I am still in LOVE with Steve!!!!

Well to start this, in case anyone was wondering this is Tamy!!! hahaha

So tonight my husband was going to take my kiddos to a graduation ceremony without me as I am working. So after all the face and hand scurbbing, redressing, finding all the shoes and socks and coats 3 kids are at the door ready to go....My youngest decides to stand on his dad's guitar case (which he knows he is not supposed to) so Dad takes his foot and bops him on the butt. Which happened to catch Aidan off balance and landed him on his face, and he started crying. So I then take the opportunity to scold my husband in front of the kids and a friend. After the kids and the friend go to the car and Steve says " you are riding me, that was accident." I am still a little miffed and so I tell him my side then end up saying I am sorry, and go and apologize to the friend for scolding Steve in front of him, then they all drive off......

So I start to reflect and realize that I can really point out all of his wrongs and I can't remember him doing that to me. He is a easy-going man who really has patience with a wife that can be..Yes a NAG!!! I hate to say it but there are times when I really can just NAG him, and I am confessing it cause I need to stop it.

So I love Steve because :

He is patient and kind

He genuinely loves people with a nonjudgemental and complete kind of love

He is truly follows Jesus, I live closer to him than anyone and I still respect his character and feel blessed to call him husband

He plays with his kids, and everyone elses too!

He looks at me like I am 20 years old and just recently stole his heart...but it has been 11 years, 3 kids, a cross country move (with children), a church plant, and definately some great and some hard times...

He is a man with little to prove and great desire to learn

I have seen him put other men at ease no matter where they are from or what they are doing....he is relatable and genuine

So Steve I love ya and I'll be trying not to nag ya!!! thanks for all your patience....

tam

Looking back...

So I was just revisiting some of my blogs from days gone by and wondering am I still that woman? Do my passions still ignite around the life of Jesus, am I still living within the convictions of my youth, has life weathered the idealism out of me? I would say that I am more weathered, less sure of some things and more sure of others, and probably in need of a little refocusing!

I think that I am more weathered cause I have had a few more kids, (which weathers the body and the soul, more like refines I guess). I have partnered with the man of my dreams to pioneer something which can define beauty and ugliness, joy and pain and we love it in ways I never dreamed even in all the idealism. I have had some ups that have left me assured that there is nothing else to live my life for, and some downs that have given me glimpses of a very tender, compassionate and constant Jesus. I feel like my armor is a little more dented but not nearly dented enough to say I have completely abandoned my life for Christ's.

This path has allowed me to look into the depths of my soul and be both overjoyed at the hand of God moving there but also sad that there is still so much more work to do.

I am coming out of a season that has probably shaken my idea of who I am, and allowed me to see the weakness that I had never really seen. It has also allowed me to see God clearer and grasp his character more, and it was his strength that showed up when my failed.

I am seeing how over the past few years of "serving God" there has been challenges to my character that I have let pass instead of standing up to them. I am now seeing the fruit of serving myself at times instead of Christ, I can be more short tempered with those I love, more prideful and less humble and just plain concerned with things that don't matter.

A long time ago our Pastor challenged us to "give up the right to be right" with those around us and in our lives, so I think it is time to revisit a humbling process. Essentially Jesus is the only one who can change my heart but I can atleast practice till he does and give him room to move.

Also I see how in this last season I have been so wrapped up in my situation, that it feels like it sucked me in deeper. I feel like where true healing and restoration happens is when we are side by side with Jesus laboring for what He and the Father are doing. So I guess I don't feel like I need to take a break to refocus or rest a little but rather I guess I need to get back on the horse. Jesus longs to love Buffalo and so do I.....done refocusing!!!

I guess as we work towards redemption all around us it happens in us.....
I was thinking that the disciples became disciples working with Jesus side by side and the same it true for us....

Wrestling God....

So this is a once a year appearance of Tamy to the blog...but here I am for a few thoughts...

I truly feel as if I have wrestled God lately, he has been bringing me through something that at first I just wanted to run away from or be healed of. However through God's grace I am seeing the beauty of this struggle and even slightly thankful for the experience. I am not sure if it is over yet either as I am finding only he really knows, and sometimes that is a comfort and sometimes that is for me terribly frightening.
I am a passionate woman who has surely tasted of the goodness of God and I would love to report that I don't often forget that but in times of hardship I am someone who has seen the mighty hand of GOd only to doubt it when in the wilderness. I too like the Isarelites have seen the Red Seas in my life parted and then grumble and complain about no food or water in the desert and have often thought I would be better in my previous situation than in the current. The wrestling I have done as of lately is primarily due to my own desire for control and tendency to worry instead of trust. At one clear moment in this trial I remember thinking that I just did not want to do what God was asking and I just didn't want to trust but...to whom else can I go cause He has the words of eternal life. I felt stuck cause I desperately wanted out of my situation but I could not turn my back on my Lord cause I have seen the things he does and the beauty that follows His purposes. I also could not pretend that I am surrendered when in fact I am not, that false living would be even worse that turning my back on him. So it was in this time that I called in the big Guns ( those spirit embodied friends of mine that at scattered to the four corners of the world) to please pray and for insight, and I do not know that it was in those conversations that I heard from God. Those conversations instead provided the safe place to wrestle, those friends love me and point me back to the fact that God to loves me, and anything that he is doing will be for his beautiful purposes. God has been showing me his beautiful purposes in this trial, and I am seeing that sometimes the thing that we hate and try to rid ourselves of is the very thing that God uses to reveal himself in. My paradigm for viewing life and more importantly God in this life is changing. I am being liberated from control and worry, (the lenses that I often view things from) but it is deeper cause in my desire for control and when I worry I have seen God as desiring to be in control and wanting things his way. So there was this sense of God as task-master instead of father, lover, friend. He is faithfully showing me His love and most often this happens through my kids. They are so assured of my love and their importance to me, they are confident when they approach me and ask for whatever they want, they have no problem interrupting me or climbing all over me while I am talking or doing something. This for me is a small illustration of the Fathers desire for us to approach him, and in my response to my children, the way that I love them and can't stop it no matter what they do, I just love them. This reveals His heart towards us...

I can not really explain all that I feel Him doing, I truly feel like chains are being broken in my heart, I taste of the coming freedom from all that would seek to capture my soul. The way that I see God, my service to him, my life lived with friends and strangers is all changing somehow that I can't explain. The glasses that I am used to wearing I am taking off and I am in the period of time where my eyes are learning to adjust but if I patiently wait I will see clearly again.

What Can We Do...

clarifying the thoughts about heaven...

This is Tamy ...

I guess I would say that God does not care about us going to heaven in the way that most of America believes. I do believe he is very concerned with what happens when we live. I believe that we are living eternally now, that the life we lead and live is a participation either in heaven or hell. As far as the destination of our souls when we die and whether or not it goes up or down I don't really buy into I don't think, because I think that as our physical bodies come to rest our souls have already began an eternal life living in the presence of God or not. What if following Jesus was more about particiapting in a divine reality that exists now that most of us do not see, instead of being about where you go when you die. What would that mean for our sense of "calling to Christ". Some smart person said it once that God's concern is not getting people into heaven but rather HEAVEN into PEOPLE. How many Christians are oozing out heaven everywhere they go??? (Not me but I am trying!!) I know that this blog was a bit of a rant and I am sorry for that. However I am really tired of christianity being a social club for people with the right beliefs who are destined to go to the same place when they die. Christianity is a group of people following Jesus into the same revolutionary life he lead to overthrow injustice, peel off oppression, cast out hopelessness, unify the divided, and to do all this by an unashamed, unconditional love and humility for everything around us. This sounds so very big and lofty I know but why is the call to Christ to be a small call of a good life and being a good person. Is that all that is really possible with Christ??? I don't believe so.

So where does this huge call of Christ start, I think at his cross where we as a church need to come and die and pick up Jesus' life for us. When I said as a Church I meant ME and YOU cause we are the Church!!!! So my prayer is that Christ's bride would get down on her knees and repent for being concerned only for herself and not truly trusting her only love and then get back up loved and restored to walk out her days loving her Bridegroom. I am down on my knees are you???

And I believe that Christ's life for us is filled with connection to him in an intimate way ( so we gotta be spending time with him, praying and LISTENING to him), connection to the rest of the people connected to him (so Community, the church), seeking to grow up in him (discipleship), and a passionate love of the world around us (John 3:16 ...he loved the world enough to die for it, DO WE???)

Lord I am sorry for being concerned only for myself and for thinking so often of myself first!!!! I desire to be a woman full of the passion and love of Christ, I desire for heaven to ooze out of me into this world that so badly wants to be loved. May I be a woman quick to love and repent and slow to judge and condemn. May the pride that I often feel myself full of be laid down and instead a love of all things good be picked up. May I no longer make excuses but instead walk into the realm of faith. Can I become the woman that is for my husband, my children and those around me, can I be a dream caster and encourager instead of a dream killer. Jesus I love you, I love your promise of redemption for this world and your faithfullness to walk that out even as we fail in doing so!!!!

Monogamy

So my friends were talking about monogamy at work yesterday and I thought I would blog a little bit on this subject. I listened to what they had to say and all day yesterday my mind pondered thoughts about monogamy and what I agreed with or disagreed with. For the sake of this blog monogamy and polygamy are mostly in reference to marriage but not necesarily.

I feel like monogamy is a noble thing. I feel like anybody can go out and screw around with multiple people. In fact I feel like mostly everyone does. I feel like chosing to be in a monogamous relationship is actually a noble thing. I feel like it all really boils down to rights and entitlement here in our country. I have the right to be comfortable. I have the right to be happy. I have the right to do basically whatever I feel like at any given moment. I have the right to do what feels good and not necesarily whats right. I feel like we here in America aren't willing to deal with our issues or our stuff. You hate your old car, so you get a new one. You hate your old job, so you get a new one. You wife or husband just ain't doing it for you any more so you get a new one. Heaven forbid that you talk things out. Heaven forbid that you are uncomfortable for any length of time. Heaven forbid that I am uncomfortable for any length of time. I am an American too.

I feel like choosing to be with a person exclusivly and also choosing to have other partners or relationships at the same time is selfish. I feel like it is a lack of willingness to commit. Duh that's obvious, I know. But I feel like it is an unsaid truth. I feel like as a society we are very unwilling to commit to most things. You know what commitment involves don't you? It involves getting real. It involves putting down your comfort, your "rights" for a certain lenth of time and really just face the facts about what you are commiting to. Marriage is no longer a commitment. Relationships are no longer commitments. I feel like we were created to be with one person only. If we were created to mate like animals there wouldn't be such emotions attached to having sex. If we were made to just be recycled through many people then it wouldn't hurt when our significant other moved on and we still loved them.

Ponderings of Hope and Frustration...

This is just a bit of my thoughts the last day or two, so if you are used to reading Steve this maybe a little different!

So we are trying to plant a church in Buffalo New York. What I feel like I am here to do: to love Jesus with all my heart and pray that love will overflow onto those around me, that I would invite people into my life and live beside them until God moves us or offs us (haha!), that I would be a woman of encouragement to those around me that Jesus lived, loved, died and then came back to love some more so that we could experience a life of restoration, healing and redeemption of both our own lives, those around us and all of creation.

What the rest of the christian world hears that I am here to do: open a building where people who believe the exact same things can come and gather once or twice a week to sing songs and talk about the bible.

Ok so that was a bit cynical and I am sorry, but I feel like there is this culture in christianity that even people who have not grown up in it believe it: we are hear to have a nice life and be good people and believe that Jesus died for our sins, so that we could repent and believe and go to heaven. Give me a break!!!!! Does Jesus really care if you go to heaven NO, he cares about how you live not how you die because it is about soooooooo much more that the afterlife. So that being said and with deepest aplogies about the cyncial nature and dark humor, please laugh, I am (kinda of!)

I experienced a life with a community of people that was so amazing and life altering that it could only be God at work in it. Why am I so sure? Because all of those people were just like everyone else in this world except one thing; that they really and truly believed that their Jesus was God over everything from their pride to their finances, from their parenting to their occupation. There were no delusions about having a nice life and attending church twice a week to study the bible and sing songs.

Their very being existed through and for Jesus and his plan of loving and restoring the world. The goal of their lives was not to become a successfull father, husband, wife, professor, businessman, or even pastor. Their goal in life was to love Jesus with everything they had and allow him to become the success. Being in this community of people was something that I had thought I would never leave and even now since having left miss more than I have words to express sometimes. But I did leave that community ( I was sent out, I didn't bail) and I left it for one reason; I felt like Jesus had more for us somewhere else, he showed Steve and I that around this world there are people who don't even have a slot for what this kind of life with Jesus and community looks like, nor would they even dream of being able to live this way. It was this drive to go get the world saved, it was this pulling at our hearts to go to a new place and live our lives with Jesus the best we understand how and to also live for others as well. A life of service and love...

SO here is the 'but,' it is so hard to carry this picture around in my heart and soul; of a community of people passionately in love with Jesus and learning to love and care for each other and the world around them, when I feel like in America we don't need community. Instead we are quite content to cram the newest best technology into our lives to replace the gaps where relationships used to be. We are happy watching TV instead of playing with our kids or talking to our wives. We are on the internet instead of having real life communication with a person across the table from us.

Today's My Birthday!

Today I am seven. I gave my life to Jesus 7 years ago, and I have to say that I need him more now than I ever have!

SEX

Thought's about sex through the eyes of a 21 year old virgin.

I love the blogs Steve has posted having to do with sexuality, I will reference some of the things he says in his blog. I am not an expert on any of this. I am just in a process of learning.

Here it goes!

I am blessed. I am blessed that before I was a Christian I didn't have sex. Growing up in a world where everyone just wants to be accepted, I managed to escape finding my acceptance in having premiscuous sex. I did have my sexual issues and like most people it did consume my thoughts. I did dress to "impress" and such, but by the loving grace of God I never had sex. I am glad and excited that when I get married I can give myself completely to my husband, in such a way, the way it should be. Many people have not been able to do this. But the thing is, my view of sex is still tainted by what the world speaks of this topic. Even people who have never had sex still need sexual healing. I still have a hard time believeing that something so abused and dirty can be viewed as an act of worship. God is sadden by that statement, because he created sex for a husband and wife, and it was good and a beautiful thing. Then the serpent came and Eve started to think "What if Adam doesn't find me attractive? Maybe I should put on some make up and dress scandalous." And Adam was like, "Is she getting all dressed up for another man?" Okay so maybe it didn't happen quite that way. But I think what everyone is really looking for is that deep reconnection that Steve was talking about. I desire deep reconnection, reconnection to God and if he wills (which I'm not going to lie, I hope he does) with another human being. I think that God allows us to marry so that we can also taste a little bit of his love for us and so that we can give love back.
Sex has been so twisted. Something so simple and so beautiful now can be done with more than one person, you can go so far before you "actually" do it, you can do it with men or women, boys or girls, you can do it for money or drugs, you can pay back favors with it, you can get a promotion with it, you can do it with however many people you want to in one night, or life time, you can watch it, you can do it with someone without even knowing their name. I grew up in this society, and like most people media was my sex-ed teacher (hence all the examples of it). So how I have viewed sex came from that. Scary, awkward, emotionless, loveless, something everyone does the rest who don't are shunned or gay, shameful, lustful, and the list goes on. Up until probably this last year (since moving in with 2 married couples) this view has probably stayed this way. After a few talks with the married ladies in my life I have heard more about what it should be. Loving, beautiful, worshipful ( I still don't get that one too much ) a gift and I believe that God will heal the areas that have been tainted by this world. I belive that there are men out there that can be trusted, I have even witnessed these men in loving relationships with their wives. I have witnessed these single men doing everything they can to keep their hearts and minds pure. I have witnessed women willing to wait till their wedding day to even partake in a little kiss. I have witnessed women call off relationships for the sake of just being with the Lord. I have witnessed married couples lay their lives down for each other. These are all beautiful things.
So what to say now? Now that I have witnessed the good things? I guess I can only encourage people my age to make the same choices that I have. People younger or older than, gay, straight, whatever. God is bigger that this issue, he is bigger than peoples sexual preferences, he's bigger than the relationships that are consumed with lust.

To burn with Zeal!!

So this is pretty raw, little post I have rumbling around in my mind!!! Steve and I have been having this discussion lately about our little church and what God is doing in it. It can be so discouraging at times because we don't know what we are doing here or if we are doing enough of it. We question what it should look like, are people meeting with God, what is happening here? We have also been talking about the way we do church, is it effective, is it what God is doing here? There have been a few people here in our little church who have brought up a few times the way we do church, in that it might get more people here if we had a building and sunday service and the things that go along with that. So this is that backdrop for my thoughts and ponderings today....

I am by no means opposed to have a meeting place out of our home, in a building to carry out some of the activities of a church body, like worship, prayer, celebration, group discussions, teachings. But I feel like this is not what people are asking, they are not wanting a building because we have out grown out of our home and need a bigger place to meet. I feel like rather people would like us to open another church building so that they can come on sundays, listen to music, drop their children in sunday school, hear a sermon and then go home.

Why do Americans want to settle for a dose of God once a week?

It breaks my heart because idealistic or not I came here because I wanted to see people's lives changed and surrendered to God. I wanted to help be part of an army of people who want to change the world by loving it, living in it, dying for it. I feel like I have this passion in me to be part of something bigger than a sunday church service with small groups during the week for added holiness.

I am not trying to bash the way that church is done here but I have come to believe that there is something more than that and I know it cause I experienced it!!!!! I came from a regular church in some ways (it met on sundays, had sunday school, had small groups during the week) but it was so much more than that. I found a community of Christ followers, who had laid down their lives to take up Jesus' and they were reaching out to a broken, fallen world around them and trying to participate in what God was doing. I feel like I am running into maybe American Christian Culture, we just want to go to church on Sundays and lives our lives Monday thru Saturday. I know there is more though and I guess that I feel hesitancy and discouragement about people here thinking that we should have a building, when we don't need one yet.

|seks|

commodity |kəˈmäditē| noun ( pl. -ties) a raw material or primary agricultural product that can be bought and sold, such as copper or coffee. • a useful or valuable thing, such as water or time.

Sex is a commodity. While the rise and fall of oil and gas continues sex is rapidly becoming cheaper and cheaper everyday. Sarcasm is really the only way I know how to handle the topic of sex and the same within the context to which I would like to talk about it. I will try to refrain from using all the sarcastic things I have stored up in my brain. Sex is no longer about love and commitment; it's about having it your way, wherever and whenever you want it. You can confuse sex and Burger King. They basically have the same slogan: "Have it your way." People even talk about it as if it were a hamburger or going out to grab a bite to eat. " I think I am going to get laid tonight." " I think I am going out to get a hamburger tonight." It's sick and I am not referring to just men. Women are just as capable in the area of cheapening sex as men are. It sucks and it's not fair that this is how it has become. A consumer product. We even have names for our genitals. Nicknames that dehumanize our human and God-created body parts. As weird as it is to say it our beautiful parts. They are ugly and vulgar names, that to me are upsetting and I hate to think of them. I will spare the names because even the sexually healthiest and purest people know all of the derogatory names. It disgusts me. I have come away from a few movies that have left me wanting to spend the rest of my life celibate than to ever experience the brainless, loveless sex that billions of people experience everyday.

I am sure that everyone that reads this blog has heard this by now but I will reiterate it anyway.

In certain countries you can purchase a 5 year old little girl for 5$. That is the going rate. There are women and children, right at this very minute, that are being smuggled into our "Christian Nation" only to be bought at a cheap price. Right now someone is being forced to do sexual acts against their will. Someone at this moment is being forced to give up their virginity to a person that will never ever be capable of loving them. By the way this is probably happening in the city you live it.

Sex has become so accessible you can find it ANYWHERE you like. We have become so demanding of "our needs" our wants. Sex isn't even between one man and one woman anymore. It can be anyway you want it. Have it your way. In fact why not just buy somebody that you can just have sex with whenever you want and it doesn't really matter how you treat them because they are from a foreign country. They don't really speak our language and don't really understand what is going on.

Rape speaks all languages. Suffering. Pain. Humiliation. They are all universal languages.

The thing is that everyone has a name. Everyone has a personality. People with names and unique, God-given personalities are being destroyed.

I am just so angry and so disgusted by all of this. My brain has been rolling around sarcastic things about sex for the last two days. That won't help anything. This world needs Jesus. This world needs healing. Sexual healing. I need sexual healing and the thing is I have never had sex! I guess that most people really haven't ever experienced sex either. Even the word "sex" it seems so cheap. Tons of people who have had sex have really experienced selfishness, and short lived pleasure, they have really experienced lust and pride, shame and domination. They have never really experienced what sex was intended to be. I can't take much more exploitation of one of God's beautiful gifts. I can't take much more of the stories I hear on a weekly basis from girls in my life saying that they weren't loved by some man.

Basically this whole sex thing all boils down to a few different things:

1. Sin

Oh wait that is pretty much it. I guess then there is a few different solutions:

1. Jesus

Oh wait He is the only solution. God please heal us. Please move in this country. Move in all of the nations of the world. Please God end human trafficking. Restore to this world the gift of sexuality in it's purest most beautiful form and show us, your church, Lord what we can do to partner with you in this.

Now if you will excuse me, I am going go buy 50 shares in the sex industry, it's such a hot commodity and at such a cheap price it would be a shame not to.

Trade

I just watched the movie Trade, it is about the human trafficing business around the world and even in america. I have to say I am so disturbed about this movie. I am not an uninformed person relating to this I have done some reading and am aware of the fact that it happens, I have been for upset about this topic for awhile which is why I wanted to see the movie in the first place.

However seeing the movie has now marked my heart in a new way, it has left a print on my heart of the reality of it. I can not imagine the depths of evil and despair that exist in this world and now I find that this movie has brought the reality home to me in a way that I can not forget because I have seen it with my own eyes. This movie is not based on a true story but rather hollywoods take on the subject. Even though this movie is not a true story I do not doubt that things far worse than the movies portrayl are really happening.

So here I am marked and overwhelmed by this whole thing and I feel like I can surely make people more aware of the fact that this is happening, and it may not be to our daughters here in america but these women and children that are being stolen are someones daughters and they matter. I know that I would go to the ends of the earth for my own daughter and search high and low and never give up.....so I have been pondering would I do that for someone elses daughter, does she matter just as much as my daughter isn't she just as valuable but maybe she doesn't have someone to search for her, maybe her family actually sold her into it.

That shouldn't matter she is just as cherished by God as my daughter and she is His daughter first as we are all his and so I know that I must care just as much about these women and children as I would my own family and fight just as hard to bring and end to this form of slavery and oppression.

We in america love to stand up for things and fight for things but do we really fight the fights that matter, are we fighting to bring justice to the oppressed or do we fight the fights that benefit us and our pocketbooks...Speaking of money how much is a little girl or women worth anyhow???? How much cash is a human being worth??? In this movie for 25-30 thousand dollars you can purchase your own human being to treat anyway you wish and do whatever you want with.....WOW!!! What kind of world do we life in?? My heart is turned towards Jesus to hear an answer to how to fight this fight, anyone who would like to join me in this or has something else to offer.....

I reccommend watching this movie to everyone and then trying to go about your normal day, as you think and ponder through the fact that this is really happening, IT is a reality for many women and children.. If this doesn't call us to the feet of the Father in petition for His justice to come, then what are we going to the Father for????? Are we there for ourselves and our comfort, are we really praying for more money, a better job, a better church to belong to???? WHAT ARE WE SEEKING THE FATHER FOR??????

I feel like God has spoken to me to raise awareness about things that are happening in our world today that many of us are ignorant to, partly I feel like if people could just be aware then surely the spirit of God in us would bring us to our knees for the things that are really grieving God's heart. Also I am praying for these things and would like people to join me in asking God for his hand to move and bring justice to our world, bring mercy and compassion to those hurting and broken. So if you would like to receive this email that I send out then please email me at schenk.tamy@gmail.com.

Today we are more aware, will we forget by tomorrow???

Here are links to more information about human trafficking:

Archdiocese of San Francisco
Human Trafficking.org

My Crazy Friends

Spanking

"Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your own independence."

Wow. Oswald Chambers says it best. How hard it is to let go of ourselves. After spending my entire life trying to lose it to Christ, I will still be caught clutching it tightly in my cold dead fingers. That is hard to swallow!

Whoa!

Welcome to the Church of Jesus Christ . . . Homophob?

Let's just cut to the chase. We as a church have painted a horrible picture of the sin of homosexuality. No wonder gay people don't want to set foot in a church. Someone I met once said to me that so many people have waved the Bible in their face as if it were a loaded gun. Now I don't want to enable anybody, sin is sin, but how do we convey the love of God to a group of people who are convinced, if they believe there is a god, that he hates them? I am sure that God weeps at that question. I am sure that he is broken over the state of the church when it comes to this issue. We here in Buffalo are by no means better than anybody else or any other church but how do you get around this one? How do you undo the doings that have been so ingrained in our society? Lord Jesus please show us! I am pretty worked up about this, well tonight I am and I think I will continue to be as long as their are gay people in my life, and it seems as though their will be since my one of my coworkers is gay, and I work in the gay neighborhood of town. I love gay people. I can sometimes feel the love for them that I think God feels. Okay so it's on a much smaller scale, but I can't describe how it feels. I have a gay christian friend who is struggling so much right now with God and homosexuality and doing the right thing, and I try to tell them frequently that God loves them. I want to grab them by the shoulders and shake it into them. I believe that too, I believe that God loves them. He loves everyone and desires that we would all embrace him and the life he has for us. I think that God desires the sin in our lives to be battled so fiercly that the devil himself could not force it back upon us. I don't think God looks at our sins different from person to person. I don't think that one sin is bigger than the other. I don't think that we are capable from seperating ourselves from the love of God that we have in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:38-39).
I think the church has been afraid to tackle the issue of homosexuality. It seems that we are afraid of it, it seems as though we have lashed out in fear. And you know what, it is a scary thing. I am at a loss of how to disciple people through this. That's good because it keeps all of us here on our knees. But Jesus how would you do this? I just think of the story of the leper. He says, "Lord if you are willing you can make me clean" so then Jesus reaches out and touches the leper and says "I am willing" Jesus touched a leper. Leprosy is a deadly disease, a miserable disease, a puss, oozy, yucky, literally rotting-while-still-alive kind of disease. So if Jesus could reach out and touch the leper, then we can reach out and touch gay people? They seem to be the lepers of our day. Lord Jesus change that. Let us not be afraid. What can we do God to reach out to the gay community and to convey your love? Pass out condoms at next years gay pride parade? I know that I am complaining and even bashing at times it seems but if anyone has any thoughts or things they have seen in prayer or actually experienced, please comment and tell us about it. We want to undo the picture that has been painted about homosexuality.
God loves EVERYONE! "For God so loved the WORLD that he gave his only begotten son, that WHOEVER believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life." You cannot be disqualified from the kingdom of God based on age, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, creed and whatever else that job applications say at the bottom of the page. If anyone has any thoughts on this subject let me know I would love to hear them. This is a tough thing to come against but we as christians need to be able to tackle anything that God brings our way.

Pastor's Wives

I am submitting my thoughts and ideas in humility because I have not been a pastors wife very long and we have a very small little church and really I know nothing!!
But this article did stir a passion and so many thoughts inside of me!! One of my first reactions was sorrow that so many pastors wives felt that pastoring was their "husbands calling". How can it be his calling when we are joined as one flesh through marriage? I also felt such sorrow that they referred to the church as their husbands "mistress" and of the divorce rate. I was not a woman who saw myself marrying a pastor or ever becoming a pastor's wife, in fact on my wedding day I joked about how I would never be a pastors wife (God does have a sense of humor). But for my husband and I this call of God was ours, not because we both do equal amounts of "pastoring, teaching and preaching" but because we are one, joined by God and so whatever he is called to do I am as well. Although for us I believe us to be more of a ministry team due to some of our feelings about what pastoring does and doesn't look like for us. Pastoring is not my husbands profession, it is our life lived out day to day, Steve can not choose a different profession because we do what we do because Jesus asked us too not because someone hired us and we can not live our lives any differently and feel like we are fulfulling what we were placed on this earth to do. I am glad that pastors wives have found a place to help with lonliness and isolation, I have also felt very lonely at times after arriving in the city to plant a church and leaving so many friends and family at home, but this feeling drove me more into Jesus and allowed me to realize that as lonely as I can possibly be I will never exerience what some on this world will. I will always have someone in my corner. Through these feelings of lonliness and isolation I have become more aware of why Steve and I live the way we do and why we will continue to, because our neighbors, co-workers, cashiers and waitresses experience a lonliness that I no longer know, they live through the same things I do in my life only without the one hope I have. for me thus far it is an honor to be a pastors wife, God chose me to participate in peoples lives to the degree he will allow me, he chose me to be a bringer of hope, love and life. I know that these same people he has called me to will be the ones that cause me the deepest pains, but I don't love them so that they will love me, I love them because God loved me and in this I am given the ability to love them. A wise woman I know told me that as a pasors wife I can not hide from pain, or run away from the hurts you will encounter but instead charge head first into it with the banner of forgiveness over you. I am not judging this article or other pastors wives, it started my head spinning and my passions stirring and these are my thoughts on the subject. I am not a pastors wife because I married one, I am because Jesus asked me to and for him I would do anything. A book that has definatley influenced my perspective and caused me thoughts to ponder is "The Pastors Wife" by Sabina Wurmbrand. Great book and some challenging moments. I know that I am married to an incredible man who passionately loves Jesus with all his heart and I am very blessed in this, so I know that my circumstance is not the same as other women's so please hear my heart of excitment and encouragement and not a criticism or judgement. I am young and idealistic and some day I will get old and then I hope that I will be old and idealistic because I will always believe in the impossible and dream the dreams of God, he came to change the world and I have enlisted myself to him in any way shape or form he asks.

Quest

I am starting to enjoy Buffalo more and more. I love going to the downtown area and hanging out down there. It's so pretty. It just has this neat feel to it. I love it.
I feel like it is a new season coming up. I feel more hopeful now about life and God. It's been tough. I've felt down for so long. But a new hope has risen.
Lately I have been praying for unadulterated love (God's love of course) and unadulterated Jesus. The way I view God's love is obviously tainted and so lately I have been praying that I could know God's love apart from people. I'll explain. In my life God's love is dictated by the way people respond to my actions or deeds. If I am doing a lot of good things and getting lots of praise then I feel really loved and like God is well pleased with me. If I am srewing up or not doing things right then I feel like God is mad at me and that he is withholding his love. Hello...that's a lie if I have ever heard one. Past experience has helped this tainted view flourish. But crushing time is here. God is not conditional. This is head knowledge right now but I feel like it is a quest that I am on to obtain this in my heart. I was reading this book called "Blue Like Jazz", the author struggles with recieving love from God, people, whoever. So he was dating this girl and she would always share with him her feelings for him. She would pour out her love and there was some wall there that he couldn't recieve it or something. Well she broke up with him because of this. He could recieve her love. One day he was cleaning his bathroom and he felt like God said, "Love your neighbor as yourself" Well the guy was like alright (why would God tell me this). He went on, you would never look at your neighbor and just bloody him with all of his screw ups. You wouldn't beat him up over every thing wrong with him. No you love your neighbor, you wouldn't dream of treating him or her that way. . . . . . so why do we so often treat ourselves that way. God does not withold his love. Nobody is above the love of God. Not even me. There is not one person that God choses to hate or to love conditionally. Never in history has there been a person that God decided to withhold his love from. I am not the first person nor will there ever be a first person to be hated by God. God's love is not in anyway connected to the things that I can do for him. His love is not bound by constraints. Lavish. Unadulterated. Wild. Rich. Abounding is his love. God isn't going to love me more because I just wrote "a great blog". God isn't going to love me more because I left on a church plant. God isn't going to love me more because I do the noble things. If I was injured in a car accident and made a vegetable for the rest of my life God would not withhold his love from me because I can't do things for him anymore.
So Lord expose us to unadulterated love. Help us to seek and yearn for that. Help me to chose the things of you out of YOUR love and out of who YOU are not because I will be praised for it. Heal my tainted views. Help me to know in my heart that you are not withholding your love from me. Help me to know in my heart that you are not disappointed in me but that you love me. Help everyone who feels this way and help me to know these things in my heart that I might help others like me and Lord thank you for new hope.

Amen

News From Buffalo

Well here we are in Buffalo and well.....it's very cold right now!! We have just found out some very exciting news, we are expecting another baby!! God has blessed us again, this last week was a tough one as I think that I caught a stomach bug along with morning sickness and well I thought I was dying but here I am alive and kicking.
Other than babies there are new and exciting things happening all the time here, God is bringing new people here and building stonger relationships in the people we already know. I have met a few friends with children and it has been a blessing. I feel like God has been giving us a love for the city but still sometimes it doesn't quite feel like home, however I know that it is.
Today I was thanking God that I am able to live in a place where I can constantly feel the brokenness and lack of hope in peoples lives, there are daily happenings in which I realize this is why God has sent us here and i often feel myself brokenhearted for the shape of some lives. People here are not all pretty, and looking like they have it together. I can definately step out of my door and run into people whose lives are falling apart, who aren't pretty or nice, whose lives are vividly in need of hope and restoration. So I am thankful for this daily reminder of why I moved across the country to this city, but also there are times when it is hard not to see the world as too empty or hopeless or broken. Or that there are too many people this way and there will never be enough time to meet them all, love them all and hopefully show them the path to hope. Some one said (I don't know who) that Jesus saw the world as a good place and I am always challenged by this. There are times when I see it as good but often I see all that is not right and long for it to be. So I think that is what may keep me an idealist, is that if Jesus saw the world as a good place then that means all that is not right has the possiblity of being made right or restored. I love the words restored and redeemed to me they paint such a picture of a transformation of something into that which nobody thought it could ever be, that is the place that hope is born. If I can believe in words like redeemed and restored and really know that they describe that which can take place in people, cities and nations.....then there in lies my hope ....Jesus does this. I have yet to see a city or a nation redeemed and restored personally but I have heard of such things, however in my own personal life I have seen him do this in people. He did it in me, even in our home that we live now he has done that. It was a crack house before we moved in, it was a brothel sometime before that and now people live in it and gather together here in it to worship God and sing praises to him. Our hope is that this house will be a beacon of love to the wolrd around it. So I will give my life to God as an offering in hopes that he will allow me the great privledge of participating in the restoration of the city of Buffalo and the world. I will dream a big dream because I love and serve a big God...

Created for Such a Time as this?

I work at a small Cafe. In this cafe are 8 of the most unique people I know. This town is full of the most unique people I know. I have never, ever met anybody like the people I have met here in Buffalo. Life is so different here and I often feel somewhat out of place. I am starting to make friends and everything so that is great but life is not the same.
I was at work the other day and I was listening to all these stories about whoring and heroine and I was thinking I have never met people so crazy and so different from myself or the people I know and love in California; I started to question my job and what I am doing there. I am so different from these people. I am nothing like them. But now that I think about it the common thread is our need for Jesus. While I was thinking about it I was thinking that I just don't fit in. They are too "unsaved" they must "bring me down" spiritually, but in thinking that it must bring Christians down in general to hang out with only Christians. Our parallel world just doesn't cut it. We need the lost. Jesus needed the lost. I hung out with someone quite a few weeks ago and they wanted to know if they could take a couple of hits in front of me. All they had was this dried up little joint that someones mom had found and they just wanted to finish it up. I was so wary of it. I told them I didn't know how I felt about it. I said "Just do it and we'll see what happens". So they did it. I had such a fun time with that person. It wasn't even fun because they were high. In fact I couldn't even tell if that dried up joint did anything. Some one told me once that Jesus went to parties where people were having sex right there. I think that sometimes we miss the point. I think that sometimes I miss the point. This is the first time in my Christian life where the only saved friends that I have are the ones that I live with and this is the way that it should be. That was the thing that brought me back to reality about hanging out with people that are too "unsaved". What would Christianity look like today if Jesus only hung out with the righteous? What would Christianity look like if the disciples only hung out with each other? We wouldn't have even know there was a Jesus. Do I fit in at my job? Certainly not and certainly yes? Do I fit in, in this town? Certainly not and certainly yes. I belong at this crazy cafe with these crazy people because I was created for this time.
God give us the revelation of what hell is like so that we might be more fervent in our prayers for others and please let us always have more unsaved friends than friends that know you.

Amen