What I Want You To Do...

When I was approximately 12...13...14...I can't really remember. I had a pen-pal and we met from a Christian magazine (I think I might have talked about her before). She was super cool and we wrote for quite a while I feel like. She found me on Facebook a few years ago - and she's still super cool...and a beautiful, amazing, creative, God-fearing, mother of 4.  And more awesome yet - she's recently moved to a farm with llamas. Or at least there was a llama in a picture. Or was. You'll see. Go see. Anyways - her posts have been really inspiring me the past few days.

She moved on the nudging of God. And He's certainly taking care of her. You really need to read her stories about how and why she moved to the farms, and her most recent post about her source of joy. Thanks Drea - it truly has been inspiring to see how brutally, raw-honest you've been lately. Seriously.

So these are kind of some thoughts in my mind.

See, we're having a baby in April. I'm 17 weeks - that's almost halfway. And while it seems like it's already been an eternity (remember, I've been nonstop whining about it) - it really is almost halfway. And I'm almost done. And all of a sudden I'll have a new baby.

Now don't get me wrong - I will gladly say this baby was planned and we wanted my kids about 3 years apart (they will be 3 years, 4 months apart).  But somehow we also thought that we'd magically have more money in the new year and we could sell our place and move into something a bit bigger.

But the truth is - I don't think we can. We're accepting that we need to live in 800 square feet and be blessed and thankful that in our mid-twenties we own a home...that we live somewhere warm and so on. We need to be blessed and thankful for this before we can move somewhere else. We will have 4 of us in 800 square feet and while baby 2 may not physically take up much room, the stuff that accompanies a small babe does.

We have a few more debts that we really want to pay off before we move somewhere else. They're not huge in comparison to some people I know, but they're still nagging. We paid off one in entirety next month once that cheque comes out. Three more to go after that. Slowly, but surely. And then we're going to think about moving - Jordon will have had another raise or two (he took his current job with the long-term in mind, not the short-term) - and we'll feel more comfortable in terms of not being weighed down. And until then, we're going to learn to be joyful and thankful for what we do have. Learn to skip the "this sucks" and "I hate my house" act. We need to be thankful and peaceful where we are...and listen to what and when God says.

I don't share this often on here anymore it seems, but a verse that has resonated so deeply with me, over and over, and over and over, the past few months is a verse I read on my Bible app (yep, even on a Blackberry, there's an app for that) - it was in the Message. It plays over and over all day in my head:

"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you." - Romans 12:1-2 (The Message)

And so that's where we are. That's what I'm doing - I'm going to take my everyday, ordinary life - my sleeping, my eating, my going to work, and walking around life - and place it before God. I'll be changed from the inside out.

And for us, that begins with being thankful and peaceful with what we have...and not embracing the culture we fit into - the wanting more, better, right now culture.

Now? I'm off to the going to work part of life - thankful and as an offering.

kortney elise xoxo