Hebrews 11:25

Tonight as I finish up a day of "homework" in my Beth Moor Bible Study I am doing, "Believing God", I find myself pondering over one verse that really wasn't even in our "homework".

It comes from Hebrews, and it says "He [Moses] chose to share the oppression of God's people instead of enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin." 11:25

Before I did any more thinking about this verse, I looked up the definition of "fleeting"--and my handy dandy app on my iPhone said that it means passing swiftly; vanishing quickly; transient and transitory. So, in other words, that it's not here to stay, it will be gone soon.

The reason why I am pondering on this verse so much is because it is something we, as Christians, could look to in today's society as encouragement. Look at all what Moses had to go through throughout his life time, and he still chose to be with the Father instead of the world. We as Christians in today's society are faced with the same decision. We are choosing to be the group that the world sometimes calls "weird" or "different" or "out of touch". I don't think you could consider those opinions necessarily oppression, but that isn't to say there isn't oppressed Christians in the world today. The other concept that I pull out of this particular verse is that it somewhat goes with Psalm 100:5, "For the Lord is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation." It doesn't directly tie into that verse, but if you think about it, the things of this world will not be here always, but the one thing, as Christians, we can constantly count on is Christ's love for us. That is never going to go away. He will always love us! How awesome is that?!

Let that sink in, and soak in it for awhile. I know I will be continuing to think about it for a few days.

This Deserves to be Watched

The video below needs no explanation once watched. He is saying so many things that are right about the way the church is in today's society, and how Christians are, too.

Politics

It's that time a year again, where Tuesday nights are no longer about catching Parenthood, but about watching the polls to see who is in the lead--and then who will likely be the next person to drop out.

Am I happy about how Iowa and New Hampshire have turned out, not exactly. Since, I have become somewhat of a Ron Paul supporter--I mean "Ron Paul revolution, bring us back our Constitution" has a nice little ring to it, right? And, of course, that's not the only reason why I am supporting him, but everyone has to have their slogan--and that one sticks. Because really we typically just give "change" back.

I am sitting here in front of my TV, watching Santorum give his speech about tonight's results, and I wonder if he really thinks he can come out of nowhere and sky rocket to the top. It just doesn't seem likely. Granted it's till early, and I am guessing he won't even be in the race when he comes to my state, Florida.

Back to Paul. One reason why I like him (granted it's not issue related), is that my generation is so enthralled by him. I told my husband tonight that I felt like Ron Paul is a young person at heart. I love to see my generation get excited about these kind of things. It's rare to come across a generation that cares so much. Not only does my generation care about politics and where this country is going; but we also care about other things going on in the world. Side note: example would have to be the past week's events at the Passion conference. If you don't know about Passion, you can find out about it here, and see the event I am talking about here.

Back to politics. Now, I sit here and watch Gingrich's speech after tonight's performance, and even though as of now (10:45pm) he has about 10% of the vote, I am surprise he hasn't dropped out yet. I would have to say as of late, his campaign has been the biggest roller coaster. And, in all honesty, I think he wishes his campaign was as strong as his wife's hairspray (next time you see her, please take note that her hair does not move, at all!)

Enough of my zingers for tonight. Maybe more will come with South Carolina's primary. Happy voting all!

Chorizo Tacos

The one thing I try to do with my cooking is not repeat something very often. Of course I have my staples, but I always like to try something different, here comes tonight's dinner--and again thanks to my obsession with Pinterest, I found the recipe.

I used this recipe, but like other recipes, I changed somethings like always. (I might be a rookie cookie, but I am not afraid to alter dinner recipes). The only thing I changed in this recipe was that I used Chorizo instead of the chicken sausage. When Justin and I looked at this recipe, we did not feel like the Chicken Sausage went the greatest.

It was really easy to make. I probably could have made the Cilantro Lime sauce ahead of time, and just cooked the Chorizo and Spinach mix when we were ready to eat. You layer on all the ingredients onto a tortilla, or if you are like Justin and I, use Ezekiel 4:9 Sprouted Grain Taco Size Tortillas. Not because we don't like traditional tortillas, just because we like the taste of these. And, then enjoy! The recipe does call to use 2 tortillas per taco, and I can see why, they are a bit messy; Justin and I only used 1 though.

Crock Pot Cooking

I keep telling myself that I am going to write a blog about one of the recipes I cook...and yet I haven't since I have been married. So today is the day for my first recipe post as a married woman! Yay!

Since I have started my new job I don't have the leisure of starting cooking at 4pm to past the time while I wait on Justin to get home. So that's when I thought of doing a crock pot recipe. Granted, I have had this recipe on file to do for almost a week and for some reason or another it kept getting pushed back. Anyways, I used this recipe here, and added my own little tweaks to it. I used 2 cans of Cream of Mushroom soup, and 2 cans of Tomato soup as well. The reasoning behind putting two cans instead of one, is that I added potatoes to the crock pot. It made it really simple for an all in one meal. The recipe itself calls for flank steak, but we actually used london broil that we got buy one get one the other week at Winn Dixie (if they are the same thing, I'm sorry, I don't know the differences between cuts of meat). You set it on low for 8-10 hours, we cooked ours for more like 10.

By the time it was done it was making the whole apartment smell wonderful. We didn't even have to worry about cutting the meat, it was literally falling apart. The taste was like something would have tasted in a nice stew. We then boiled some elbow noodles and top it off with the sauce, meat, and potatoes. Sorry I don't have any pictures, I will get better at this, promise.

Until next time!

Today.

A little over a month after moving down to St. Pete, I will be starting my new job today! I am beyond excited for this, and really know that it is going to be a great learning experience for myself. I will be working for a small law firm in downtown St. Pete. It's exactly what I wanted to do. It gets me the law experience that I want without being swallowed up in the big time corporate aspect of a huge firm. It is part-time, which has its plusses. It gives me the chance to run errands in the morning, keep things situated in the apartment and not feel like my head is going to fall off from all the stuff I need to do.

I have been adjusting to married life very well. It's nice to be able to wake-up in the same apartment with Justin after nearly a year and a half of long distance relationship. I appreciate the little things with him a lot now because of that.

We have been going to great church called Bridgepoint in St. Pete! And, we both love it! Their friendliness and openness to new people has been extremely joyful, and like nothing else I have experience from a church.

The apartment is coming together nicely. Pretty much everything is taken care of. We finally got curtains for the bedroom and living room last week. We plan on painting two pieces of furniture for the bedroom that we already have and a few pieces for the living room as well. All my living room furniture is black at the moment, and I can't wait till we paint it because then we won't be able to see the little bit of dust it accumulates--don't ever buy black furniture unless you want to spend countless hours dusting your life away each week! I finish dusting the pieces, walk away, and less than 5 minutes later there is more dust on it, I can't win at all with the black furniture. We also lack some wall pieces for the living room; we have a fireplace in our apartment and right above it is a huge blank space that is just screaming for something fun and eclectic.

Casper, my parents' cat that Justin and I took, is adjusting well. When I moved to Gainesville it took him nearly a week to start eating again, but when we moved to St. Pete he was eating in a matter of hours. He loves our outside porch, which my dad did a great job screening it in for us. Needless to say , Casper is a happy cat!

I, myself, have found a new love in crafting, cooking, and baking! As Brianne or Megan would put it, domestication. Cooking has come quite natural to me, and the same with baking. My crafting has been fueled by my obsession with Pinterest! I have been crocheting, which my mom taught me, and have made my own set of Christmas coasters. I am also planning on making my own laundry soap, and maybe even in fabric softener. Which will last a lot longer than the typical name brand, and save ourselves a lot of money. From the recipe I found the laundry soap last almost 6-months, crazy!!

Sorry this post was so long, I just had to update. I will be trying to be better are updating more!

1 month

In one month I will no longer be engaged, I will be married to Justin.

I can't believe it's already just one month away. I feel like we have been planning this wedding for a very very long time. Okay, maybe not that long, but there is a lot of stuff that goes into a wedding that I had no idea about. But, Justin has been so awesome about planning the wedding and getting things done. He understands my stress level can goes through the roof in an instant, so he took on a lot of the planning. And, I love him more for that every day.

There are going to be so many new things coming my way within the next month. My last day at The Zoo Gallery is the 10th, then my parents and I are moving my stuff down to St. Petersburg the 13th and throughout that weekend. I am excited to get things in the apartment and straightened, that way Justin and I don't have to worry about it after the honeymoon.

I will begin to look for a job after I get moved down there. I have one lead, and let's up that will turn something up. If not, I know I will be able to fall back on my experience in retail.

I will definitely have to trust God in all of that. I really don't want to be in the retail area much longer, so I am really having to trust God on him putting me in an office setting.

All for now. More to come along with all the changes.

"When the storms of life come, the wicked are whirled away, but the godly have a lasting foundation" Proverbs 10:25