A weekend at home

Hello everyone.

Back at work.. Kinda slow again. That's okay. I've been thinking about blogging again. This one will be kinda heavy, because a lot is weighing on my mind.

I guess I could start off with some not so heavy stuff. Being married to Zane is the best decision I have made. I am constantly laughing and having fun. For example, this week, I have been sick. He did everything. He cooked. Let me lay in bed and watch Heroes (it's been awesome). And I drank probably 20 packets of earl grey tea in a week. DANG. Anyway, that servant. I love him.

We had another snow day this past week. His meetings and my work day was cancelled. It was a wonderful Friday. We literally did nothing. And I think to kick my sick week in the butt, I took a 2 hour nap with Tobias.

But we are simple folk. We have been putting puzzles together. After about and hour or so, Zane gives up because he is bored. :) I keep on though, I like the challenge. When we do 300 piece puzzles, they take about an hour, two hours tops. Saturday night we worked for over 2 hours, and then went to bed. We also have been thinking about planning future trips. By we, I mean me :) Zane just says okay to planning, because everything we have ever planned has been changed about 1000 times. So nothing set in stone yet, obviously.

Now for some heavy stuff.
We tried Northstar yesterday. The pastor did the state of the church. It started off interesting because we could not find a parking space at all. It reminded me of Highlands. We walked in, and it was a bit disorienting because it is set up exactly like the church we tried last week. Both meet in a school. Obviously whoever designed and constructed Christiansburg Middle School also designed and constructed Blacksburg High School. His state of the Church really made me miss Highlands. He was asking for money. He told people they needed to join and not attend. If they just wanted their "Sunday fill" then they needed to do that somewhere else. It was interesting and different. Zane and I talked a lot about what they were saying and how they approached things.

A college girl came up on stage and (the way I heard it) was pretty disrespectful of her pastor in front of 500+ people. It made me sad. But as Zane pointed out, I come from a military family and a church that demands respect (which is a good thing). We also lived in the South, deep south, and where we live now is not so much a respectful in a Southerner's eyes way of living. I'm not giving them an out or an excuse, I just think it's different here. Zane and I got to talking about some of the things he said. Which led to a discussion about Jesus, my favorite.
The pastor said "Paying for someone's coffee behind you is not evangelism. Proclaiming with your mouth is evangelism."
We were a little perturbed by this comment, because we have the Acts of Kindness cards at COTH, and on the defense, we were like "UM YES IT IS!" But we broke it down a little more, and said COTH doesn't think that just paying for someone's coffee is evangelism. It actually doesn't do anything for the person unless they are connected back to the church or connected back to Jesus. Then Zane said something that made me fall in love with him a little more. "When I try a church, I like to compare it to the first church." Hello. If that isn't good, well I just don't know what is going through your head.

We talked about that some, but then it lead into what the church does today, like how we try to reach the lost. This subject we talked about for a while, because majority of the time, street preaching won't do anything. Preaching like that belongs in a church, because most people walking down the street might not be debating or yearning for something spiritual or Jesus or anything, and then if someone who proclaims to be a Christian comes up and did that, they would be immediately turned off. Jesus didn't do that. Zane is the gospel genius. He loves reading about Jesus. I like the prophets. But when I have a gospel question, I ask Zane. Did Jesus yell at people to repent or turn from their wicked ways or they would burn, or did he loved the sinners? We were a little spotty, so correct me if I am wrong, but Jesus would yell "Repent" to the Pharisees, but to adulterers or tax collectors or anyone who was not religious he would love the fire out of them. To his closest compadres, he told them they had little faith and things they needed to fix, but that is because these people had committed their lives to Jesus. They weren't on the fence, they jumped in full force. He didn't tiptoe around His followers, but he loved those that probably in the world's eyes today, deserved the least amount of love and probably deserved (by today's standards) to be told to "turn or burn".

I think a lot of people have it backwards and that is why Christianity is such a turn off. "Turn or Burn" seems to be the message to the lost and "unconditional infinite grace" seems to be the message preached to "Christians". I think it should be a little bit of the opposite. The lost need to be loved, not rejected. They don't need to be scorned or shouted out that they are sinners and their lives are heathenistic or anything like that. They need to know that they were thought about on the cross. That Someone loved them enough to think about them on their dying day, and say "This was for You. If I could change anything about that day, I wouldn't, I'd still do it for you. If you were the only person to ever walk the earth, I would do it for you."
And to the Christians who purposefully sin. Knowing they are wrong, but don't really care, because they have the mindset that "God forgives me. God will forgive me for this." There needs to be revival in the Jesus sort of sense, that call out people who have committed their lives to this. That proclaim on facebook to be Christians, but there are aspects of their lives that need transformation. I think people of the church tiptoe around other Christians for fear of "judgement". We are called to help people out, call them out. Say that is a sin, it is hurting your relationship with God. That is wrong. It's not judgement, it's love.

I know this is not the case in some circumstances. And I'm still debating posting this.

But on my way to work, I was reflecting on what a great weekend Zane and I had together, and reflecting on our conversations, and I got to thinking about identifiers. When someone thinks about you, what is the first thing that comes to their mind? And is that satisfying for you?

For me, I want people to know me as the girl madly in love with Jesus, and who loves her husband and China more than most people. I think stuff like this is rather important. It shows what is important in your life. Where you place your stock, it shows what comes first in your life. The point is not to be super spiritual. It was just a thought. What's my legacy? I guess is the question. Do people know what I am passionate about?

Okay that's enough. This post is all over the place full of emotion. And if you see it, it means Zane approves of the content and I posted.

Belle

Slow day at work

Hello all,


I'm sitting here at work. It's a little slow, and that's okay. I have my Pandora station playing. Hillsong United, and just having a little time with my Jesus. My my, how good is He!

Virginia is a dark place. My constant prayer since being here is that Jesus's light would truly shine out of me. That I would stand up for my faith in boldness, and not be ashamed, nor back down. It's difficult. I realized how easy it was in Auburn. I hung out with people who truly loved Jesus everyday. When I was around people who didn't love the Lord, it was for only an hour - 3 hours most. Even then, there was someone who I could flock to so I didn't have to hear f bombs or cursing in general every 5 min. In Virginia, it has been rare to find someone who follows Jesus. The one person I have found is moving to West Virginia soon. That is who I am pretty much filling in for at the office. If anything, this has made me run into the arms of Jesus more. I see how faithful he is, and because I am trusting in him, I have been bolder than normal when talking about him to my co-workers.

I have been reading "Circle Maker" by Mark Batterson. Let me just take a minute and honor him. That dude serves Jesus in a cool way. I am constantly challenged by him and his words. Anyway his whole point of the book is to take a prayer request and watch Jesus do a miracle through our prayers by circling them, like the Israelites circled Jericho and the walls came tumbling down. God performed a huge miracle, and it has kind of challenged the way I pray. Then the other day, someone ( I can't remember who) tweeted something along the lines, If God were to answer all your prayers for the last 30 days, would it only change you, or would they change the world? And I was like, HELLOOOO. Anyway, my prayer life hasn't been focused on me lately, which is nice. I experience a new freedom when I pray for someone else, instead of just me.

Anyways, I have been circling people. If you would like to join me, I can give you their first names.
-Amanda
-Geoffery
-Daniel
-Lara

I was talking to a few a them because Zane and I are still trying to find a church. We don't know much about the area, so just gathering information from all areas. Most of them grew up in church but was burned by the church when they tried to step into a church of their own. They said church became weird and freaked them out, not in the good way. And then what one of them said to me, made me cry on my drive home as I was praying for him. He said, "My family is religious. I don't like any religions because when I came out no one accepted me." To be quite honest, I was furious. I even told him I'm sorry as I was holding back tears. No one could look past this guy's homosexuality to actually love him like Christ loved all sinners. "God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8. Everybody.

The greatest and coolest thing is that the people I talk to, want to want to desire church and hopefully Jesus. That's my prayer. I can shine the light of Jesus. Love them like Jesus loves me, ultimately pointing them toward the greatest Lover of all.

On a slightly less heavy note. Married life is still awesome. I am getting sick so last night instead of washing dishes like a dutiful wife, I went to bed. 10 hours of sleep and still feel like poo. But I have loved coming home to Zane. He has been wonderful. He's made dinner almost every night. This week we looked up recipes to try and went to the grocery store to buy the food for this week. It's been de-licous!!

Sunday we had chicken with garlic and brown sugar. We also had carrots and greenbeans sauted in the leftover garlic and brown sugar sauce. delish!
Monday, Zane got fancy and got out of order for the menu I planned out for this week. Okay with me. We had taco mac and cheese!! yummm
Yesterday we had tomato basil and mozarrella paninis!! oh we added bacon :)
Today Zane texted me and asked if we wanted bbq apple bacon chicken or tilapia! I said the bbq apple bacon chicken! it's a crock pot recipe and I am at work so I hope the husband figures everything out. What I would like is to lay down and go to bed.

Zane on the other hand already has homework. He was working on it when I came home last night. I said "What are you doing?" "Homework." "You already have homework? It's the first day. " "1. I'm in Engineering. 2. I'm in Grad School."

Ahh the days of homework. I'm excited to have time to read again.

That should be about all. I miss everyone a lot. Especially my bridesmaids. They are like family to me.

If you've made it all the way through, thank you. I have a couple prayer requests, please.
1. Zane and I find a church
2. I feel better. I hate being sick.
3. We find godly people who we can connect with and be friends with. Although this comes with our first prayer request.


Love you all,
Belle

2 Weeks of Bliss

MARRIED LIFE IS AWESOME!!

Honeymoon, so great. But life in Blacksburg.

This week has been hectic for me. I have worked all week, still trying to figure everything out. It's crazy but I am extremely thankful for my job. Then we witnessed something magical. It snowed 6 1/2 inches!!!  What the heck!!! Then Friday, we shopped with all our gift cards. So thank you for all the gifts!

But the best part is, doing all of this with my handsome hunky husband. I have loved coming home to him. I have loved making a home with him. We have been added a few pieces here and there. Obviously not done yet :).

 I have added some pictures, hopefully we will finish up soon :)

We still need some more decoration and we are waiting for one of our gifts to arrive :)

Probably my favorite part of the apartment. The two on top were a birthday gift from Martha Ellen about 5 years ago... Holy cow. and The Z and V were our first wedding gifts from Nicole!

Our New Comforter. Also, notice the flowers! A gift from the husband.

Our wedding present from Martha Ellen. And our picture of us at the honeymoon :)

Zane painted this :) and my wedding picture

Bathroom

our living room

above the kitchen

We still have a lot to do, but I am loving it. 

Here is a picture of us.

Goodnight,

Belle