Still, Small Voice...

December is an exciting time of year for most people. Christmas comes, winter starts, snow starts falling, the approach of the new year.

December can be a time of ending, or new beginnings.

In this year's time, there have been tears, heartache and pain. But also new beginnings, happiness and a start of something new. It was like we spent the last year with God having a quiet phase, just like He did between Malachi and Matthew. God was quiet for about 400 years. Then came Jesus. Sometimes, God is quiet in our lives. Sometimes, He lets us have a quiet period of just being still and listening for that still, small voice in our lives.


Well, december comes and goes, but some things stay the same. My God is still here with me, even if it feels like He is far away. I have learned over the last year that He is always present. No matter what we are going through, no matter how quiet He may be, no matter whether we can hear that still small voice or not, HE is here and I am not alone. I am looking forward to the next year and seeing what many things God has in store for us at College Park, in our lives and the lives around us.

Thank you God for all the many wonderful blessings in my life. I am so undeserving.

Wow, what a year.

I am so happy right now. Things are going very well for us and we are so blessed.
I think back to last year at this time and we were a hot mess. Things going on at church were stressing us out, we felt an impending doom there. I had been sick since October after having had the swine flu and that was stressful. We were trying to decide whether we wanted to move. It was a crazy time.

This year so many things have changed. We did move, only to find out we can build a house and now we are in the process of that, making a final decision and move and then staying put. Church did change. A lot changed and a lot of tears were shed, but alas, God always knows what the future holds. We left the church, meandered about for a few months, came back for about a month,thinking that is where we were supposed to be and then visited College Park Church and fell in love. We are so happy there and there are so many activities to keep our family busy with. Things for all of us to be involved in. We never thought we would have to find a new church home, but we are glad to be where we are now. Shane's job is still crazy, but he got a promotion earlier in the year and his hours are nuts sometimes! We don't see him a lot, but we cherish the time he is home to spend time with. It could be so much worse. He could be a salesman having to travel to different states during the week and never home. At least he is sleeping in our bed every night!

So much change, but in a good way. Our direction is taking us to another level in our lives and we are excited! Thank you God for all your blessings on our lives. We so don't deserve them.

Merry Christmas Friends, celebrate Jesus' Birthday next Saturday and enjoy your families.
Many blessings to you and yours.

Decisions.

I have been saving up for my Board of Realtor fees for a few months now. I have some more to save up, but by the time the Spring rolls around, I will be active again and back to my career!!

I started my real estate career out with a guy named Jed and his private real estate group. I like Jed and he is a great guy, but he has no business sense at all. So I went to Carpenter and stuck with them.

With money being tight for so many years, I couldn't really spend a lot of money marketing myself and I didn't have the money to renew my MIBOR fees year after year. So, I ended up going into referral status and moving on.

I am determined to be active again. One reason is we get a commission taken off our house with me being an active realtor, and two, I love my job! It makes me happy to see people getting a new home, whether it is their first home or their fifth.

I have been given an opportunity to go with an unknown company through a friend and was approached with a position offered in her real estate company. She manages properties and is a realtor as well, but needs to have another realtor on board. Her office is in Avon, which a decent drive from my house, but she said I can work from home and use her office equipment if I need to. I have all the stuff I need here at home and when we move I will have an extra bedroom that I was planning on putting my computer in anyway, so with a bigger desk and a fax machine, I should be good to work from home full time! That works for me, definitely! Also, I get 20% more commission per transaction than I would with Carpenter. So that kind of makes a sticking point too.

I don't particularly like going with a name that isn't known well throughout the metro area, and I won't have access to a lot of marketing tools I would with Carpenter, but all in all, it sounds like a pretty good deal.

Oh decisions decisions. I hate making decisions.

'Tis The Season.

It's December 1. The start of the Christmas month. At my house, the tree is up, the lights are on, the stockings are hung. The Christmas cookies have been made, the presents all wrapped and under the tree.

But what is it about Christmas that causes people to turn into a bunch of greedy fiends? Why is it that the santa decorations and the reindeer are abundant but the nativity is the one you have to really search for? Why is it that it's all about presents and what you give? It's ridiculous! Yes, I buy gifts, but they are not abundant, they are not spectacular, they are just a gift to give. I typically make homemade gifts for family and we buy a gift for one of Shane's siblings, depending on who we draw out of the hat. The nieces and nephew get a gift, and of course Cameron gets the most. This year, I picked one thing and Shane picked one thing to gvie each other. And that's it. Period. I have to finish my homemade gifts, and then I will be done for the season. I know some don't appreciate the homemade things as much as they enjoy gift cards and wrapped presents, but in my opinion, the homemade gifts are the ones that come from the heart. I have spent the last few years trying to be creative with my gifts and have done homemade cocoa in a jar with mugs and cookies, last year we made homemade cookie jars, this year I am making a non-edible gift. :) I am making wooden signs for the holidays. They may be messy in some places, the paint may not be exactly perfect, but they were made with love.

Remember this Christmas season that this isn't the season of greed and parties and counting how many presents you get, but the reason we celebrate Christmas is because of the birth of our Lord and Savior. His birth was the best gift we could ever receive and we should be thankful for God's gift to us.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all my friends out there. You are all special to me.

Pre-construction Meeting~

So we go today at 4pm to have our pre-construction meeting. I cannot wait! It is so exciting to be going through this as the buyer and not the salesperson! I am so excited to walk up to my front door, get my own key out and go inside the first time after closing. It is about 5 months away, but it is getting exciting now that they will be actually doing stuff!!

I can't wait to get in my new kitchen with the island and cook yummy food and have people over and entertain!! I love entertaining! Oh I just can't wait! This is what I have been looking forward to for the last 7 years. And especially since I became a realtor about 4 years ago! So much fun when it's you that is the buyer!!!

Okay, enough about that.
I may do a song of the day later....we'll see. Hope with a sick boy again and not sure I will have the time. I am painting some stars and snowflakes for a craft project I am doing with a friend to give away as Christmas gifts! Fun fun fun!!
Later peeps!

Singin' in the Rain/Umbrella

So I watched Glee last night and fell in love with the mash up they did of Singin' in the Rain and Umbrella. I am not going to type out the words because it is a mash up and would be rather difficult, but you should definitely look it up and listen to it!

And who knew Gwyneth Paltrow could sing?!?!
:)

We all unanimously agreed last night that this was the best mash up of the show. It went together well and both songs had something to do with rain. :)

Revelation Song

So after a two week hiatus from my blog, I am back to it. I even went as far as deleting it and not reading anyone else's blog either. I decided to go back to original thoughts and just do a song of the day like I was doing before. Here's one of my favorites!

There is nothing I love more than a powerful worship song. This song has so many memories tied to it for me. I have sung the solo, I have played the piano for it, I have sung it with my fellow worship team, I have sung it at a youth camp to guitar. It is one of my favorite worship songs to sing and to hear. I love Kari Jobe. My friend Janelle brought this song to worship practice one time many moons ago to sing one Sunday. It was awesome! We then did this song a lot. We even led worship this summer with a church in Noblesville and used this song. College Park played this song last Sunday with full choir. There is nothing I can say about this song that will do it justice. You need to listen to it if you don't know it and just listen to the words.

Revelation Song

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain

Holy Holy is He.

Sing a new song

To Him who sits on

Heaven's mercy seat.

Holy Holy Holy

Is the Lord God Almighty!

Who was and is and is to come

With all creation I sing

Praise to the King of Kings

You are my everything

And I will adore You.

Clothed in rainbows

Of living color

Flashes of lightning

Rolls of thunder

Blessing and honor, strength and

Glory and power be

To You the only wise King

Holy Holy Holy

Is the Lord God Almighty!

Who was and is and is to come

With all creation I sing

Praise to the King of Kings

You are my everything

And I will adore You!

Filled with wonder

Awestruck wonder

At the mention of Your name

Jesus Your name is power

Breath and living water

Such a marvelous mystery!

Yeah!

Holy Holy Holy

Is the Lord God Almighty

Who was and is and is to come

With all creation I sing

Praise to the King of Kings

You are my everything

And I will adore You!

Handbells! and Choir! and Church! Oh my!!

I am so excited! I may be able to participate in the handbell choir at College Park! I love playing bells and used to be director of handbells at our old church. That got cut, and I was heartbroken. I think bells at Christmas and Easter are wonderful and beautiful. Now, I go to a church where the music is exactly how I like it. Shane and I talked the other day about the music and sermons at College Park and we both agree that we enjoy it so much. It has been many months since we have felt the Holy Spirit flow through us during worship, but the last few weeks have been wonderful! Cameron even talked about having goosebumps last Sunday during the worship.

I cannot even explain how happy we are right now. Life is so good right now that I feel like if I blink it will all be a fluke and we will go back to our regularly scheduled life. But, in the meantime, I will take the good and thank God for His many blessings.

Can't wait to hear the bells play and be a part of a bell choir again. I missed playing when I was directing, but directing was better than no bells at all. And to be a part pf the choir too is just about too much excitement for my heart to handle! They perform musicals for Christmas and Easter! I cannot wait to hear the musical for Christmas and then hopefully be a part of the Easter musical!! Oh the excitement!!

:) my heart is full and I thank God.

O Holy Night.

I love Christmas. My two favorite holidays are Easter and Christmas. Third would be July 4th probably. One of my favorite things about the holidays is the music. In the Spring, you have the Jesus has risen songs. They are great. Cantatas filled with beautiful music. Love it!

At Christmas, I have a list of all the favorite songs of the season in my opinion. I consider November 1 as the first day of the Christmas season. The music starts in the stores, the trees and wrapping and ribbons come out in the stores. Thanksgiving begins. Ahhh.....love it!

Musically speaking, my all time favorite Christmas song is O Holy Night. It gives me goosebumps every time I hear it, no matter who sings it, no matter how many times I hear it. It is one of the greatest songs ever. Period.

So give me some hot cocoa and a blanket and turn up the music and I am just fine. I welcome Christmas time.

Wow!

Wow. That's all I can say. We went to College Park again yesterday morning. We weren't going to go as I woke up with a bad headache and generally not feeling good. On an antibiotic, so hopefully this will cease. However, we woke up and decided to go ahead and go. It's nice going to a big church because there are 3 services. 8:00, 9:40 and 11:20. So we went to the 11:20 service. My mother in law had already said it was full orchestra and full choir and that we would be sorry we missed it. Well, we decided to go and I am so glad we did! It was awesome!

When we spent time leading worship before at our other church, we would try to pick songs out that would go along with the sermons, and whatever God was putting on our heart. I know Eric does this. He is great at his job. He mixes it up every single week. One week you may have three or four people on the praise band, other weeks, you have full choir backing up the praise band. Other times it is seven or eight people. Either way, it is great! And they do songs that are still relevant. Not all new songs. Not all old school songs. He mixes it up and it works.

College Park must be doing something right. They have very little debt, they are paying cash for the expansion that they are doing right now, and are hoping to be able to continue to do so. They seem to be good stewards of their money. They just broke 6 million dollars so far this year. I couldn't believe that when I read it. Wow! They are obviously doing something right at that church. In hard economic times, it is important for churches of any size to be good stewards of their money.

One thing I love about it is that when you walk in the doors, you see Jesus everywhere! His name is all over everything! And when you walk into the sanctuary, there is a massive cross hanging in the background of the stage with lights shining on it! It is beautiful. I think all churches need to have at least one cross somewhere in the sanctuary. But that's my opinion and I prefer a church where they have a cross. Some people don't, and that's fine too. I just like that they make church about nothing but Jesus. Applications you can apply to your own life. Mark makes you think and challenges you. He reminds me a lot of my father in law when he used to preach.

I always said I wouldn't go back to a big church. We went to ZPC for a while several years ago and just didn't fit in, but we were in a different season of our lives then. We went to New Life Community Church for about four years, but when the takeover happened, we just didn't feel like we fit in there either. I think our season there was over and it was time to move on. We tried to come back and fit in, but we just don't. We are more old fashioned than we originally thought I guess. We enjoy some of the older worship songs, we like full choir sometimes, we love the orchestra. We are just older spirits than some others I suppose. And I think that's okay. We don't fit in. No big deal. We move on and find the church we have been looking for. I just wish we had been invited to visit College Park this summer, maybe we wouldn't have set ourselves up for pain and hurt by going back to our old church only to leave again. I am sure the people from that church are looking at us with anger or hurt, and for that, I am sorry. But for the people out there that really know us and really cared about us before, I am sure they still love us and are happy we have found a place where we belong again.

Seasons change and sometimes we have to move on even when it hurts. I am just glad we have found someplace we can get involved, all three of us, and fit in and enjoy the service. That's hard to find sometimes. I am so glad my mother and father in law invited us to their church again.

Praise God for all that He does in our lives.