Love. Claim the fruit of the Spirit.

No worries, I'm not trying to define love in 250 words or less. The Bible does that: I'm no Bible.

But what's interesting to is that we has an amazing sermon this Sunday Mr. Dennis Sims brought it to the pulpit and was not afraid to talk directly to both our youth after their D-Now weekend and to our church about responsibilities involving loving like Christ and even specifically in the family, friend, work, and romantic relationships around us.

1 John has a lot to say. It's a recommended read that I'll need to commit to memory.
CHAPTER 3
¹¹This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.
¹⁶This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
²³And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. ²⁴Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
CHAPTER 4
⁷Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

(Note: Read the whole thing... it's worth it.)

But what struck me this weekend, and what hits me every once in a while. I remember the times specificically: last time I was sitting in Van Texas in the activity center staff worship on a Friday night... and this time it happened to be Valentine's Day weekend.

I'm overwhelmed by the way God loves me. IT's usually sparked by the way those around me love me so well. I know I do not deserve it, and I cannot possibly repay it...and that leads me to Christ.

Oh how incompetent I am to love him. Oh how I fail him every day. I'm reading through the Bible now and I'm yelling in my heads at the remnant left in Isreal in Jeremiah and telling then "No! don't go to Egypt, don't burn incense, just follow God!" yet I seen to do the same. Oh I am overwhelmed by his love, when I don't deserve it.

But then I have to claim his gift. God gave me Christ. He has sought me out, romanced me, loves me, sent his Son to die for me, so that I may be a co-heir to the throne. No i do not deserve it but He has made me worth it.

And so I must claim the fact that I am filled with the Holy Spirit and the fuit of the spirit is Love. I have been given the ability to love like He loves. I may just have to pray like crazy for it.

That Girl.

You do you ever have one of those days that makes you feel a little bit silly... a little bit like you've become one of the people that you strived so hard not to become.

Well ladies and gentlemen, I'm pretty sure love can make you do silly things. Today it made me into an obsessive stalker.

Let me explain. So this Kyle character well I generally talk to him a lot, right. I mean we're getting married, soon, poor thing's going to have to talk to me every day. But today I hadn't heard from him in "forever" and I started to think that maybe something happened to him. That something may have actually went wrong!

It's storming outside, and I think about all the things weather can do. I have some friends who's parents are in the hospital right now, and I wonder oh no! maybe his mom or dad is in the hospital! And then I wonder what if something happened to him and he himself is in the hospital or trapped somewhere!

Okay kids, so this hadn't heard from him in "forever" um, it hadn't even been 24 hours. I got a text from him last night... and I began to think this at about 5:00pm today.

Really!

I've become one of those girls (usually age 13-16 or more) that stalks their significant other and has to talk to them all all the time. Maybe it's just today, maybe since the Saints won the Super Bowl all kilters are off... but I've never been this way.

Anyways, today, I'm that girl.

Oh, PS, this weekend Mom and I made the wedding invitations, totally DIY and I'll post pics soon!

So what is a Doppelganger?

So, sure, I'm on facebook... who isn't? And I've seen lately that my friends have new obsessions with celebrities, and wonder who my friends have gotten so into celebrity pictures... then someone explains that recently a new trend is to change your profile picture to a celebrity that you look like. Oh! now I get it.

So I look up "doopelganger" to see what that actually means. And here's what that reliable source called wikipedia gave me:

In the vernacular, the word "doppelgänger" has come to refer (as in German) to any double or look-alike of a person. The word is also used to describe the sensation of having glimpsed oneself in peripheral vision, in a position where there is no chance that it could have been a reflection. They are generally regarded as harbingers of bad luck. In some traditions, a doppelgänger seen by a person's friends or relatives portends illness or danger, while seeing one's own doppelgänger is an omen of death. In Norse mythology, a vardøger is a ghostly double who precedes a living person and is seen performing their actions in advance.

A little creepy, if you ask me.

But the funny part is that I seem to have a 'twin' at work. See I'm an intern right now at a hospital. One one of my first days I had other staff members seeing me int he hall and saying "hey! how have you been?" like they were catching up with someone they already knew. I felt bad for not knowing these people, so I smiled and talked to them anyway. Some of my fellow nutrition staff finally told me that I look just like one of the case managers, who wears the same color scrubs as me, has the same color and cut of hair, is tall, younger, etc.

So today I'm on the 7th floor where she apparently works and someone says "Christy!" and I'm thinking wel I'll the only other person in this hall, who is she talking to. then again, "Christy!" and so I turn around, double take, and turn around even again... so confused.

The "Christy"-yelling girl found me today and explained that I just looked like her friend Christy who also works int he hospital. If she mistook me for her friend, no wonder people all over the hopsital seem to know me.

So my doppelganger, sorry, is not a famous rock star, or actress, but a case manager at the state hospital... but who no doubt is probably wonderful.

Funny thing is, I've never met her.

French Toast Merci!

Here's an old favorite, I know. But I figured, not everyone knows how to make it, honestly. But it's so easy. With the ingredients you would use for toast, scrambled egg, plus a few house pantry staples... you've got a yummy, Saturday breakfast.
-De rien (Your welcome :)

French Toast Merci
(Makes One Serving)

1 Medium Egg
1/4 Cup Skim Milk (or whatever kind you have)
Pinch of Cinnamon
Little Drop of Vanilla Extract
3 Slices 100% Whole Grain Wheat (or whatever kind you have)
Powdered Sugar
Syrup

1. Heat non-stick skillet to Med-High. (If using regular skillet, simply spray with cooking spray)

2. Mix egg, milk, cinnamon, and vanilla in bowl. Make sure yolks break.

3. Dip 1 slice of bread into mixture, making sure to coat both sides.

4. Throw that break in the pan. NOTE: It may drip :)

5. Wait approximately the time you would wait when flipping an egg (maybe 1/2-1 minute) and flip. NOTE: If it gets black real fast, turn the heat down. You want golden brown :)

6. Repeat for the last two slices of bread. At some point there may be the slippery part of the egg in a lump on one side of one piece of bread, no worries, that's yummy, just slop that bread into the pan.

7. Layer bread, sprinkles of powdered sugar, and syrup.

NOTE to DIABETICS: This is not the meal for you. UNLESS you skip the powdered sugar and use sugar free syrup. In that case it's about 3 carbs choices (45 grams of carbohydrate) and 1 protein.

Feel free to add fruit, especially bananas. I'll get around to making and posting banana stuffed french toast on Hawaiian sweet bread...soon.

Making Decisions

Growing up, I always thought about the decisions I would have to make. I know what kind of food I like, I know what I like to wear, I know what colors make me smile. But somewhere between dressing myself in honestly the most beautiful, most comfortable Little Mermaid matching shirt and shorts: knowing what I like and picking out what to wear, eat, buy got more complicated.

I'm not quite sure that it's that I'm trying to impress others so much. I mean I can pick what I like... well, in theory. I guess I always wonder what else is there, I wonder that once I've made the decision I'll realize that it wasn't the best one and I'll want to go back and choose again to make sure it fits just right.

Well... in all the decisions first the decision to follow Christ is one I've never thought about going back on. That has changed my life indefinitely, without a doubt.

But ladies and gentlemen, I've found the Little Mermaid shirt that I want to spend the rest of my life with. Kyle. He's amazing. I don't worry or wonder that there's anything else better out there or that maybe I've made the wrong decision... nope. There honestly is not another person that was made more for me, or that I was made more for. I know what I like, I know what I love. And picking him, has been the (2nd) easiest decision I've ever made.

So we're getting married! in 98 days actually, and while the decision to marry him was perfect... well the decisions about the wedding keep on coming and I have no idea the color palette or the theme, or what we'll eat, or what the flowers will be.

I look at blogs, and pictures, and talk to friends about ideas. But I want to find the one that's the Little Mermaid shirt, that I love, that's me, that I look at and honestly couldn't imagine a better choice. A wedding that is a picture of the man I've found that loves me more than I could imagine.

The bridesmaids dresses are jewel-toned purple. And well, that's all we've got. And it'll be outside in the -perfect- location. Other than that...

Looking for the 'little mermaid' of weddings,
BeeKay

Isn't this picture just amazing.... wow.

Where's it from? My Favorite New Find:

www.100layercake.com/blog

Revamping the blog space...

So the blog needed a face life. Honestly, it needed to grow up! For those of you who know me, I don't think I necessarily look like the girl in the picture... but that's kind of the idea I have in my head for growing up I guess, you know all businessy and fun with a cool purse and neat drink, lol...

Just Saying.

Enjoy. and if you wanna create something like it, head over to scrapblog.com :)