Break my heart, Lord...

This is a song we've sung several times at the church we're attending now. There's a line in it that has hit me very hard. "Break my heart for what breaks yours." Powerful. Since the first time I heard it I have prayed that countless times. The Lord has seen to it that He is breaking my heart for what breaks His. It's amazing.

Gardening

Over the last couple of years I have really gotten into gardening. Not weeding, mind you, just gardening. I have been working hard to fill the flower garden in the front yard and it's really coming along, but my newest project has been adding trees to the backyard. Today we went and bought two Norway Spruce. Almost wished we had picked up two more. I also transplanted two maple trees from the front yard that started growing in our flower bed. There is already a new maple in the backyard we transplanted two years ago, but it's taken a while for it to get going since last year a lawn service we were using wasn't very careful and almost killed it off. Here is a full view of the back corner. If you click on it you can see a bigger picture. The one spruce is hard to see in about the middle of the picture, and the far right landscape block has the 3 year old maple in it, plus some daffodil plants. The ones on the left are the new ones...


And here's an upclose of one of the maples. I added geraniums to give some support to the maples so they aren't in there all by themselves. This fall I'll plant some bulbs as well to add more color in the spring and decide next year what else I want to put in to replace the geraniums. I like to use perrenials as much as I can, so I will be looking for something more permanent.
After I showed Jeff and told him my thoughts on getting more Norway Pines he liked the idea. I also have three more maples up front I'm waiting to get a bit bigger and then I can transplant them back there, too. It's kinda funny that after 12 years of being in this house I finally choose to add trees to the backyard!

Baseball

I am a Twins fan. I love watching them, especially in person. On the TV is okay, I can do that, but I have a real hard time listening on the radio because I'm a visual person. Jeff has to tell me what's happening every once in a while for me to know what's going on! My favorite player for the last few years has been Joe Nathan. I have a few other players that I really like to watch play as well. I hope the Twins do well this year. I was beginning to get concerned for a while when they were having problems getting out of their losing streak. It was also good to see Joe Mauer back in the line up.

We're gearing up to go and watch our first college level baseball game tonight. Our local team is called the Riverbats. They have been in our area since 1997, and we haven't missed a season without going at least three times or more every summer. They are fun to watch as the guys learn how to use real wooden bats. We also enjoy the fun things they do between innings to keep the kids' interest up. Our oldest, who is 9, has started to enjoy baseball. She listens to the Twins as often as she can on her radio at bedtime or will sit and watch a game with us. Our 8 year old is just starting to pay attention to the games and asks the score from time to time, but he isn't as interested yet. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to the fun evening with my family tonight, and hope the Riverbats can do well! It will also be great to see some fireworks - they always put on a great display after the first home opener.

Camping

We took our first camping trip of the season over Memorial day weekend. We stayed at Interstate State Park in Minnesota. It is just on the Eastern border between Minnesota and Wisconsin on the St. Croix River at Taylor's Falls. The weather was perfect...in the 70's during the day, and upper 40's at night. On the evening of our arrival, Jeff's brother-in-law and his wife and 2 kids came to visit and share a campfire with us. It was a fun visit.

On our first full day we went on a tour, checking out potholes made in basalt on the St. Croix riverbed. The particular pothole I have posted is called the "lily pond". They used to plant lilies in it, but have not done it in several years. After our tour, we went to a restaurant in Taylor's Falls called "the Drive In". It is a 50's style drive up that you get your food served to you right at your car. Next to the Drive In was a mini-golf place run by the same owners. We decided to play a round of golf with the kids when we were done eating. We headed back to the camper after that, and we all had a bit of quiet time, just resting and relaxing. I got to try out my new hammock Jeff gave me for Christmas, and I really enjoyed that.

Our next full day was Sunday, and we decided to take a boat tour on the St. Croix. We sat on the top deck, front row. It was a great view of the river as we headed downstream 40 minutes and then back again.

On Monday we headed back home after lunch. I was very surprised that there were so many fun things to do at Interstate. When we made the reservations earlier this spring, I thought for sure it was going to be a dull weekend hanging around the campsite. I was glad I was wrong!

A bit of rambling...

I was so blessed by a blogsite that I happened upon today, and it really compelled me to share my own journey. I do have another blog that is specific to my health problems (www.happycamperscampsite.blogspot.com), but there have been so many times when I just wanted to talk about other stuff and felt that wasn't the place. So, here I am...adding just one more thing to keep me from doing the things I should be doing! I think it will be good, however, and maybe even therapeutic for me to talk about my faith, parenting, and just generalities of everyday living.

I enjoy so many things that I want to talk about! I love camping, gardening, baseball, facebooking, and spending time with my family - especially my husband. The Lord has blessed me with all of these things! How awesome is He!

Today, I would like to share more about my faith and who I am through Christ.

Several times during my life Christ reached out to me, yet I kept pushing Him away. It started when I was in about the third grade. My parents didn't go to church, but my maternal grandmother did. She lived two houses away from us, and when I was about nine, she asked me if I'd like to go to church with her. It was a Lutheran church, and I began to go often with Grandma. By the time I was in sixth grade, I was so enamoured with the church as well as the pastors that I found myself getting involved in everything I could. I just kept wanting more and more. By the time I was in tenth grade I had taught Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, sang in the choir, acolyted, was president of the youth group, and kept trying to find things to fill the void I had in my life. I was in the right place, but I was looking for the wrong thing. I was looking for my self-worth...I was looking for the glory of me. During these years at this Lutheran church I kept hiding the fact that I wasn't a believer. It was easy to do with all of the ways I could 'look' like the perfect Christian in other's eyes. But I wasn't fooling God. And I knew it.

When I turned 16 I got a job. I started looking for ways at my job to fill the void the church couldn't. I stopped going to church and found hours at work that would justify my not going. I was never able to fill the void at work, either. I started hanging out with friends on the weekends to see what trouble I could get into, although I wasn't very good at getting into trouble. I know now that the Lord was watching over me to keep me safe and pure for Him. After graduation I moved out of my parents' house. I worked for about two years, then decided I needed to go to college. I wanted to do something with my life besides my current job since it wasn't filling my needs either. College was okay, but extremely hard. I kept busy still working my regular job, going to school, and doing work study. I also found out that I had a learning disability, which made sense since I struggled through school and college. During this time I met a very special man who soon became my husband. We met in April of 1994, and we were married by the fall of 1995. Jeff found a job a few months before we got married in a town 3 1/2 hours from our home town, and we jumped at the chance of starting fresh. Our first years of married life were good. We considered finding a home church, and even attended a Lutheran church a few times that one of my former pastors was at. Jeff grew up Catholic, but we didn't consider any Catholic churches. We didn't stay at that particular Lutheran church - we didn't feel comfortable with them having a female associate pastor, but didn't really understand the reasons why. Some of Jeff's college friends we started spending time with became very instrumental at this point in leading us to the cross. They gently and lovingly shared the gospel with us several times. They even bought us a Bible. Yet we still didn't get it.

Jeff's dad at this time was diagnosed with non-hodgkins lymphoma. We made several trips to see him in the hospital. I started praying during this time that God would make him well.

In 1998 I became pregnant with our first child. We were so excited. It was such good news as we saw Jeff's dad's health detoriating. Jeff's dad was happy about the news since it would be his first grandchild. At twelve weeks I miscarried. Two days later Jeff's dad passed away. I was so confused and depressed...how could God do this when I had been praying? It was hard to understand. Jeff not only lost his first child, but his dad as well. Six months later Jeff's cousin, who was about his age, died suddenly. Things just kept getting worse it seemed, and I stopped praying.

In 1999, I became pregnant again. This time the pregnancy went full term, and our daughter was born in early October. We were overjoyed. Two months later, Jeff's paternal grandmother passed away. We still had questions, but didn't understand. Jeff's college friends became such dear friends by then, and they continued to show us love and hope in Christ. We were starting to get it, but it was still a long steep hill we were climbing. We started attending a small Bible church the spring of 2000, but it wasn't until 2001, after our second child was born, that I understood the life-saving gift of Christ. After a bitter argument about the Bible with a young man who was selling magazines door to door, I got on my knees and I prayed. I prayed hard. That night I prayed again, and it was then that I knew I had been forgiven and that my journey in Christ had just begun.

Nine years later I still feel like a baby Christian, but I am growing. My walk has been sidetracked by health problems several times, but I keep coming back. Our family now attends a Baptist affiliated community church - the teaching is meaty, and I am being filled with spiritual truths - more than I could ever imagine. I have been blessed by His grip on me, and I am so thankful the Lord hung in there with me and kept me on a path for His glory, and not my own.