We have been really busy with vacations and life is staying busy for the rest of the month and then some. We were in Texas for a week, came home for 3 days and left for Wisconsin for a week. I’ll post pictures later about those trips. Tomorrow we’re celebrating the 4th with Tim’s siblings down near the cities, then we have 2 weeks before we leave for Mexico. As much as I’ve enjoyed this summer so far, I’m looking forward to settling down.

Baby Boy should be about 2.5 pounds right now, and that feels about right. He is an active baby, and Tim and I enjoy feeling his kicks. I did a small baby registry at Target for Baby Boy. I’m not sure what the rules are with baby showers and gifts when you have 2 babies so close in age, but I figured since we’re having a boy this time I’d go ahead and register. It was more for fun for me. The main thing I’m wanting is the Baby Trend Double Sit and Stand stroller. We have one on the registry. I’ve been keeping my eye on craigslist for one, but so far no luck on buying one there. I was very tempted to put stuff on the registry that we’ll need for Hannah like a new carseat and at some point a little potty, and booster chair for the table, but I held back.

Hannah is doing great. She has weaned herself off of the bottle before 11 months. After putting up with several fits while I try to give her a bed time bottle, then putting her milk into a sippy cup instead and having a happy girl, we’ve switched completely to sippy cups. Hannah is now a fast crawler and loves to walk with her toy or holding on to someone’s hands. I spent some time searching on craigslist for walking wings to help her learn to walk and save my back now that I’m already in the 3rd trimester with Baby Boy. I can’t believe how soon we’ll be a family of 4!

Yesterday was our last night of Sr. High Impact for the school year. Our summer ministry takes on a different look, taking advantage of a new schedule for students, and allowing families to have more time together.

Tim challenged us to take advantage of the summer. There is no more school every day for our students on top of work and sports, or music. The summer is a season of extra time that we can devote to God and grow in our spiritual walk. We talked about spiritual food, and where we should be in our walk.

Hebrews 5:11-14 explains clearly that if you have been a believer for a number of years that you should be teaching others instead of being taught. But there are so many people that have not moved past the baby stage of needing someone else to feed them. If you are depending on someone to preach to you on Sundays, and teach you at a Bible Study, but are not digging into God’s Word on your own, and teaching others what God is teaching you, you are still stuck on milk and cannot handle solid food (vs 12).

Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong. Hebrews 5:14

Are you training yourself? If you’ve ever exercised, played a sport, dieted, played a musical instrument, gone to school to one day have a career, you know that it takes training and discipline. It’s the same with your spiritual walk with Christ. It’s more than just believing and making the choice to follow Christ. You must train yourself. Dig into God’s Word on your own. Don’t just read over the words, but really dig in and find the meaning and listen to what God is teaching you in your own life through scripture. The study Bible I have has probably twice as much explanation for each scripture I read, and I really like how it helps me to understand more and open my eyes to a meaning I may have missed.

So what is holding you back? Are there distractions? Are you afraid you’ll loose some friends if you decide to follow Christ whole heartedly and truly seek Him? Your rewards for following Christ instead of man are so much more worth it. This world is temporary, but eternal life with God is forever. How about your hobbies or even what you do when you’re bored, do those things stand in your way of spending time with God? Tim and I got rid of tv in our home, partly to save money, but mostly because it was a huge distraction for me. It was so much easier for me to sit infront of the tv to rest than for me to pick up my Bible and read and study God’s Word. Which, when you start to study and get closer to God, there is nothing else that can give you rest and fulfillment like God.

Even though we don’t have tv, I still have temptations to do other things besides spend time studying scripture. Today when Hannah went down for a nap I finally got around to doing a work-out video, and then wanted to just play a game on the xbox, but felt God telling me to go grab my Bible and take advantage of this quiet time in our house. I wanted so badly to put it off, and thought to myself, “Oh, I’ll have time later.” But listening to God and knowing better was much better than playing a mindless game. The verse that stuck out to me the most today in Matthew 12 is verse 30, “Anyone who isn’t with me opposes me, and anyone who isn’t working with me is actually working against me.” That really got me thinking. Am I actively working with Christ? If I chose to ignore God telling me to spend time in His Word, who was I working with? The extra study at the bottom explains this verse more: It is impossible to be neutral about Christ. Anyone who is not actively following him has chosen to reject him. Any person who tries to remain neutral in the struggle of good against evil is choosing to be separated from God, who alone is good. To refuse to follow Christ is to choose to be on Satan’s team.

“Memories can drench one is shame, but the battle is won as we drench ourselves in the truths of God’s satisfaction with us (pg. 39 ‘Free Yourself to Love’).”

We’ve all done something we regret, and even if it’s something that has happened years and years ago, every once in a while a haunting memory can creep it’s way back into our thoughts, and it usually creeps back up in the worst time. If we’re lucky we can just shake the thought and move on with our day. If we let those thoughts meddle in our lives we’ll get worn out and torn down. Instead we need to fill our minds and hearts with God’s words, God’s truths. Any time an unwanted thought comes into my head I try to remember Philippians 4:8 “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” Find verses that really stick out to you in each of those areas and meditate on them, so when something comes to mind you need to fight off, you can.

“If you find yourself overreacting to a suggestion or constructive criticism, ask the Lord to show you whether or not your reaction is based on pride or unhealthy shame (pg. 47).”

Shame can come from not only past regrets, but from holding on to something we know we shouldn’t. When I hold on to past hurts and have a hard time letting go to be free to forgive someone it causes shame inside knowing what I should do and knowing that after all this time it gets harder and harder to forgive. When I hold on to a grudge it eats at me, and I end up getting use to it, which is not healthy. When someone comes to you in love and correction do you welcome it or do you shut them out and refuse to listen? If you shut them out is it because of pride, not wanting to admit that there is a fault that needs to be worked on? Or is it because you are ashamed of something that you just want to shake away and not work through?

Here are a list of verses suggested by Jackie Kendall to help work through shame and forgiveness.

Psalm 119:42, Psalm 34:5, Isaiah 54:4, Isaiah 61:7, Ephesians 4:32, Matthew 18:7, 1 John 4:20

“I prayed to be a woman who had an unoffendable heart like Jesus and not someone with a bitter, tough exterior standing guard over her heart wounds.” (pg. 36) These are the first words I wrote down out of Jackie Kendall’s book “Free Yourself to Love.”

When I first read this sentence I thought, ‘Yes! I would love to not let others/things offend me and to be able to brush everything off!’ I use to be great at that when I was in college and something my Dad spent years trying to get me to learn, finally sunk in. The words of wisdom I think I’ll remember the most from my Dad is that “a situation is only as big as I make it.” I remember hearing that a lot when I was in high school and every small event was huge in my eyes. Then one day in college it just clicked. I don’t remember going through something drastic to realize that, I just remember that one day my Dad’s words finally made sense. But sadly, somewhere along the way I have forgotten those words of wisdom. I think about it, but the full understanding I once had isn’t there. I struggle getting back to understanding, and I think that is one of the reasons why I wanted this book, “Free Yourself to Love.”

The last words in Jackie’s sentence hit me even harder as I read back over it, and wrote her words in my journal. “…and not someone with a bitter, tough exterior standing guard over her heart wounds.” Ouch. I think I do that more than I realized. I don’t enjoy hanging on to times when I’ve felt offended or betrayed by someone, but it’s almost like I’ve felt like I have an obligation to remember these things and to not trust someone afterwards. In a way I tend to twist the situation around in my mind and kinda make myself feel better because of course I would never do something so horrible to another, and this person is below me because they did. That sounds really screwed up! Because I know that I have hurt others, we all have…but we don’t always want to admit it.

I’ve known for a while that my mind is the weakest part of me. That’s where Satan knows he can attack me the most with getting in my thoughts and really screwing things up. I have always struggled with thoughts of self esteem. The reason why I was so shy growing up, until college is because I thought that no one would be interested in listening to what I would have to say, so I might as well keep my mouth shut. And I think that’s partly why I like to write and I have journals full of my prayers to God because he loves me and always wanted/wants to hear from me and cares about what I have to say.

Are you standing guard over any heart wounds? Are you holding on to them so tightly so you can have control and prevent God from taking them away? I am finding that there are many aspects of forgiveness and many excuses that we make to hold on to hurts, and sometimes we try to get rid of a past hurt, but the memory keeps coming back…so then what? Already I have been more transparent that I expected as I write out my thoughts on what I am learning. But spending the extra time meditating on God’s word and learning about forgiveness is totally worth it. My prayer for writing out my journey of learning about forgiveness is so that someone else may benefit too.

Hebrews 12:14-15  ^“Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. ¹⁵See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”

This past weekend Tim and I took 7 youth down to the cities for a weekend missions trip. Keeping with tradition, on the way down Friday we stop at Fuddruckers for a great dinner. This is the only time we eat there, and it is sooo good! Then the rest of Friday consits of settling into our rooms, and a great evening of worship music and a great speaker. This year the speaker was with International Justice Mission. This is an incredible ministry that reaches out those with such a huge need, needing someone to save their lives. We also found out what our project would be for Saturday.

The girls in our group lucked out and we got a room to ourselves, which was really nice because we didn’t have to worry too much about girls staying up late when we were wanting to sleep. The group across the hall was loud when we were all in bed, but once it was lights out for everyone it quieted down. On Saturday we went to a community center and did various jobs. They had a lot of cleaning and clearing out that needed to happen. We sorted through their good and bad chairs throwing the bad ones in a dumpster. Some people cleaned the kitchen and bathrooms, and others tore some old carpet off of the stage. Everyone with our church mainly did the heavy work of dragging loads of garbage to the dump.

For lunch each youth group was given one dollar per person for lunch and the teens had to figure out what everyone would eat for lunch that day. Our kids chose bagels, strawberry cream cheese, hi-c and brownies. When we got back to the church I went in search for food after started to feel weak and a little dizzy. I went to the kitchen and was able to get the afternoon snack early, so I ate a banana, apple and 2 cups of milk. I felt much better after that.

Saturday ended with the different youth groups playing a game together and a last worship time with the same speaker. On the way home we stopped for a quick dinner at Taco Bell, Burger King and Dairy Queen. Then it was time to head all the way home. We had a great time, and I didn’t realize how worn out I got. Sunday was great with my 4th grade girls Sunday school class, and I was already tired for Sr. High youth group that night, then Tim and I got home later than usual and I subbed all day today. I’m feeling pretty exhausted today. As the afternoon went on I was feeling more and more achy. I hope I’m not coming down with anything, but just need rest. Tonight we have Sr. High C-Groups, which I always look forward to. At this point though I’m not sure I’ll take a subbing job tomorrow. I got about 7 hours of sleep last night, and could use a lot more.

This has been a full and wonderful week. Sunday started off with a great time with my 4th grade girl’s Sunday school class, then a nice lunch with our Sr. Pastor and wife along with our new conference camp director and family. And we have started Gospel Journey Maui by Dare2Share, and it’s awesome! We had our biggest turn out last year when doing the Gospel Journey, and again it has happened this year. Last night for Jr. High Journey I had a fabulous time with my 9th grade girl’s small group. It really is the highlight of my week when I get to spend time with these girls and learn about God together. This year we’ve been studying the Old Testament, we did the New last year.

Substitute teaching has kept me busy today also. God totally has blessed me with the opportunity to sub as much as possible. I was worried about getting as many jobs this week as possible with not being able to work tomorrow because we are flying to Ohio for the National Youth Ministry Conference and next week is Spring Break, so I figured not too many jobs would be there. But God totally came through for me and I subbed Monday-Wednesday at an elementary school teaching a Kingergarten/1st grade combined class which was just so much fun, and then today I taught in a special ed class at the highschool for the morning.

I was already planning on having the afternoon off today, but am extra happy I planned on it because we are in the middle of a big snow storm that started while getting ready for work and will stop around when I go to sleep. School should’ve been canceled, but we’ve already had to extend the school year ’cause we’ve had too many snow days already. They did decide to close early, but after lunch so the district doesn’t have to make up the day. Now I will spend the afternoon cleaning up the house, doing laundry and packing for tomorrow. Tim and I are leaving our church tomorrow morning with 6 of our youth leaders to go to National Youth Ministry Conference. I am really excited to go to a different youth training and see how it goes and get to connect with hundreds of others that have a passion for Christ and teens. I will be trying to blog each night we are there, tomorrow-Monday. And having my own macbook this time should make that a lot easier because I wont have to wait for Tim to be finished with his blog before I can get online.

Tim and I leave in 9 days along with a handful of youth workers in our church to go to Columbus, OH for the National Youth Ministry Conference. This is the first time for us to attend NYMC, Tim and I up until this point had been attending the National Youth Workers Convention, but felt like we needed more experienced training since NYWC stopped being as challenging, and figured we’d see what kind of challenges we can learn from by going to NYMC.

For the last 2 days I have been going through the conference handbook trying to figure out which ministry learning track/s I want to sit in on. There are quite a few and I can’t make up my mind. This is what sounds interesting to me…

Deeper Learning Tracks: Thinking Theologically in Youth Ministry by Chap Clark or Partnering with Parents by Jim Burns & Barry St. Clair –  I would love to go and listen to Greg Stier speak, but I think I’ve already learned quite a bit from Tim with D2S’s Deep and Wide Youth Ministry and being in a youth ministry that implements this. I was also considering the Married to a Youth Pastor track with Cathy Fields and Amanda Maguire, but I went to one of these at NYWC and it seemed more like a support system of women venting about experiences they have had in their churches, and what I would really want to learn is how my transition is going to go this next Fall when Baby Schmoyer is around, and wanting to know how my role in ministry will change with a little one around. I already have faith that it will be a smooth transition because Tim and I are so blessed to be in the church we are in, so healthy and supportive. There will be change, but I don’t think it’ll be a pain.

Workshops: Bridging the Gap: Transitioning Kids from Children’s Ministry into Youth Ministry by Ricky Chromey; Helping Kids Experience God, Not Just Talk About Him by Jeff Berger or Using Service to Create a Servant’s Heart by Toby Rowe & Jeff Thompson

Brown Bags: Bridging the Gap: Transitioning Kids from Children’s Ministry Into Youth Ministry; Marriage Matters: Thriving as a Couple in Youth Ministry or Make the Most of Your Short-Term Mission Trip

Affinity Group: Married to a Youth Pastor

Here’s the deal though, Deeper Learning Tracks are made to go to just that track the whole time (you can come and go to which ones you want, but they’re designed to build upon each other) and the workshops are at the same time as the Deeper Learning Tracks. I’m kind of leaning towards the DLT of Partnering with Parents, but I would also like to attend the workshops I listed. The Brown Bag options I like are all during the same time, so if I had to choose I’d probably pick Make the Most of Your Short-Term Mission Trip. It’s also a bummer that these Brown Bags I like are at the same time as Tim speaking at one.

I haven’t decided if I’ll join an Affinity Group, ’cause I could use that time to take a break in the day, but I’m curious to know how they go, so I guess I could try it once and then make up my mind.

I’m not gonna stress over any of this, just wait until next week when I have to make a decision and also know what the other volunteers in our church are thinking about going, ’cause we can split up and tell each other about the tracks.

Today was the end of my two weeks notice I put in at the highschool. It was a bitter-sweet goodbye. I’m really going to miss the adults I worked with at the school, but I’m happy to get to substitute teach again, and in the elementary school where the kids like to please you more than try to see how much they can get away with. I was shocked to find out that some of the students that I thought didn’t like me, were bummed to find out I was leaving. I guess that constant sarcasm is a sign of affection, but with being in youth ministry we’re trained not to use sarcasm, so I’m really not a fan of using or receiving it.

I really hope that I get to keep in touch with the friends I made at the school. And I gave 2 students mine and Tim’s contact info to stay in touch. I gave one girl my email address who I loved getting to help, she is such a sweetie and stayed close to me in class. And then there is a guy that I clicked with, even though we had our tough moments, that I gave Tim’s phone number to and when we have Sunday night youth group for him to start coming to. So we’ll see what happens.

I didn’t know how far I could push talking about God and Christ in the public school here. I would talk to co-workers about my life and make sure to give God credit, and I would bring up church and youth group to kids in the school. I wish I knew more of how far I could’ve taken Christ into the school so I could’ve witness fully. I’ll have to try to find students on facebook and work from there.

I’m sitting inside at our local ski hill resting. We came out here at 5, and it’ll close at 9, so we might as well take advantage of the whole night. Tim and I met and brought 3 girls from the youth group to come enjoy the evening since school was closed today. We were wanting to come in the afternoon, but when Tim called he was told they were out of rentals, which wouldn’t have been fun to sit and wait. This was our first time to come out and ski this season. It was really fun, I just needed to take a rest. I think between skiing and shoveling snow this morning, I’ve had a good workout today.

Skiing is such a fun time with youth, and we are so blessed to have a ski hill close by. We have fun with the youth on the way down and have a quality time to talk with them riding up the ski lift. Going in a group is great ’cause there is someone there if you fall (don’t worry, it wasn’t me that fell) and people to encourage you and keep you up and going.

Our exciting news of the day is that I had my monthly checkup today and Tim and I got to hear Baby Schmoyer’s heart beat today! And the other good news is that I have only gained 3 pounds in the last 11 weeks. I feel hungry so much, but then can’t eat much at a time, so I was wondering how I was doing, and know that I don’t need to gain a lot of weight right now, ’cause that weight would not be the baby. I’m still not showing, which I am really looking forward to, but I know I need to be patient and wait. It’s actually nice that I’m not showing yet ’cause that means I get to enjoy this time of being comfortable since it seems like my nausea has subsided for the most part! Everything is going well. No worries with anything. I could use prayer to keep me from getting stressed and worked up over the little things, especially the bad memory I have now. It really frustrates me that I can’t remember much short term stuff. I still can’t find my car keys that I hid before going to Texas, and I’m thinking I wont find them until we make the office into Baby Schmoyer’s nursery this summer. Luckily Tim has an extra set of my car keys.

I finally got around to uploading the pictures from Christmas onto my computer, and since I was on a roll I decided to put them online too. Tim and I spent Christmas Eve and Day at his brother’s house and then flew down to Texas for a week. We had a wonderful time. A week later we had Tim’s family over to our house, but we didn’t have the camera out for pictures, sorry. The last 2 months have been wonderful with being around so much family.

You can see our pictures by clicking on the “Photo” link at the top of my blog, or click on the direct link below.

http://picasaweb.google.com/rockinyp/Christmas2008#