had been doing didn't focus on the spiritual aspects of the "practice"...they were more cardio based "weight loss programs". I'd like to say I am a pretty smart person, but I was really naive to everything that is tied along with yoga.

Until this summer.

One day right around youth conference I noticed my foot was hurting in a strange way. I could not pinpoint how I had hurt it...I hadn't done any kind of intense cardio recently or felt my ankle roll or anything. It didn't feel like I pulled a muscle and yet it didn't feel broken, it just hurt REALLY bad. The only thing I had done recently was yoga, but had never hurt myself before while doing it.

The second morning of youth conference it hurt so bad I could barely stand. I asked my sister to pray for me, and after she finished she said, "You might want to think about the whole yoga thing".

And that's where my Holy Spirit awakening began towards the spiritual ties of yoga.

I began to think about it, and noticed the more I had done yoga, the more I liked yoga. Not a bad concept when it comes to exercise, but the nature of my liking felt strange. Sometimes I would find myself feeling guilty for feeling so good after I finished. I suppose I had played it off as having something to do with my warring church programmed mindset of "anything that feels good has to be bad".

I noticed the real problem became when I battled whether or not I needed to give it up. Nothing in our lives should be too big a sacrifice compared to the cross, and something that seemed so "small" in my mind was holding a little more power than I had realized.

Then I began to research the connection between "yoga and spirituality", and found the results to be frightening. I am going to share some of them with you and point out that these are NOT written by Christian authors.

Below is an except from pathstopower.net entitled "Yoga & Spirituality":

"I had an urge to write this article seeing how yoga is being degraded to simple flexibility training and how yoga’s popularity is being used to sell practically anything...
Yoga and Spirituality are inseparable. Yoga is an ancient teaching that helps the persistent practitioner to achieve the spiritual enlightment. By no means it consists of a set of exercise routine only.
Yoga is comprehensive system, a way of thinking, a way of living our everyday lives...
Yoga played an important role in my life providing insights and answering the numerous questions that I had hard time to find answers to.
The Eastern occultism entered my life when I was 20 years old. I was lucky enough to find the book of Mabel Collins “Light on the path and through the gates of gold” in the country where the books on spirituality and religion were not published..."

Here is another, more unsettling except from a teaching by Sri Chimnoy (http://www.writespirit.net/spirituality/meditation/yoga_and_spirituality) . It is more frightening because it refers to the connection between yoga and "God". Linked in the article is on the webpage is his definition of "God". I have taken the liberty to take the capital out of his "G" below, since I know he is NOT referring to my God - the God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob, and I refuse to let HIM be watered down to a "mindset".):

"I have come here to be of service to the seekers of the highest truth. There are many seekers here. Some are beginners, others have started walking, others are a little advanced and running along the spiritual path. Spirituality is a vast field. You can regard spirituality as a body. Inside the body is the heart. Yoga is the heart of the spiritual body.
Yoga is a Sanskrit word. It means union with god. This union is a conscious union. We are all united with god but we are not aware of it. When we practice Yoga, we become conscious of our union with god.
Why practice Yoga? ...We want to practice Yoga in order to be satisfied. If we are sincere to ourselves, we know that we have everything except satisfaction. Some seekers feel that everything in life has meaning only when god comes first. They feel that god is the root. When they become one with the root, the source, then everything has meaning and everything is satisfaction. The practice of Yoga can lead us to this goal...
... Real Yoga will never ask us to renounce the world. We have to accept, transform and divinise the world and bring perfect Perfection onto this earth."

The word of God tells us the exact opposite in Romans 12:2 -Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.


I found that in my struggle with giving up yoga it has become an "idol". That in and of itself is dangerous enough, but add in all the spiritual elements, and I simply cannot allow this "practice" to be in my life.

Hebrews 12:1 -Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.

You still may look at this and think it's "no big deal", but I am choosing to "strip off that weight" and not allow it to slow me down.

...So goodbye downward dog, cobra, awkward airplane, and warrior 1,2 &3. I'm over you. You don't belong in my life, and your names are pretty stupid anyway. :)

driving without a license(d)...dog?

Ok, so anyone who knows me well knows this to be true:

my life is hilarious.

To give all the examples of how and why would take up a lot of space and time, but get to know me and you will get to laugh a lot. Not because I am hilarious, but because my life is one big ball of irony and chaos I have learned to laugh at and use to amuse others.
Here is my story today: (It actually didn't start today, but seems to be the neverending strangest saga of events)

REWIND TO MARCH, 2010.

I take that back...rewind to February, 2009.

Mike and I moved to a townhome at a complex I will leave nameless. Our next door neighbors on the right side (if you're in the house facing the front door) are hermits. Either that or they are always out...in any event, I never see them. I do know they have a BEAGLE named Hunter. If that isn't irony...(if you don't know the story about our non-beagle Hunter, ask me.)

But those neighbors aren't the point. The one's on the other side are the ones significant to this story. (Ok, maybe only slightly...but they just add to it). These neighbors are Wiccans. They have creepy windchimes, the man wears those "cool" t-shirts with the "cool" phrases on them, they have a furry dog that seems to only live in the backyard and appears to have no eyes, they have bumper stickers about the moon and earth and something about eating dragons. (Or maybe it was about dragons eating people). To say these neighbors were unfriendly would be the understatement of all understatements. (Let's just say every time I tried talking to them I feared they were going to eat me or perhaps send out their dragon to get the job done).

Well, one day the Wiccan's moved away. (And the peasants rejoiced...)

They were replaced by a family with 2 kids. Seemed nice enough. They decorated for every holiday and were fairly quiet. I was very happy to have nice, peacekeeping neighbors. I had no problems with them at all.

Not until March 2010, that is.

I am sleeping in my bed and hear a knock (make that banging) on the door. I look out my window and see "OVERLAND PARK POLICE". I figure this is probably one of those instances where I should answer the door, so I throw on a hoodie and make my way to the door with Hunter. I look through the peephole of the door and notice the Police car says "Animal Control". I am figuring this might be some sort of mistake, seeing as how Hunter is in my arms, and had been with me all morning.
I set Hunter down and open the door, the officer asks me to step outside. She tells me she got a call regarding an abandoned dog. She tells me the neighbor said the dog was "thin" and "malnutrition-ed". She asks me if I feed him. I tell her I feed the dog plenty. (My mind is thinking about how this dog eats not only the dog food I constantly keep in his bowl, but also everything from dirty diapers to whole sandwiches off someones plate.) She asks me to put him on a leash and bring him outside. After looking him over she says "Oh, he looks normal for a Rat Terrier".

[Whew! Great, I can go inside now.]

Nope. She begins to ask me how long I have had him, how old he is, how long I've lived in my townhome. She asks me if he is licensed, and I respond "Umm, I don't know?" So she asks to see mine. (By this I mean my driver's license). She tells me to wait inside until she is done (it is cold outside, mind you). She comes back about 5 minutes later and hands me a piece of paper.
Not just any piece of paper. A ticket paper. A $71 ticket paper.

Because my dog doesn't have a license.

Here I am, perfect record...no tickets, no accidents, no laws broken...being ticketed for my dog not having a license. The ticket comes fully equipped with an optional court date should you decide to plead not guilty. She tells me I have 3o days to license the dog, (which costs only $10) but the ticket applies no matter what. She tells me to have a nice day. (I wanted to tell her the neighbors kids were looking a little thin too...)

Now, this is all pretty ridiculous if you ask me. And if you knew mine and Hunter's relationship you would understand a little better how ironic this is that he got me my first ticket.

Okay, now it's August 2010.

The dog license has long been paid for along with the ticket.

Then something comes in the mail. It's a long letter from the court and an attorney saying how they have made a motion and are holding me in Indirect Contempt. I knew that couldn't be good, and had to look up what that meant. Then I tried to figure out why in the world I was supposed to be at court in the first place. I read the violation code and realize this has something to do with the dog ticket. I call the next day to see if I need to come down. I told them I paid it months ago...they have no record of it. They tell me there's a warrant out for my arrest. (Mike thinks this is hilarious...I lock Mike out of the room.)
Then they correct themselves, "I'm sorry, there isn't a warrant out for your arrest...if you miss another court date there will be". I find out I mysteriously missed 3 court dates for a violation that had been paid months earlier. I go there the next day and pay the dog ticket AGAIN, even though I have a record of the first time I paid it. I just want the whole thing to be done. They assure me that the case is closed.

2 days ago my doorbell rings. (I don't live in that same townhome anymore.) Guess who it is? Yep. POLICE -ANIMAL CONTROL. (I want to open the door and tell them to check on my new neighbor's underground daycare...) They told me they didn't have a record of the dog being licensed still. He just so happens to be wearing his city dog tag. No ticket this time. Just a misunderstanding... again. We're both going through life with our licenses.

So, if you are one to drive with your dog with you in the car, make sure you both have your license on you. It just might save you a whole lot of money if you ever get pulled over. Or if you're like me, it could also save you a whole lot of money if you never do.

God bless Hunter.

I need to blog more often. I find that when I want to write something, I get overwhelmed because I feel as though I have too much to say, that I can't say anything. It's a sick cycle I get myself stuck in!

So here's my attempt:

...

see? fail. ugh.

perhaps I will try tomorrow?

...or maybe 3 months from now...

London is 1! Can you believe it? I hardly can! It has been such a fun year with such a funny, care free baby...he is seriously so content!



So excited for this to FINALLY be happening! Let me tell ya, it has been such a labor of love - as well has tears through this process! I am really really excited to see what God is going to do through this project and these songs. Every song was written or chosen through a lot of prayer, and these songs are truly heart cries to God. If you are in the area I really encourage you to come out on June 2nd!!

Crazy to think that in just a little over a week we will set out on the road! What a crazy adventure this summer is going to be! I can't wait!!!!

i am convinced of this:

sisters make the best friends.

Today...

london is 8 months old...what???????

ashley & derek left for aussie land... so excited for them but i am going to miss them so much!

God is sovereign, Jesus is enough.

...and that's about all i've got to say :)