Wedding Bliss

Matt and I have relinquished our title of the most newlywed couple out of our Berry family. Congratulations to Brian and Saxon! We love you both and we all had an incredible time celebrating your marriage this past weekend!! Can’t wait to see the fabulous “Carrie Jo” pictures, she and her team are so talented.

Inheritance

I’ve been learning so much in the Beth Moore Bible study on Inheritance. I love listening to Beth Moore and her studies are always so in-depth, but I often hesitate from doing her usual studies because of the magnitude of the homework. I’m a slow learner, slow reader and slow thinker. Well, slow is negative…I process at a unique pace. That combined with an extremely busy schedule makes this study perfect for me. It has been great, it’s just DVDs and a listening guide, yet still full of truth and depth. I get to hang out with this girl and learn about our wonderful Inheritance in the Lord!

Here are some things that I am meditating on through this study:

• Do I believe that God is a giver or a taker? (and don’t listen to your initial Sunday School answer, but ask yourself truly and it gets difficult)
• I need to get on board with the wild ride God has in store for me, but that also means I’ve got to get out the driver’s seat.
• Do I believe I am going to have to give things up for God’s plans for my life?
• Inheritance is the Gospel.
• I am a co-heir with Christ.
• Yes, I am a woman, making me an heiress, but I also have full rights as a son. (which in the times scripture was written, being male meant you had more rights)
• Sometimes, you’ve got to fight for things to have the strength to keep hold of it.

 

I love the core scripture for this, easy to remember and so full of truth.

“The lines have fallen in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.” Psalm 16:5-6

 

There is so much more coming out of this study. We are only half way through, so be on the lookout for Part 2 of what God is teaching me!

“my furniture craze”

matt says i’ve been on a furniture craze….maybe i have been, but moving into a blank slate of a house has just gotten me so excited! i’m very excited to have this chair arrive at our house in the next several days!

the best part about this is that i saw the chair on display at Target with my mother in law, then it goes on sale the very next day! and then…when i looked online, it was 15% off the sale price and free shipping! so totally easy and pretty much free because of wedding gift cards!

i’m thinking a robin egg blue pillow will be so fun on this!

what have you seen in your life?

meet Robert.

this is my grandpa. grandaddy. poppie… depends on the day.

last week, he had his 87th birthday! it amazes when i think about his 87 years. what he has seen in his lifetime. born in 1922 and seen the year 2009. that is crazy.

he and my grandmother raised 4 girls and a boy (and he was so glad to have a boy, at last!). they have 10 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren!

i know i have seen so many cultural and technological advances in my life. i can’t even fathom how he feels about what he has seen…

he doesn’t read this, but i thought i’d share with my readers about the incredible man i call grandpa (or grandaddy, poppie).

things i am looking forward to…

a little top 5 for your friday.

1. Thanksgiving! I’ve been looking at some pumpkin muffin/cupcake recipes and I am pumped about November! We will be in Savannah for Thanksgiving this year and it is going to be fantastic.

2. Naturally, Christmas!!!!! this will be our first Christmas being married. can’t wait to establish some traditions with eachother and the family we’ll have one day.

3. “Sex in the City” — no, not the show, but our weekend getaway with other Oak Leaf Church couples. We’re going to Buckhead for a retreat and I’m pumped!

4. the 2nd week of November. Matt will be finished with his heavy travel season for work and I cannot tell you how ready I am for that time to be here!

5. being able to wear scarves and coats again! really need a hayride to go on.

The Super Scandalous New Series at Oak Leaf Church…

The sexiest love story of all time won’t be found in a Shakespeare play or a Nicholas Sparks novel.  Believe it or not, it’s found in the Bible.  Join us as we walk through the book of Song of Solomon and learn about what God says about sex, dating, marriage and relationships.  It’s a series called Storybook Sex.  Here’s the lineup:

October 3/4:  The Smell of Attraction
October 10/11:  You’re Getting Warmer
October 17/18:  The Wedding Day
October 24/25:  Trouble in Paradise
October 31/November 1:  Making Love Last

NEW Service Times:

Saturday 5:00 and 6:30

Sunday 10:00 and 11:30

as an added bonus, check out Dr. Debbie’s educational videos. you won’t regret it!!

i am actually going to use a sports analogy!?!

so I have not been able to stop thinking about something my brother and his friend, Aaron were talking to me about the other day. On Saturday, I spent the day going to my brother’s college football game and then had dinner with the family afterwards. Sadly, our beloved team lost, which brought dad, Josh and Aaron into the discussion about the team and what went wrong. The scoreboard (23-6) would not show it, but the defensive team did so well. My brother had one of the best games of the season. But the offensive team was like a flashback from two years ago where we went 2 seasons with no wins (and like 1 touchdown). the guys said the most intriguing thing about why the offensive team did not do well: “the offensive players are always questioning the plays being called by the coaches, while the defensive team goes at the play full force and not questioning their coach”

wow. and that cost them the game.

what does that say about team mentality? about the respect for your leader? and how that one thing can affect the outcome of your entire game?

this is so applicable to the church and ministry life. if a congregation, church staff member, or church volunteer questions the authority given to the leader of that church, it IS going to affect the outcome of the ministry. i have seen this full-fledged in my life. questioning the pastor means that you are questioning the authority God has given them to lead that church.

i am not saying that you should follow someone blindly. that is how so many people just listened to Jim Jones and drank the koolaid leading them to their deaths. but when you know you are in a church that is preaching TRUTH, then stop questioning the calls being made. we’ve got to take on this “game” (that is not a game, but ETERNITY) with such a strong passion and force. if we don’t, eternal lives are at stake. my pastor is always telling the staff “we will do whatever it takes for what is at stake.”

i am a firm believer in this and will follow that philosophy to the best of my ability in all that i do.

and i can’t believe i actually have used a sports analogy effectively. maybe my dad has rubbed off on me after all…

who do kids listen to?

The past two weekends at Oak Leaf, we have had an influx of students serving in the children’s environments. I love this for so many reasons. First of all, the more hands, the better, when serving. But more importantly, “teenagers” are who kids look up to! With boys and girls developing so much sooner in life than they used to, you’ve got to stop and think about who it is they are watching and listening to. The Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Disney Channel stars….they are all teens (and even early 20s)! Don’t get me wrong, it’s awesome to have adults serve with kids. They need that Godly influence, but you know the kids still see adults as “authority figures” instead of friends. That is why I love students serving with kids.

Students, keep up the incredible work you are doing!! You are making a difference.

Adults, pour in to these students so that we can make a difference for them and through them!! This is discipleship at its best.

what do you need freedom from?

drug addiction

alcohol abuse

obsessions

pride

the wrong relationship

a wrong friendship

the mirror

eating

not eating

porn

self-mutilation

negativity

laziness

depression

spending

sin

You CAN break free.

Find out how the next few weeks at Oak Leaf Church.

Tear down the Walls

been listening to Hillsong’s latest cd in the car lately.

on my drive to and from work.

every day, i pass a church that has a fence and a locked gate. it’s a small church that hasn’t seemed to grow in the last 5 years i’ve been driving past it. i never see more than 3 cars at a time.

this saddens me.

this church reminds me of a story my parents tell me about a church my dad interviewed at when i was younger. my parents drove up to the church to find a large fence with barbed wire at the top. the church had become a prison for those in it and a fortress to those outside. what makes this even more sad is that there were “projects” all around the church. needless to say, my parents felt like turning around right then and there, not wanting to be a part of something that didn’t have wide open doors. i’m so glad we didn’t end up at that church.

i’m sure there are plenty of churches with physical fences and boundaries to getting in, but there are probably even more churches with figurative fences. what walls do we need to tear down? i think these things are both traditional and “contemporary” things that people see as boundaries.

it just got me thinkin’…