What are you doing this Christmas?!?!

{ December 22, 2009 @ 4:00 am } · { Uncategorized }
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What are you doing Christmas Eve (and the day before)?!?!

This time of year it is easy to get wrapped up in all the gifts and toys and parties and decorations (etc, etc, etc). But the real reason for this season is of course the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ and the salvation that can be found in Him.

Even though there is no Sunday between now and Christmas there are several opportunities to celebrate the birth of our Savior and the salvation we’ve found in Him (and maybe even some find this salvation).

Here are a few opportunities still available: (you should take time to check these out:))

NEWSPRING CHURCH: In Anderson, Greenville, Columbia, and Florence. Check out this website for times on the 23rd and the 24th.

BAREFOOT CHURCH: In the Myrtle Beach area. Check out this website for times on the 23rd and 24th as well.

ELEVATION CHURCH: In the Charlotte area. Check out this website for their service times on the 23rd and 24th as well.

I know there are many more opportunities out there but these are 3 I know will not disappoint.

And of course there’s always getting down your own Bible and reading the Chrismas story in Luke 2.

Don’t miss out on experiencing Jesus this Christmas through these wonderful opportunities!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!!!

The Scarf Challenge

{ December 14, 2009 @ 4:21 am } · { Just for Fun!, School }
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You may find this really ridiculous or really dumb…but to me and my 4th grade reading group, it’s gonna make the last week of school before Christmas break fun:)
You see…There’s only one group of kids I get to see every day of school, and that’s my Reading Mastery group.
Last week they became very entralled with this scarf. And challenged me to wear it everyday this week with a different color shirt.
…and I am rising to the challenge!!
So if you see me with the same scarf on every day this week…I’m not as weird as you may think I am…just having fun with the kiddos (and myself) to make this week a little fun…we’re taking pleasure in a simple little scarf!!

“Get Pumped Up”

{ November 2, 2009 @ 11:08 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Hebrews 12:1-2 (NSB):
“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. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith…”

I shared these verses with the elementary KidSpring volunteers yesterday morning–encouraging them to keep their eyes (fix their eyes) on Jesus and not let frustration, tiredness, or anything else that slows us down to hold us back from being who God is calling us to be to the kiddos.

These were heavily on my mind again this morning as I did my quiet time and prepared for my day…to apply this to my life.

You know there are times something is on your mind and heart and then somebody says something that goes right along with what is on your heart and mind already…

That happened as these verses were on my haert and mind…check out this text converation between my mom and I:
Mom: “R u up and running” (yep my mom is getting up on the text talk:))
Me: “Up. Not quite running.”
Mom: “Get pumped up so you can run!!! Love u.”

….what, where’d that come from…my mom doesn’t even normally use the phrase “get pumped up”:)

So off to school I go loling because my mom just said “get pumped up” and in awe of God once again at how He puts things such as scripture and conversations (comments) in line perfectly!

In the Wait

{ October 24, 2009 @ 7:32 pm } · { Growing }
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Recently I was given this piece of advice by an amazing lady. I have had several conversations that I found myself quoting this advice so I thought I’d share, so here goes:)

“[God] is writing your story right now. And He is preparing you for a future that is going to knock your socks off!
Love Him in the wait.
Believe Him in the wait.
Question Him in the wait.
Wrestle in the wait, and know that whatever you’re waiting on-will definitely be worth it.
Unfortunately, none of those things make the wait suck less.
They just make it productive:-)”

So maybe you’re not finding yourself in a time of wait but if you do, make it a productive wait:):) Thanks for sharing your words of encouragement and wisdom with me, Cookie Cawthon!!!

Are you a cowardly lion??

{ October 22, 2009 @ 2:26 am } · { Growing }
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My reading group students at school are reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Today we read about the cowardly lion. In our version of the story, the lion tells how he knew when he roared people and animals would run away from him and he even said, “If the elephants and the tigers and the bears had ever tried to fight me, I would have run myself-I’m such a coward.”

This reminded me of a lot I’ve been seeing and reading in scripture lately. Are we being like the cowardly lion who doesn’t live according to the power that is in him but instead cowares in fear?

Rahab said to the spies in Jericho (Joshua 2:11 (NLT)):
“No wonder our hearts have melted in fear! No one has the courage to fight after hearing such things. For the Lord your God is the SUPREME GOD of the heavens above and the earth below.”

Hebrews 2:14-15 (NLT)
“Because God’s children are human beings-made of flesh and blood-the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die and only by dying could he break the power of the devil who had the power of death. Only in this way could HE SET FREE ALL WHO HAVE LIVED THEIR LIVES AS SLAVES TO THE FEAR OF DYING.”

Romans 8:35-38 (NLT):
“…And I am convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s love…neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow-not even the power’s of hell can separate us from God’s love…”

Jesus tells His disciples (John 16:7(NLT)):
“But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Advocate won’t come. If I do go away, then I will send him to you.”
**the Advoate being the Holy Spirit.

In Crazy Love, Francis Chan focuses on John 16:7 when he asks the question, “But what do we do with the fact that Jesus says it is better for His followers to have the Holy Spirit? Do we believe Him? If so, do our lives reflect that belief?”

Do our lives reflect this…
-that our “God is the SUPREME GOD of the heavens above and the earth below”,
-that nothing–no worries or fears–NOTHING can separate us from the love of Christ,
-that Jesus has set us free from living as slaves to the fear of dying,
-that it is better that us Christ-followers have the Holy Spriit with us.

OR

do we coware in fear like the cowardly lion??

2 Timothy 1:7
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity but of power, love, and self-discipline.”

A litte thing called LOVE!

{ October 15, 2009 @ 7:29 pm } · { Growing }
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As I was reading Crazy Love at the beginning of my Fall break, I found myself asking the question of how do I build up God’s kingdom instead of my own kingdom at work at Daisy Elementary–meaning what does it look like for people to see what I do and instantly be drawn to God and to say how great He is instead of how great “Miss Holly” is.

The “running theme” since then in what I’ve been reading and hearing is LOVE!
As it was put in The Shack, “You are free to love without an agenda.”

At Cookie Cawthon’s Bible study on Tuesday night we talked about relationships and drawing people to Christ. Cookie made the comment about how if we get in a relationship with a person just to lead them to Christ, we aren’t really doing what God called us to do-we’re in the relationship for the wrong reason (hope I summed that up correctly:)).
This kind of threw me off but as I’ve read over the break about the Spirit and then us called to love others-our calling is to simply love people and rely solely on the Spirit (which we have to rely on to even love all people, don’t we).
So, in light of this–I think about my relationship with my coworkers and students at school and my calling to be in relationship with them and genuinely love them.

Think 1 Corinthians 13:
“If I speak in tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

It’s all about L-O-V-E!!

Goose

{ October 14, 2009 @ 2:52 am } · { Just for Fun! }
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So as I was driving “through the country” to my parents’ house this morning I saw a yard full of geese…this brought back a memory that now I find pretty hilarious but honestly was very traumatic for me as a kid…

The preschool I attended as a kid was just a few blocks from the public library in the town of Loris. Between the preschool and the library was this house where a goose lived.

I can remember it so vividly-one of my teachers would walk at the front of our line, holding two kids’ hands and another at the back hold two other kids’ hands and all the rest of us were in between them. We took a trip to the library every week but this week brought an adventure…

Remember the house where the goose lived…well on this particular day the goose decided he would leave his yard, cross the street, and follow us, which sounds cute and all (like “Mary Had a Little Lamb”….he followed her to school one day—excpet this was no lamb)…and maybe he just wanted to go read some books with us??? But the goose was rather frightening and not so friendly—actually pretty scary…scary enough to our teachers that when we got to the library, they called the police.

The police took this very seriously and this poor little goose saw his last day that day but made it in the newspaper for scaring the little children of the preschool (the clipping is still kept by my mom to remember that adventurous day).

Maybe this goose story explains my few visits to the library since then…maybe?!?!? I mean would you go back to such a place after such a traumatic experience?!?! LOL!!

WATCH OUT: God’s got some godly gentlemen in the making!!

{ October 5, 2009 @ 1:54 am } · { Growing }
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God showed up huge at New Spring-Flo this morning!! Satan got a kick to the face:)
Him showing up in a huge way as we were missing 15 volunteers in KidSpring was enough to show how much He reigns. You can check out Lindsay’s cool story about the morning!
But He didn’t stop there! I got the chance to lead a small group of 5th grade boys. And let me just say, “Watch out people…He raising up some godly gentlemen!
They were so gentlemenly and mature but more than that they soaked up scriptural truths with such enthusiasm—that “God gives me courage when I’m afraid” and on their way to memorizing Joshua 1:9!

One little boy touched my heart so deeply–I asked the boys if any of them wanted to pray and one of them said he would and said a very mature pray for a 5th grader thanking God for his church and much more. This 5th grader who has gone through a lot (a lot more than I had in the 5th grade and even now at 23) sat there and thanked God for what is in his life. WOW!!

Thank you God for these 5th grade boys! Thank you God for New Spring Church! Thank you God that YOU REIGN!!

Fall Break-Week 1

{ October 2, 2009 @ 6:34 pm } · { Growing }
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At the beginning of the school year I set a few goals for the year, one of which was “Having quality time with friends and family who are near and dear to my heart and so often take the “back burner” for my job.”
This week has been week one of Fall Break which I have gotten to do just that and loved it.

Here’s some highlights:
*Meeting with David Hall, talking and planning for KidSpring.
*Dinner with Ashley Wright and Alicia Parker.
*Bible Study with amazing ladies, which ended with sitting in on a conversation with some amazing ladies of Flo-town.
*Biggest Loser then dreaming all night of having to make decisions like they did on the show that night.
*breakfast and great conversation with Vanessa Brown at the International House of Pancakes.
*an Italian meal at the Laings
*getting to help teach Matthan Brown life lessons in sharing and assuring him that I would give him back his toy when I finished “playing” with it:) and not to wake people up from their naps:)
*a Mexican dinner with the Browns (thanks guys:))
*ending the night with great conversation with the Mileses.
*coming home to a Thursday filled with time with college friends (Meg, Josh, and Liz:))

***These people are amazing!! I’m so blessed to get to spend time with them.

And to add to the excitement-I finished Crazy Love this week:) and won a bet with my sister that results in her treating me to dinner!!

Now onto continuing the Friday of reaching another one of my goals:
3-Making time at least a few times a month for solitude

Week of Wrestling (follow up of a Siesta’s Weekend)

{ September 26, 2009 @ 6:32 pm } · { Growing, School }
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This week had two things playing against it…
…followed an A-MAZING weekend:)
…was followed by a 3 week fall break:)!
So, as promised, here’s more from the Siesta’s weekend (and the week that followed):) (and some transparency)!

“Then the Lord said to him, ‘ What’s that in your hand?’”-Exodus 4:2

Steven Furtick’s sermon in which he asked youth this question began a week of wrestling with God.
(you can check it out here:

http://www.elevationchurch.org/sermons)

This wrestling week began with me answering this question, “What’s in your hand?”….children are in my hand.
But the questions of the week: “what am I supposed to do with what’s in my hand”…”am I doing what God’s called me to do with what’s in my hand?”

Two main events of the week of wrestling:
1-Thought I needed to give up tweeting and facebooking.
As I kept up with people invovled in ministry in the church, I began getting discouraged that I was a teacher stuck in a building with kids all week instead of getting to do what they do during the week…I felt stuck.
But God, as He always does, changed my crazy perspective on ths matter…I didn’t necessarily need to give up following these people, but be encouraged by it.
And then I read this…”…when we are on our own, in the absence of cherished Christian leaders, we must focus our attention and devotion even more on Christ so we won’t get sidetracked.” (NLT footnote for Philippians 2:12). So, yes I need to be encouraged by their tweets and facebook comments but even more than that I need to focus my attention on Christ!

2-What good is my job–I’m teaching music classes to kids…what good is this?
Again..God showed me-I haven’t gotten a lot of time with my chorus kids since we meet before school and then rush them off to their classes so they won’t be late…leaving no timeto really bond and put into these kids But this week we had extra practices during the school day.
One was planned by me; the other voluntary…and all my chorus members showed up–they gave up their recess time to practice!! This time was precious-I got to have fun, bond, invest in, and not be rushed yet practice and get ready for our first performance)…which btw is Saturday, October 17th, 11:00 AM at the LORIS BOG OFF!!

So, there you have it! God confirming once again that Daisy Elementary School is where I am for such a time as this!

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