Where Have I Been???

What a slacker I have been!! It has been almost a month since I've posted anything. Well, let me catch you up on the rest of March and beginning of April.

At the end of March, my lovely friends from New York flew me up to help with a Mother/Daughter Retreat. What a blessing that was for me!! It was so good to see them and be apart of the weekend. The theme for the weekend was True Beauty with the theme verse being from Psalm 34:5, "Those who look to Him are radiant." The weekend was full of fun and even included the Island of Beauty Pageant. For more on the pageant, click here. On a more serious note, the weekend challenged me to love the Lord more! In one of the sessions, the speaker really brought home the fact that if we love God, we will obey His commandments. The emphasis wasn't on obeying, but on loving. Many times when we hear this taught or preached the emphasis is on obeying the Lord. The focus then becomes on obeying and trying to obey and doing, doing, doing. All of this is in our own strength which is often why we fail at obeying. Her emphasis was on loving. If we love the Lord, then we will naturally obey Him from the overflow of our love for Him. It just made sense. Where is our focus?? On Jesus as it should be and not on the things we are doing or not doing. It really challenged me to pray for a deeper and greater love for the Lord. Fill me with your love so that I obey out of love and not just because I am told do such and such. This really made me clearly see where I can be legalistic in our faith. Are we doing it just to obey or is it because we just love the Lord so much we can't wait to do what He is telling us? Impactful.

After the retreat, I headed home. The next weekend ADB left for a golf tournament. They left on Thursday and came back on Sunday. It was a weekend filled with golf with 16 other men. I think he was in his dream world for a bit. Although his team didn't win (boo hoo), he did hit the longest drive and he even won a prize. You go babe! The prize...Coffee!! What a fitting prize for ADB (he loves coffee).

Then on Tuesday, we had our Banquet for the ministry we work for. ADB and I were in charge of the set up and organization. There were about 450 people there...a big event. So Monday and Tuesday were spent getting ready and doing last minute things for the banquet. Crazy!! In the end, it was a great banquet...now to start planning for next year. Well, not really.

I wish I had a picture to post because it is spring down here in the south. All the trees are flowering, things are turning green. I just love this time of year. Maybe I will take a picture soon and post it so I can share this spring cheer.

Snow?

This is what we woke up to on Saturday morning. SNOW! We didn't think they really got snow in Memphis, but we were wrong. Anyway, it was pretty and reminded me of the North. Needless to say, by noon a good bit of it was melting. We hear snow doesn't last that long and so if you want to build a snowman, you can't wait.





The cherry blossoms didn't really know what to think.

Amazing!

This photo was taken in Memphis, just further south from where we live. All I can say is "WOW!". Somehow I don't think sitting in a bathtub with a mattress over me will keep me safe if that is heading my way.

As a few of us were marveling at God's Power in this picture, one of our friends remarked that it shows a picture of sin and its destruction since we live in a fallen world. This tornado did do some destruction as it went through. I didn't really think of it that way until he mentioned it. But it definitely shows that as well. The good news is there won't be any destruction from tornadoes in heaven!!

Tornadoes and Drake

After looking at the title, many of you are asking yourself, "Who is Drake?" Well, Drake is our neighbor's dog. The same neighbor who we rent our house from and hang out with all the time. Drake has been and continues to be our overnight guest. Our neighbor is an avid duck hunter and we have kept Drake overnight so he can hunt at a place in Arkansas. Drake is a 14 year old lab and really doesn't do a whole lot. He is the easiest dog to keep since he doesn't do anything. He just follows me around the house wherever I go, even if I leave the room for one minute. He is a pretty noisy sleeper. He sleeps on the floor at the foot of our bed and has some wild dreams. I wonder what he is chasing. We are keeping Drake while our neighbor is skiing in Colorado for a couple of days. We love Drake!! Here is a little photo:


Isn't he cute?? This is the face he gives me when I'm in the kitchen and he wants something to eat.

You may be asking how Drake and tornadoes go together, well hold on here comes the story...

Yesterday we knew there would be some thunderstorms. It was 70 degrees and a cold front was moving in. I've been in some pretty bad thunderstorms and so wasn't really nervous. I just went about my day. My biggest concern was trying to get a run in before the storms arrived. ADB and I had just changed to go running and stepped out the front door when we saw lightening. There went that. Back inside we go. We had our screen door of the sliding glass door open. It was such a warm day especially in February. It has a little dog door on it. Drake hadn't been using it and we would yell at him if he even got near it.

So, there we are at our little abode. Andy is on the phone and I'm doing some stuff for this other part time job I have. The storm is building a bit now and there is rain and wind along with the thunder and lightening. We call Drake just to make sure he is okay. I mean the lightening was pretty fierce. No Drake. What are you kidding? Where is Drake? Now Drake has a history of straying off, but that is only when he is outside without a leash. Then it dawns on us...the dog door. We contemplate for a minute. What do we do? Drake's not our dog, but what if something happens to him? What will we tell our neighbor? So, ADB decides to do a little search around the homes around us. I wasn't sure about this...risking his life for a dog. My options...dog or husband. I mean I love dogs, but not more than my husband. The good news is after a few minutes Drake and ADB come in the door. Yeah, all is well.

Then, all of a sudden we start to hear what sounded like the Speculator fire siren. We do have a fire/emergency station down the road from us and so we hear the sirens all the time...(not to mention the train whistle that blows as well). But this one was a little different and it kept going and didn't stop. I asked Andy what it was and he said...a tornado siren. I started to get nervous and tried to remember what they told us in grade school about what to do during tornadoes. All I could remember was from Wilderness First Aid training at Tapawingo. Go to the nearest ditch and lay on the ground with your hands over your head. This sounded a little absurd since we were in a house. So, instead of doing what we should have (go in the closet and put pillows and blankets over us or get in the bathtub and put a mattress over us) we just looked out the window a lot to see what everyone else was doing and ate dinner. We probably should have gone into some inner rooom of the house, but instead sat in front of our sliding glass door (which was now shut in case Drake tried to escape again and because of the wind) and watched it all.

We were in awe. Probably not the smartest thing, but I've never been in a tornado path before. The siren kept going off. What a scary sound. We hadn't turned on the TV yet to see what was going on. It really didn't cross our mind to check on TV. We thought everything would be shut down anyway with the tornado siren going off. After the first wave of storms went throught, we turned on the TV to see what to expect next. Another band of storms was coming through. The siren went off again around 9:30pm. I was more scared at the night storm because you can't see anything except for the amazing lightening. These big storms always remind me of the Lord and his power. To think at a word the Lord could calm the storm. Amazing.

The guy on the TV even quoted some scripture in Nahum about storms. How the Lord is in control over the storms. I didn't think you were able to do that. I guess things are different here in the South. We didn't experience any damage, but areas around us were hit pretty hard. A mall was damaged pretty bad near us. There was a tornado that did hit down in Memphis, but not in our area of town. We got lots of rain, thunder and lightening and wind.

So we are fine. Another event where we say "Welcome to Memphis!"

Keep on Praying!

I don't know about you, but I have times when I become a slacker to pray for someone. In this instance I'm talking about someone who doesn't know the Lord or someone who has strayed from the faith. My faith gets small and I lose my fervor. Well, Scripture has reminded this week to not give up!! I love the fact that God's Word is living and active!

"And behold, they were bringing to Him a paralytic, lying on a bed; and Jesus seeing their faith said to the paralytic, "Take courage, My son, your sins are forgiven."...then He said to the paralytic - "Rise, take up your bed, and go home."

Matthew 9:2, 6

What has given me a new fervor is the fact that it was the faith of the friends bringing the paralytic. In verse 2 above it says THEIR faith. It wasn't the paralytic, it was the people bringing the paralytic. So this scripture has reminded me the importance of interceding for others and to not let my fervor die.

On another note, I wanted to fill you guys in on what is going on down here. Well, the weather yesterday was lovely. It was sunny and warm...I think around 60 degrees, maybe. I was outside just loving it. When I went for my run, I was way over dressed. The day before it was 30 and so I just thought it was sunny, but cold again. I was wrong. I got a good sweat out of it.

We are looking for a house here and there. We are currently renting and need to be out of the house by August. We do have time, but it's good to get a feel for what is out there and learn what is in our price range. We are learning a ton about life and living for Jesus everyday with a God centered focus. I am reminding myself daily that my only expectation is to glorify Christ (Phil 1:20). It is easy to expect things that we think are good and right, but be misled in our desires. The heart is deceitful and desperately sick (Jeremiah 17:9).

We are still visiting different churches to find the one we would like to be involved in. There are several great Bible teaching churches here, which is a huge blessing. We just haven't settled on one yet.

For those basketball sports fans, ADB was able to go to another Memphis Tigers basketball game the other day. They are ranked number 1 and so he gets excited when he is invited to go. The last game was a close one. Go Tigers! That is a little summary of what we are doing. I will try to get some pictures on here soon. There just hasn't been anything exciting to take pictures of and I don't want to post pictures of myself all the time. That would get boring very quickly.

Ping Pong

For all those wives out there who have husbands who know my husband...this is a blog to report back to them.

We were invited to a little party at the house of a person who is in the discipleship program. That's not the big thing. The big event was a ping pong tournament that night. The biggest ping pong tournament I have ever seen. So much build up and talk. I even had to buy posterboard for the brackets. There were four brackets with 4 people in each bracket. There was even a prize at the end. ADB was number one in his bracket and won his bracket. So funny to see the guys sizing up their competition but in subtle ways. He played in the finals, but then lost. It was close and he played well. But he played defensively and so wasn't able to really hit some winners (these are his words - not mine). I know he could have won. I wish I had some pictures, but we didn't bring the camera. Anyway, just wanted to fill you all in on some fun things we are doing here.

Also, ADB was able to play golf today. Golf in January! I guess that is one of the beauties of living in the south!

2 Random Things I've Seen

This past week, I saw two things I didn't expect to see in Tennessee. Here they are:

1. Buffalo. I know kind of crazy. ADB and I were driving and we see this field. I was really enjoying the scenery because it was so open and so different from the city. As we kept driving, we saw these large animals ahead. I thought to myself, "Oh they are just cows." Then we drive closer and they were BUFFALO. Not just one or two, but a whole lot of them. I didn't think Tennessee was known for its buffalo, but maybe I just don't know the state very well yet.

2. This one shouldn't be so shocking, but I think it was the fact that we saw one for real and not on TV. We saw an Elvis inpersonator. He was dressed in the white Elvis apparel. He had the look and the voice. So wierd. We saw him on a famous street here in Memphis called Beale St. It is basically a street with a bunch of restaurants/bars, but they also have live music, mainly the blues. We were walking along one night and heard what sounded like Elvis. We looked in and there he was. Talking about his albums and all the songs he wrote. We stayed around just a little and he really did a good job. It is amazing that people actually making a living doing this.

Well, these are the two crazy sights we saw. We live in a crazy town.

Also, this weekend was basketball mania weekend for us. On Friday night, we went to a Memphis Grizzlies (NBA basketball) game and then on Saturday night, we went to the Memphis Tigers (College basketball) game. Both teams won so it was fun. Below is a picture of ADB and I outside the FedEx Forum where the basketball games were. It is a little dark, but it was taken on a cell phone.



I will let you know if I see any other crazy things or if I find out why there were herds of buffalo right outside the city. Or if you know, let me know.