free tickets and catching up

I have been purposely putting off blogging for a little while. I think it’s because I have so many thoughts and so much to say that a. it probably wouldn't make much sense and b. I’m still sorting through what it is that I’m feeling. 

To update: two weeks ago we moved to Morton! We are renting a great duplex that exceeds our “needs”. We are really enjoying it here. I feel like we have finally started to “transition”…sort of. The “transition” has been much more messy and a lot less easy than I thought it would be. I think I was expecting God to make it easy for us…I mean we just left the mission field, shouldn't He be abundantly lavishing blessings on us? (note the EXTREME sarcasm). Yeah. I realized I was creating “needs” that God must meet or exceed because after all we “deserved” them ...and finally realizing a. we don’t “deserve” any of these and b. He IS exceeding all of our needs…He always does. I realize how ugly those expectations were. How easy it is to develop an “I deserve this” mentality. How gross. 

I could list off a bunch of things that we are blessed with and why God is good to us even when it’s not how we would do it…and while all of that is important and noteworthy…it dims. It dims in comparison that I am blessed because I have Jesus. (this is not a fluffy comment, it’s deeply sincere). Because if everything that was “making me feel blessed” was stripped away from me…I’m still lavishly blessed because I have an undying and everlasting Hope. I have to adjust my focus on this often. I tend to get really caught up in stuff and expectations and disappointments that I forget how seriously and intensely good I have it- solely because of Jesus.

Okay so you know when you’re listening to the radio and they have those games where you call in and attempt to win prizes? Well it turns out Seth has some kind of eerie knack of winning radio prizes. He wins things all the time. This time he won tickets to a Woman of Faith conference. SO this past weekend I went to the conference with my mom. To be honest I had some preconceived judgments about the conference that everything was going to be tied up in a bow and “this is what you need to do to be a good little Christian wife/mom/woman”. And it turns out I was wrong and God humbled me. It was an awesome weekend :). 

Out of many things I learned one keeps sticking out…God INHABITS the praises of His people. One of the speakers really drove this home in a fresh perspective I’d never before understood. The definition of inhabit means to live or reside in/to dwell/to be present in; fill. Simply put- when you praise God He shows up. When you don’t know what to do, worship Him and you will feel His presence. When you praise Him, He inhabits you. So next time you’re frustrated, hopeless, fearful, anxious, fill in the blank- literally sing praises out loud to Him and feel His presence. I'll admit it is not my first reaction- to praise God when life is hard...but I want to do this.

Have a great Monday!!

A couple of my favorite pictures from recently:

I had the extreme privilege to take some maternity photos for one of my dearest friends and had to post a few from the shoot because they are too stinking cute.