Forgiveness

My Dad came across this website sermon that I found very interesting. I had never heard that there is Biblical basis for forgiveness only upon the repentance of the other party. This sermon basically was saying that the word forgiveness actually must include repentance by the other person in order to truly be carried out. It backs this up with Scripture which states the God does not forgive us until we have repented (acknowleged our "wrongness") with the exception when Christ asked for forgivess for those who crucified Him because they didn't know what they were doing. The website also includes Scripture which tells us as Christians how to forgive including the well-known Luke 17:3-4 "seventy times seven" passage. Interestingly, if you read the whole verses, it includes a conditional "if" statement, if the person repents.

I'm not sure what to think about this. I mean I understand that God doesn't forgive (holds against us) our sins until we have repented, but can we as Christians not forgive our brother without sinning ourselves? In other words, can we hold a brother's sin against him without harboring anger, bitterness, etc. at the same time? Maybe there are some of you who have figured out how to do that. If so, please explain it to me because I think of people that I have forgiven without their repentance, and don't know how I would have let go of the pain and anger without forgiving them. To me, forgiving that person who hasn't asked for it is just having some empathy for why they did what the did, letting it go, and acting accordingly. Therefore, not behaving angrily toward the person or bringing up what they did.

Anyway, what thoughts do you guys have?

Memorial Weekend

Well, of course seeing my family is always wonderful, and this weekend I also got to see several old friends and celebrate a family friend's high school graduation. I felt so old! So many of these kids that graduated were so little last time I saw them. I guess I really am old because that sounds like something that old people say. But as I'm sure you can guess, the highlight of my weekend was this little guy.

He's so precious!!! I love holding him and feeding him. It does give me the fever a little bit, but if you know me, you know I'm very much a realist, so I know we have to wait until I'm finished with school. But this little guy definitely makes you itch for one. I also know that I don't have to get up with him every 3 hours while I'm trying to sleep at night too, so I'm a little biased.

I know people say when they're this little that smiling is just gas, but I still love it when he does it. Too bad the gas-smile doesn't ever go away for men.


This precious little guy makes you think about the miracle that every child is. I think about how God has known him for so long, and we're just getting a taste of what he already knows about Caiden. I know he will grow so fast and his parents will have to make so many decisions and lift up so many prayers about him. You can't help but think about all that raising a child entails. Kudos to those of you who are doing it. I'm already praying for Joey and I, that we will be able to fully trust God with our child(ren) because He will always know what's best for them and already sent His Son to die for them.

Like Father Like Son

I know this may sound crazy to those of you who aren't dog-lovers or treat your pets like they're your children, but I swear my dog acts just like Joey or vice versa. To prove it I'll just list a few similarities:
They are both very protective.
They both want to kill any animal that moves (i.e. deer, ducks, squirrels, etc.)
They both crowd me when we sleep.
They both love to ride in trucks.

Just some of the examples I could think of at the moment, but what really prompted this post was what happened the other night. Joey was working on installing my kitchen sink (the kitchen, by the way, has been an ordeal), and Rocky thought he should be helping. Check out how cute...it's like the little boy that wants to help Dad.



Rocky also has several "tools," a hammer and a wrench. And I promise, he goes and digs through his toybox to find them all the time. If you know Joey, you know that this is exactly like him. Rocky actually went out in the backyard one day with his toy hammer where Joey was working on building a bookshelf, with no prompting at all!

Recipes

A fellow blogger and friend, Laura Beth, had an awesome idea. She was curious about her blog readers and wanted to know who all reads her blog but doesn't always comment. Well, her idea was to ask for everyone who reads to comment with a tasty, creative recipe. So I want to do the same. If you're reading this, please leave a recipe in the comment section so I can learn about my readers. If you don't have a google ID, you can just click on Open ID and type your name there. Thanks for reading!

Here's one from me that I got from my sister-in-law...

Chocolate cobbler
1 c self-rising flour
1 1/2 Tbls. cocoa
3/4 c sugar
1/2 c milk
6 Tbls. butter
1 tsp. vanilla

Melt the butter in the bottom of a 9x13 pan (I do it in the oven while it's preheating to 350). Mix dry ingredients, add milk and vanilla, spoon batter into melted butter.

Topping:
1 c sugar
1/4 c cocoa
1 1/2 c boiling water

Mix sugar and cocoa together and sprinkle over batter in pan. Pour boiling water over the top. Bake at 350 for 30 min. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream, yum!

Anniversary Presents

Our 2-year anniversary isn't for a few days, but we got our gifts early. This was supposed to be for both of us because we love eating outside, espevcially in this non-humid, non-burning up like South GA weather. Well, I guess it ended up being more for me because this is what Joey ended up getting... So of course he tried it out today and loved it because it cut our large yard a lot quicker than the push mower....until he got to the back yard. We have a pretty steep hill on one side of our back yard, so here's some videos of Joey trying to mow it. Attempt #1
Since that was leaving ruts in the yard, he decided to try something else...attempt #2
The solution: we ended up going to Wal-Mart to buy Joey some cheap cleats so he can mountain climb the hill while weed-eating or mowing.

Bittersweet Weekend

We went to our old hometown, Perry, to take back the cattle trailer we borrowed and to visit some dear friends. It was so great to see Clint and Alison and their precious children, Tanner and Taylor.

This family was definitely one of the hardest things to leave. We had such a fun weeekend. Alison, Taylor, and I got pedicures and went shopping. Check out how precious she is.


Joey and Tanner washed our truck and Tanner's John Deere "gator."
We also got to go to a dinner theater put on by the youth group at our old church to raise money for their mission trips this summer. It was hilarious. They basically did a roast of the church staff by putting on skits of all their little quirks, very funny! We went back to our old church and Bible study class. Boy, do we miss that so much. I know God's got a place and a plan for us up here, but I've never felt this connected to a church body before. I've only been a member of two churches my entire life and was very involved in both. I guess because this is the first church that Joey and I attended as husband and wife and were led there together, not to mention all the wonderful couples we met there and the amazing Godly staff, it has been very hard not to compare churches we've been visiting to it. So it was great to see our friends and get to savor another worship service with our church family, but it also kinda reopened a wound by having to leave again. So please pray for us that God will show us the church family here that he wants us to join, and on another note please pray for me as I start seeing clients in a week. It's pretty scary to think that people will be coming to me expecting me to know what I'm doing. And I do in theory, but experience is huge. So pray that I will be filled with the Holy Spirit, and that He will be the one in that room with those clients, not me.

No Pain No Gain

Even though I woke up early this morning with either a stomach bug or food poisoning, I didn't let it get me down. I've gotten a ton of projects done today. It's amazing how much you can get done when you've got a couple of weeks off. So my first task was painting my window box and planting flowers in it.

Next on the list was cleaning all the paint drops out of the hall bath tub from when I finished painting it this past weekend. Goof Off is the best stuff ever, but man was I high after being in that enclosed room with it! Once we finish the tile in there and change out the countertop, it'll be complete!
So then I went out to take all the shutters off the windows to paint them. Well, I became a little wuss about getting up on the ladder when it was unlevel, so Joey came home after lunch to finish taking them off for me. So then I went to painting, and I probably killed many brain cells between that and the Goof Off. But I think I'm pleased with the finished result.

Before

And After


I've still got to paint the front door, probably black, but it's coming along. We still have the big task of landscaping in the Fall.

Our Family's Newest Miracle

Well, our precious little nephew, Caiden Brent Lucas, was born on April 29th, weighed 8 lbs. 2 oz, and was 20 1/2 in. long. He and mom are both happy and healthy. I thought it would finally hit me when I got to see him and hold him, but it still feels so surreal to me that my sister and her husband have a baby. But I'm definitely more emotionally attached to him than any other baby I've ever been around. And this is a big deal because, as some of you know, my parents were "foster" parents to a set of twin baby girls for about a year. I loved those babies, but I definitely feel different about Caiden. I just wanted to hold him all the time! Of course, if my mom was around, she'd steal him from me though. He's so tiny yet it still amazes me that something that large was in my sister's stomach. Anyway, here's the much anticipated pictures...





Check out that mohawk!! He's so precious, and we are so blessed to have him in our lives. Thank you Lord for Caiden!