Nonstop

The past few months have been nonstop for the Johnson family!  Here are some of the highlights:
1. We began our second year of homeschooling and joined a co-op group!
2.  Element church officially launched on September 11 http://www.elementorlando.tv/
3.  My Sister in law got married
4.  Organized a Single Moms event at church
5.  Women of Faith to get refreshed and renewed
6.  Leading a women's bible study, Duty or Delight, by Tammie Head.  I HIGHLY recommend this study!
7.  Preparing for the Christmas House.  A shopping experience for families in need!  http://www.thechristmashouse.org/

During highlight 3 (my sister in laws wedding) my son, Sky, broke his arm going down a skateboard ramp. He was in a cast for 4 weeks and in a brace for 3 weeks.  Sky is my child who has no fear and will do anything to be outside.  I have learned since he was very little that NOTHING slows him down.  Between highlight 4-7 mentioned above, I have been running around like crazy telling Sky, "get off the skateboard", "stop riding your bike down the ramp", and "please don't climb on the monkey bars" while you are still in a cast.  I have had to keep a very close eye on him!  We go tomorrow for another xray and we are praying it has completely healed!

Looking back through the last few months highlights, I am reminded I am blessed!  Yes, life is chaotic at times, but I wouldn't change one minute!  It is during these times that my family has grown closer together.  Don't let life pass you by.  Be sure to take time to enjoy it and live life to the fullest!

What is over taking your life?

This afternoon God gave me a fresh way to look at modern day idols. 
If you have a garden, don't you want it to look beautiful?  I want mine to look beautiful, so I have been out in the yard pulling weeds today.  I figured I needed the fresh air and the kids were out playing.  It seems to never fail that God ALWAYS speaks to me when I am pulling weeds.  I am not sure if that is where God likes to meet me or if that is the time and place I am more prone to listen.  It is an unusual place to talk with God, but it works for me!
 
When I noticed the weeds this afternoon, they seemed to multiply overnight.  I began to pull the weeds and push back the mulch and what did I see...MORE WEEDS!  Have you ever noticed that weeds never come alone?  After 30 minutes I had conquered half of those pesky weeds.  I was determined to finish.

Now stop for a minute and try to picture me on my hands and knees.  Okay, do you have the mental picture?  I was trying to reach way back behind my bushes to grab those sneaky weeds that crept up.  I was doing great...pulling and praying...all the sudden I heard buzzzzzzing.  I slowly looked up and was face to face with several bees.  I immediately jumped back.  I was stung as a child and had no desire to revisit the pain of being stung by a bee.

Isn't that like our day to day life.  "We" want to look beautiful, but if we take a closer look and push back the mask we are hiding behind, we may be surprised what we find.  (Now is where God gave me the application for the study.)  We may find our everyday idols slowly creeping in and maybe we find more than one.  They slowly begin to overtake our lives and push God out.  God is our true beauty!  My prayer is that we find those idols in our life now!  It can be anything that replaces God in your life...TV, Music, Books, work, exercise, your children.... 

When we find the idols in our life, we should immediately cut them out!  During the process of getting rid of our idols, we become face to face with a distraction that may cause fear in letting go of those idols.    Just like the bees caused me fear at first sight and I reacted by jumping back away from the weeds.  I could have easily walked away and said I would finish later, but I regained my purpose and focused on those weeds.
I cautiously began to pull weeds again, while keeping an eye on those bees.  Remember I did not want to revisit the childhood memory of being stung. 

The funny thing is I began to talk to the weeds, inside my head of course.  I felt like I was in a battle with the weeds and I was going to conquer them all and win!  I pulled weed after weed.  Some of the weeds would come out, root and all...that was a win in the battle.  Other times I was only able to pull the top of the weed off...that was a loss in the battle.  I knew those weeds would eventually grow back since I was not able to get to the root.  When we are getting rid of our modern day idols...make sure you are getting rid of it ALL!  That prevents them from slowly creeping back into our lives. 

I completed the front yard today!  Now I am sitting here with blistered fingers.  That is pretty normal when you pull weeds without gloves.  The pain and blisteres are only temperary and now my yard is beautiful again.  When we get rid of our idols, it will be hard and it may be painful to get rid of them.  That is only temperary!  The outcome of getting rid of the idols is worth being uncomfortable!  God loves you and wants to fill your ENTIRE heart and life!

Make room for God and conquer your idols.  As you grow in Christ, keep checking for "weeds" that may be growing in your life.  Stay "beautiful" in Gods eyes!!!

Fine Arts Night

Tonight was the Fine Arts Night for our homeschool group!  There was a lot of talent tonight.  Children playing the piano, singing, playing drums, violin, harp, reciting essay, drama, and an art show!  I just love watching children share their talents that God has given them!  Jada and Skyler entered the art show.  They both created a 2 dimensional art piece. 

Skyler's piece of art was called, "The Garden."  He used yarn, tissue paper, and lizzards.  Skyler loves to be outside and enjoys trying to catch lizzards.  So, his piece of art fit his personility!

Jada decided to use a scripture with her piece of art.  She started with different colors of hands and painted their nails...hot pink.  Then she used beads to make rings for the hands.  She placed a painted guitar on top of the hands.  Her piece of art was called, "Praising Hands." 

They had to stand by their artwork and answer questions about their art.  I watched from across the room and almost teared up.  They are growing up so fast and I am just so proud of them!  They both won first place in their age division.  They were both very excited and me and Jeremy were very proud of them!

The Direction God Has Taken Us...

Where do I begin?  So many things have happened this past year and God has moved our steps in several new directions.  One of the new steps is that I am now a homeschool mom.  I never thought I would ever hear my self say that!  With all the change that was happening at the beginning of the year, it was the best decision for our family.  Homeschooling has been an adventure to say the least.  My husband and I made the official decision two weeks before public school began.  Yes, you are probably thinking that was "crazy", but it was a "God thing".  I am really enjoying homeschooling and I think we have the hang of it now.  Don't get me wrong there has been challenges along the way as well.  I will be blogging about the adventures we go through and how we continue to live by our school scripture...  "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."  Phillipians 4:13

The second new step is my husband and I have been called to plant a church.  This has been such a leap of faith and a time of growing closer as a family, as well as growing closer in our walk with Christ.  We started meeting in our home with two other families.  We began to gradually grow every week and in two months we had grown out of our home.   We were in need of finding another place to worship.  We were blessed to have the YMCA parter with our church and we had our first service at the YMCA in November.  We have seen Gods hand in everything that has happened!  The exciting thing about all of the changes this year is that both of my children are able to see God working in every area of our life.  They have seen God provide for our family during the transitioning, they have seen God bring families to church, they have even been a part of inviting neighbors to church!  I will continue to blog about the adventures of being a church planters wife and how we survive each day with Gods guidance!

Our life has become extremely busy and I am excited to share what God is doing!

So many blessing this time of year!

Are you shocked I am writing a NEW post! Sorry about that guys, it has been so hectic around here this past month. But I promise I am back and I am trying to catch up on all your blogs. So where do I start...



First, we had Christmas House at our church last weekend. That is where we invited 25 families to come and shop for gifts, which were donated by our congregation at church. These families would have not been able to have Christmas if it wasn't for the Christmas house. There were 62 children that came through that day and we ended up having so so so many toys left over. God truly multiplied the toys. So we have invited more families and they have been coming in everyday to shop. We are going to let different families come in until the gifts are gone! It was such a blessing for me to just talk, cry, and pray with these families. We even had one precious lady that said she wanted to trade her toys for food. She was a single mom of 9 children. Of course the church body came together and supplied her with toys, gift card to publix, and a huge basket of food! Several of these families were at church the Sunday after Christmas house, how exciting!! I can't wait to see these families and children again just to love and hug on them!



Second, during all the exciting hustle and bustle of the Christmas house, my children's Christmas plays, childrens Chirstmas party, our staff party, and home group party at church, we had to find time to pack and move!!! Yes, pack and move! It has been very interesting. As I said before the house we bought was in short sale, so the process took about 5 months. It is an answer to prayer that we are in the house and how exciting we moved in 8 days before Christmas!



We are almost unpacked, we will finish today, and I have painted the kids bedrooms and the kitchen and living room. Pictures will come as soon as my sweet husband hooks up our computer at our new house. I am using his lap top right now and my camera card will not fit in it!



I am blessed to have such an awesome church that serves others, I am blessed to have family and friends who are there to help others who are in need, I am blessed to be living in our home just in time for Christmas, I am thankful for my children who are so excited about Jesus birthday, I am so thankful for a husband who has been so pleasant and handled all this stress with a smile and laughter, I am SO VERY thankful for an awesome God who loves me and takes care of me and who gave all of us the gift of Jesus!

Almost home owners again!

We finally heard back from the bank, after 4 long months. They accepted our offer on the house. The reason it took so long is because it was in short sale, so the bank had to acceot the offer, not the current home owners. I will fill you in on the details as soon as we hear more.

We are filling out the papers tonight and hopefully will be able to close on the first weekend in December. YEAH!!! We will be in our "home" for Christmas! It has been different moving 10 hours away from the home we use to own and moving into an apartment while we looked for a new home, but it was worth the wait! God is good!

Orlando Magic

Last night we went to our first Orlando Magic basketball game. The kids had so much fun and asked so many questions. My daughter asked "Why is that guy in the yellow shirt carrying around a big trash can?" I had to explain to her that he was walking around with food for people to buy. HAHA

Skyler loved all the music and just had to dance. They also caught a souvenir that was being thrown into the crowd...that was fun! We did leave at halftime because they were getting tired and Jada had school today, but we still had a great time for our first Orlando Magic experience!

The game is not complete without a big bucket of popcorn!