Testing, testing...

Yep, tomorrow I am taking a test. I hope I pass!  The test includes an English section, a math section, and an "ability to assist" section.  If I pass the test and the interview, I will working as an instructional assistant.  Yes, I am thinking of making the change from teacher to assistant (for various reasons).  First I need to make sure that it isn't a contract position, and before that even, I have to pass the test.

Here we go!

Sunday

Tomorrow is Sunday, and here's what we have goin' on...

1. Amos will get up and go to church with Wayne, one of the elders at our church.  Amos is going to run the slides and Wayne will play electric guitar on the worship team.  Wayne only lives a mile or so down the road, so it's nice for me; I don't have to drive Amos to church in my jammies before coming back to get ready for church myself. :)

2. I will go to church and talk to the ladies sitting in front of me, Wayne's wife Rosemary and her/our friend Molly.  They love it when we sit behind them because Amos has a really good singing voice.  They will have to suffer through listening to just me tomorrow, though, because Amos will be in the sound booth.

3. While Amos stays at church for the second and third services, I will go to In N Out to meet Paul and Katharyn as they pass through Santa Clarita on the way home from Paul's brother's wedding.  I have a few presents for them that I've been working on for the last FOUR years.  Sad, but I'm glad I can finally hand them off and not worry about finishing them!

4. I will come back to church and hang out or go home until 12:30, when I will be back at church for a lunch meeting about our upcoming Easter service.  Easter is going to be crazy.  We will be going to the local community college's stadium for a churchwide service; hopefully it doesn't rain because we will all be outside!  Also, who knows what will happen the Sunday after Easter; will all the "Creasters"* show up at our already too-small church building?  Who knows!
*Creaster is our pastor's term for people who only go to church on Christmas and Easter ;)

5. We will come home and take a nap!

6. We will wake up and make brownies for our friend Jamie's birthday party!  I'll also type up several copies of discussion questions from the bulletin to take to Fusion, our young adults group.

7. We will go back to church, again, for Fusion.

8. We'll go to Matt and Jamie's house for Jamie's party!

9. We will go home and pass out.

What does your Sunday look like?

God Is Able

I love this song by Hillsong.

There is one line that says,
"God is with us, God is on our side..."

I thought, "That is awfully presumptuous, that God is on our side.  What if we are in sin?  Who am I to assume that God is on my side?  I'm a human, so I could be doing the wrong thing even when I believe it is right."

Then I realized, God is on our side because even in the midst of sin, there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).  He will work everything, even our backsliding and bad situations, for our good and His glory.

God is for us; God is on our side.  For our good always.  Deuteronomy 6-8

Thursday, February 9th: Seven months ago, we got married! :D

Friday, February 10th: One year ago, Amos asked me to marry him!

Sunday, February 12th: One year ago, our pastor announced at our church's Servants' Coffee event that we were engaged.

 I love you very much, dearest!  You truly are my bestest buddy forever.

Without ending us

"In his death, God suffers in love, identifying with the abandoned and godforsaken.  Why did he do it?  The Bible says that Jesus came on a rescue mission for creation.  He had to pay for our sins so that someday he can end evil and suffering without ending us."

:: Timothy Keller, The Reason for God

Lillias

I just finished reading A Passion for the Impossible: The Life of Lillias Trotter, by Miriam Huffman Rockness.  One of my friends read it a while ago, but I didn't write down the title and thus didn't check out the book.  Recently I saw that one of the professors at Master's was going to do a workshop on women missionaries, and I saw Lillias Trotter's name in the description.  I wrote down her name and headed to the library, determined to find her biographies before someone else did (though I doubt many college students would be really interested in reading an extra book at the start of the semester ;) ).

Lillias was a pioneer missionary to Algeria in the late 1800s-early 1900s.  She and two friends landed on the coast literally knowing no one and speaking no Arabic (though they did know French; whew!).  Lillias lived and worked among Algerian Muslims for forty years.  She is a great inspiration of trust and dedication; I hope I can be like her one day.

I included several quotes from her diaries and other writings.  I underlined the parts that I especially liked.


"For the blessedness of receiving is not all God has for us: a new world lies beyond - a world of giving: a giving first to God in surrender, then to man in sacrifice."

"The whole place gives one the impression of being 'White unto the harvest.'  May God Himself put in the sickle and gather the souls into His garner, to be made in their turn seeds for future sowing."

"I am full of hope that when God delays in fulfilling our little thoughts, it is to have Himself room to work out His great ones."

"...and then a strange peace - almost joy settled down on us - & the certainty of one of God's sequels worth waiting for as they have ever been in time past when our ways have been switched off the lines on which we counted."

"...time is nothing to God - nothing in its speeding, nothing in its halting - He is the God that inhabiteth eternity."

"...it is an older faith that learns to swing out into nothingness & drop down full weight on God...nothing between us and the abyss but Himself - A rejoicing in every fresh emergency that is going to prove Him true - The Lord Alone - that is trained faith."