I Have This Quote Book.....

My favorite quotes. They used to just be written on slips of paper and shoved in a jar under my bed. Then when I went to college, I found this groovy book in the bookstore. It was gold with "Egytian" hyroglyphics all over it. I decided it would be my "quote book". I took out the jar with the slips of paper, and transferred all of them into it. And for 12 years, everytime I hear something I think is worthy, I whip out my quote book, and furiously start writing!
I love this book. I don't care how obvious or silly some of the quotes seem now, I remember how they spoke to me at the time they were entered. Some are profound. Some are funny. Some breathed hope into what I perceived as hopeless. Some are just things I wish I'd have said.
Some of my favorites:

"Some of the best arguements are spoiled by people who know what they are talking about." ---Unknown

"I've loved you all my life, even before we met. Part of it wasn't even you, it was just the promise of you." ---from "The Firm"

"The care of human life, and not it's destruction...is the first and only legitimate object of good government." ---Thomas Jefferson

"No matter how much you think you want it, or need it; the past has to remain just that...the past." ---Phil Collins

"God gave men a penis and a brain, and only enough blood to run one of them!"
---Robin Williams

"It is a blessed thing to know that no power on earth, no temptation, no human fraility can dissolve what God holds together." ---Detrich Bonhoffer

"Some friends play at friendship, but a true friend sticks closer than one's own kin." ---Proverbs 18:24

"Let your hope make you glad. Be patient in time of trouble, and never stop praying." ---Romans 12:12

"Flattery is fancy dishonesty." ---Dolly Parton

"A true friend stabs you in the front." ---Oscar Wilde

"Not forgiving is like taking poison yourself and waiting for the other person to die." ---Ann Lamott

"...Man will occaisionally stumble over the truth, but usually manages to pick himself up, walk over or around it, and carry on." ---Winston Churchill

"Evil is powerless...if the good are unafraid." ---Ronald Reagan

I have hundreds of empty pages in my book. I can't wait to fill them up! If anyone reads this, please tell me your favorite quotes. Help me fill the pages!

God's Armor

We have trusted God by trusting our new church. We have gotten involved with their youth group, Brian is playing drums again, and we even trusted them enough to join a small group. Yikes. One of my most hated phrases in "christianese", and one of the most saturated places of hurt and abuse at St. Lucifer's.
Actually they call them "Life Groups" at New Life, so that helps. Anyway, I am so glad we did it because we have learned SO much!!!!
One of the challenges we had for this week was to pray for "the Full Armor of God" in Ephesians 6:10, five mornings in a row and see what happens. This may be a huge DUH for some, but it has been amazing for me. I can't tell you any marked changes, but I've felt overwhelming peace, and comfort. And it has made me pray in the mornings, something I watched my father do, and felt it's affects, but stupidly never did it myself. Now I can't imagine my mornings without it, and I hope to be the same example for my children. And it's only been 5 freakin days!

Here are my babies and me!! Elijah is the one in the pic with me. Judah is the oldest and Avi is...well...Avi!

I HATE MONEY!

I hate dealing with it.
I hate NEVER having it.
I hate hearing about it.
I hate it.
I am tired of it ruling my world, the lack of it that is...
I totally get why people steal, and turn to, uh, "alternative" incomes. The deep seething desparation of constantly having your life ruled by bills, and life and bullshit life likes to throw at you that you couldn't have forseen.
I am tired of doing the right thing, staying home with my kids, my husband risking his life every time he goes to work, giving tithe, and it gets us NOWHERE!
My world has been consumed by money since I was in college. I never had any. I moved into my own apartment and got a job. I ended up hiding out from my landlord and eating Jello, always with a pit in my stomach wondering how I was going to eat the next day.
That damned pit in my stomach! It is constant now. I can't get rid of it. Everything is always so freakin tense! Happiness and laughter can be dashed in a matter of seconds at the mention of money. No amount of planning or whatever else we do to try and be "comfortable" is ever enough. Well I have had enough! I am so sick of ALWAYS trying to think of ways to make our life better, only to make it worse. I HATE THIS!
Though when I start thinking about things and how hopeless it seems, I have this feeling of peace come over me. What is it? I mean, really? Is it the Holy Spirit telling me it's going to be alright because He's got it in His hands? Or is it my incredible sense of denial, and that obnoxious optimism that is always getting me into trouble by thinking that there is some retarded useless thing I can do to make more money so that money isn't the main topic of our lives!
I want to be the hero! I want to say, "let's get the hell out of here for awhile, MY TREAT!" Just once, I want to know that no matter what comes up, I can handle it, pay for it, deal with it myself.
Trust God you say? Well I've done that in the past, and I sunk! I failed! I fell on my face! He let me! And it didn't matter that I'd prayed and prayed and begged and pleaded, and worked and tried...I still can't win!
He let my Daddy die you know. He took my Daddy from me. My biggest fear. And if He will do that to me, what else will He do? If He wouldn't answer that prayer, what makes me think He will answer any?
Yet, there it is, that annoying sense of peace, that reassuring, blind optimism....
Maybe it is just masked stupidity.
I'm REALLY ready for a new topic of conversation around here. Why can't I have that?

Zola, Well Done!

Zola Levitt, one of the most influential leaders of the Messianic Jew movement, has gone to be with Yeshua.
Last Wednesday, April 19th, Zola lost his battle with brain, liver and lung cancer, and won his battle with this earth. Had it not been for Zola and his teachings, (via my mother and sister) I would not have known how to witness to my best friend, who was Jewish. I would not have a fuller understanding of the Jewish feasts and what they meant to Yeshua, and their relevance to us as believers today. I would not know that Jesus' real name was probably Yeshua Ben Yosef, which I find far cooler than the better known "Jesus Christ". (Christ isn't His last name!) Those and a thousand other little bits of Jewish facts and customs that have made me a stronger believer, and made me wish I too was Jewish. Ahh, and that is my favorite teaching of Zola's! We are "grafted in", adopted Jews.
Our world is darker for this loss, and we will NEVER see another of his kind. I am honored that God made sure I was exposed to this wonderful Rabbi!
So, I guess my Daddy has met him. That is a fun thought! I wish I could be in on that conversation!
Well done, good and faithful servant! Next Year In Jerusalem!

OH MY GOD!!! You are so being lied to!

Let me get something straight, WE ARE HUMAN!!! We aren't overcoming our sins because WE CAN'T!!! I feel so sorry for people who think that that is something we are supposed to be doing. If we could overcome our sins, God wouldn't have had to send JESUS!!!!
The other thing I keep reading is that people realize that the preacher/elders/whatever other morons that set themselves up as gurus, aren't always right, Godly, or loving. Yeah, ya know why? BECAUSE THEY ARE HUMANS! We suck! And the only thing that makes "pastors" different from the rest of us is the piece of paper in the frame in their office from some seminary that is probably the reason he's screwed up in the first place! Can you tell from my run-on sentences that I have an opinion about this?
Remember the stories of the priests that went into the Holiest of Holies had to have a rope tied around their ankle? Because when you enter the H of H you have to be pure or you'll what? Drop dead, that's right! So why the rope around the ankle? To pull them out when they drop dead! You see?
This overcoming our sins thing is bullshit! Do we try to do what's right? Yes. Do we do whatever teeny tiny "good" things we can? Sure. But only because we've asked Jesus to come and live in us and that's Him trying to push His love through our misersable, rotting flesh!
And any preacher that sets himself up as anything but one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread is dangerous, run away!
Any other explaination is a LIE!
Hey, don't take my word for it, take His.