Q: Why do these lizards look so happy?

A: Because the owners are leaving for a week while their house gets tented for you said it, TERMITES! Somehow, I, proud owner of the superlative: LEAST LIKELY to ever love a bug, am somehow not phased by this Sunday happening. Could be worse...they could be COCKROACHES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

or locusts or spiders or beetles or fire ants or...

Shalom Ya'll!!!

You can take the girl out of the art class...

but you can't take the art class out of the girl!

Sneak Peek

Gosh, do we HAVE to let her grow up??? :0)

Hooray for Eric! (and Sloan!)

Belated driver's pics!

Who can it be?

Thanks to Lake Family Magazine's new resident computer guru...Eric Anthony of EAG IT, my pictures are SAFE!

Rachel's now slightly beat up from being handled so much depiction of...who? First right answer wins a BRAND NEW CAR!!!!

(OR a gorgeous Limited Edition United States Quarter Map including a bonus of 5 commemorative state quarters)

Thanks Eric! (But you'll always be Smokeman to me!)

A little clarity...

Ok, so after a question or two privately about the previous post, instead of just DELETING it (which I did briefly)...Let me just qualify myself to death here for a sec. I surely do not want to offend anyone EVER though if I step on a toe or two for the Lord, so be it. As long as it is for the Lord...

The problem with blogging is of course, you become personally invested with the blog...everyone else's too! I have had a HARD time not commenting to death on say, Bonnie's blog (which she knows) so I finally deleted it and just do not read it anymore. Lol

So I know most of the readers here are CC goers so talking about church can be GOOD or bad or not understood by others who don't GO to CC!

So let me just say this, Guys, this is a CLOSED blog for a reason! I really, really (need? wow just got the Holy Spirit check on that one so I will say instead:) that I want to blog what I really truly feel. If it were an open blog I would feel more responsibility to not post some things because who knows who's reading it and I do believe there is SOME responsibility after all in what you write. Lol

So I just want to say that even though I attend church where our beliefs run differently, that does NOT mean that I do not support what they do. I wouldn't say DON'T take your kids to nursery, children's church, etc (duh, since mine are IN there!) and on the other side of it, I would also support if someone did not want to as well. But I would not encourage my own thoughts on this there since that would, I believe, not be in unity with the body. I hush it there but here is where I hopefully am able to expound on the "why's" of what we believe.

We have found a way to attend a church whose teaching we believe, is right for us. WE are the ones having difficulty figuring out the attending with a small child that we do not wish to have in a program. We surely do NOT judge anyone else for it and we truly, deeply appreciate the love and acceptance we have received there despite our differences.
If we can attend and not judge then we have to be able to attend and not BE judged. Isn't it funny that when someone does something differently we always think that the other one is saying we are doing it wrong? Not so!
And even if they do think you are doing it "wrong" the difference between differences in beliefs and judgement is that judgement is when someone says you are "bad" for doing it this way as opposed to saying,"I don't believe that".

I just don't want to have to quit blogging my core beliefs because we are mostly CC goers reading this...

It is actually the MOST non-judgemental church I think I've ever been to! Just wanting to clarify... Remember: You are the core people specifically chosen to be readers here...not because this blog is special, but because YOU are special to ME. I trust you to love me and not judge me because we are different.

Thoughts and comments welcome.

Clunn boot camp for kids open at the end of summer. Haha.

Musings on Sloan

So...as much as I enjoyed the freedom of having Kate in the nursery...here is the dilemma according to how (our family)believes...Only speaking for US here....lol

Sloan LOVED working in the nursery..
She loved, loved, loved it. (immediate red flag)
"I think it is my gift!" (nope and yep all at once)
"I am GREAT with kids!" (Yes, of COURSE you are.)

So we had to have a long talk about this...and while I know these are different beliefs than others, this is just what we believe to be the Truth in our family.Of course she loved working in the nursery...she is a natural born MOTHER. Most women are because it is built in since before the foundation of the world. She is growing up and moving toward motherhood quicker than we all know. Caring for children is a natural satisfaction in women if they have not been warped by the world. It is her gift because women need that in order not to murder their little angels. But it is NOT a gift meant for skipping church to care for other's little ones. At the VERY least, not for a fifteen year old...it reminds me of something someone much wiser than me once said: Just because you do something well, does NOT mean you are supposed to do it".
WOW.
That is SO true. Our gifts can become our weaknesses if we use them wrongly. Check out Sampson for that one. Her ability to care for children is meant for HER children (and others of course in the course of different ministry applications) but NOT for a Sunday morning when she should be in the sermon. Sigh. I am not expressing well. Not that she shouldn't help. Not that we will forbid it. Just that it is SO IMPORTANT to not let her get confused with the idea that children's ministry is what she is feeling.
It is not.
It is her maternal instinct that she is feeling.
Setting a teen up in the busy-ness of church is a mistake we do not want to make. It is easy to serve your life away and miss Jesus the whole way through. Easy to get validation from doing a job well (all the while missing the refining power of the Word through your pastor's sermon) Easy to be a Martha when you should be a Mary. Easy to let ministry block your view of Jesus Christ.
From nursery to an office to your own children in daycare to: What happened to our generational training up of Christians???
Think it can't happen? Ha. We haven't come this far to throw it all away now.So we will continue to rotate and put Kate on super advanced training to get her in with us. But it may still be a year. I mean, I enjoyed serving in the nursery as well, a LOT actually, but I am old enough to know that my personal relationship with Christ needs to be all consuming. She is not there yet and is actively seeking many things in her life....a parent needs to be careful..guiding and giving and FORgiving...it may sound a little micro-managerial, especially if you BELIEVE in children's programs but cut us reformers some slack. We are just trying to raise up women (the best we can) who Glorify the Lord by being busy AT HOME so that the Word of got is not maligned (Titus 2), lovers of their HUSBANDS but who PUT JESUS FIRST in their lives. Women can be so easily derailed into service without substance.
So that was a scary little derailing of thought...I hope we caught it. We will continue to watch!