little house in the big woods :)

I have considered starting another blog so that one could be my "fun things" blog and the other could be "thoughts"... this post would be filed under "fun"... that's all it is :)

Emily, Jillian and I stayed in an adorable cabin Thursday - Today at the KOA in honor of Jill's birthday. Today after checking out, Jillian was blindfolded and taken to a surprise lunch and then to Ms. Charlotte's art studio for a painting session for all of us which also went splendidly.

Quotes from the weekend:
Jillian: This end of the pool is shallow - I can stand up!
Me: Oh good! I'm shallow! (I meant short... lesson learned: think before you speak)

Emily & Jillian: (We were in rare form) "You know what would be funny? The next time someone compliments you, you should say something like this: 'Oh really? Well I hope you die!'" (Unfortunately yes, we actually used it in a text... I'm sorry person-who-knows-who-he-is!)

From Persuasion: "I really haven't had a moment, Mr. Elliot, to turn my mind to it."

Please click on the pictures below to view them larger to see what we did (pay attention to the far left corner - that's our adorable cabin)... the bottom collage is of the paintings we did - Jillian's, Emily's, Ms. Sharon's and Mine... clockwise from the top left...


Think I should actually consider a blog that's "just for fun"?

where will we find it?

I was thinking today...
What will it take for me to be satisfied and happy?
Lots of friends, a planned future, things, the feeling after mission trips...?
No, none of these things will satisfy. They will leave me empty, hungry, wanting more. Because You are the only one who can fill me. You are my joy and my satisfaction. In You I find life and peace and happiness... all is worthless compared to You.

...why is it so easy to fill ourselves up with everything BUT God when He is exactly what we need? Why do we make ourselves busy, spend money, do things that give us a temporary feeling... when the only one who can satisfy us wholly is all around us?

The goal isn't my happiness, it's His glory. But when I lose sight of that and focus on me, I end up hurt, broken, exhausted and confused. And although He knows exactly what's going on, I wonder if God isn't a little hurt too. He wants to be our everything.

after a week on the mountain...

I've heard this quite a bit in the past few days: "So how was the FLOW and what did you learn?"

I usually answer this question with a big "Ummm..." until I've had about a week or so of processing time post-FLOW. One week of teaching, quiet times, worship, fellowship takes awhile to reflect on before I can actually give a solid answer beyond, "It went well". This year, things are a little less vague. Here's what stands out:

Number one was Refresh, which also happened to be this year's theme. Amazing how that works. I was refreshed by the teaching, the promises through God's Word, the completely quiet hour to talk to God and read His Word, the chat room (small group) times, stargazing chats with Emily, corporate prayer, free time, waaaay after midnight intercessory prayers with Taci... definitely came back refreshed spiritually. Unfortunately I was not refreshed physically in that I got very little sleep. Bed after midnight every night. Still catching up on sleep... quite tired. But I really was so refreshed spiritually and really just WANT God's Word. It's nice. Refreshing.

The number two thing was Surrender. Ouch, it hurts to even mention this which is why I didn't put it first... I hoped some people may have stopped reading after number one. I noticed that I have this awful tendency to not give things to God. The skit on the first night hit home more than I'd like to admit. I'm independant and I like to do things myself. I tend to think that I've pretty much got it covered and don't need to bother God. With the snake thing you'd have thought, or imagined, or at least hoped that I was doing better with the whole reliance on God thing... I'm sorry to disappoint. With nearly every lesson I saw areas in my life that weren't surrendered. It was embarrassing but I almost consider that to be a good thing. I needed to realize that not giving things to God is a sin and is detrimental in the long run.

{note:} Is it coincidental that on the first night I went to my cabin to grab my purse before dinner and my camera was NOT nestled comfortably inside where I'd placed it? I imagine that it was part of God's "Hey Lindsay, trust ME!" plan. I'm sad to say the camera didn't make it back with me - I have no idea what happened to it since it wasn't found on the bus... I don't want to believe someone stole it. I'm trusting Him with that whole situation... He's aware that I leave for Ukraine next Friday. I'm upset about my irresponsibility in losing the camera but I know that I need to rely on Him about it... either it will turn up or I'll have to buy a new camera, but I don't need to worry. And I'm glad it's not a snake this time :)

One little note: God definitely had me focused on people other than myself. One thing that is totally from Him is my small group. I'll be sharing about them in a later post because I could seriously go on and on - I know that the group of girls I got was from Him.

In summary, post-FLOW I'm: very tired, invigorated spiritually, missing my camera, missing the noises of the girls in the cabin below me, reading God's Word more, still pondering and praying over applications, praying hard for my small group girls, very glad I went.

{a note to the curious: photos are of #1- a massage line the first night (many of these occured throughout the week), #2- my rafting group, second day, and #3- Taci and I on a walk through the woods (I found it funny that our shirts match our eyes... are we good or what?) picture credits go to Taci and Becca... they were kind enough to give me their FLOW pictures -- thanks!}

still sweet seventeen

My Jillian,
I hope that your day is wonderful -
I can't wait to spend it with you on a crowded bus
on the way to FLOW.
But I'm glad I get to see you today and all week.
Happy Seventeenth Birthday, my dear Jillian!

much love, lindsay

[this was another scheduled post :)]

are there mistakes in God's eyes?

Setting: Church office, rather boring day, lots of time to kill. Decided to write in my journal which is half prayer-journal, half-regular journal. I was writing to God at the time.


What happened: Ah-ha moment.


What I was thinking: I was thinking about how God can use me in spite of my mistakes. Even though I mess up His plan, He still is faithful and He still prevails in the end.


Then I thought: God doesn't use me in spite of my mistakes, He uses my mistakes just as much as my faithful times to grow me closer into His ways. Also, I've always seen the times I've messed up as bad, as something I needed to have a wake-up call for, a punishment, whatever. All those times when I thought, "Hey, God worked anyway, even though I messed up His plan and EVEN let me grow from it!" are almost silly because I'm pretty sure now that they WERE a part of His plan.

Heather and I were talking about this the other night. She was mentioning some things she did in the past that weren't bad but probably weren't the best, looking back. In the same breath she said that she didn't really regret those things. It sounds almost silly if you think about that and move on quickly but I really see where she's coming from. I thought about several things that happened in the past that really weren't pleasant. I don't mean spiritual warfare, but times when I messed up. Or just things that I wish hadn't happened. I told her about a particular situation a few years ago that just pretty much was horrible. I didn't handle things very nicely, the others involved didn't either... it was NOT a good time. But when I think about it, I wouldn't go back and erase that because through that God taught me a lot. Not just because I could learn from the past and know better next time, but He grew me through situations, not away from them, and I think about the things I've learned and realized that He didn't have to come up with Plan B because I messed up but that "failure" was His plan all along.

We have to realize that God works in spite of us and that His ways are higher than ours. He knows just what outcome my life will have... and nothing is a surprise to Him. We have a free will but He already knows what we'll choose and what we'll do with our lives. Instead of having the "woe is me" mindset and dwelling on all the things we've done wrong, we need to realize that God's got the big picture in sight. He knows our every step. He has a plan. So really I don't know if there is such a thing as a mistake in His eyes. Perhaps it's unfair to Him and maybe it's wrong to think that we mess up His plan. Because He's got it. Really...

"For I know the plans that I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11... an oft-quoted verse but if you think of the context of its writing, you'll realize that this is being said while Israel is in exile for disobedience to God... even though they had disobeyed... God had plans for them: a future and a hope... He greatly used that disobedience to show Himself and His glory through them. I think that's what it all comes down to. God honors disobedience but He is so wonderful that even when we disobey, He shines through our cracks and failures. It's about Him, not you and me.

Are there mistakes in His eyes?

[scheduled post]

dancing in the moonlight

Heather and Chance are back! Heather requested a party with dancing while they were here so we had 35-40 people waiting at the house when they drove in last night. I included a few pictures from our welcome back celebration.


Taci, Stephanie, Heather, me, Katherine. I like this picture and I really like these ladies! Five out of the six roomies for Ukraine this summer (minus Jasmyn) and I am so excited to live with all of them for three weeks... and to travel to China also with Taci and Katherine. The six of us have already started to plan host family gifts and meals and things - I think we'll room well together :)




Heather and Chance. Both are such great dancers. They and Matthew and Emily were probably the best ones last night while everyone else either watched or made up their own dances. I like that though not everyone is good we still have a lot of fun trying. Not sure who took pictures of the dancing but whoever you are THANK YOU for stealing my camera for a bit :)






My brother and I. He was having fun holding my hands and spinning around really really fast but then decided that he wanted to actually dance. So we kinda made something up. I showed him some of the waltz(what we're doing in this picture), and then we did a twist like thing. His favorite part was making me spin under his arm.





Maddie and Jillian. I like these pictures of siblings dancing :) The Mansell kids all came and made the party a real party... Elaina's interpretive dancing, Tamu's obsession with the fire of the tiki torch, Bethlehem's desire to see my balcony and then gettin upset when no one could hear her yelling at them from above... I like that family!







There was quite a bit of dancing as you can see. A long game of Catch Phrase followed when we were all too hot and nasty to want to dance any longer. Not a whole lot of pictures were taken but I like the ones that people did get. I think they had fun - I did. Welcome back, Lachowitzers!

a post with thoughts from a conversation Heather and I had coming later :)

your opinions, please

If I were to do something different with my hair, what would you suggest?

• long layers
• cut it shorter
• lots of layers, long and short (this would mean shortish pieces up to maybe my nose level... it would look shorter than it would actually be)
  
• get it straightened again (I got it relaxed once... if I did this again I'd wear it straight, though not as severely as I used to)
• dye it (any color you please... that looks natural)
  

These are things to get you thinking... please let me know what you think because I'm a bit bored with it... if I get no feedback I'll probably just cut it off :(
If you comment you must offer some suggestion... I'm not looking for someone to say, "please don't do anything...".
Thanks.