This is not one cookie. This is about 5 or 6 pounds of dough....

 

Only a short 50 days until graduation, and our senior class of 23 students is raising money for our class project, helping provide some New Tribes missionaries with literacy materials to teach the Gospel to those who do not yet have God's Word in their language. On Thursday we held a bake sale, so on Wednesday, Zeke and I spent the afternoon in the kitchen, making 8 dozen M&M cookies, and 2 trays of Espresso Chunk brownies.

I froze a couple dozen cookies for our Bible study we began in our home 2 weeks ago. This past Tuesday, we were very blessed to have 3 young families join us, in addition to our 3 friends who came the first week! It was a whole new dynamic--having 4 children, ages 3 months to 3 years, in our small home! It's a challenge which we are eager to embrace, and we hope to make our home, and this Bible study a place where these parents can come, relax, fellowship, and dig into God's Word.

When God began laying this Bible study on our hearts, Gray and I laid it before the Lord, not having any idea what He desires to do with it. We're so excited to see what directions the Lord will take this. We're encouraged to see the Lord working in the lives of believers through His Word and His Holy Spirit. We're also praying to have unbelievers join us in our home, and come to see His great grace and love through this ministry. In the past 3 months, we've had 3 new families move into the houses right next to ours. We've been praying for opportunities to develop relationships with them, and invite them to the Bible study. We have invited our landlord and his girlfriend, who live upstairs from us, and we're praying that they'll accept the invite and join us one of these nights. They've also commented on the "good smelling coffee" always emanating from our apartment, so hopefully we can have them over for coffee sometime soon. Please pray for our neighbors and our relationships with them.

Today I was very encouraged in class as we went over specific verses dealing with how we come to know the Truth.

We come to know God's Truth through the ministry of His Word, along with the ministry of His Holy Spirit.

The Truth in God's Word

"If you abide in My Word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:31-32

"Sanctify them in the truth; Thy Word is truth." John 17:17

The Truth, Revealed by the Holy Spirit

"But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth..." John 16:13

"'Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those that love Him.' For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God." 

1 Corinthians 2:9-10

"When the Helper comes, Whom I will send to you form the Father, that is the Spirit of truth, Who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness of Me." John 15:26

As we pursue God through His Word and His Spirit within us, may He be at work to bring us to a greater, more intimate knowledge of Himself.

Fresh, homemade apple crisp made from apples we hand-picked at the orchard, along with a soy latte? Yes please :)

 

This transition into motherhood is resulting in a vast change in perspective. Not just my perspective on how much time an adequate shower requires, or my perspective on a "good night's sleep", but my perspective on Christ's incarnation. A couple of weeks ago, Z and I were walking in the park with my friend Alissa and her baby girl. Alissa and I began to discuss what life must have been like for Mary, raising baby Jesus. Did Jesus ever cry for hours on end and leave her frustrated and exhausted? Jesus really had messy diapers and snotty noses? The one that boggled us the most was, when did baby Jesus realize He was God? Obviously He knew He was God, but a child may not even develop a self awareness until a couple years of age. As He developed that awareness of self, is that when He recognized His identity as God's Son?

The other day I was laying on our sofa, cradling Ezekiel in my arms as he was fast asleep. He had been crying for a good 20 minutes. His face was still red and tear-stricken. As a mother, I cannot bear to see my child suffer. I began to think about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsamane, before He was led off to be crucified. I cannot imagine the heartbreak of God as He looked down upon His own Son, seeing the beads of sweat and blood pouring from His face, fully aware of the impending suffering that would befall on Him. Not only the physical anguish, but the unbearable separation that would form a chasm between them as Christ would take upon Himself the sin of the world.

I have never known a love before like the love I have for my child. Yes, my love for God and my love for Grayson actually surpasses this, but this love I have for my son is all-together a new and different devotion of love and responsibility. From the perspective of a parent, I cannot begin to fathom the agony that God the Father felt as He watched His own Son suffer. It is a beautiful, glorious picture of His own love for us.

Gray and I are being severely challenged in regards to service. As a result, we are so very, very excited about our impending graduations this December, and the time we will have to invest in ministry, or rather, in other's lives. We can't deny that we have been busy. Raising our first child , both in school full-time, and Grayson working full time has left us spread thin. This however, is no excuse for how long it has taken this conviction to rise within us. I thank God for what He has been doing in our life and hearts recently to bring us to this new conviction for ministry. Yes, it has always been our desire to be involved in ministry, but lately God has placed, or rather revealed in our hearts such a need to minister in other people's lives. Gray and I have had such edifying conversations lately about how and where we can invest ourselves in other people's lives for the glory of God. Please do not get me wrong, I write about this in no way--absolutely no way--to boast, for this has only been God's working in our heart, and as previously stated, it has taken far too long for this conviction to rise in our hearts. 

"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them." -Ephesians 2:10

This is in no way to obtain salvation, but rather the product, or fruit of our salvation. As we are identified in Christ, our heart should be that of His, and Christ was most definitely a servant! We were created with one of our purposes being to do good works. Lately I have been challenged in this, do my desires in life allign with what God created me for?

Last month Grayson and I took Ezekiel down to meet his great-grandpa Fiebig.

 

While we were there, several of the resident at the facility showed such excitement over little Zeke, and commented that they had not seen a baby in so long. This broke my heart. Since that visit, I have felt such a desire to take Zeke to visit with some senior folks. We had that opportunity this morning! Every month our youth group from church sets out into the community to serve. One group was going to a senior living facility, So Z and I tagged along. It is such a blessing for me to watch my son be such a blessing to others.

Please pray for Grayson and me as we are pursuing several area of ministry right now. We're looking into possibilities through our church, the local Salvation Army, and we will be starting a Bible study in our home this week (another thing God has been laying quite heavily on our hearts recently) We realize there is always a danger of burning out. We must serve only in the strength God gives us, and only to His glory. Please pray for us in these things.

  

A blog post! Has life returned to a somewhat normal routine? Routine would hardly be my word of choice. Life with this little guy:

 

is anything but routine; anything but mundane; anything but dull! He keeps us on our toes. One of my new favorite things to do is watch Ezekiel discover. What it must be like (because the Lord knows I don't remember) to discover everything for the first time! 

As we drive to school in the morning, I watch him in the mirrors as he gazes out the window, his eyes moving curiously about, trying to take in the world as it flies by. And today, as we took his Labrador out for a walk to see the Autumn colors, Ezekiel stared out of his stroller up into the trees and the sky, taking in all of the new colors and scents of the imminent season of Fall. Ezekiel has never seen Fall. He has never smelled it. How brilliant it must be to introduced to such a beautiful thing for the very first time!

I've begun teaching the Cubbies (3 & 4 Year olds) in our Awana program at church. They are learning about God's love through creation (A perfect place to start!) and the lessons may be blessing me even more than them. Last night they learned about God's creation of plants. I wanted to teach them about how God blesses us with plants for beauty and consumption (I used a smaller word for them ;) I brought in different fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, and flowers. As they discover God through the creation of the earth, I get to discover God on a deeper level through how He has created children. I teach the 3 year olds and 4 year olds separately, and I love to see the vast difference between the two groups, even though only a year difference in age stands between them.

I asked for a couple of volunteers in each group to come and smell a certain plant product I had brought with in a tupperware. The 4 year olds were stumped. The 3 year olds, however, knew it straight away:  Coffee!!!  When I brought out the flowers, the 4 year olds sat quietly on the floor watching and listening as I explained the colors and shapes. When I brought out the flowers for the 3 year olds, I was immediately charged by a crew of curious little eyes and noses wanting a closer look and big whif of the beautiful plants!

I want to be that eager to discover. Just as I'm teaching these little ones every week, I want to stand in awe of God's creation, taking in more of Him and His love through it.

^"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end." Ecclesiastes 3:11

"Because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse." Romans 1:19-20

My aunt recently gave me my grandmother's bread machine. And I have to ask myself--how have I lived 21 years without such a contraption?!?! Needless to say, we've been eating a lot of bread this week.

Of course, I was drawn to a recipe for "Coffee Spice Bread" to start with. It called for 2/3 cup of brewed coffee. I opted for 2/3 cup of brewed espresso.

 

Z Loves to help me in the kitchen!