Long overdue

Some of this is a little late but I wanted to share the happenings around here.

#1
A couple of weeks ago our church held its annual women's retreat. I'm not usually a women's retreat kind of girl but this totally rocked (as did last year's from what I hear but my husband was busy marrying his sister - he he! I never get tired of that joke).

My friend Rea led the worship time and my friend Beth did the teaching. Beth's world has been turned on its head (that's an accurate description, right Beth?) by some things that God has been showing her and we were blessed to have her share those things with us. In fact, as I told Beth on Friday night after we got done, "Beth, that totally kicked my butt."

We went through Matthew 6 and here are some of the tid bits that Beth gave us as well as some things that God clearly pointed out to me:

1. I should be willing to settle for God's approval and do what pleases him no matter what others think.
2. Jesus demands practice - not theory
3. WHY > WHAT (for the math people out there)
   
4. Scripture is clear that we should give to the poor.
5. If Jesus used the excuses we use when dealing with the poor, broken, and hungry we would be in a world of hurt.
6. It is better to err on the side of GRACE than on the side of SUSPICION. (James Chapter2 verses 12 & 13 drive this point home for me - specifically in the message "Kind mercy wins over harsh judgment every time")
7. Practice the spiritual discipline of simplicity (this is hard)
8. Am I willing to offer what I have to others who are in need?
9. Develop a habit of giving things away.
10. Does my budget allow me to respond to others' needs?
11. Learn to enjoy things without owning them (hello library!)
12. If all I had was God, would it be enough? (This questions was also posed to me when I got back from Colombia this year.)
13. Worry is Needless, Faithless, Futile and Worldly.

The list is getting kind of long so I'll hold off there. One huge thing - okay two things but they go together - that I realized was that the things I was passionate about as an 18, 19, 20 year old when doing my undergrad study in School & Community Health Education have atrophied over the last few years. Partly because I don't work in that industry so I'm not faced with it every day, but also because I haven't made the effort to work those muscles out. I've gotten distracted by the mundane things of life and given lip service to the "theories" posed by Jesus in the Gospel. (This in no way means some of the things I do are unimportant to me or I am not passionate about them but that I have strayed very far from my first love. In some cases that's a good thing, but here it is not. My friend Alyssa shared something that she heard when she was in college which was "Remember your Jerusalem." Meaning, when in times of doubt or worry, remember that time in your life when you knew WHO GOD WAS and that he would DO WHAT HE SAID HE WOULD DO. That being said, I view the poor, needy, hungry, sick as the thing that struck a fire in my bones for who God is and what he is about yet I've slowly let that fire dwindle down to a sympathetic head shake or word when I see a homeless person on the street or people suffering on the news.

The second and complimentary thing that I was really hit with last weekend was that I have watched my husband take a similar journey as Beth over the past twelve months and it's been fun to watch. More importantly, it's almost as though we're on the same page (or at the very least, in the same chapter) with regard to our purpose. Over the years we've done a lot of things separately with regards to ministry and I believe that's healthy to a certain extent but it's time for something different. I don't know about him but I'm super excited to see what happens with this. With encouragement from him, I've changed up some of my plans for 2010 and I get to do some ministry outside of our normal "together stuff" with him.

#2
Keep us in your prayers as Matt goes in for a Colonoscopy and Endoscopy on Friday. I can't remember what I've filled everyone in on over the past few months but in July he started having trouble with his *ahem* digestive system. It was at this point that I see why the Good Lord placed me in a family where poop is not a topic we shy away from. Though, it took Matt some time to get used to the weekly phone call from my parents asking if "Matt made good poopy" rather than just ask, "hey, how ya feeling?"

So we did the Lactose-free thing, the Fructose-free thing (which is SUPER HARD to do) not once but twice and eventually learned the following:

1. Matt's Gastroenterologist is pretty sure he has Gilbert's Syndrome. I can't explain it so you'll have to look it up. Long story short - It's almost like having slow metabolism - just something you deal with, it's not going to hurt you and if they could do something about it they probably wouldn't go to the trouble.
2. The Gilbert's Syndrome is most likely the cause of his abnormal blood tests that led to his Gall Bladder removal. Ultimately it would have had to come out because it was chock-full of gall stones but it probably wan't urgent.
3. It might be a fructose intolerance
4. It might be Celiac Disease (gluten allergy)
5. Raising our health insurance deductible so we could afford the premiums and not lose benefits, while good for our pocket book at the time, is turning out to be a wash now.
6. You can't eat nuts, foods with seeds or food products containing red dye one week prior to having a colonoscopy. This is sort a bonus lesson.
7. No matter what happens, it appears that our diet and eating habits will have to change. Meaning fewer processed and artificially enhanced foods.
8. After all of this, we're also being wary at what we put in our body in general. I'm not going all psycho anti-vaccine, anti-antibiotic and anti-modern medicine but lets just say that I was more than happy to go (almost completely) Nyquil and Dayquil free during my last bout of Cold and/or Flu.

For those of you who are doing the organic thing, I would LOVE some tips and suggestions or even stories about why you decided to do what you did.