^"Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality." Romans 12:9-12

 

When I became a follower of Jesus, I knew that my life was going to start looking different. Part of it would be God changing me, and the other part was me choosing to live differently because of my love and commitment to Jesus. To this very day, there are things that I notice God doing in my life and there are things that I see that need to change. One of those things is the reality that I need to be more willing to "go" than I have been.

 

It's easy as Christians to get caught in the typical "look out for ourselves" lifestyle of this world. It's really easy to get comfortable and forget about the fact that there is actually a God worth pursuing and a story worth sharing. You see, many of us go through our walk with Jesus not realizing that we have failed to continue to stir the zeal and spiritual fervor we once had, and eventually we buy into the lie that going to church on Sunday's, attending a small group and praying before meals is actually pleasing to God. Don't get me wrong, these are good things, but how presumptuous of us to think that this is what our lives are supposed to be all about.

 

In the Word, we read in countless places where it talks about the importants of meeting together and thanking God for the many blessings in our lives, but even more than that we read about the command from Jesus to "go" realizing that each of us has been given a life and a circle of influence intended to help others experience and know Jesus and bring Him glory.

 

What would our lives, our families, our communities and even our world start looking like if we all lived the way Jesus asks us to live like? A bold question for sure, yet worth contemplating if you love Jesus.

 

Dayton Sando is Born!

On June 21, Isaac & Ranelle Sando, some of Brit and my closest friends, had their little boy Dayton and we couldn’t wait to meet him! You see, we’re in a stage of life where most of our close family and friends are married and beginning to have children, and as each of us enters similar stages of life, it brings a new sweetness to the relationships. We are excited about the fact that our boys will be close in age and will have the opportunity to grow up together. In fact, Honor already has a great group of close friends! It’s so fun!

 We love this photo...Honor and Uncle Isaac were pretty much wearing the same thing! Brown shorts and a green T-Shirt!

Honor swims for the first time!

Saturday, June 19, Honor, Brit and I met up with the other Eastons in Fargo at Nana's house. It was a beautiful day and we spent most of the afternoon in the pool. Honor had never been swimming before, but loves baths so we figured he would enjoy the experience. At first he was quite tentative...the water was cold and he wasn't too sure about all the water, but he slowly got used to it and started to have a blast! I think daddy had more fun than Honor did!

A couple of days ago Honor started pointing at things.  It's so cute!  This is just another example of how much I love being a mom...to see all of these little changes in my baby every day!  The way that the Lord has made us, especially how we develop from tiny little infants to capable adults is now, more than ever, so much more amazing to me.  I always knew I would love being a mom, but it's so much better than I could've imagined.  Thank you, Lord.

The Classic Expressions of Honor...

Have you ever had the sense that something was about to happen, but you couldn't put your finger on exactly what it was? This is a feeling that I have had for over a month now. I've struggled with feeling lethargic and disconnected in my relationship with God and others and almost feel nervous about what could be just around the corner.

 

You see, when I sense that something is on the horizon, my default emotion is fear. Not because I am scared of the unknown, but because I am predisposed to thinking that God is going to let something awful happen to someone I love or myself causing enormous pain and heartache.  I am not a fan of pain…in fact if there was a way to live life without it, I would do what I could to live that way, but you and I both know that's impossible.

 

In fact, God even has given us instruction on how to look at the trials and things in our lives  James 1:2-4  ²Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. ⁴Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

 

This scripture isn't telling us to look at pain and say to ourselves, "Oh joy! I get to face trials right now! Yippee!", but rather it's telling us to consider the outcome of the trial, knowing that as our faith is tested we will become stronger and grow closer to Jesus, producing mature fruit in our lives and moving us to a place where we lack nothing in regards to our relationship with Jesus.

 

Pain is a normal part of human life and I have learned that my fear of pain and trials comes from an inaccurate view of God. He is not about causing pain, but the truth is He is about allowing pain, trials and challenges to help us become more of the people He wants us to become. He is more concerned about our character rather than our happiness, and unfortunately at the first sign of a trial, many of us point our fingers and curse God rather than looking at our circumstances in light of the people that God desires we become.

 

When I look back at my life and the greatest lessons I've learned and my most intimate times with Jesus, they have one thing in common…they have all happened as a result of some sort of trial. I like the fruit of these times, but I could definitely do without the trial, yet they obviously go hand in hand.

 

So when I start to feel this way, I find myself asking a lot of questions about who I am and about my relationship with Jesus. Lately, the questions that have been on my heart are: When did following Jesus become about pursuing a painless, easy, comfortable life and not about sacrifice? What about considering others above myself? What about serving as a way of life? What about a life that really does love God with all my soul, mind and strength and that loves my neighbor as myself? Am I who God wants' me to be and do I really love Him like I say I do?

 

Since Brit and I got married, we've prayed that God would guide us, lead us, grow us and use us in our generation and in our day. We desire to be people of influence and we want our lives to impact others for the cause of Christ, and we want to be devoted followers of Jesus, but we've realized something in the last weeks as we both have pondered this sense… we have realized that we have become very friendly with the world desiring comfort, safety and pain free living over Jesus and really, over growth in our relationships with the Lord.

 

Now we are in a place where we are reevaluating how we are doing life. We have already begun to make small changes and with the help of God, we are praying that our lives would daily look more and more like Jesus. We want to live out of an authentic overflow from Christ and His word. Trials may be ahead or maybe the feeling I've had is because I ate some rotten chicken, but either way, God is doing something in us and our heart is to find out what it is and to be obedient and faithful with what He wants.

Well family and friends...we took the plundge!  We are now proud owners of bumGenius reusable cloth diapers.  Yep, you read that right...cloth diapers!

After having our friends the Meagher's over last weekend (and somehow finding our conversation centered around diapers), Troy and I were freshly inspired to finally pull the trigger and enter the world of cloth diapers.  We had considered investing into some before Honor was even born, but found ourselves in, what I would guess many people have experienced before us, a battle with the up-front costs of purchasing these environmentally friendly and supposedly budget friendly baby necessities.  And for some reason we haven't entertained the idea since.  

But, after spending the last couple of days doing my research, reading reviews, and doing my own makeshift cost analysis of our own diaper spending (disposable, of course), I have come to the knowledge that by purchasing these cloth diapers, we can potentially save close to $1,000 in the next 21 (+/-) months before Honor is potty trained!  AND, get this!, these diapers that we purchased (see a pic below) are a one-size diaper that fits a baby from 7-35 lbs!  Therefore, if (and hopefully when) we have another little one, both of them can wear the SAME diaper!  Crazy, huh?

We're pretty excited about our new endeavors!  We haven't received the diapers yet as we just purchased them online tonight...so when the rubber actually hits the road, I'll send out another update with our thoughts.  :)  For now, we're pretty excited! 

Honor loves to growl!

The last few weeks..

It's been a busy couple of weeks, but it sure has been fun! Here are some highlights:

On Saturday, May 22, Todd (Brit's dad) ran the full Fargo marathon...26.2 Miles and Tammy (Troy's Step-Mother) ran the relay, so we packed up Honor and joined the rest of the family to support them. We had an absolute blast and couldn't be more proud of Grandpa Todd and Grammie Tammy!

Because we were in Fargo for the marathon, it meant we got to spend some time with Nana (Troy's mom) too! So Travis, Jenna and little Zeya joined us for a sleep over and we had some great family time!

After the marathon on Saturday, Brit and Honor packed up to go back to the farm to celebrate Javi & Mar-i's graduation. I joined them on Sunday after work. We also celebrated Brit's 25th birthday with some friends and a bonfire! This is a picture of Honor and I out on his tire swing.

 This month we have gotten to spend quite a bit of time with Travis, Jenna and Hozeya. Over Memorial Day weekend, the three of them came to Detroit Lakes to spend some time with us. We had a great time just hanging out and watching the boys learn to play with each other. Hozeya has begun to walk, while Honor crawls like crazy, so with both of them very mobile, we had to keep a close eye on them.