Presidential election...and the choice.

I found this link posted by ABC, and I wanted to share it. It is for people who I would say are on the fence about who they are going to vote for. While it was humorous in a way, it also has comments from both candidates without reference to which one said it. You choose which statement you agree with more, and at the end it shows you who you had the most in common with. Use and open mind and see who you actually agree with, it was interesting for me because while I did agree with one more than the other, I did find some things I didn't know about both. Check it out for yourself!!

http://abcnews.go.com/politics/MatchoMatic/fullpage?id=5542139

Changes, Change, Changes....

I am having a much better week since Tuesday. There are some days that just get you down and that was one of them. But God is good, He sent a friend over when I needed her, and she helped cheer me up. Thanks for your prayers!

On to my news though....I got a new job! Jim and I have been praying about me going back to work for a while now since Bradley is in school full time. Yesterday, I was offered a full time job teaching a 2 year old pre-school class. It is a 40 hour a week job, but I was able to work out my schedule so that I would be home when the kids get off school. Jim's boss is going to allow him to take the kids to school and then come to work.

Later today, I have to give my notice to my current job. I work part time at the kids' school, but for this season of life, I need something full time. This is going to be hard on me because I have grown to love those kids at school as much as I love mine. They are sweet, precious children who sometimes just need someone to love them. I can be that person. But I know that God will send the right person to them so that they can continue on loving them where I leave off. I am excited to move on to a new place, with new people, and new kids to love on!! The job is in East Memphis, so it is about a 15 minute drive or so, but it isn't too bad.

Also changing, once again, is our small group. Woo Hoo....here goes the roller coaster again. In February, Jim and I started a group, and all of a sudden we had 5 couples and things were going well. By summer, we had one couple move, one couple leave the church, which left us with 3. By August, we really felt God was moving us out of leadership for a season of rest for us. (It has been an interesting year for us) At the same time, the 2 couples who were left, felt that same pull from God. The one couple is out visiting another church, and the other went to the connector and found another group. We are happy for both of them. We became friends with them and they prayed us through a very difficult time. For now, our mentors are starting a multi-generational group and we are going to join them and others for small group.

That's it for now....

Lamenting or complaining....

This past Sunday, Gib spoke on Psalm 13:
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Look on me and answer, O LORD my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;
my enemy will say, "I have overcome him," and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me.

He compared and contrasted lamenting and complaining...to listen to it, click http://tinyurl.com/55poz4

I am somewhere in the middle right now. While I am frustrated with life at the moment, lately, I have found myself lamenting about how much longer I am going to be here. But then comes the complaining....I am tired of this, I don't see why this has happened, and so on, and on and on...you get the idea.

Right now I am having trouble trusting in His unfailing love, because quite honestly, why would some one who loves me put me where I am???? Can you tell I am having one of those days? Now I have the "textbook" answer for this, but it is not ringing so much in my heart as it is in my head right now.

That's it for today...hopefully tomorrow is a better day.....

Here are some photos for ya.

We stayed in the house on the right.

Fire on the beach!

Smores...... need I say more!!

They have some moments when they get along!

First Fish !

Some well needed R&R

We are back from a short weekend trip....it was some well needed R&R for the Schillinger Family. A wonderful friend from church loaned us her place on the Tennessee River about 2.5 hours from here. So Friday after school we packed up the kids and what seemed like a lot of stuff for the weekend.

We had a great time. The "cabin" as Amy calls it, it a 2 bedroom house with all the amenities. There was no roughing it involved. (Which personally speaking, is MY kind of camping.) It was some good family time with our kids. We swam in the water, (well the kids swam, I put my feet in) fished, made a campfire, roasted hot dogs and marshmallows, and just enjoyed the beautiful scenery the God provided for us. Bradley was up at 6:30 Saturday morning, and spent the entire day outside on the beach.

I took some great pictures with my new phone. I finally upgraded my phone with Verizon. My phone I had was sooooo old. Jim had it before Bradley was born and I kinda inherited it. So it was time. The problem is: I took all these great pictures and now we can't get them off the phone without paying to text message them to ourselves....what a crock!! Jim, my computer genius husband is working on a fix to this problem, but it doesn't look like he'll have it figured out by the time I am finished typing this. =)

Now that we are back in some kind of school and work routine, I hope to be back to blogging more. Until then....

Coming off a stressful, but liberating week...

Life has been pretty crazy around our house the past few weeks. Today, as I sit in silence, for the first time in a long week, I am finding myself pondering some of the recent events of our house. My parents are here to visit. This normally would have struck me down with stress and fear for the entire time they were here. This visit, however, has been rather liberating for me. I can see God's work in my life, in my marriage, and thought maybe it was time to share some of what He has done for me with my mom and dad. The good and the bad....in my opinion, it was time to put my cards on the table and be who I am and stop dancing around it with them. For those who didn't know, I grew up in a pretty legalistic, fundamental church. Can you say I went to war?? They are very dogmatic in their beliefs and it was not an easy conversation for me. They told me they didn't like my church, it's Bible, it's music, or our doctrine. They told me that my problems in life were because I had left the teaching a grew up with and was now believing one of Satan's lies.

My very first blog was about using the wings God gave me. This past week, I stretched them yet again. He is so good, and I love Him enough to know that He is enough....I've never been to that point before. It has usually been Him plus and you can fill in the blank. I have never felt like I was "good enough" there was always one more thing to strive for. But this past year, has grown me in a lot of ways. One of my favorite songs, and no I don't know the name, says, "When you find that He's all you have, you'll find that He's all you need." I have finally gotten it.....Amen. =)

It was also great because Jim supported me the entire time. Of course, they chose their moment to have this conversation with me when Jim had gone to work, but later that night, he stood in defense of our family, and I couldn't have been prouder to be his wife as he told my parents that it was no longer ok with him for them to treat me the way that they had. God's family has been very good to us, and for that we are thankful...I may be calling some of you to show me how to cook a turkey come Thanksgiving....