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Encouragement, Life Is Beautiful

When I Made Love My Idol

It’s been a bit since I posted. Life has been incredibly and happily busy. My children were both involved in musical theatre for the past few months and their show and the weeks prior occupied our lives. It was a joy and I was happy to put them first and cheer them on. Today, I’m back and sharing with you a guest post from a new friend, Kerrington Sweeney, President and Founder of Uniquely Yours Ministries. I think you will really enjoy this…                                                                                                           
Leviticus 26:1(a) “Do NOT make idols…”

 

There I was, 18 years old and I already was creating myself an idol that would eventually lead to destruction.

This idol was something I desperately wanted, craved, and thought about on a daily basis. This something, I was willing to do anything for.

That idol was….Love.

This crippling condition drove me to the extremes of wanting any young man that would show interest and give me some sort of attention. I was wholeheartedly willing to put aside my standards, lay down my plans and dreams for a future God-Written love story, in desperate hope that someone, ANYONE would have me.

It was in a Sunday Church Gathering that I had a moment of conviction about this idol. When I had seen a beautiful loving couple walk into church and my first thought was “Why can’t that be ME?! Haven’t I been patient and served you well enough God?!?” When those last words were thought, I just knew something was wrong.

A hardness began to cover my heart. Well enough? What am I even talking about?!… I could never serve God ‘well enough’ to receive that as my reward, so to say. How did I come to this point of assumption of earthly blessings from God? I carried a demanding, selfish heart of expectation. Ouch! I know. Pretty harsh, right?

I felt the need to get on my knees at the altar that particular Sunday morning. I began to weep as I recalled all the demands and expectations I had ‘put’ on God. My idol had won. I was beyond consumed. I stepped back from my situation and began to realize that, that so-called void in my heart that started this mess in the first place, could have easily been filled if I was to seek God first, before I sought after my own selfish earthly desires.

“Anything I put before my God is an idol. Anything I want with all my heart is an idol. Anything I can’t stop thinking of is an idol. Anything that I give all my love to is an idol.” —Jimmy Needham (Clear The Stage)

Today, I summon you to stop. Examine your heart. Do you have an idol? If so, Give it up to God! Let Him fill any of your heart-voids. Never forget dear friends, that YOU are LOVED.

Until Next Time,

~Kerrington

Kerrington Sweeney is President & Founder of Uniquely Yours Ministries, (www.uniquelyyoursministries.com) a ministry dedicated to challenging, equipping and encouraging women. She is honoured that God has entrusted her with this adventure of Ministry Leadership at such a young age.

She actively volunteers and serves on various leadership teams at church and in her community. She carries a strong mantle of community, a heart to love the unloveable, and walks with divine purpose to empower and compel women of the faith. She feels God’s ‘call’ to one day embark on the journey of a lifestyle fully committed to ministry.

Melanie S. Pickett, Kerrington Sweeney, Uniquely Yours Ministry
March 15, 2016
Life Is Beautiful

Traditions Old and New: An Aussie Christmas!

Today I’m welcoming Julie and her Aussie Christmas traditions and how Jesus truly is the reason! You can read more of Julie’s work at http://chaosandgrace.com.au/  Be sure to click through to the yummy recipes she’s provided as well as the video! Here’s Julie:

 

If you are here from Melanie Pickett’s Flying Blonde Blog….G’day from Australia!

I’d love to share with you what an Australian Christmas looks like to our family.

 

Old Traditions

Every year my mum, my sister, and I have the same conversation. “Will we eat traditional food for Christmas?”

You see, two-hundred and a bit years ago, people came to our country and brought with them their English Christmas traditions:  Christmas Cake and plum pudding with hot custard, roast meat and vegetables, eggnog and singing carols by the fire. This makes perfect sense in a country that can be snowed in for Christmas.

The trouble is, in Australia, Christmas day is guaranteed to be over 30 degrees C (86 degrees F). This is not roast dinner weather as much as we love it.  So, like many others across our country, we are asking the question “What should an Aussie Christmas look like?”

 

skategirl

 

New Traditions

 

Having traditions just for tradition’s sake doesn’t always make sense.  A wave of change has come with acknowledging we celebrate Christmas in a hot country.

This year an amazing array of seafood and salad will grace the table alongside cold roast pork (because my Dad can’t quite give up Christmas crackle). Desert is now cheesecake, pavlova, and trifle.  T-shirts, shorts and thongs are the dress code for the day. After lunch we will all head to whatever water we can find to cool off while my Dad has a snooze on the lounge. There may even be a game of backyard cricket. 

 

Traditions That Create Memories

 

Whether the food is hot or not isn’t really that important.  Christmas is about celebrating with good memories and some Christmas traditions will always remain:

Our kids have decorated our Christmas tree and Christmas cards are on display.

We will bring our picnic blanket and sit under the stars singing at our community carols event, while the kids run wild with glow sticks in the night.

On Christmas Day, my kids will wake up before dawn to unwrap their presents and eat all their Christmas chocolate for breakfast. 

There will always be extras around our Christmas table because we believe no one should be alone at Christmas.

We will pop bonbons, wear silly paper hats, tell bad Christmas jokes, and Christmas songs will play all day.

We will be eating leftovers for the next week.

Christmas Table in Sunny Australia

Christmas Table in Sunny Australia

 

Teaching Our Children the Meaning of Our Traditions

In the midst of all the activities and organising, our family will be taking time out each day to remember Jesus, the reason for the season.  Jesus isn’t just thought of at church on Christmas morning. 

As we buy gifts we share with our kids that Jesus is the greatest gift of all. When we look at Christmas lights in our street we discuss how long ago Jesus called himself the light of not just a street but of the whole world. And when singing Christmas songs, we discuss as a family how the shepherds and wisemen must have felt seeing Jesus.

Sharing about Jesus is our family’s tradition that weaves all other traditions together and gives them their meaning.

From my family to yours,

 

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas,

 

xxx Julie

P.S. If you want to hear with your kids an Aussie version of Jingle Bells, watch the above video.

What are your favourite traditions? How do you infuse them with meaning for your family? I love to hear your comments below.

 

December 11, 2014
Encouragement, Life Is Beautiful

A Christmas Picnic

I first met Laurie about 15 years ago when she and her husband were youth pastoring at the church we attended. Laurie led the Moms’ Group and my daughter who’s now almost an adult was two years old then. Laurie is a wife, mom, blogger, speaker, singer, friend, missionary, and a beautiful soul who loves the Lord. And she’s funny. This is a great piece and I’m honored that Laurie is writing for us today!  You can read Laurie’s blog (Living a Laughable Life and Other Things I’ve Learned) at http://laurieyost.blogspot.com/

Families all over the world are steeped in their Christmas traditions.  Year after year we count on things happening the same way and when they don’t it seems to throw off the schedule.  There are just some things that shouldn’t be changed.  I grew up in a family where Christmas day was always spent at either our house or my grandparents’ house opening gifts and eating ham, mashed potatoes, salads, rolls, etc…. Tons of time was spent getting the meal ready and tons of time was spent cleaning up.  For families that enjoy being in the kitchen that much it was fun but for me I wanted to be sitting and watching a football game, or slouched on the couch like my grandfather with my pants unbuttoned just a bit to ease the pain of what we’d just eaten.  My lot in life, because of Christmas tradition, was going to be in the kitchen doing dishes and cramming leftovers into mismatched Tupperware.  Could this really be what Christmas had to be?

I ended up marrying a preacher.  Those of you who spend much time in the church will know that the holiday season is a busy season whether it’s children’s Christmas programs, ladies’ teas, handing out food to the needy, or getting ready for the Christmas Eve service.  By the time we get home from the Christmas Eve service we are exhausted.  We decided early on in our marriage that Christmas day was going to be spent with just our little family at our house so that we didn’t have to cart the children to every relative for just that one day.  We didn’t like the idea of saying, “Here’s a few new toys but just get a glimpse of them quickly because we are leaving in 5 minutes to do the relative runs.”  Nope, we decided that Christmas would be our day to sit together and open gifts slowly as a family and enjoy talking about why we gave a certain gift to a certain person, eating cinnamon rolls, drinking coffee and enjoying the gingerbread/Happy Birthday Jesus cake that Zachary would always make. 

But then it would always come to the dinner; that loooong exhausting dinner.  When you have young children, you’re tired anyway but the thought of cleaning up after a big meal that you’ve taken hours to prepare doesn’t sit well—especially on Christmas day.  So we changed tradition.  My husband said one year when the kids were young, “Who says that we have to have a traditional Christmas meal?  We are tired from all of the ministry of the past weeks and our goal is to truly enjoy this day celebrating Christ’s birth, so let’s get pizza.”  “PIZZA!!!  Are you serious?  On Christmas you want to eat pizza?”  “Yes,” he replied and have fancy root beer and throw a sheet on the living room floor and eat it like a picnic.”  “Oh my, that seems almost sacrilegious.  Can we DO that?”  And then he said the words that were music to my ears.  “Honey, we can make our own Christmas traditions and this can be one of them.  You won’t have to be all day in the kitchen and we all love pizza so why not?” 

It was settled.  Pizza was going to be our new Christmas tradition.  The day before we order from the best pizzeria in town a few half-baked pizzas.  (and yes, we always have to tell them 2 or 3 times that we want them just half-baked).  On Christmas day we stick them in the oven and cook them the rest of the way.  We buy our fancy root beer and spread a sheet over the carpet and have our Christmas meal.  The first year we did it the kids were just small and they loved it.  We were having a picnic for Christmas!!  Now that two of the kids are in college and one just starting high school they know that when we celebrate Christmas day together it will be with our tradition:  the pizza pie.  I think at this point if I dared bake a ham that I would be looked at as a traitor.  So this Christmas, pizza it is.  I’m happy to say that I can’t wait for the clean up. 

December 10, 2014