stories...

so, it's been forever. i know. and, i just had a really long blog typed out, but my stupid computer shut down. anyway. here i go.... again.

so, i came to denver on saturday to celebrate our 30th birthdays with bekah and beth. they met me here. it's been an awesome time. saturday we got settled in, went to 16th street mall, ate crepes, walked around in the rain, and went to marakesh. marakesh is a morrocan restaurant where we got to sit on the floors and experience morroco at it's finest :) we got a 5 course morrocan meal, and there was supposed to be a belly dancer, but she wasn't there. bummer. it was a lot of fun, and bekah got a free dessert because it was her birthday.

sunday we went white water rafting which was also totally awesome. and in the evening we went to casa bonita which was fun too.

but today... today we went hiking at the red rocks. it's been awesome to be in Gods beautiful creation and see what he has made for us! anyway, today comes with a story :)

we decided to go hiking from matthews/winters park up to the red rock amphitheater. it's about a 3 1/2 mile hike. but, it is also a 3 1/2 miles back to the car. so i tell the girl that i will hike with them to the amphitheater, but they will have to hike back on their own while i wait for them because there is no way that in my shape i am in a place that i can hike 7 miles. especially in this altitude. it was amazingly beautiful. we got to a place in the trail where it crossed the street, and the girls wanted to eat lunch so we stopped. they ate their turkey sandwiches while i went over to a gentleman in a car and asked him the best way to get tothe amphitheater. he told me that the easiest way would be to walk up the road about a mile. so, we decided to split here as we were all very tired. bekah gave me the bag with the food in it, and i decided to eat in the shade at the amphitheater. so, we parted. they went back to the car and i went to the amphitheater. about 500 feet from the theater i was like, "i hope they got the keys out of the bag." they hadn't. oops. i'm in a bit of a situation here. so, i prayed and asked God for wisdom. (it helps that i've been really close to Him lately:)) i decided i needed to find a ride back to the car because there was no way i was going to walk back there, and i was pretty sure when they got there and figured it out that they wouldn't want to walk all the way back up to the amphitheater again. so, i found some ladies that looked to be about my moms age and told them my dilemma. they told the rest of their party and they ended up taking me to the car. by now i'm dripping with sweat and have a really bad headache from all of heat and walking, and i'm out of water. but, i'm back in the car at least where it is air conditioned :) i'm in a bit of a panic mode as i'm concerned for bekah and beth. what if they were already here? what if they are on their way back to the theatre? what to do? what to do? well, i call michael and tell him my situation. i come to the conclusion that i will wait here and if i see anyone come out of the trail i will describe bekah and beth and see if they have seen them. so, i've decided to wait. i wasn't even finished telling michael what i had decided and i look over by the entrance to the trail, and who do you guess walks out looking really panicked? it's bekah and beth! yipee! i really am thankful that God watches over us. just saying :)

a new day

i had an amazing weekend with my best friend Michael and my favorite kid in the whole world Maz.... and some great friends.

i've decided that i'm going to read "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan. there's been some controversy over the book, but that's not why i'm reading it. i'm reading because i feel like God keeps tugging at my heart and pushing me to read it. today, i read another excerpt from it, and i will share it here.

the prayer especially hit home for me. i made bold the part that was huge for me....

Someone I Can Be Real With
If you merely pretend that you enjoy God or love Him, He knows.
You can’t fool Him; don’t even try. Instead, tell Him how you feel.
Tell Him that He isn’t the most important thing in this life to you,
and that you are sorry for that. Tell Him that you’ve been lukewarm,
that you’ve chosen _____________ over Him time and again.
Tell Him that you want Him to change you, that you long to genuinely enjoy Him.
Tell Him how you want to experience true satisfaction and pleasure and
joy in your relationship with Him. Tell Him you want to love Him more than
anything on this earth. Tell Him you want to experience the kingdom of heaven so much so that you’d willingly sell everything in order to get it.
Tell Him what you like about Him, what you appreciate, what brings you joy.

Jesus, I need to give myself up. I am not strong enough to love you and walk with You on my own.
I can’t do it, I need You. I need You deeply and desperately. I believe You are worth it, that You are better than anything else I could have in this life. I want You. And when I don’t, I want to want You. Be all in me. Take all of me. Have Your way with me.

Crazy Love by Frances Chan

conversations of a strange man :)

today we were at a party. it was lots of fun... God is good! miracles all around us, but today we were celebrating our good friend maggie who is now cancer free!

my son had a few conversations with a friend of ours that i shall refer to as a strange man :) he shall remain nameless...

strange man: do you know your grammy stinks?

maz: hmmmm.

strange man: do you have any girlfriends?

maz: no. they are not nice to me.

strange man: are you nice to everyone?

maz: yes.

strange man: you shouldn't be nice to grammy. she stinks.

maz: layla is nice to me.

strange man: did you get to see grandpa this morning?

maz: yeah. he got me a balloon. it's cool.

strange man: if i come to your house i will pop your balloon.

maz: that man over there has an angry face on.

strange man: hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

strange man, if you happen to read this, i love ya! but don't pop my sons balloons :)

another mazism...

so, mazerick has this new thing, which i am pretty sure i can attribute to grandpa bruce dickie.... it's called funny joke time. he'll tell me some ridiculous joke like, "there were two guys walking down the street and they got hit in the head with toilet paper." or something like that. so i started telling him knock knock jokes...

knock knock: who's there?

dwayne.

dwayne who?

dwayne the bathtub i'm dwowning.

knock knock: who's there?

jello

jello who?

jell0 hit the tv.

knock knock: who's there?

apple.

apple who?

apple hit the tv.

like how they go? we laughed really hard. that's all that really mattered. he wanted to do them all night. he kept saying... knock knock. knock knock. knock knock. he just wanted to keep doing "funny joke time." finally i said, okay i get the last one. he was like, okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

knock knock: who's there?

good.

good who?

good night.

hahahahahahahahahahaha. he laughed and laughed and laughed. i shut his door and he yelled... hahahahagoodnight!

a good ending to the day :)

however, 2 hours later i hear him crying. he never cries in the middle of the night.. he's an awesome sleeper. so, i come upstairs to check on him. his door is open. i say, maz, where are you? he keeps crying. i begin to worry. what if he's on the roof again? that would suck. anyway. i walk down the hall... the crying continues. where are you maz? crying "i'm in your room." he's pretty hysterical. i get to my room... he is underneath the covers and the pillows. i say, what is wrong? he cries hysterically... i dropped my teddy. oh my. so i give him his teddy. by this time daddy is also upstairs. he picks maz up and comforts him.. anyway, maz wants to lay in here with us for a while. so, i decide it's time to stay upstairs. i'm talking with maz a bit.

"why were you crying?"

"cause i dropped my teddy."

"why didn't you just get down to get it?

"it was real dark and kind of scary."

"why did you come in here?"

"i touched my mickey nightlight cause i wanted to see if it was hot, but i touched the side and it wasn't hot and then i turned it and the side wasn't hot, but the lightbulb was, and then i unplugged it. so i went to the bathroom and then came to your room. i want to watch baseball. does daddy like baseball..."

i think he's fine :)

so i took him back to his room.

"can we do funny joke time?"

what a kid :)

what's to it...

sometimes we get off to a rough start. it could be a day, a job, a relationship, a game.... just about anything. well, today i felt like i got off to a rough start. mazerick and i came downstairs at about 8 this morning. i give him something for breakfast, but instead of eating he brings me some oreo cookies. i tell him he needs to eat some cereal or something halfway healthy before he eats oreos. i know. i'm such a mean mom. anyway, he just throws a fit. starts crying/whining... whatever you want to call it. i tell him as long as he is whining i am not going to get him anything. a few minutes later he says... mom, we need to go put my pull up on the trampoline.

*side note.... i got him an alligator pool yesterday at a garage sale for 5 bucks... have i said i love garage sales lately? well, I love garage sales!

anyway, i laughed and we went about our day. i picked up around the house... he ate some yogurt for breakfast... didn't want to eat anything more... just wanted the oreos. didn't get the oreos, but anyway... i let him watch some cartoons while i picked up and took my shower. once i was ready i said... okay maz, lets go... and if you do a good job while i'm helping my friend move then you can come home and we can set up your pool.

let me fast forward a little bit here. i have the pool up and mazerick is having the time of his life with 2 neighbor boys. it was so fun to watch. yes i got wet, but it was definitely worth seeing the smiles on their faces, and hearing their laughter :)

anyway... the boys eventually left and mazerick kept saying... "come on mom... come in and get baptized..." so cute. definitely the highlight of my day :)

so i said all of this to say... sometimes it doesn't matter how you start out... God'll work it all for good :) every last bit of it.

sometimes

sometimes God speaks to us loud and clear. sometimes it's because we are listening. sometimes it's because we want something specific. sometimes it just is.

have you ever been praying about something and God kind of does a u-turn on you? have you ever figured out when God speaks to you the most? have you ever tried to stop your thoughts and say, okay God, speak to me what you want to? have you ever been thinking about one thing specifically and God cuts in and tells you something that you feel is totally random to what your agenda had in mind?

yeah. God did that to me tonight. and, it helped me figure something out. God speaks to me in these late hours. i wanted to be sleeping. i tried to sleep. after i had laid in bed for over an hour i began praying. praying for this youth center that God has put on my heart. praying for children. praying for our family.

and guess what God did...

in regards to family he said, "Do not worry. You will have more childen."

but later, yeah, later.... after i continued praying, for the youth center.... and specifically for a building.... guess what He does to me. he says.... LOUD AND CLEAR.... "Stop drinking mountain dew."

Boo. yeah, totally not a fan of that. but.... when God told Jonah to go somewhere and he didn't.... uh, well.... not so good things happened to him... so, guess i will stop drinking mountain dew. it's a sad day.

must repeat.... times infinity

He made me. I am His. He loves me. He made me. I am His. He loves me. He made me. I am His. He loves me. He made me. I am his. He loves me..

oh yeah, and this video below makes me emotional every time. i can never make it through dry eyed.

it's cardboard testimonies... watch it. it's worth your time. even if you've seen it before.