so much to say

Hi everyone! I have been meaning to post a blog all week, and still haven't found the time. Disciple Now was amazing! I have some funny videos to post as soon as I get more than 5 minutes to sit at the computer. I'll leave you with this prayer until then: "Lord, help us to let people disappoint us so that You can be our everything." Beth Moore prayed that at her Tuesday night Bible Study, and it really struck me! Blessings for the rest of the week!

Worthy is the Lamb

I just spent some time in the Word, and wanted to share. I'm doing the Jesus the One and Only Study and I'm down to the last 15 days or so. This time will be completely focused on Christ's death and resurrection. Today's study was about Jesus asking Peter and John to go and make preparations for the Passover meal in the upper room. These were tasks that were time consuming, and often carried out by women, so Peter and John might have even grumbled at the task before them. Beth Moore points out that when God calls us to a specific task it is so He can reveal Himself either to us or through us. There is always purpose to what God is calling us to! She went on to explain that the biggest part of the preparation for the Passover meal was preparing the lamb, and how later in scripture, both of these disciples described Christ as the Lamb. God used this time of preparing to reveal Himself to these two disciples. He became the ultimate Passover Lamb. The Lamb that died once for ALL! As I read John's words in Revelation 5 describing the Lamb, something struck me. While Jesus is portrayed as the Lamb that was slain, He is on the throne! The story of the cross doesn't end with the sacrifice of the Lamb, it continued as Christ overcame death and sin and Satan when He rose on the third day, and it still continues as He reveals Himself to and through each of us who is willing to be obedient to the tasks He calls us to, even the menial, mundane, everyday ones that we might have a tendency to groan about.

Tonight marks the beginning of our Disciple Now Weekend with our teenagers at church. This weekend's theme is "Revealed." Join me in praying that God would reveal Himself to teenagers in a very real way. That they would truly see what happened on the cross and the victory they can live their lives in because of Christ!

A Big Day

This post might come as a surprise to many of you, since I am unashamedly very conservative politically and didn't vote for Barack Obama for president, and am actually concerned about policy under his administration, but I think God is very clear about this subject: we are commanded to pray for those in authority.

So, as Christians, let's use this as an example to others of how we live out our faith and bring glory to the Father. I'm commiting to pray for President Obama, his wife and daughters. I'm not saying this to make myself look good, it's just something that God has convicted me about. Pray for wisdom, discernment and peace as he guides our country through a very difficult time in our history. I am confident in God's sovereignty and know that he uses ALL things for His glory and to accomplish His will!

Another thing. . .I have just started reading a book called Same Kind of Different as Me. It is a true story that deals with the race relations in our country even in the not-so-distant past. As I read this and am appalled at the way people were treated because of the color of their skin, I am so proud to live in a country that has elected a black man for president. We have come a long way! Now, if we'll just elect a black woman (aka Condi Rice) then I'll really be excited (had to throw that in there!).

Let me end with this. I can't have a blog about the new administration without mentioning President Bush. I have always been a Bush supporter and I know that God had the right man in office for the last 8 years. He faced probably the most difficult circumstances of any modern day president and I think he handled them to the best of his ability with the information he had. I'm thankful that we have had a president these last 8 years who is very bold about his faith and the fact that he spends time in the Word daily. Thank you W for leading us with grace under fire!!

New Memory Verse

Here's the 2nd January memory verse chosen by Lacey. Join us in memorizing!

"Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God." 2 Corinthians 9:10-11

I'm so glad Lacey brought my attention to this verse! Let's recognize how blessed we truly are and live lives of generosity. We all encounter people with real needs every day. Let's be like Jesus and meet those needs so the Father will be glorified!

Have a great week!

Rodeo

So, today, I celebrated a very important Simmons family tradition... buying Rodeo tickets! Not really very important, but it has become a tradition. No matter where we are, the Simmons sisters are usually on the phone to each other at 9:45 on the third Saturday morning of January with a game plan. You see, we typically go to 4 or 5 performances and we have to make sure and get all the tickets. And this year, Miss Priss (aka my niece Isabella) can't possible miss seeing Taylor Swift (or according to her Taylor "Witch"), so, those tickets were first priority, eventhough I'm not even going to that performance. Aunt Janell came through with that purchase! We got all of our tickets, but I was beyond frustrated by the time I was done. I decided I would be "smart" and sign into both of my TicketMaster accounts at the same time and try to search for tickets to 2 different performances. Well, clearly, the TicketMaster people are much smarter than me, so they kicked me out all together! That put my ticket hunt behind by about 7 minutes. Fortunately Janell was buying tickets in Round Rock and not breaking the rules, so we got all of our tickets. I think the coming season of Spring might be my favorite. The Rodeo will be here before we know it, and by then Spring Training is underway, which means it'll be no time at all until I am spending several nights a week at Minute Maid Park watching my Astros! YAY! Hope everyone is having a great weekend. I'm about to go shopping!!

Trusting Him

I was trying to think of something funny to share on my blog today, but I literally slept the entire day, so no exciting escapades! I'll be at work tonight, and you never know what might happen there!

So, I guess you'll have to listen to me being serious again today. 2008 was a good year for me: not because it was free of drama (because it certainly wasn't), not because of any significant event (because there really weren't any), and not because everything went as planned (because it certainly didn't), but because God was truly at work (and still is!). I had been kind of just "truckin' along" the last couple of years. I didn't have consistent quiet times, and was way too busy doing life and ministry and church to focus on my personal time with God like I should. Anyway, I'm not going to give you the play by play (and should probably apologize to some of you who have had to hear the play by play!), but because of some life circumstances, I found myself turning to the only place I knew. . .the Word! I mean, I read my Bible fairly regularly, but this was daily seeking after Him. For the first time in my life I could identify with James about rejoicing in trials. .because I did. Now, sometimes I hate to even call my circumstances trials, because they pale in comparison to some of the trials of many people that I know. But, they were something that shook the core of what I believed about myself and my God and the grace that He extends. Anyway, to make a long story short, I had to rely on Him and trust Him. For those of you who know me, I am a bit of a control freak and trusting anyone is hard for me. One of the lessons God has taught me in the last year is to follow Him not just out of obedience, but out of complete and utter trust that His ways are higher than ours. I'll usually do what God wants because He's God and that's what I'm supposed to do, but a lot of times I don't completely trust Him. I read a quote on Beth Moore's blog (www.livingproofministries.blogspot.com) that just really spoke to me where I was. She said, "Jesus is so worthy of our trust no matter what has taken us by surprise!" Guess what? God is not surprised by our life circumstances. Quite the opposite. He is using them to mold us and make us who He wants us to be. So, when you feel like someone just pulled a rug out from under you, and you might have a long hard fall, the great thing is that we have a firm foundation on which to land! And, we can look back at what God has done and rejoice in those times of trials!

I won't go on and on in this post, because if I tried to write down everything I learned last year, we'd be here all day. Just remember when life seems out of control, it's okay, because we know Who is in control and He has our best interest at heart ALWAYS! He is so worthy of our trust!

Here Goes Nothing :)

Well, I guess I've officially jumped on the "blogging bandwagon!" I love to put my thoughts down on paper (or a computer screen in this case). I'll have to say I'm a little intimidated since I don't have some huge significant event to blog about, but sometimes my life can be pretty amusing, and God's always teaching me new things that I'd love to share. So. . . .here goes!

I'll start with a disclaimer of sorts. . .I work nights, so some of my posts might be written in the wee hours of the morning. Our theory at work is that we're not held responsible for anything we say after 3:00 a.m.! So, I was sitting at work tonight checking out all the blogs that I follow and decided to create my own. That was 3 hours ago. I have spent the last three hours trying to figure out a name for this dang thing (yes, it's a slow night in the NICU). I was seriously stressing out about this. I wanted something clever and meaningful (as if people are really going to care what my blog is called). I'm sure I'm not going to have a huge following of faithful "blog-stalkers" anyway, but I wanted it to be good! I decided there are two things that I would say I'm passionate about in life: my relationship with Christ and baseball. Okay, so maybe not on the same level, but you know what I mean. Let's just say I'm counting down the days until Spring Training! So, I started searching for names that would incorporate both. I have to say my favorite one was "Intentional Walk," but some other blogger has taken that one. So, since I couldn't figure out how to steal the name from this other blogger, I settled on "Crossing Home: Living a Life of Victory." I want my blog to encourage people to live their lives not based upon their circumstances, but on the victory that has already been won by our Savior! This is a point that I think I finally grasped after doing Beth Moore's Breaking Free Bible Study last year. The victory has been won! The veil was torn! As Christians, we have no excuse to sit around and mope about our life circumstances! We've read the end of the story and we know who wins! If that's not reason enough to celebrate life, then I don't know what is!

Let me close with a little struggle I'm having this week. I am a faithful stalker of Beth Moore's blog (www.livingproofministries.blogspot.com). At the beginning of 2009, she challenged us to memorize scripture this year. I knew this was one area of my walk that certainly needed work, so I took the challenge. I bought a little binder of notecards and wrote my first scripture. I have 2 more days to memorize this first passage and I am having a hard time! I think it's because I'm getting old (turning 29 next week and freaking out a little!). Just kidding. I know that Scripture is the main way we can fight the battle we are waging against Satan, so he would love for me to give up on this challenge. He will NOT win the victory, so I'll be memorizing like a mad woman for the next two days. Here's the scripture: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. " Whew! That's a mouthful! It would be awesome if you'd like to join in on this scripture memorizing journey! Let me know in the comments and we can hold each other accountable!