first kiss: to wait or not to wait? that is the question...

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      There's been some heated debate as whether or not to save your first kiss for your wedding day. Is it okay to kiss before then...as long as there is commitment? Should you wait until engagement? Should you save it for your first date? Should you keep it for the alter? Should you even have your first kiss at the alter, but wait afterwards when you're in private? Are you just dizzy from hearing theological bullets whizzing back and forth by your head, as arguments are shot from side to side?

      I know the feeling.

      Now, before I give my opinion, I'm not saying that  I'm perfect, or you're condemned because you don't believe the same way I do, or I know all the answers. Because I don't. There is only One who knows everything, and that is God, not me. 

       I don't want to step on anyone's toes, if I can, because I know that opinions vary and situations vary. What I don't believe, however, is that there is a perfect, cut-and-paste answer for every situation. Some people may have a painful past, and it would be wiser if they waited until the preacher said, "Man and wife". Some people may feel like they're ready a little earlier. It really depends on the couple and their situation. To be honest, no couple and no story are the same. That's part of the beauty of it: God made every love story unique. I mean, wouldn't it be boring if everyone had the same story, and you knew how and when everyone--including you--would fall in love? No one would be surprised! So, my point is, every story and situation are different, so *please* don't think that I believe there is one answer as to the question of whether or not one should save their first kiss for their big day.

        However, no matter what Disney or Hollywood says, but there is such thing--no matter how romantic the moment feels--as accidentally bumping noses during a first kiss. First kisses usually aren't always those flawless sweeps-her-into-his-arms-and-suddenly-kisses-her-in-the-middle-of-a-sentence, sort of thing. I've heard first kisses are usually awkward ::chuckles:: So, I keep that in mind.


        If you don't save your very first kiss for your wedding day, I don't think it makes it any less special than if you did. As long as you are careful to remain physically and emotionally pure before. But yet, I also think that saving your kiss for the alter can be very beautiful. It would be still be very special. I don't think there's anything wrong with saving it at all, and I believe very few regret it.

        So, you may be wondering what I'm going to do. To be honest, I don't know. It depends on who I marry, their background, and the situation. I would be fine with either, actually. I would probably feel a little awkward if I were saving it for in front of all those people, but...um...it just really depends.


        Which should you do? I would advise you...just to do it however you're most comfortable! If you would feel better saving it for at the alter, then do it. I think that if you save it for engagement, wedding day, or after the wedding, they all have their advantages.

forgiving those who trespass against us...

       Forgiving others is not an easy thing to do. In fact, it is impossible to do without Christ. If we cannot forgive others, why should we expect Christ to forgive us? He still does, of course, but how can we not forgive other sinners just like us when He died on the Cross for us?


        Here is a story that has touched my heart, a story of powerful forgiveness...

from Corrie ten Boom in Tramp for the Lord
‘I
t was in a church in Munich that I saw him—a balding, heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken, moving along the rows of wooden chairs to the door at the rear.
It was 1947 and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives.
It was the truth they needed most to hear in that bitter, bombed-out land, and I gave them my favorite mental picture. Maybe because the sea is never far from a Hollander’s mind, I liked to think that that’s where forgiven sins were thrown. ‘When we confess our sins,’ I said, ‘God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever. …’
The solemn faces stared back at me, not quite daring to believe. There were never questions after a talk in Germany in 1947. People stood up in silence, in silence collected their wraps, in silence left the room.
“And that’s when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat; the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones. It came back with a rush: the huge room with its harsh overhead lights; the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor; the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister’s frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin. Betsie, how thin you were!
“Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: ‘A fine message, Fräulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!’
And I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that hand. He would not remember me, of course—how could he remember one prisoner among those thousands of women?
But I remembered him and the leather crop swinging from his belt. I was face-to-face with one of my captors and my blood seemed to freeze.
“ ‘You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk,’ he was saying, ‘I was a guard there.’ No, he did not remember me.
‘But since that time,’ he went on, ‘I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fräulein,’ again the hand came out—’will you forgive me?’
And I stood there—I whose sins had again and again to be forgiven—and could not forgive. Betsie had died in that place—could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?
It could not have been many seconds that he stood there—hand held out—but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.
For I had to do it—I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us.
‘If you do not forgive men their trespasses,’ Jesus says, ‘neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.’
I knew it not only as a commandment of God, but as a daily experience. Since the end of the war I had had a home in Holland for victims of Nazi brutality. Those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able also to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars. Those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was as simple and as horrible as that.
And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion—I knew that too.
Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.
‘… Help!’ I prayed silently. ‘I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.’
And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.
‘I forgive you, brother!’ I cried. ‘With all my heart!’
For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely, as I did then…
But even so, I realized it was not my love. I tried and did not have the power. It was the power of the Holy Spirit as recorded in Romans 5:5… “because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us.”

a forgotten art ~ learning how to laugh at yourself

       To be honest, I don't do this as often as I should. I don't at-all-what-so-ever claim to be perfect at this. In fact, I'm the kind of person who will get super mad when I hit my head on my locker door and then hit it in return as if that made a difference. And then my hand hurts, too. And then I get mad again, and cradle my poor, reddened fingers as I glare menacingly at that oh-so-evil locker.

       As if it actually did something wrong.

       I mentally take a step backward and replay the whole situation in my head through someone else's eyes.

       Then suddenly, I start laughing. At myself. I continue to laugh at myself so loud and so hard, my friends ask me if something's wrong with me. I realize how ridiculous and immature I acted, and I shake my head in disbelief. 

 

        Does anyone else relate?


       I then wonder, "What is God's reaction when we become so angry and frustrated over the smallest things that don't even matter? Does He laugh?"

      It's a matter of learning how to laugh at one's self. A lost art, actually. You know, if you don't laugh at yourself now, you won't have anything to laugh at when you're old.

 

     This is something I'm still learning, but, Lord-willing, I will do it!

      

Have you ever laughed at yourself?

the pursuit of genius...

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     "Dormant geniuses lie sleeping down the hall.

They eat across from us at the breakfast table, sit next to us in mini-vans taxiing to soccer fields, even look back at us from our bathroom mirrors. What if genius is the normative intent of what God’ bestows?

And our own lack of faithful stewardship results in malnourished gifts?

László and Klara Polgár, parents of three daughters, understood exactly that. Homeschoolers in Hungary who were harassed by armed police to enroll their daughters in public school, Klara and László believed that any child could be nurtured to flourish, and exceedingly so. It was simply a matter of faithfulness.

The Polgar’s were.

Faithful hours of considered study and practice were invested in the Polgar home. By 2000, these home educated daughters were at least tri-lingual (one daughter could speak seven languages), each had achieved top-10 ranking in the world of female chess players, and their youngest daughter, Judit, shattered the previous record for the youngest person, male or female, to earn the title of chess Grandmaster. She was 15 years old. While Susan would later be the number one female chess player in the world, Judit would be the first woman to be rank in the top ten chess players worldwide.

How did the Polgar’s raise three geniuses?

It wasn’t a function of I.Q. or genetics. (László concedes he was a mediocre chess player at best, being regularly beaten by his oldest when she was five years old; Klara didn’t even know the rules when their daughters began playing. Current research clearly indicates that the top achievers are rarely high-IQ geniuses or former child prodigies.) It was simply the same way Mozart, Benjamin Franklin, Tiger Woods found their way: by faithful , wholehearted stewardship.

By diligent, attentive nurtuing of the gifts God hands out liberally to far more than a select few. It’s dangerously tempting to think that geniuses are exceptional products of blazing, divine intervention.

Because then we don’t have to closely examine how we are stewarding the gifts He’s given us.

Are geniuses really only better stewards then the rest of us? 

Recent research suggests that rather unnerving possibility.

Hope picking June Rubies in the kitchen garden’s strawberry patch

Shalom and Malakai sculpting and imagining and shaping ideas between fingers

Hope carefully stitching up old rugs

Malakai spontaneously setting up paints in the study to copy a local artist’s vibrant hues

Joshua’s most recent motorized, dual speed, self-engineered creation (oh, the legos here!)

Joshua testing a propeller’s wing design with a blow dryer

Caleb painting his self-designed, two tiered (only just a tad, but hardly, wobbly) roadside stand

Carefully arranged boquets of blooms awaiting their sale in Mason Jars,
alongside vegetables from Cale’s garden
and some fresh baked goodness he and Hope have rustled up

1. Geniuses are stewards who Faithfully Practice

Geniuses make it look effortless only because they’ve faithfully practiced. Anders Ericsson, a professor of psychology at Florida State University, posits that “extended deliberate practice” is the ultimate key to successful use of a gift. “Nothing shows that innate factors are a necessary prerequisite for expert-level mastery in most fields,” he says. Ericsson’s interviews with 78 German pianists and violinists discovered that by age 20, the best musicians had spent an estimated 10,000 hours practicing, twice the average 5,000 hours the less accomplished group practiced.

Genius is a long faithfulness.

So fingers stretch across ivories here, shoulders hunch over Latin, brows knit in mathematical quandary. Just two hours a day of concentrated practice over a decade stacks up to 7,000 hours of faithful stewarding.

What would happen if every Christian used the 4 hours daily spent in front of the television a day (more than 126 hours a month!) or the near hour a day the average American surfs the internet and spent two of those hours developing their skill in a particular domain ( woodworking, quantum physics, photography) and one hour more on the spiritual disciplines that lead into a deeper relationship with God, (prayer, memorization, Bible meditation, fasting) – only repurposing three hours a day from the five we spend on passive entertainment — and in one decade, our entire culture – and the world at large – would be entirely revolutionized. How are we being faithful stewards of our 10,000 hours?

Why not tenderly unfurl a gift?

2. Geniuses are stewards who Faithfully Pioneer

The flesh tugs towards the path of least resistance. Even if we practice, we’re tempted to keep practicing what we already know. But geniuses steward the gift by faithfully pioneering into unknown territory. Committed stewards continually forge ahead by asking: what weaknesses need strengthening? what skills need extending?

Faithful stewards fight the flesh and mind’s inclination to sloppily automate a skill, by careful analyzing the parts of the whole skill and altering their practice accordingly, which forces the brain’s internalization of an improved pattern of execution. Like Benjamin Franklin who would rewrite his favorite articles from memory, then closely compare it with the actual, we too stretch minds and skills with challenge of new ground.

How can I gently stretch a gift?

3. Geniuses are stewards who Faithfully Pursue

Geniuses steward the gift by, practice, pioneering and finally, pursuing a mentor. A coach or teacher is necessary to flourish a gift, to grow it into pioneer territory. And pursuing a supportive environment is paramount for fostering a gift. Parents can be mentors. Parents can be the positive environment. When Carol Dweck, professor of psychology at Stanford University, praised children for “how” they did a task—for undergoing the process successfully — most children wanted to take on increasingly challenging tasks. The children wanted to pioneer. Generally, such encouraged children’s performances improved, and when it didn’t, they still deemed the experience enjoyable.

How might we pursue a mentor and *be* a strengthening, affirming for others stewarding a gift?

Children slip out of beds, and another day dawns with its hours. I’m not so sure anyone here will ever be deemed “a genius”, or if that is really even a worthy goal, but stewardship clearly is. And it’s clear that God’s far more generous in placing truly great gifts into our hands than we’ve ever realized.

It’s our hands that need be faithful with the talents.

I reach out and squeeze the young hand next to mine."

(I take no credit for this post. This post is from A Holy Experience, has touched me, and I hope it has touched you as much as it has me. Go here to see it on her website.)

awkward and awesome

awkward--

~ that moment when you see someone walking on the sidewalk and you can't tell if it's a boy or a girl

~ my photography

~ when you're pencil squeaks in a (very) silent room

~ that moment when you're having a conversation in you're head and you realize you're making faces that go along with the silent conversation

~ when you say something stupid and then it's silent until one of your friends says, "awkward..." in a really weird voice


~ trying to make conversation with someone you just met


awesome-- 


~ winning Angel Eyes by Shannon Dittemore from this contest. Thank you, Jill!!


~ getting a Pinterest. And a Tasty Kitchen membership.


~ Dave's Killer Bread. No explanation needed.


~ sassy water


~ learning the art of bread-making


~ fried eggs on a Sunday morning

What's awkward or awesome about your week?

being skinny vs being fit...

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     So many--or, rather, too many-- young women would rather strive to be skinny than to be fit. Not gaining muscle so that the number on the scale stays as low as possible. That number doesn't define you! Here is an encouraging post I read this morning urging other women to seek health and fitness instead of thin and weight-less...

  "Maybe it’s just a matter of semantics, but I’ll never be “the skinniest” gal around…and I’m ok with that. (See definition below)

(Source)

You can walk into any gym, store, church or school and find a lot of girls who weigh less and wear smaller clothes than me. This has bothered me..."

Check out the rest of the post at Peak313 here!

lead me in the way everlasting...

O Lord, You have searched me and You know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise; 

You perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down; 

You are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue You know it completely, O Lord.

You hem me in--behind and before;

 You have laid Your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too much for me, too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit? 

Where can I flee from Your Presence?

If I go up to the heavens, You are there;

If I make my bed in the depths, You are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn;

If I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there Your hand will guide me, 

Your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me 

and the light become lie night to me,"

Even the darkness will not be dark to You;

the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to You.

For you created my inmost being; 

You knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

Your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from You when I was hidden in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
Your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me

were written in Your book before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are Your thoughts, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.

When I awake, I am still with You.

If only You would slay the wicked, O God!

Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!

They speak of you with evil intent;

Your adversaries misuse Your Name.

Do I not hate those who hate You, O Lord, 

and abhor those who rise up against You? 

I have nothing but hatred for them; 

I count them my enemies.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

Test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See is there is any offensive way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting.

~Psalm 139, NIV

the benefits of yet another healthy beverage...

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     Hey. Don't wrinkle your nose at me. I know it may sound gross, but it really isn't. In fact, it's really, really good. In taste and quality (which one does not come by often). I have noticed *so* many changes (for the better) since I've been drinking this. 

      For centuries people have been using natural apple cider vinegar as both a food and a medicine. Since 400 BC, Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, and others, have used vinegar and vinegar mixed with honey, as an energizing tonic and a healing elixir. The benefits are endless. Seriously. It can...


~ kill head lice (who woulda thought?)


~ reverse aging


~ ease digestion (BIG time. Including bloating.)


~ wash toxins from the body


~ help with weight loss (whether the weight be from fat or water retention)


~ strengthens hair and nails (has high potassium, which is necessary for healthy nails and hair)


~ relieves constipation


~ lowers cholesterol


~ acne (applied topically (diluted))


~ dandruff


~ diabetes (The effect of vinegar on blood sugar levels is perhaps the best-researched and the most promising of apple cider vinegar's possible health benefits. Several studies have found that vinegar may help lower glucose levels. For instance, one 2007 study of 11 people with type 2 diabetes found that taking two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar before bed lowered glucose levels in the morning by 4%-6%)

~  strengthens the immune system

~ insomnia (it helped me alot in this area)

~ blood pressure

~ colds

~ fatigue (I noticed a difference in this area as well)

~ hot flashes

~ smooths skin texture and tone
 
~ overall energy and health

~ And much, much more!


     Apple Cider Vinegar. True love. At least for me ::grin::

     Basically, you just boil water, and add a tbsp of the stuff, and drink it like a tea! If you can't stand the strength of the vinegar, just add a kiss of honey or agave, and you're good to go! Or, you can go here to see another way to make ACV. (Oh! And by the way, please get the Braggs apple cider vinegar. I haven't tried any other brands, but I've heard it's one of the best.)


     Once you try this, you'll wonder how you had gone through life without it.
     

happy fourth of july, everybody!

   
     Can you believe it's already July?! I can't. Time's fun when you're having flies. Yes, you read that correctly. 

      To spark your pinterest, here are some inspiration for you crafty people...

Can you tell that I'm *slightly* obsessed with jello-in-some-form-of-fourth-of-July?

And *drums roll*...here's some music!

some thoughts...

Have a nice Sunday :D