April 27th 2011

   As most of you well know, today is April 27th, the one year anniversary of the day our state and many others in the south were ravaged by very strong, dangerous tornadoes.


  To be honest, I'm not sure how to collect my thoughts on this subject. After the storm the months dragged on until we got into September and finally life started assuming some kind of normalcy. But things have still changed.


   I find myself not wanting to think about it. Not because it was too difficult to deal with or to tough to think about now. But because I've put it behind me, I've closed that chapter so to speak. And reopening it would mean going through ( or at least remembering ) all the emotions and memories and lessons we've learned from it.
 
  None of us expected it to happen, none of us saw if coming, ( figuratively speaking c ; ) none of us knew how long it would take to recover from an incident like this. But the more I think about it the more I realize that God did.
 
  He knew it was coming, He knew where we would all be when it started, He knew whos lives would be taken, He knew how it would affect each of us individually, He knew how He was going to use it to teach each of us, He knew that we would develop lifelong friendships as we walked through this together. He knew that it was going to be hard, and He knew that He would never leave us. He knew that at some point we would all stop, drop our heads and ask Him "Why?"

 But He let it happen anyway, because He loves us enough to put us through hardships and trials. He loves us enough to use these things to teach us how to be more like Him. I believe that is why the storm(s) happened.


 So today, as we gather together and remember everything we went through one year ago, we should be greatful. Because this small trial that we've just so recently come out of, is another reminder of just how great God's love is for us.





Here are a few of the pictures that were taken last year after the storm :

The Isbells

This was the house across the street.

The trucks that came to pick up debri.

Where a house used to be..

Visit with the Lee's

Clean up!

Notice all the smiles c ;

R.I.P. Shadow

Humility vs. Pride

  During the car ride home from church today I had so many excellent ideas for blogging run through my brain that I didn't know what to do with them all. Which is actually a good thing because, as you know, I havn't blogged very much lately ( the begining of the year is a very busy time ). And thanks to my new handy dandy iPod ( I love living in the 21st century ) I was able to make a note of my ideas so I wouldn't forget them.
  So here is the first of four that I jotted down ( they may stretch into more than that before long, we'll just see how this goes ).
  But first I have a request for my readers, if there really are any. [ ; Please, please, please leave comments! (FB comments or Blogger comments, whichever works best for you.) This is a responsive blog. I need your input, blog ideas, 2 cents the whole nine yards. This helps me know what to write about and whether or not you are enjoying my writing.
 
  Okay now that I've gotten that out of the way, let's begin!





 Humility vs. Pride
    I once heard the word pridefullness described as the feeling of  "I don't deserve this." Which is essentially thinking of yourself as better than whatever your circumstances or situations are around you.
  In contrast the definition for humility is also "I don't deserve this" but in a very different way...


   Confused yet?  Let me explain.


  The bible says that God hates pride, and He has good reason. Pride is what drove Lucifer to defy Christ, pride is what brings down nations and destroys families. Pride destroys the very structure of how God created us to live together, with eachother.
 
  To re-phrase my earlier quote, instead of saying pridefulness is the feeling of " I don't deserver this" lets say that it's the feeling of  "I am better than this."  Which is never, ever a good mindset to have, unless the "this" your referring to is sin, because when we are made new in Christ we are not better but striving to live like Christ, which would involve staying away from sin. But not because were better, because we know were not better, we know we are given to temptations, which leads me back to my original point....thinking "I'm better than this" completely overthrows humility.

Now I know your confused! [ ;


  But pridefulness is a sin, and part of our sin nature, so naturally everone struggles with it from time to time.

   Now lets switch over to humility for a bit, if pridefulness is a part of sin nature, than how do we combat it with humility? It's simple, but you can only do it if you truly know Christ.

   Think back to the moment when you first realized all that God did for you on the cross. When you understood just how great your sin was, how cruel the punishment was meant to be, and how much love He must have had for you to spare your life in exchange for His. You were awstruck, greatful and heartbroken all at the same time, if your experience was anything like mine. But immediatly after I remember telling God "I don't deserve this kind of love." And from that one revelation, humility is born.

  We know from that moment on that this life is not ours, that we not only owe it to Christ but love Him enough to want to give it to him. And on top of all that, our sin nature constantly reminds us of just how undeserving we are. When we forget this, we lose humility.

  And so when we are right with Christ pridefulness is easily combatted. But we must be careful, because pride can easily seep in without us knowing it. One of the key things to remember is that people are not our enemy, we are in spiritual warfare against what the bible calls principalities. So when we become offended by another person, ( which is most often when I struggle with pride ) we must remember that everything we say and do points either to Christ or away from Him.

  Now think of this in context with different relationships that you have, if we replied to more things with a heart full of humility what would others reactions be? It's almost the same as the verse that says : a soft answer turns away wrath. You can turn around a whole situation just by practicing humility.

  Humility changes everything.
  



  I know I've talked about pride on here before, but in truth it is a very loaded subject. These are my thoughts on the subject in a somewhat muted fashion. [ ;
 And I hope I didn't confuse you too much!