Your love never fails

Hey there, happy Sunday!  I love Sundays.  The day to take off, worship God and fellowship.  Along with resting, I love my Sunday naps.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to write again so soon to be honest.  The last post I had written caused me a lot of stress and anxiety.  I know that God wanted me to post it and as soon as I hit "publish" Satan started to attack me.  Such a battle, but he did not win.  I do feel, however, that my post was taken wrong in some ways.  My only point in that post was to write from my heart and the struggles I face with my identity.  And to relate it to your life.  I am very thankful for those of you that related with me, I know that everyone goes through it in a different way and that's what the post was meant to be about.

Anyway, on a brighter note, today was our church's 35th anniversary!  The pastor that originally started with the church came back and actually preached today.  He did a fabulous job.  So many things hit me with what he was saying, but there were two points that stuck out to me and things I need to think about.

He was talking about disciples and that we are to go and make disciples.  (follower of Christ).  The whole sermon was along these lines, but when he pointed out EGR, I really liked that.  EGR stands for "Extra Grace Required".  Now, we all have those certain people in our lives that just drive us nuts.  Those ones that we just don't hardly have any patience for sometimes.  Well, those people require extra grace from us.  I kind of chuckled a little bit because when he said that, I just sat and tried to think of a few.  I did, but after the sermon I was immediately humbled.  We had a church picnic afterwards to celebrate the 35 years of our church.  I wasn't even going to stay.  Justin had to go into work, I was tired, I was cranky to be honest and I just had so much I needed to get done here at home.  So, I was in line with my mom just talking about the sermon a little bit and little things were just irritating me.  I just am the type of person that has no patience in general sometimes.  Well, most of the time anyway.  Have you ever met one of those people that are just the sweetest thing alive?  They're just always happy, loving, caring and personable?  I always want to be like that.  But let's face it, I'm pretty much the opposite and I'm noticing it and not afraid to admit it.  As I sat there in my semi-cranky mood right before I left I thought "I am the person that needs extra grace."  Wow, how humbling.  I can't imagine being around me sometimes.  I am working on certain things in my life as I go through the refining process as I've talked about before, but I get so frustrated with myself.  Why can't I just be one of those constant bubbly people?  I'm thankful for those that constantly love me and put up with me, but wow, I am one of those people I'm sure that just requires the extra grace.  Which leads me to the next thing from his sermon that stood out to me.  And it goes along with it.  He actually asked the question if our lives were worth imitating.  When we go and try to make disciples, let's face it, people are watching us and our actions.  The way we live speaks WAY louder than the words that we tell them.  Is MY life worth imitating?  Is it even CLOSE to even starting to look Christ-like?  Sure, I might stand apart a little by the way I live.  (going to church, not partying, etc.)  But hey, anyone can do that.  But is my lack of patience, attitude etc., worth following?  Sometimes I have days that I'm the most happy and loving person ever, then the next day I can be the complete opposite.  "feelings" never last.  (Greg Speck).  I need to constantly remember that I have the joy of Christ in me and live like that, no matter what the day is like or what my "feelings" think.  I'm working on it, and with God's help I'll become better each day.  However, that's not to say it's not completely frustrating.  I get frustrated with myself that I can't always be that happy, bubbly person.  I wonder how God even puts up with me and my emotions.  But on the way home today, I heard a song on the radio.  90.7.  It's a song I've heard thousands of times as it's on the radio frequently, but songs will always hit you when you need them to.  It's always been one of God's ways of comforting me and speaking to me.  This song is called "One Thing Remains" and the lyrics that stood out to me as I was feeling down and frustrated with myself was this:

Your love never fails, it never gives up, never runs out on me......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y3K2Qvr6iM

Listen to it if you haven't heard it yet.  It just gave me hope.  He's not giving up on me.  Let's not give up on each other and loving each other either.  Have the extra grace for people that need it when our patience it wearing thin.  Definitely something I'm going to be working on constantly.

Apart from that, I had a fabulous weekend off!  I don't hardly ever get Saturdays off so with Justin working on the one Saturday I had off (*sniffle*), I really wanted to enjoy it.  I got to have a girl's shopping day with my mom, sister, grandma and nieces.  Starting out with Thursday afternoon, I went to the pool with my sister and nieces and cousin that came from out of town for the week.  I just worked that night instead of the afternoon so it worked out that I could do that!  Friday evening, Justin and I FINALLY got to try Sebrees, the restaurant that is almost literally in our back yard-ha!  It's been here for awhile, but we had never gone to try it.  We went with one of my bestest friends in the world, Katie and her boyfriend David.  It was delicious!  Then Saturday I got to go shopping and spend some time with the girls.  We used to go with my grandma to shop a lot, but it had been so long!  It was really nice and we made lots of memories.  Then today was the picnic and tonight I get to spend more time with family for a birthday celebration.  What a packed, fun weekend.  I'm so blessed to get a weekend like this to be with so much family.  Below are a few random pictures from the fun!  Back to the busy work week we go.  But nice to be refreshed after some much needed time off.

My dear friend Katie and me at Sebrees!

Morgan wanted Grandma "Finiley" to push her all day :)

Just a quick cute little bun I did while we waited :)

My new shirt I found yesterday!

 Okay, so.....yesterday while at Target I bought one of those "hair wands" that's supposed to give you those cool beach waves.  My aunt Kamden did her hair with one last weekend and it was SO CUTE!  Despite the look I got from the cashier (ha, you know what I'm talking about if you've seen one of these things!) I bought one in great hopes of those waves.  Well, this morning was the first time using it and it took like an hour on my hair since it's like five miles long.  I think I did it wrong.  I think it needed to be done in larger chunks of hair.  I got a curly look, but I have to say, my hair looks like this naturally so all of that time spent was for nothing :(  I really want to know how to use it correctly so it can turn out as it's supposed to!  Anyone else use these things?  I guess I got a few waves here and there but they were random--haha.