Category Archives: Stuff I Actually Think

The amen.

Stuff I Actually Think

The AMEN.

The yes.

The so-be-it.

The it-is-done, it is finished.

The yeah-you-got-that-right.

The yes.  I totally agree.

The AMEN and AMEN.  Finality.  Settled.

Growing up as a Pentecostal preacher’s daughter, I was accustomed to some strong preaching that invited lots of “Amens” from the congregation.  Pastors pretty much judged their sermons by them.  On a “good” Sunday, they were pleased with the number of amens.

From the earliest age, though, I recall cringing when something particularly direct would come from the preacher and a certain member or two would piously and quite decidedly say “Amen” like: I hope the rest of you heard that and know how true it is for you.  I never cared for those amens.

But I always loved the ones that sealed the great promises of God with the kiss of hope.  Like:

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.  Amen.  Romans 16.24

That is a beautiful amen.

Sadly, though, I have come to know that we can still  set a finality of judgement or condemnation with invisible amens on each other.  Sometimes knowingly, maybe most times not.

The amen that shouldn’t be.

I wonder, what have my actions and my words or my attitude or opinions just “amened” in your life?

Did I amen God’s plan for you?  Did I amen and agree on the deep dreams of your heart, the hopes in the very core of your being?  Did I say yes to what you only dare to believe is God’s opinion on you?

Or did I amen the enemy assignment on your life, the one that rips your heart and places itself against what you born for?  Did I amen the weak places, the accusations whispered in your ear, the lies you have believed about yourself or the weapons formed against you that keep you bound and tied up?

Did I just amen condemnation, doubt, guilt and accusation in you?  Did I just trample the will of God toward you, a sure abuse and misuse of His Word?

“…whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Matthew 18

Some Many amens should be retracted.  Quickly.  Amen?

Gemma May – My Birthday Girl is 5 Years Old!!

2 Mi Familia, 3 Celebrations & Festive Events, Stuff I Actually Think

oops…publishing this a day late :(

O Gemma May – the smiles you do bring!

FIVE kisses

Five hugs

Five wishes

And five lady-bugs just for you!

Gem-Gem, joy-girl.  I love your smile.  I love your sweet, lilty voice.  I love that even when you run and jump into my arms with abandoned glee, you remember to pose in case some one is auditioning you.  You are are outgoing, the bright light, the joyful sun, the happy-maker.  You are gentle and sweet to the core.  I treasure the school-time and o-though I celebrate your birthday, I am already jealous of your Kindergarten teacher.  I love you bunches, sweet-pea.

You are my sweetie-pie.

Everything you do, you do with joy.  Do you know how unusually amazing that is?

Here are some Bible words for you on the occasion of your 5th birthday:

Praise the Lord, Sweet-pea!  Live   your life praising Him with all you have got in you!

And sing to Him, too.  Make up all kinds of new songs and sing them to all the people around you!

Just rejoice in God because He created you and He sure did a great job, don’tcha think?  So, be joyful in your King.  You’re His little princess.  Make Him happy by your dancing and get out all the instruments you can find and play them for Him.  Because that sure does make the Lord happy.  When you are careful and respectful to Him, He makes you even more beautiful and saves you from your enemies.

Twirl around, Gemma May and be joyful in God’s glory shining right on you.  Even when you go to bed, you should sing really loud to God once in a while (like your mommy did when she was a little girl).  But – be sure it is ok with mommy and daddy!  :)

Speak some really great words about God.  Let those wonderful words come right out of your mouth about Him.  Just praise the Lord, Gemma.  Praise the Lord a whole bunch!

Psalm 149, paraphrased, naturally

 

Be still, my heart

Happy Birthday, my Gemma, my joy.  Your Nonna loves you.

Starry Starry Night

2 Mi Familia, 3 Celebrations & Festive Events, 6 Looking Back // Memories!, Stuff I Actually Think

Found in my drafts from late last August…

My Heaven Fest Familia.

A month of Sundays

We met regularly leading up to “the party.”  The days were long and the sunsets were beautiful.  The room was filled with chatter and though the meetings were only scheduled to be 2 1/2 hours so people could get home for their work week, these amazing people hung out and often laughter and tears and prayer could be heard for hours on end…

The party.

Just past midnight, after the final song had been sung from main stage, we jumped in to the aftermath, together, like families do.  We’d hosted 33,000+ people and it had been lovely, really good.

The wrap-up love-fest

We met on the 88 acres Mark and Lanna have out where Colorado feels rural.  There was a 100-mile mountain view for our wrap-up look-what-God-has-done celebration meal.  It was a hot day, but  we sat under trees and in pop-ups and fellow-shipped around food, memories, a collective sigh of we-did-it.  There was a hum of goodwill, friendship, and family.  Kids ran happily across the acreage, streamers blew in the breeze, the energetic-competitives challenged each other to lawn games and the iced tea refreshed.

It was the wind-up.  It was the culmination of months of hard work that led to Heaven Fest 2011 then through 3 weeks of intensive wrap up.  All of our meetings through the months (beginning in April) had been dedicated, challenging work, yet we’d leave refreshed and ignited to fulfill God’s call, together.  A random group of people from a gazillion different churches all over the Front Range came together and became :: a family.

And I miss these people.  Yes, it has only been a few weeks since the celebration on a summer evening that turned into a warm, inviting night, where we laughed and cried and sang together and recounted the amazing thing we’d just done together.  Just a few weeks since we settled into lawn chairs to recount glory-stories and worship and sing and thank each other and just love.  Not even a month since we gathered around a bonfire to roast marshmallows and the sweet aroma of unity rose up to please our Father.  But I miss these people like crazy.

Update –

SAVE THE DATE:  Saturday July 28, 2012, another starry night.

More time with these…

 

You think you know some one

Stuff I Actually Think

Dave and I were watching the end of an episode of The Mentalist and in the end, it was revealed that a wife had been the murderer, but her husband had been taking the rap.  Of course, they ultimately realized it and she went to jail.  The nice guy wanders aimlessly into his new life alone…

I turned to Dave, expecting this tender moment and asked, “If I killed some one, would you take the blame for me?”

I totally expected him to say yes, because Dave is so nice like that.

He turned, thought about it for a moment and said it depended on whom I had killed.

What the heck kind of commitment is that?

Pinned Image

Oh, the places you’ll go…

2 Mi Familia, 3 Celebrations & Festive Events, Stuff I Actually Think

Stephanie and Tristan just got back from an anniversary trip to London and Pah*ree!  {Paris, but have fun with it}

 In London.

She has been writing about it at www.MayDae.com There are amazingly beautiful photographs.  I am not just saying that because I am her mom.  The pictures are straight from  a Conde Nast travel mag!

Stephanie is Paris.

Stormie and her dad just returned from a trip to Honduras with Compassion International

A truck burgeoning with tomatoes

Where they got to see firsthand that the simple act of sponsoring a child really does impact their lives forever – AND you can actually meet and know that child!  She has also been writing about it, with photographs, naturally, at www.MayDae.com

Stormie and Dave (center) with their trip hosts and translators.  Everyone sort of expected Dave to be able to speak Spanish.  But, no.  He is the worst.  :)

Tredessa and Ryan, the newlyweds, are in Florida for the week.

His brother, Erik, is marrying Jen.  Congratulations Erik and Jen.  You are awesome.  We love you and wish you the best.

Erik, Cody and Jen at Ryan and Tre’s wedding. 

Rocky and Jovan are headed to Las Vegas for a little romance for a few days.

They are spending the night with the Girly-Q’s tonight so we can shuttle them to the airport early in the morning and hang out with Averi and Amelie on Friday.

Swiped from Facebook this morning.  Pretty family.  Rocky rocking the horizontal stripes.

And if I tried to document all DP and Tara’s travels, this would indeed become the Powers-Family-Travelogue.  But for the next few days?  They’ll be around.  :)

Sandy-the-Dog & Tuppy-the-Puppy

2 Mi Familia, Stuff I Actually Think

Young pup, old friend

Sandy is roughly 12 years old (we hauled her home after some one abandoned her at the landfill; she is truly our “junkyard dog”).  We aren’t exactly sure of her age, but we have had her since May of 2001, right around the time Tredessa graduated from high school.    She has been proclaimed younger by veterinarians, up 4 years younger than the years she has been around.  So we call it twelve.  I think that means she is in her 60s, human-year-wise.

Btw, using the opposite calculation, I am not even 10 yet (in dog years), which is nice.

Sandy-the-Dog came to us wild and woolly and looking so much like Chewabaca we wonder now that we didn’t name her that.  But we chose Sandy for the dog in the Broadway-musical-turned-movie the kids so enjoyed over and over and over when they were little, “Annie.”  Serendipitous that a couple of years ago, she actually got to play Sandy in the community theater.

She still loves to run the back yard and cheat at the game of fetch, meaning you can throw it and she’ll run to get it, but then she will jet around like a banchee and never bring it back.  You have to chase her to get it.  That is Sandy for you.  She still seems playful and puppy-like to me because she is sweet and kindhearted and loves people like crazy (so much like my mom, I tell ya!).

Tuppy-the-Puppy of Martha Stewart pet products fame CLICK HERE

But then a real puppy comes calling.  Yes.  Tuppy-the-Puppy (shown above) spent 3 days with us last week.  And holy-moly, that little booger moves fast, jumps high, can switch from forward to reverse and back again on a dime and even though Sandy has at least 50 pounds on her, Tuppy was not shy about trying to be alpha.  Sandy was rather unaffected by her cuteness, but they get along just fine.

So there we were.  Two dogs.  One is super-colorful-fast-forward.  The other living in black-and-white-slow-mo’…

Quite the sight.  I realized how old Sandy really is getting to be.

Tuppy is less than 5 months old and is the picture of a tiger-by-the-tail.  She made me laugh constantly, jumping on my head and biting my nose, snuggling close for a quick nap then on-the-go at 95mph.

Sandy (with an extra-short haircut)

Sandy, true to her German Wiredhaired Pointer characteristics, lives to please us.  She is like a trusted friend, always ready with a warm greeting when I come home, edging as close to my feet as possible when I sit.   In fact, where I go, she goes.

Sandy is going to die and break my ever-loving heart, isn’t she?

Three Coins in a Fountain

5 Songs I am Singing, 9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Think

It’s settled.  My next vacation is going to be in Rome.  I will stay in the Villa Eden and it will be 1954.  So, time travel will be involved as well.

And I shall need full use of Anita’s kelly-green dress and the yellow polka-dotted dress with the orange bolero.

The dashing man:  Now I shall see you again?

The American girl:   I don’t know.  You see I’m rather afraid of you.

The dashing man:  Afraid?  Of me?

The American girl:  Well not because of your reputation.  You see, I’ve discovered you have an exciting mind, something that handsome men rarely have.  And the uh – combination –  might be too much for some one as responsive as I am.

Think he fell for that?  You betcha!

Netflix Instant Queue is just such a wondrous thing.

Days

9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Think

Dr. Archibald “Moonlight” Graham:

You know we just don’t recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they’re happening. Back then I thought, well, there’ll be other days. I didn’t realize that that was the only day.

From “Field of Dreams”

Field of Dreams is one of my favorite baseball movies.  Heck, one of my favorite movies of any kind.