"It's Not About Deserve"

Have you seen Wonder Woman yet?
If you haven't stop reading right now and RUN to your nearest theater and see this movie--not just because I'm about to share some spoilers but, because it is THAT GOOD!

Okay, on to why I love this movie so much.

For the obvious reasons such as the cool graphics, Gal Gadot is absolutely stunning, Chris Pine is nice to look at, the movie is so well done. But even more...
Would you believe me if I said that Wonder Woman carries some pretty strong spiritual elements throughout the story line? Because it does. Jason first pointed it out to me when we went and saw it (the first time) and then I couldn't stop thinking about it so we went and saw it again and I was in tears most of the movie because he was right! So much better when you see the theme throughout!

"I used to want to save the world, this beautiful place. But the closer you get, the more you see the great darkness within. I learned this the hard way, a long, long time ago."

The movie begins with Diana as a young child training to be the warrior princess of the Amazons.  An American pilot Steve Trevor, unexpectedly crashes off their island.  After being rescued by the now-adult Diana, he tells her about the war to end all wars currently taking place around the world.  Diana is compelled to leave home and kill Ares, the god of war, who she feels is behind the conflict. Diana was taught that her sacred duty is to defend the world and those who do not deserve the wrong doings that are upon them. As she grows and these beliefs become more embedded into her life and really become the essence of who she is and we hear Diana say more than once, "I will fight for those who cannot fight for themselves."

She is passionate, she is driven and she's pretty kick ass.

With many laughs & funny dialogue, Diana and Steve get to know one another and Diana insists that Steve take her to the war to defeat Ares whom she believes, once he's defeated that all war will stop.
(Wouldn't that be nice?)

Without going too much into the middle of the movie, we see their relationship grow and we see the extreme brokenness and utter depravity the war has casts on the people--all while seeing just how passionate and...awesome Diana is.

This scene, where "the guys" see Diana in action for the first time, crossing "No Man's Land" gives me chills and brings me to tears. It's just, utterly amazing.

Trevor said, “We have a mission! We can’t save everyone in this war! It’s not what we are here to do!”  Diana replied, “You’re right.  But it’s what I am here to do!”
--cue her theme song and this amazing scene--

There comes a point where Diana defeats who she thinks is Ares and yet, she still sees the war and sees men preparing to commit evil deeds and it breaks her. And it's in this dialogue that we see the meat of the message:

Diana Prince: [in tears] My mother was right about the world, they said they didn't deserve me...
Steve Trevor: Maybe it's not what you deserve, but what you believe. I believe that this war should end. If you believe the same, then help me stop it! Help me, please!

So when Diana finally figures out who Ares truly is and he is making himself known to her he says the following to her:

Sir Patrick/Ares: You were right; they don’t deserve our help. They only deserve destruction. 

Sound familiar? Sound kinda like what Satan does to us--how he uses our wants and desires, things that should be good but we are broken and live in a broken world.
And all the while Diana is putting the pieces together and Ares is trying to trick her, he is trying to lure her in and make her see the humanity, the world, as he does

Sir Patrick/Ares: I am not your enemy, Diana. I am the only one who truly knows you and who truly knows them as you now do.

As Ares continues to reveal more to Diana, things are beginning to look dark and bleak for her. She is fighting her heart out and his power is just overcoming her, no matter what she throws back at him.
Then, there's this moment, where Diana is stuck in this heavy rubble that's wrapped around her, Steve is flying the plane full of poison off into the sky and Diana realizes what Steve has said to her and what he meant when telling her goodbye. That he was sacrificing himself for her and her life-long mission. And in that moment, her power comes to fullness and they share the following dialogue:

Sir Patrick/Ares: Look at this world. Man kind did this, not me. They are ugly, filled with hatred, weak, just like your Captain Trevor.
Sir Patrick/Ares: They do not deserve your protection.

Diana: It’s not about what you deserve, it’s about what you believe, and I believe in love.

And that's all it takes for her to get what she needs to defeat Ares. The realization that it's not about what these people in the war deserve that it's about what she believes and she believes in goodness, in protection, and in love.

Ah, I just get chills thinking about that last scene.
I will leave you with the last lines of the movie and URGE you to go and see it as soon as you can, if you haven't already.

Diana: "I used to want to save the world. To end war and bring peace to mankind. But then, I glimpsed the darkness that lives within their light. I learned that inside every one of them, there will always be both. The choice each must make for themselves - something no hero will ever defeat. And now I know... that only love can truly save the world. So I stay. I fight, and I give... for the world I know can be. This is my mission now. Forever."

Influenster (3)

I received my first, large voxbox from Influenster and it was so much fun!

I mean really, look at all these (mostly) full-sized goodies I received--FOR FREE!

Pretty amazing, right? 

The first thing I tried was the Mike & Ike Zours. 

I had just gotten home from our 2 day bus/car trip from Colorado and I wanted something to satisfy my sweet tooth. These bad boys were really, really good. I've had Mike & Ike's before and wasn't impressed but, I actually liked these. 

They weren't overly sour, just right. The fruity flavor is really intense and tasty. 

I would definitely buy these again!

 I got this Nature's Origin Aromatherapy roll-on and it couldn't have come at a better time. My lavender was on it's last drop. I love how easy the roll-on is. It's a staple in my bedtime routine...and it's a big bottle! Will last me for a while. 

 I don't have to use dry shampoo that often but, this stuff is awesome. It also smells really good. Jason has this same brand in a different scent and let's just say, I know what kind I'll be getting him when he runs out of his current bottle. Oh, and it definitely works. I used it on my hair this week and it really "brought it back to life"

 This red glitter sinful colors is so fun and it came just in time for the 4th of July.

This Tree Hut Exfoliating Mud Mask was the perfect addition to my bath time this past week. I will stick to my Rodan+Fields products but, this was a nice mask. Had my skin feeling very smooth afterwards and really, who doesn't love a fun mud mask? I will say though, I wasn't a fan of the smell--was a floral scent. 

My favorite item from my box! This Maybelline SuperStay Matte Ink lip color is the best. This shade is called "lover" and it was so mild and when they say super stay, they mean it. This stuff can last all day! I will absolutely buy this again when I run out. Heck, I might even go and buy it in another shade. It is a little...sticky at times (when it's drying) but, that didn't bother me. You can just swipe a gloss or chapstick over it and poof, problem solved. 

I loved receiving this Splash VoxBox and all of the complimentary items that were in it. My favorites? The lavender roll-on and the matte lip color! So many goodies and I am thankful to have received them!

Remember, anyone can sign up for Influenster and start reviewing your way to some free stuff...just click here and sign up and let me know what kinds of fun things you receive. The more active you are on Influenster, the more likely you will be to receive items.

Oh Joy! It's a Boy!

This weekend we showered Melissa in preparation for baby Russell's arrival in less than 6 weeks! 

 Sweet baby book along with a story book that served as the guest  book

 Baby pictures of both Melissa & Ian along with some of the animal prints that will be in Russell's nursery

 Little outfits that Ian wore when he was a baby

 Beautiful (and DELICIOUS) cake--seriously one of the best I've had--thank you Amber!

 These cookies turned out to be perfect and they were so tasty! Thanks to Glitter Antler Cookies. 

 Melissa's bassinet from when she was a baby served as the perfect piece to put her gifts in

 The most creative gift--little onesies & socks that were made to look like cupcakes!

Late in the day I went with Melissa & Ian to take a few maternity pictures and wanted to share just a few of them. 

Come on little Russell, we can't wait to meet you!

"God is at Work" RYM 2017

This was our youth group's first year to go to Colorado for RYM and it was amazing!

The weather, the food, the sights, the teaching, everything.
We had the best week. It was tiring, because there was so much to pack in to 4 short days (and 4 days of travel in a charter bus), but it was so wonderful!

I was so impressed with how beautiful Kansas was. The golden fields, the cool wind mills, just how far you could see because of how flat it was--I loved it!

...and then, we made it to Colorado--where everywhere you look is a sight to behold! 

We stayed at the YMCA of the Rockies, in Estes Park and it was such a nice campus. There was so much to do and everything was so beautiful. Pictures don't do it justice. 

These beautiful trees where everywhere

The sweetest baby pine cones could be found EVERYWHERE

Mama Carol's hair looking pretty in the wilderness.

We had so much free time each day, from 11 until 5. 

Our first full day, Tuesday, a few of us decided to take a small hike close to the campus. 

I think it's safe to say that it turned out to be a bit longer than we anticipated (we didn't know where we were going).

The brave hikers ;)

The following day, 4 of us from LPC took a hike with an RYM group to Eagle's Cliff. 

I like to think that I'm semi-in shape. Well, if you think you're in shape, hike Eagle's Cliff. This hike was so hard for me. It was so steep, no marked path, it was crazy!

While Maddie and I were still with the group, we ended up being the very last ones up and the very last ones down--but, we made it fun for one another!

This picture shows you how steep it was--it was like this most all of the way. 

You could see this fantastic view of Moraine Park while at the summit of Eagle's Cliff--one of my favorite sights that we saw. 

Finally made it to Eagle's Cliff! Woooooo hoooooo!

This view! 

It's crazy to me how tiny the trees look. 

Like little toy trees. 

Thursday, we all had a free day. We went and did a quick hike around Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park and then we made our way to the "Open Air Adventure Park" and we spent the rest of the day in downtown Estes Park. 

Bear Lake was so beautiful. 

I love seeing all of the snow capped mountains!

While we were in Estes Park we had dinner at a place called "Grubsteak" and I had the best Yak burger topper with jalapeño cream cheese--it was delicious!

Our final day we went with the RYM group that hiked to Emerald Lake. 

Along this trail you encounter 3 lakes. It was a very apparent trail and made for a really nice hike. 

The first was Nymph Lake

The second was Dream Lake

The final was Emerald Lake and it was one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen. The iced over lake, all of the snow, the massive mountains, it was breathtaking. 

Not only did we enjoy beautiful scenery all week but we also sat under the teaching of various people and it was wonderful. 

Here are a few of my favorite "take aways" from the week's classes and large group sermons:

If you know me at all, then you know Harry Potter books are my ultimate favorites--I was so pumped about this class "The Gospel According to Harry Potter"--(there's even a book about this topic that I bought and you can too by clicking here)! My favorite thing that Slim said was: "The things that we love most about about Harry Potter have nothing to do with his magic. His greatest accomplishments and the most moving parts of the story have nothing to do with magic. The parts we loved the most are his courage, sacrifice, and fierce love that is woven all throughout the series" I love this because it's so, SO true. 

He also zoned in on the fact that the major, over arching theme of these stories boils down to: the power of love (Harry and all of his people) vs. the love of power (Voldemort and his people). 

Then he went on to talk about Harry's scar and how that scar was an image of immense suffering & pain for Harry. It was proof of Lord Voldemort saying he was more important than little, baby Harry. Harry was protected by love and that was the downfall of Lord V and he couldn't understand it. Which shows us that scars can also serve as an avenue through which God can work. Harry's immense suffering was met with incredible sacrifice by his Mother, Harry was always protected by the love of another (sound familiar?) This love was the only power to kill the most evil wizard there ever was. Love is death. As Christians, we believe this, we know what this means. It is death to yourself to lift up another. Love says YOU over ME--Matthew 16:25 is what it sounds an awful lot like. 

Brian Sorgenfri was our main speaker and the theme for the week was "God is at Work, Even When it Feels Like He's Not" and let me tell you what, he knocked it out of the park. Our youth were just chatter boxes after each of his sermon's and it was so sweet to see The Lord use Brian's words to stir their hearts. 

These are a few of the things I wanted to be sure and document that he said so that I can look back on these later:

"The genealogy of Jesus calls us to patience--for 2,000 years, He was weaving the tapestry. We cannot judge God on our timeline. Our feelings of impatience are real but, they are not truth. We need to recall the 'patient pace of historic Christianity and realize that sometimes living a life for Christ oftentimes includes a life of obedience, not instant results. The genealogy also shows us that God is always revealing the beauty and the sufficiency of Jesus by using people like Abraham, Tamar, Rahab, David, and Mary. Through these people and their stories we see revelations of love and joy that will capture our hearts."

"Sometimes pain and suffering are permitted into our lives because our Father wants more for us. He is the Great Master. Pain makes us realize that something is wrong and in this passage (Luke 8:40-56) pain sent Jairus and the woman to Jesus-if it hadn't been for their pain, they may not have come to Him. Our pain and suffering could be exactly what keeps me near to Jesus--in ways that we wouldn't otherwise realize. What both Jairus and the woman wanted was something different than what they got. The woman wanted to go unnoticed and yet He stopped to talk to her-what He wanted was for her to know that He accepted and loved her and Jairus wanted his daughter healed and Jesus let her die because He wanted resurrection  for him and the daughter. When we suffer, we lack wisdom. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of The Lord. The beginning of foolishness is fear of anything but The Lord and to think that anything else can hold our lives together or tear our lives apart. Could Jesus love us enough to not let us set our security, love, and happiness on things that are passing away? You don't know Jesus is all that you need until He is all that you have. For Jesus to heal someone, He loses something. The way that He heals us all was through GREAT pain and true suffering. When we are confronted with people who also have wounds/scars, we know they understand where we're coming from. Our Jesus has wounds. He knows. He's been there. He's had it all. He paid it all. HE KNOWS. He even knows what it feels like to ask God to remove something, and have Him not do it. When you have wounds and realize that Jesus has wounds--shared suffering--can we believe that most of the time, Jesus uses suffering to bring us to Him."

"Sin and Failure. John 21:1-17. What is Jesus' work through failure? He uses it to humble Peter in this passage. If we have confidence in ourselves before God and our ability to be the best of ourselves, we will miss Jesus. Our confidence should be in His mercy and when it is, He will always be there. He uses sin and failure to bring us to repent. The only way we will repent is if we are convinced that Jesus is for us and that He will never, never leave us. Jesus applies grace to the greatest places of our shame. So the question becomes 'What do I do with my failure? Do I repent? or do I say 'I can handle it?''--one of these leads to sorrow that leads to death-both Peter and Judas denied Jesus-one repented and the other one had sorrow that led to death. When we bathe in the sorrow of our sin, that is sorrow that leads to death. Peter took his sorrow to Jesus and repented and at the cross, he received mercy and realized that he could never, ever disrupt Jesus love for him. Which means that our joy is connected to how we see Jesus. He is the Savior of SINNERS. We have this picture of who we think we should be: our imagined selves-and that's the "me" that I believe Jesus loves and at some point, I must realize that Jesus died for the real me and not my imagined self that I hope to be. He is NOT surprised by the real me. Jesus wants to be with sinners--because of my sin and shame, Jesus is more amazing than I thought."

"Weakness. Judges 3:12-31. We feel like weakness and losing is never what we want--but, what if what feels like losing, is when God is really at work in us. The Hidden Weakness (vs. 12-17). The most dangerous sins in our lives are the things we are not worried about--possibly even the good things, the great things--the things that make us feel like "I've got this"--they keep us from crying out to Jesus. Weak Salvation (vs. 15) It is almost laughable that Ehud is who killed Eglon the ruler in this passage. But, God oftentimes seeks and saves those who are deemed 'nobodies' and He makes them heroes. The genealogy of Jesus, as we saw earlier, is almost laughable because of the lives of some of those people. When Jesus showed up in the flesh, even He appeared 'normal' and weak, even. If you are a Christian, it's not because you were better, it's because you were weak and helpless-which makes God even more amazing. We just don't believe this--we believe that our weakness is what keeps Jesus away and it's NOT. Salvation comes to us in weakness, it seems to be too easy for us--it's too crazy that all we must do is COME--all we must do is state our need. The weakness and humiliation of Jesus is what saved us all. Weak living (vs. 26-27) Salvation is FINISHED--all we must do is rest in it and by that, we've won the battle and that looks laughable and weak to the world. If weakness is how salvation came into the world--and that's how the world will change, through weakness and sharing in our weakness together--through our brokenness. 

What if repenting to people is what changed them? It looks like losing because we don't seem righteous but, God's kingdom is marching forward. Suffer with people. Cry with people. Stay weak. These are the things we need to do-these are the things that look weak and laughable yet, the Kingdom of God is moving forward."

"What would it look like in every day life to believe that God is at work, even when it feels like He's not? If you look at the earthly life of Jesus, you see what may look like the back of a tapestry--messy, jumbled, doesn't make much sense. He was human in every. single. way that we are except, He was without sin. The Son of God was no more or less human than us when He came into this world. Jesus, The God-Man, He had to have holiness but He also had to come and save His people by hanging on a cross--like a criminal would and He became wrapped in MY sin and YOUR sin and took the fury of God's wrath for US. Jesus was so in love with his people, you and me, that he wrote Himself into this broken, sinful world to come and save us. I, you, make His heart full and that's why He came. It's NOT my feelings or my circumstances. Because of the messy back of the tapestry, we have the front--a beautiful masterpiece. What does it look like to live by Faith? "By Faith, I choose to live by what is true, no matter how I feel, asking God to make what is true to feel more real to me than what I feel." What if my focus in the foreground is Jesus--then, He suffers with me, cries with me--and that doesn't change my suffering but, it may change how I see it and I can believe that my suffering has gone through the gentle hands of Jesus and that He will carry me through. It can't be because He doesn't love you and it can't be because He doesn't care. We look at Jesus through our shame and it makes us feel like He doesn't want us...and that couldn't be further from the truth! When we reveal our greatest shame to God, He doesn't pull back, He comes even closer and He pulls us in and He walks with us. When we see what has been done to us through Jesus, we can know that He hates what has been done to us even more than we do but, we must also realize that He is the exact opposite of the awful things that have been done to me. If we are in this messy tapestry and know how beautiful the other side will be--it will shape our entire lives. The future that Jesus has in store for us means that all the "back of the tapestry" mess is helping to make me more like Jesus so that when eternity opens and we reach the gates of Heaven, I will be radiant, beautiful, and with Jesus forever--this is what He's doing with us. This is what's happening through the "mess" and when it feels like He's not there."

As beautiful as Colorado was, it's only a taste of the eternity that is promised to us in Jesus and what exciting news is that?

God is at work, even when it feels like He's not.