Don't You Know I've Always Loved Her

Kirstie Kylene is my sister and I couldn't love and respect her more. My love for her started on January 20, 1987 and has grown over the last 22 & 1/2 years. She's probably the only person who knows my "unmentionable" flaws and has seen my broken heart over and over.

In our childhood years, she was my shadow and I adored it! I got the privilege of being her older sister and modeling all things ladylike (and often un-ladylike). :) She made me feel that I was way cooler than I actually was b/c she wanted to do and wear everything I did.

She was always more fearless than I. For example, one Memorial Day weekend at River Ranch (a fond camping ground we went to 2-3 times a yr.) she chased a baby pig through the poopy mucky mud and wrestled it to the ground; dragged the thing by it's hind legs into a fenced in ring and did all with a grin. We have a picture of her covered in pig dung up to her belly button and she has the biggest cheesy smile on her little face. That's Kirstie. Fearless.

In our teen years, she was a confidante, an intimate comrade and an accountability partner. I remember several occasions when I was humbled and convicted deeply of my sin (which usually involved a boyfriend) from her simply words of love and concern. She was a voice of admonishment even then. God used her all throughout my teen years to sharpen me like iron. I've been broken with her, shed sorrowful & joyful tears with her, and laughed my hardest with her. It's a unique sister relationship. I've never felt a competitive spirit in me when it comes to her and that is utter grace from the Lord. I've simply felt love and admiration for her.

Through college, she was there to listen to all the fun life changes going on in my life: living in a dorm, new roommate, rushing for a sorority, meeting lots of guys & gals, fraternity parties, dance team, ect. I tried to convince her to come to Samford but the Lord was calling her to PBA. Our friendship deepened during her college years as God really stretched her in leading small groups and mentoring younger girls.

She was the first person I called in Feb. of 2006 when I started officially dating the man I knew I would marry. She was also the first person I called on February 10, 2007 when I got engaged to that man, D.R. McNew. She shared in my excitement with so much joy in her voice; I wanted to reach through the phone and hug her!

She stood by me on the most important day of my life: the day I became a wife; August 18, 2007. She supported and loved me through a difficult engagement and faithfully prayed for the unity of D.R. & I. I couldn't be more thankful for those prayers.

We share so much: our fashion, our sense of humor, our thoughts about: God, guys, purity, marriage, modesty, parents.

God is good to give us sisters. I sure got blessed with a great one. I look forward to see our friendship grow in maturity and common love for our Savior and for people. She has a beautiful heart. I look forward to the day when I will stand next to her as Matron of Honor and support her as a wife and some day mother.

"As iron sharpens iron, so one [sister] sharpens another." Proverbs 27:17

a bag of popcorn & the gospel

So as I'm driving home from a funeral on my lunch break this afternoon, crying my eyes out b/c I'm so affected by these parents love for their deceased, unborn child of 5 months, I taste my salty tears and suddenly become hungry for a salty snack. I know, what a shift of emotions, right? Well God had a plan.... hang in there with me. LOL

So I pull over at the Citgo gas station right next to our church and mosey on in to find my salty fix. I spot white cheddar popcorn and begin to salivate. haha

At first I reach for the 99 cent BIG bag- back label 15 grams fat EIGHTEEN % daily fat intake. I decided to search for a smaller fattening portion. And then, I look down. On the bottom rack (strategically placed where no one with raging snack hunger would look) is 35 cent bags of assorted salty snacks.....yes, 35 CENTS! And amidst the pork rinds and dill pickle flavored chips was one Brim's white cheddar popcorn bag. It was glorious. Small portion. Small price. BIG flavor! I paid my 35 some odd cents and walked happily out the door. Stuffed them into my purse and drove the 100 yards to my church office door.

Once in my office, I wasted no time in popping the bag open and indulging. After the first handful, I turned the bag around to check the nutritional value... eh, nothing to make me grow big and strong but oh the flavor!!!

As my eyes glance down the back label of the bag, all the way down on the left hand side was a Bible verse. Yes, a BIBLE verse!

John 17:3 "and this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou has sent."

How cool is that!? I thought, "God, you always show up in the most peculiar places but this takes the cake."

Although, I enjoyed the fattening, delicious snack, I was left with a deeper satisfaction; my spiritual hungry was quenched far beyond my physical hunger. God had once again spoken to me and left me feeling like all I need is Him. He gives life and life ETERNAL.

Where has God shown up in your life lately?

If you do not work, you shall not eat!

I just witnessed something very sad, but sobering.


A man whom we, here at my church, have been assisting financially came in today. We haven't seen him in over 2 months. His green shirt and over-sized blue jeans are heavily stained, his shoulders look more obvious because his frame seemed smaller to me. The bones under his shirt are more visible than at his last visit.


He got a job back in May at a car dealership service center doing detailing. I remember the day he got hired... You would've thought he won the lottery. He came in... nice khaki pants, dress shirt and tie and had a smile like I had never seen before on his face. After using our phone to call the service manager, he hung up, did a little happy-happy-joy-joy dance and said "I got the job!" I was so happy for him. This was huge for him and his family. This meant money for food and bills. He was then told by our deacons that until he showed some responsibility on his part financially, we would not be assisting him with groceries or anything else. This was 4 months ago.


He has since come in a couple times asking for a bag of groceries and each time I am forced to reiterate the agreement the deacons and him had come to at this point. He would try again a few weeks later and... same routine. It was quite draining and quite sad. He started being late to work. I know this because he walks to work and has to pass by our church playground to get there. So he wound up on "probation" at work as a warning of his tardiness. He finally got pink-slipped for using fowl language with his boss and is now unemployed again.


He came in today asking for a bag of groceries and I didn't know if that policy was still standing since it had been so long. I walked back to the kitchen but decided to call Nick our head deacon. He insisted on speaking with him. From what I gathered from their conversation, Nick was trying to reiterate the agreement and it wasn't being taken well. The conversation turned ugly and the guy said, " I thought you were a man of God but I just don't know. " He abruptly got off and walked out of the church. I felt mixed feelings of sadness and frustration. I know that the deacons are doing the best thing for him in restricting assistance in hopes that he will show some responsibility on his own. I have to trust that he will one day see that they loved him by keeping the food from him. But for now, he doesn't see that. All he sees is an "uncharitble" church. I thought about the fact that he may be tempted to steal food for his family. Or worse, rob someone. I thought of the despair and anger that he must be feeling for the way his life is because of the choices he's made. But I wonder if he realizes that to work is to live. We were put on this earth to work. It says in the Bible that the one who does not work, shall not eat. That's a pretty harsh reality but as we see by evidence of the homeless on the streets, that holds true. You have to earn a living. For some it comes easier than others. And for some it is handed to them and they are careless with their fortunes. But work is a gift. It's not just a command in order to obey God but more than that it is a way to be in fellowship with God. God is honored when we work; when we serve people; when we are responsible with our money; and when we choose to give that money (that God owns in the first place) back to Him. Work is a way to be in communion with your Creator! That takes the duty out of the equation and makes it a delight! I wish I viewed my job as a delight every day but I don't. I forget that my job is a gift and a means of fellowship with my Lord. I see it as an obligation; a requirement to pay bills and a 5 day/40 hour "community service" kinda thing. After all, I get to work at my church!! I mean, how cool is that!? I'm super blessed to be surrounded by men & .... well men who love the Lord and are spending time with Him throughout their day in their work. So, I guess I write this post to say: God has given us a means of fellowship with Him through the gift of work and we should view it as such or we are missing out on 40+ hours a week of God-glorifying obedience.

Tomorrow is another day, praise God. I will receive a complete new set of mercies from Him and I can't wait to see them at my workplace. Now if I could only take that mercy and show it to someone else.....

The truth about the Gospel

This is the most powerful sermonette I've ever listened to. Souls are perishing every minute. Make sure your soul will not.

The Fire by Nate Pfeil

A Puzzling Truth

On the way home from Jay & Rachel's wedding this past weekend, DR & I listened to a sermon from John Piper on why there is suffering in this world. This was from a time when he came to University Christian Fellowship in Birmingham and spoke to us college students. I remember feeling glued to my pew and in awe of the gospel being preached in such a vibrant, no-nonsense way. That 5' something man brought conviction and truth to a seemingly "christian" audience. It was a wonderful refresher to hear him preach this message again.

One passage he talks about in reference to how we, as believers, should feel about the suffering in this world is 2 Corinthians 6:10. "we live....as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing". We are always sorrowful because we see a dying, disease-striken, hurting world but we are always rejoicing because we have a resident peace-giver within us: the Holy Spirit. This explains so much about what my husband told me at the beginning of our dating relationship. We won't always be happy, but we will always be joyful. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit; happiness is not. Joy is unaffected pleasure from the supernatural not the natural. Happiness is circumstantial. Joy is (or should be) a constant state in a believer's heart. It's so easy to put on fake joy but you're not fooling anyone by appearing happy 24/7. Christ wants us to have open eyes to this world but at the same time to always be looking up for our joy.

"sorrowful, yet always rejoicing": a verse that's been on my husband's facebook page ever since I've known him. D.R. has had his fair share of sorrowful times. He's only 24 but I've witnessed the pain and suffering in his life these past 4 years when his dear grandmother passed away, when his brother fell victim to drugs, when he was excused from his University for a semester, when I chose someone else over him and more. God remained faithful through those hard times in his life and I watched as he trusted Him no matter how hard and hurtful it seemed. Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.

We should always be sorrowful! Sounds sad, but we live in a pornography-obsessed, adulterated, sickness-filled, pleasure-seeking, addiction-prone, disasterous, moral-less world that doesn't KNOW that life exists in Jesus Christ; and Jesus Christ alone. We should feel horribly sorrowful for the dying people around us. But we don't. Sin is more discusting than any of us give it credit for. As John Piper says, "none of us are as discusted by our sin as we should be". I know I don't cry my eyes out because I'm sinful. I'm not that upset about it. I don't think about how disheartening and dishonoring it is to God. This is why we must be sorrowful.

We should always be rejoicing! Ah, the happy part of the verse. It's true! We should always rejoice that we are God's! He chose us! (Eph. 1)We were plucked out of the ground as a corpse and given life through Christ's death on the cross. Through grace by faith we have peace and salvation! We should rejoice that God is in control of our sorrowful situations. After all, He's the one who allows them to happen. Here's a puzzling truth: When God allowed sin to enter the world, He did not Himself sin. Piper says, if we cannot handle that, we cannot handle the cross. The cross was horrific evil and totally planned by the Almighty. Piper says we've got to have a category in our brain for God willing there to be sin and yet God not doing the sinning.

So, when someone says "Why would God allow this to happen" (ex: Katrina, War on Terror, 911...) You can say with a grin, "Because God planned the redemptive history of his people from the beginning of time and if we didn't have suffering, we would have no need of Him." Bam! Done! Shock em! It's the truth! We are characters in God's story of redemptive history. Just read Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. and make sure you have kleenex!

Anyways, that's what was on my heart. :)

The Pioneer Woman

Thank you Betty for showing me this website!

The Pioneer Woman has everything from cooking, gardening, skin care, homeschooling advice, photography, decorating and more. She is truly the super-woman-- dabbling in so many fun woman-adventures. I'm still mastering the whole clean-the-house-every-week thing. :) This wife thing is hard work!

Be sure to try the Bacon-Wrapped Jalopeno Thingies. :)

Enjoy!

Just go away, pain.

You're about to hear my heart....are you ready?

We are so prone to run from anything that hurts. And moreover, we tend to think our trials are there so God can remove them "in Jesus name".

We aren't comfortable with suffering. We aren't content with pain. We don't delight in enduring the hard stuff. We're human. We're hedonists. We live for pleasure. It's super hard to "count it all joy when we face trials". But as Christians, we have to choose to be the opposite. We must believe that Christ's life, death and resurrection is an example of how to live.

Listen fellow believer, don't be fooled into believing that God intends a life of pleasure for you. Not that "every good and perfect gift is from above" is a lie. It is most certainly the truth. Every earthly possession we have is a gift from God; from our spouse to the food on the table at night. But what God intends for his children is a life modeled after his Son. A life full of humiliation, deprivation, and sanctification. (look up words you don't know later :))

I can't tell you how many examples of Christ I have come across in the past couple years that remind me of who my Savior is. I think of the single women in our church who are in their late 20s, early 30s and who are REJOICING in the honor of serving Christ through singlehood. The man in my church who has battled multiple myeloma for over 7 years and still gives every ounce of glory to God for his life. The women in our church who have experienced the deep pain of miscarriage but yet glorify God for His perfect will. I've watched a couple fight for their marriage after many nights of heartache and lonliness. And then I've seen that same couple pursue each other and rekindle their love (and are now with child). Every time someone in my life says, "i'm struggling so much but I know the Lord has a plan and I trust him" I tear up and say thank you Lord for broken, vulnerable people who know you are in control. Thank you for people who are after YOU being magnified and them being debased. His power is made perfect in our weakness.

Read Philippians 3:10-12

I'll end with a quote I got from Challies' Blog from Ligon Duncan talking about how our suffering is meant for the maturity of the church not just for us alone. A new perspective for sure. Be blessed and may Christ dwell in you richly!

"Your suffering does not just belong to you. You are members of a body. Your suffering is for the body's maturity as much as it is for your own. Your suffering is there to build up the church of Christ. It is there for the people of God to be given faith and hope and confidence in the hour of their trials. Your suffering is also the body's suffering because one of God's purposes in suffering is the maturity of the whole church." Ligon Duncan on Suffering for Christ.