Thursday, February 11, 2010

Valentine's Cookies

I really enjoy baking and I love making my Grandma's roll out cookies. Each Valentine's I bake and decorate cookies and give them to family, friends, and people the Lord lays on my heart! I like to call it my Love Bake!!! Happy Valentine's Day!


The dough is chilled and ready to be rolled

The flour is down

The rolling pin is ready

A little more rolling

Heart-shaped cookie cutter

Using all the dough I can

So pretty

I make a butter cream frosting and then it's on to the fun part, decorating the cookies

I like being creative and packaging up the cookies with bows and boxes

Ready to be delivered

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Complete

God has laid on my heart the idea of being "complete." What does it mean to be complete in life? Is completeness something I can strive for on my own? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that nothing I can do will make me any more complete than I am right now in the presence of my Lord. Each day I am striving to know Him more intimately and follow Him more closely, and in this mutual pursuit I am becoming even more complete than I was the previous day. As I walk closely with my Lord I allow myself to be surprised by His goodness and the joy He brings each day. I have realized that striving for my own measure of completeness far undercuts what God actually had and has in store for me. I cannot comprehend the blessings He will bestow upon me when I place my whole life, my whole significance in Him. I don't have to be a mother or have a job to be anymore complete than I am right now in the Lord!

Monday, February 1, 2010

Grateful

Kurtis and I were spending some time reflecting over the last six months and were not only amazed at how far God has brought us, but also very grateful to everyone dear to us who prayed on our behalf. The love and care shown to us in so many ways has encouraged out hearts through difficult times. It was very humbling to receive gifts from family, friends, and even strangers. Letters and emails with encouraging words and comforting scriptures helped us through the day and pushed us closer to the Lord! Thank you for celebrating with us as God's favor was demonstrated in so many ways!
One awesome way God showed us His glory and the blessing of His community was through our move. To get us from Arizona to here we hired a moving company. They offloaded all of your stuff at mom's house where we stayed for about a month and half. As we were searching for a home of our own, it was made clear that the church moving team would love to help us move from my mom's house to our new home when the time came. Well, the time came and we have never seen such a gloriously efficient crew of workers in our lives. The team showed up at 8am sharp ready to go, forming human chains and working with precision. Quite a few of the men that were helping we had never met. It was very emotional watching all of these people serve us and do it with so much joy. By 10am, all of our worldly belongings had moved from one house to another and all work was finished. Two hours!!! What a miracle. The team stayed and we gathered in a circle and prayed. One of the pastors prayed for our home and specifically prayed over each room in the house! We are so thankful for our new community!

We can say without hesitation that God has blessed our move and our lives here!!!

Signing the papers and getting the keys to our new HOUSE

With our amazing agent...thank you

Some of the moving team loading up the UHaul

We can actually use our sleds here

More boxes