Merry Christmas

just wanted to wish everyone a merry merry Christmas.  i am super excited for church tonight.  i know that it is going to be an amazing experience... especially because my whole family will be joining us at our church tonight!  i pray that everyone has safe travels and plenty of wonderful family time. 

of course i cant leave yall without a little word about keeping Christ in Christmas.  remember that He is the reason for this wonderful holiday.  so after you read "the night before Christmas" to your kids tonight, take a second to reiterate to your kids (and yourself) that Christ was born... lived... and died for all of us.... that He is the ultimate Christmas present... maybe even take a second to dust off that bible and read the very first Christmas story to your family.  and then...before you and your kids tear in to all of those presents, i would also encourage you to take a second to say a little prayer of thanks for all the awesome blessings that He has given you this year. 

thanks again for following me on here.  i will be sure to fill you in on my very first Christmas as a Christian!

Merry Christmas-

amanda

the faith of a four year old

my sons faith never ceases to amaze me.  he is four and i wish that i could have the amount of strength and conviction that this boy has.  its amazing really.  you see, coming from my background i still struggle with my old ideologies.  i see Gods fingerprints all around me, but i still question it sometimes.  i think that it is natural for all of us to doubt... to not only question our belief... but to also question His strength and power.  i think the important thing though is that we have the will to keep searching for Him... to keep looking for God in everything around us.  i am beginning to realize that when i have these doubts it is the Enemy working on me.  sometimes i really have to fight the devil to push those thoughts out and just throw myself at Gods feet and beg for forgiveness.

grace

sometimes after i finish writing a blog entry, i look back over it and think....WOW... did I really write that?  i was talking to robert about it the other night and i was telling him that i was worried that i was being proud of the words that i was writing.  so i prayed about it that night, and after i did the Holy Spirit told me that it was ok for me to be a little proud of it because the words are not really coming from me.  God is telling me what to say, or rather, he is giving me a road map that will get his message across.  that may sound strange but let me explain how this process works for me....

a social network Christmas

hello all!  hope everybody is having a great day.  my kids had their Christmas program at mothers day out today, and it really put me in the spirit!  i think it is going to be such an amazing experience to celebrate this year with a new set of eyes and a renewed heart! **(i didnt realize when i wrote that last sentence that i pilfered it from an email that a friend sent me.... gotta give some credit. :) so thanks leslie for giving me the perfect words to describe what i am looking forward to!)  i am sure there are going to be a lot of tears during this joyous time.... in fact there were tears today just listening to my sons class tell/sing a very basic childrens version of The Story.  maybe God was preparing me for the grown up version that we will hear at service on Christmas eve.  :) 

salt and fire

i sat down to write this blog earlier and all i got were three disjointed paragraphs.  i feel like i have so much to say and i was frustrated that i couldnt express my thoughts clearly. so i prayed... asking God to give me the words to use.  and not an hour later, while making dinner, i got seven words from the Holy Spirit.  every time he speaks to me it makes me smile.  want to know what He said???

my God thump

like i said in my post earlier today the Holy Spirit spoke to me last night.  it makes me laugh when God gives me a little thump on the head and says... try and keep up amanda.  :)

just a little housekeeping

hello all.  just wanted to do a little housekeeping to let everyone know that you should be able to post comments now.  im pretty sure i had them disabled but they should be working at this point.  like i said in my introduction... im new at this so please hang in there until i get all the kinks worked out.

it made me smile to see a spike in page views after church yesterday.  i really pray that God uses me as a vessel to speak to someone out there.

speaking of service... wasnt it an amazing one yesterday?!  when we walked out i turned to robert and said.... hot dang!  THAT was a church service!  i was on fire when i got home.  david, nick, gaylen and everyone else that got a hold of that microphone spoke the truth didnt they?!  i thought we might be there all afternoon, and i would have loved every second of it. :)

anyway, i am hoping to get another post up here later this evening.  the Holy Spirit spoke to me last night while i was laying in bed and i really want to share what He had to say. i hope everyone is having a blessed day.

in Him-

my testimonial

so here is my testimonial.  i know it is long, but please bear with me.  i felt like i had to give a thorough background so that you would be able to see why my salvation was so life changing and powerful for me.

wow.  where do i even start with a story that i so big and important to me?  i mean, i think my story is awesome and powerful, but its MY story, so of course i do.  my husband, robert, has been a Christian since he was young and ever since i was saved he has been sharing books, videos, scriptures etc with me.  one thing that he recently shared with me was a testimonial that a Baptist pastor had posted online.  he was saying that all testimonials are powerful but some speak to us more than others because what that person has to say might resonate on a more personal level to us.  we might have been in that persons shoes at one point in our lives and realize that, hey, if this person has found Christ maybe i can too.  but the most awesome thing that i think this pastor said is that all testimonials are essentially the same because, no matter how that person found God, they all end in the same five words.... "and then i was saved."  and my story is no different.

angels singing

this is the latest email that i sent Pastor David.  i think there is some pretty powerful stuff in here...

the next week

this was written the thursday after i was saved.  david had given the wednesday night sermon the night before, so thats what the second  paragraph is about.  the rest are some questions that i was having at that point.... 

the next morning

this is a response to an email that David sent the morning after i was saved (the day before i was to be baptized)  asking how i was doing....

the email that started it all

so if you dont know anything about me this email might be a bit confusing, but basically my husband and i had decided to join the church that we had been going to for a little while.  its a Baptist church and when you want to join you have to be baptized.  i wasnt a Christian at this point, but i wanted to join  for my husband, robert, and my kids.  i sent this to Pastor David the two days after we had taken the "just add water" baptism class with him (the friday before i was supposed to be baptized)....

a short introduction

welcome. i am former atheist and a recently saved Christian. after i was saved i began sending emails to my pastor asking him questions and letting him know how i was doing. you know, your basic... is this normal type of thing. after i had sent him a few he came to me one night and told me that he thought i should start a blog about my walk. i kind of laughed at him because i dont consider myself to be much of a writer... much less a blogger. but then i really started to think about it and i came to the realization that a lot of people might be feeling the same way i feel... having the same questions im having. what better way for me, a baby Christian, to witness to people than in a form that i am comfortable with.  witnessing to someone in person is intimidating for me right now because all of this is so new. i worry that i might say the wrong thing, or not have an answer to a question. but when i have a chance to sit down in front of a computer screen and write, i have a chance to really organize my thoughts to get my point across.

so here we are. me with a blog. you reading my blog. my prayer is that some of my words resonate on some level with you and help lead you to Christ, or help you become closer to Christ. my first few entries will be those first emails that i sent to Pastor David, and hopefully soon i will have my full testimony up. i dont know exactly where this blog is heading, but i am sure curious to find out. so come hang out with me for awhile, and we can figure it out together.

just by the way... im obviously not a professional writer. heck, i dont even use capital letters when i type. sorry in advance if that makes you crazy, but i write how i speak, and i write from the heart. please overlook any grammatical, spelling or punctuation errors. :)

in Him-

amanda