Abigail, a friend of David's

I've been reading a lot about David in the Bible lately. Yesterday I read the story of David and Abigail. It's truly one of my favorite stories from the Bible. It's a story that shows how a kind gesture can make the biggest difference in someone's life.

(to find the story I'm referring to, read: 1 Sam. 25)

When I was a children's pastor, I was teaching my kids about the fruits of the Spirit. We were learning about kindness and I taught them this story. It so happened that God wanted me to have some first hand experience with this.

It was towards the end of my 2nd semester in college and my roommates and I were starting to butt heads. After being in a 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment with 2 other girls, our nerves were a little raw and needed some breathing room. I can't remember what it was that we were fighting about, but I remember reading this story and thinking, I really ought to act on this. So I made her some cupcakes and brought her my peace offering. We made up within a matter of minutes and went on with the rest of the semester. Let me just tell you, my roommates from my first year, Brandi and Maggie, are two of my favorite people in the whole world! I feel like they are my sisters!

(From left to right: Maggie, Brandi and myself)

I think one of David's love languages was gifts... He was so angry at Nabal that he was going to murder him. Then Nabal's dear wife, Abigail, steps into the picture and brings him lots of gifts and all of the sudden his heart is changed. Can I also recite the scripture that says, "A man who finds a wife, finds a good thing..." (Proverbs 18:22) What's funny to me is that after Nabal dies, Abigail marries David... interesting, huh?

If you're in a tiff with someone try showing them kindness by offering a gift.

Above and Beyond!!

All I can say is, "Wow!"...

Last Friday my in-laws showed up at our house with more groceries than we EVER buy for ourselves, just to bless us. I've never seen our pantry and refrigerator so full! :)

Now, for another blessing! I wrote a few blogs back about how I was praying for a young family with kids the same age as mine to move in next door to us. Then I wrote about welcoming them to the neighborhood and introducing myself. Well tonight I was sitting out front with Jayden when two of the neighborhood girls (Both about 2 years old) came up with their little strollers and sat next to us. The mom of one of the girls is our next door neighbor and she was sitting on her front porch as well watching her daughter play.

First of all, I love living in a neighborhood where there are people of all cultures. Here I am sitting with my little white boy, a little Mexican girl and a little black girl... it was quite cute! Jordan came out with Gabriella and before we know it we're laughing and talking with our new neighbors, showing them our house, checking out their house, etc. Let me remind you, the mom (Lizette) doesn't speak English, so I'm having to step out of my comfort zone and speak in Spanish.

Anyways, they are a young family. The dad is 22, the mom is 21 and the little girl is 2! Jayden and Lizette (the baby) were running through the neighborhood laughing and drinking their juice from sippy cups... My heart was very full watching these two kids who don't speak the same language (not that they speak much of any language) running around playing and laughing together. Lizette is a stay at home mom as well, so it's going to be fun getting to know her.

I don't know why I'm so surprised that God answered my specific request, but I am.

Provision...

God is so faithful!

In my last post I told you about an impossible situation that I'm facing right now and how I was full of faith that God would come through for me. Well He has!!

The only people who knew the details of this situation were me and Jordan. We've been praying since Monday for God's provision because we were extremely tight on money. We didn't know how we were going to be able to fill our gas tank and our pantry. Monday I stood in my pantry making a list of all the meals I could make from the food we already had when I noticed Gabri wouldn't have enough baby food to make it 11 days. So I prayed and asked God to supply baby food. I didn't say anything to Jordan about it until after he came home. When he walked in the door he had a Wal-Mart bag filled with baby food that someone had given him at his work!! God knows our every need!

Then Tuesday Jordan's mom went to Safeway and bought us 5 cobs of corn, a package of fresh strawberries and package of ham... I'm pretty sure she didn't know we needed groceries... but God knew.

This leads me to our next surprise from God. I just got a phone call from my mom. My dad made me a bunch of furniture growing up and Jordan and I are going to go pick it up this weekend. She told me she emptied out the dresser and found a Christmas card from my grandparents to me. She wasn't sure what year it was from but it had $20 cash in it! That will be enough to fill our gas tank until Jordan gets his next paycheck!!! The cool thing is that we were praying for God to send unexpected money... that was very unexpected to say the least!!

On Monday I was almost feeling sick because I was so stressed out about how we were going to make it almost 2 weeks with very little in our bank account. After spending time in the Word and in prayer I was ready to face this giant! Now after watching the Lord provide for these needs that only He knew about, I am overflowing with faith!

David Vs. Goliath

In my quiet time today I read the story of David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17). I got a revelation as I was reading it.

David was a shepherd boy who protected his family's sheep. He trusted God to help do this task. Even though David trusted God he still had to face trials. Enemies (wild animals) came after the very sheep he spent his time protecting, but God helped David kill the lions and bears that came after his sheep. Think about it... just a boy out in the fields looking at his sheep when a lion jumps out of the bush and attacks a lamb. Then that boy takes a club and goes after the lion and removes the lamb from the lions mouth. Then when the lion turns on him, he grabs it by the jaw and clubs the animal to death. Sounds kind of impossible... without God.

When David is trying to convince Saul that he is capable of going out to fight Goliath he tells Saul of the times he defeated these enemies (wild animals) with God's help. David didn't volunteer to fight Goliath because he wanted to show his brothers and the rest of the army what an amazing fighter he was. He didn't want to prove himself, he wanted to prove God! And when he goes out and stands before Goliath, David is proclaiming that God will prove Himself. See David has experienced God's protection and help. He knows that when he walks into a situation that looks impossible, God is going to be there. God had already proved Himself to David, now God was going to prove Himself again to the armies of Israel and the Philistines.

We all know the end of the story. David takes a smooth stone that he picked out of the river, placed it in his sling shot and knocked Goliath out. Then he took the same sword that Goliath was going to use to kill David and he cut Goliath's head off.

Right now I'm facing a situation that looks impossible, but it also looks familiar. I've seen God take this same situation I'm in right now and prove Himself and I am full of faith that He will do it again. He is faithful! Just like David had to step out and stand alone and only had God, so we have to take that same step. We can't just sit back with the rest of the army, shaking in our boots wondering what God is going to do... We have to step out, even if we don't look like the right candidate for the job, even if the odds are against us...

I found this really encouraging and I hope it encourages you as well!

Jonathan

One year ago today I was getting ready for church when I got a phone call from one of my friends saying that Jonathan's body had been found dead at his friend's house.

The purpose of this blog isn't to tell you all about Jonathan's life. He was a great guy and if you had the privilege of knowing him, you already know this about him. The purpose of this blog is to tell you the ugly truth.

I had so many mixed emotions about Jonathan's death. I was mad at Jonathan when he died. He had been acting really weird the last few weeks. He was supposed to play drums one Sunday when Jordan was leading worship and he never showed up. He wouldn't answer our calls or texts.. nothing. He had been showing up 45 minutes late to worship practice every Sunday, but to blow Jordan off like that was really low and I was not happy about it. He had pulled away from the people who were once his best friends and started hanging out with these other friends...

About a month before his death Jonathan, Brendan, Jordan, me and Jayden all went to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory in Boulder. It's my last memory of Jonathan. There are a few things that I remember about that night. The first one is a question Jonathan asked me. He said, "Kortnie, why do girls always have to have a boyfriend to be happy?" And the second thing I remember is walking down the Pearl St. mall listening to the musicians and watching Jonathan give money to one of the performers.

It still hurts me to think that Jonathan died because of a drug overdose. In fact, I hated saying it when people asked me how he died. Why couldn't he have died in the car accident he was in the week before his death? I could have handled that, but to die because he was using drugs is so hard for me to wrap my head around.

Regardless of how Jonathan's life ended I still love him. I'll always treasure the memories we've made together. Here are a few I'd like to share with you. The photos aren't in any particular order.

Won't you be my neighbor!!!!

.....Thank you, Mr. Rogers for that song!

I thought I'd update my faithful followers on my endeavor to make friends with our new neighbors.

When we first moved into our house our great friend's Troy and Tirzah made a plate full of warm cookies for us. The plate has this cute little design and a phrase that basically talks about passing the plate through your neighborhood. It's cute and I wish I would have taken a picture of it before I passed it on.

I woke up yesterday and baked a batch of brownies and wrote a little welcome card and prepared them on that cute little plate. At around 11am I took the kids next door with our plate of goodies and rang the door bell. The windows were open so I could hear the kid(s) yelling, "MAMA!!!" but no one ever came to the door. I went home and waited until about 4pm and tried again. This time a young woman (maybe like 19?? or she just looks really young) and a little girl in nothing but a diaper and necklace answered the door. I said, "Hi! I'm your next door neighbor and I just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood by giving you this plate of brownies." She looked at me and said in a thick accent, "How much?" I replied with, "No, no it's free! I just wanted to give them to you." She then went on to say something in Spanish, all I caught was "su plato". I tried again telling her I didn't want the plate back and she told me she doesn't speak English...

My Spanish is terrible!! I can understand quite a bit but can't speak it worth beans! ;) Needless to say, it was very awkward! I felt really silly as I walked the 23 steps back to my front door wondering if I had just made a complete fool of myself and hoping that she understood what I was trying to say.

Then........ as I was walking back from visiting another neighbor later that evening my new next door neighbor was sitting on her front step and she made eye contact and waved with a big smile on her face. I think I made a good first impression!! I may not have been able to verbally communicate with her, but I think she felt welcomed into our neighborhood.

I now need to go practice my Spanish!!! My goal is to find out her name, how many kids she has and their names and ages. Anyone know what the Spanish word for brownies is?? She asked me if they were 'pastels' which I know is the word for cake... but wasn't sure if it could also be the word for brownie...?

I don't know all the details about my new neighbors, but I do know they look like a young married couple with at least one kid the same age as mine!!!!! God is SOO good to provide exactly what I asked Him for!

P.s. I learned a trick when I was a student at CFNI. To keep your brownies from getting over cooked on the edges put some tin foil around them when the edges have finished cooking and then continuing baking the brownies until the middle is done.

If my hair looked like that I'd DYE!!!

So this is a continuation of my last blog....

I wanted to tie these pictures into the last blog, but they didn't really fit. So I thought I'd tell you all how I feel about dying my hair.

It all started back in the 6th grade when I dyed my hair for the first time, it was a mix between red and purple... from there it went to pink (more times than once), purple, brown, blonde.. or should I say orange, and back to brown. I used to love dying my hair!!!

I think it was my junior year of high school that I stopped completely and just let my hair go back to it's original color.

My first semester of CFNI I noticed all the girls colored their hair and I wanted to fit in. So when I went back CO for Thanksgiving I had my faithful hairdresser (Devin) highlight my hair blonde. I needed to ease myself back into this habit.

Me and Devin in the process of highlighting my hair

Vinny and I after my hair was complete

P.s. Vinny is one of my best friends... and he's single... ahem ladies... any takers??? :)

Since this experience went so well I decided I wanted chunkier highlights when I came home for Christmas, so it was back to Devin's house for round 2....

At this moment I was anticipating great results....

AHHHH!!!!!! What happened?!

Yes, it was that bad. We went to the store and bought brown dye so she could do low-lights and it wasn't enough so I went home and called my next favorite hairdresser.. Jordan!!! He came over and dyed my hair back to brown.

The next experience I had was my last. I decided to go almost black because Jordan thought it would look good on me. Thankfully it faded very quickly. :)

I haven't dyed my hair since and I'm happy having just plain brown hair.

Now, let's talk about finding a good hair dresser, hair stylist, hair artist.. whatever it is you want to call them! Devin went to a vocational school for cosmetology and I was her hair dummy. The first time she ever cut my hair it took well over 2 hours because she was so terrified of messing it up. I can't even count how many times she's cut my hair since then! I always had free hair cuts in high school because she needed to practice.

When I moved to Texas I found a lady who worked at Super Cuts (don't judge me I was a poor college student)... anyways, she cut my hair the entire time we lived in Texas and she was great! By the end of our time their, she knew exactly how I like my hair cut and I had full confidence in her. I like my hair in a bob/a-frame, thinned and cut with a razor. I loved being able to walk in and not have to say any of that and walk out being satisfied.

Ever since we moved back to CO I've had a hard time finding someone I really like. Unfortunately, getting a hair cut that costs $50 isn't in our family budget, so I still go to Great Clips, Super Cuts or Cost Cutters to get my hair cut... One day I will splurge and get an expensive hair cut.

Okay enough about hair... for now! :)