Excited To Learn

                         Well, I never thought it would come to this, but yesterday was Solomon's first day of school.  Oh, and it was also my first day of school too :)   Troy and I have decided to home school (ahhhhhh!).  So, as many other moms in our church have done and are currently doing, we are going through a charter school Visions.  Trust me when I tell you, there is NO way I would ever be able to do it independently!  Ha now that would be a sight to see!  So anyways, Visions provides you with a Certified Teacher that you meet with once a month, they guide you along the way and are there for you whenever you need them.  I am very thankful for the opportunity to be able to do this.  I know the last few days leading up to this I started to get a little anxious, just thinking about how in the world was all this going to pan out?   Especially when people would ask me the dreaded question, "So, are YOU ready to home school?"  Well, if you REALLY want to know, the answer would be no and yes at the same time.  NO, of course I'm not ready, I've never done anything like this before!  And YES I am ready because I have God on my side and He promises that "I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me."  So the night before the big day, I cried out to the Lord and asked him to wake me up early the next morning, give me energy for the day, give me wisdom on how and when to start the school day, to multiply my hours to still have time to run an errand and cook dinner all before Troy gets home.  Yesterday morning I woke up to my alarm I set and I felt refreshed and ready to go.  I started my day with communion time with the Lord, just being quiet before Him and talking with Him. I can't express to you how much fun the first day of school was for Solomon and for me.  God answered all my prayers and then some. I even got a workout in before school started!
         A few verses come to mind when I think about how blessed our day went.
Psalm 37:5, "Commit you way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass."
 Also Psalm 34:4, "I sought the LORD, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears."  
                So here I am, ready to start day 2 of the unknown path of home schooling and my way is still being committed to the Lord.  I pray all of our school days will be joyful and that most importantly I would use those days to continually point Solomon to Christ or it would all be in vain.  Here are a couple photos of how much fun Solomon had testing out his cutting skills, and of course a picture he drew of himself.  Hey, he got the curly hair right!

John the Baptist: A Model Preacher and the greatest man that ever Lived

Luke 3:1-9

                    "John the Baptist was a man governed by the Spirit, a God-centered man.  He had a commitment to fearlessly, powerfully, uncompromisingly preach.  He spoke the truth whether people liked it or not.  He spoke the truth whether it was received or not.  His goal was not to get and keep a large crowd, like many preachers today.  He didn't think his job was to be as positive and "feel-good" as people wanted him to be.  His job was to speak the truth for God's glory and to be helpful to people by telling them the truth for their own good, whether they understood it or not. 
                     He was a model preacher.  Many preachers today try to make you feel as good as they possibly can, even if it means not telling you the whole truth. What if you had a doctor like that?  Now say you have blood where you shouldn't have blood, pain in your chest where you shouldn't have pain, numbness in your body where you shouldn't have numbness, you've got severe headaches.  So you finally go in to the doctor and he smiles and says to you, "everything's gonna be alright!" even though you'll be dead in two years.  People that won't accept that with doctors, will accept that with preachers.
                    The people were telling themselves, "I'm Okay! Abraham's my father, I know that the scriptures are from the prophets and they're from God.  John says, "Don't even begin to say to yourself because you know all that, that you're okay! I can tell by your life that you are not okay.  If God has done His work in you, you'd be following Him and have left all that behind. The axe is laid at the root of the tree!" 
                    John the Baptist was also a good news preacher (vs 3). His aim was not to judge them or condemn them, his aim was to get them to see, "you too need to repent, you too need to be forgiven".  He preached  God's grace and mercy and pardon in Christ. The glory of Christ captivated John beyond any man that ever lived (John 1:24-27).  He clearly saw the glory of the person of Christ ( John 1:29-30). When he preached forgiveness, he understood that the forgiveness of sins would be because of the atoning work that Christ did on the cross.  He says in John 1:29 when he say Jesus coming to him, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" 
                     This is the greatest man that ever lived."

Little Did I Know

                     This past Wednesday, July 31st, marks my 10 year anniversary of getting my cosmetology license!  I can't believe it's already been 10 years, but at the same time so many momentous things have happened since that hot summer day in Sacramento when I finally became a "professional".  It's funny because I wasn't one of those little girls who always dreamed of one day being a hairstylist or a makeup artist.  I was actually more of a tomboy who loved to play soccer and wear skater shoes.  Even through high school I loved playing sports over doing my hair and makeup.  After graduating high school, I had planned to just go to the community college, take some classes and try out for the volleyball team.  Then God used a woman in our church to mention the idea of going to beauty school.  I remember mentioning it to my parents and my dad was all for the plan.  He said in all of his intensity, "Lindsey, that would be great!  One day if you ever have a family you can work from home!" Now, he's telling this to an unsaved 18 year old straight out of high school.  The last thing I was thinking about was being able to work from home while taking care of a family!  All I saw was cute hair and dollar signs. 
                  Little did I know that God had a way better reason for me going to beauty school than just stylish hair and making money.  I'm so thankful for the way the Lord works things out and the people He uses in our lives to direct us in the way He wants us to go.  It's not only a blessing to be able to help out my family financially, although with two crazy boys I'm not working as much these days, but there are other blessings with it.  For one, I have the opportunity to meet women who I would never have met otherwise.  Not only ladies in our church, but women outside of the church.  God has graciously given me many opportunities to share the gospel with a few of my clients, many of which I passed up or should have been more bold, but I know He can even use the few words I did say to them.  So what I first thought to be  just an adventure through beauty school and gaining experience in different salons, turned out to be so much more. 
                  My dad definitely knew what he was talking about.  Little did I know he would be right!  Little did I know instead of being at all the latest hair shows ,I would be at home running after two rambunctious boys while my client's color is processing.  Little did I know God's plan for me was way better than my selfish sin driven one that I thought I had all mapped out.  So thankful that God directs our steps and that He is ultimately in control!   
             Proverbs 16:9- "The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps."