Learnin’ and Returnin’ Thanks

I am Thankful because…

1) Despite our car troubles we were able to continue on and the Lord provides a way for us always!

2) Working from home is becoming a reality!

3)We live in our tiny apartment. Our home buying dreams are on-hold still. I’ve been praying to find the secret to contentment. And it is slowly coming. I don’t hate our apartment anymore!

What I have learned this week…

Resentment and Anger give the offender power over you. So let go of the anger and resentment and the need to see justice. Too much energy and thought on these things just feeds it and makes it stronger.

Oh yeah, and you can patch a tire! I thought once it went flat it was done. The Tire Lives On and we get to keep a few hundred a little longer!

What surprised me…

1)I don’t love dancing at weddings anymore. Am I getting older or have I just been to enough that doing the same 6 dances have lost their appeal. But don’t get me wrong, I may be getting older but I am still fun DANG IT!

2)I am much more sentimental when it comes to kids on TV or movies.  I just saw The Help. MAN ALIVE I was crying like a little baby. So, unless you are a robot or a racist or a racist robot this movie will get you.

What I am readin’…

BossyPants by Tina Fey. Its really funny but kinda crass. I don’t recommend it to the youngins’. If there was a made for TV movie about my life, I would want Tina Fey to play me. She is smart and pretty and silly and hilarious.

You might be thinking to yourself “Geez, Tiff, Relax. You are only a couple of those things…on a good day!”

To those people I say…”Shut Up, you don’t have a TV movie about your life…I DO and I can have anyone I want play me and how I won the Oscar, the Emmy and the Dancing with the Stars disco ball all in year at the age of 31 whilst having amnesia. What did you do? What, Nothing…that’s right!”

The Help

If you want to have a good cry…go see The Help.
It really is very good. And this might sound a little strange, but the movie The Help gave me hope. Hope that things can change when they seem completely hopeless. The movie also helped me to be a little more grateful for what I have.
Minnie, one of the main characters described her life as “living in hell and there is no escape.” But she and those closest to her still praised God and worshipped him.
Amazing.
Things did change and are still changing. Its Slooooooow. But there is hope!

Heaven is for Real

So I finished reading Heaven is for Real last week. In case you haven’t heard about this book. It is a “true story” about a family and how their little four year old son made a trip to heaven while he was on the operating table.

When I read a book like this I have to decide “Am I going to buy it” or “take it with a grain of salt”. I decided that I am going to believe that this little boy did go to heaven, sit on Jesus’ lap and that he did see the things that says he saw and met the people he says he met.
The alternative is to think that this family is exploiting their boy or lying to make money. Call me naïve, but I don’t believe that is the case here.

With the theology of heaven put aside, this story is a reminder of how much God really loves us. He hears our prayers and he wants to be with us.
One of my favorite quotes from the book is from the little boy telling his dad about Jesus…”And he really, really loves us, Dad. You can’t belieeeeeve how much he loves us!”

I am slowly learning that God is good and God loves me as much as he says he does. I’ve been able to understand a pinch more since Emily has been born. I think about how much I love her, how I LOVE to be with her and I love it when she wants to be with me. How I miss her when she goes to bed (although sometimes I cant wait for this time ) and how I want to provide for her and help her to be her best self.
I now have a reference for how God loves me the same way. I still don’t get it…I still don’t feel it sometimes…but I have something very tangible now that I can reference in my relationship with God.

I don’t want to get into too much about what this little boy said goes on in heaven, mostly because it is dangerous to stray away from the Bible with anything in regards to God matters. Not that what this boy saw is NOT in the Bible, it also isn’t written out in the Bible the same way he described it.
All in all…it’s a good read, it’s a sweet story and it’s a good reminder of Gods love and it made me a little more excited for heaven too.