I dare you!

There was a story, you may have heard it before, but I want to share it just because It was first told to me a month or two ago and I thought about blogging the story, but I didn’t. Then in church yesterday the fill-in preacher told the story and I knew then, I needed to share it. I’m not sure if all the specifics of the story are right, but you will get the point nonetheless!


There was this son who wasn’t the best artist, but he loved doing it. He painted a self-portrait and gave it to his father. The father so loved the son and therefore loved the painting. Not long after that, the son was killed in war serving his country. Eventually when the father passed away, there was an estate sale of all his belongings. Many people showed up because they knew the antiques this man owned. Everyone was excited about all the things they wanted to buy…the very valuable things! The auctioneer got up and the first item up for bid was the self-portrait of the son. Not a single person was bidding. All you could hear was the fast voice of the auctioneer. Finally someone bid on it, just to move on to the next item. Once that item was bought, the auctioneer closed the auction. Many people were confused and quite upset because they were ready and waiting to bid on the other items. The auctioneer simply said that in the man’s will, whoever gets my son gets everything.

Wow! Right? How true is that in the Christian walk? If you have Christ in your life, you have everything! Will life be perfect? No. Will life be easy? No. When sin entered the world, it made the answer to those two questions “No.” We are human full of sin, so those answers, unfortunately will never be a yes. But with Christ in your life and as your focus, life is full! So many other stressors don’t seem like that big of a deal, when we look at the big picture with Christ in it all, it’s so much easier to be thankful for what we have and not critical of what we don’t have.

Life will never be right without Christ. It will always seem empty and lonely and hopeless. I dare you. Try Christ.

Why should I go??

A friend said something recently on Facebook about how frustrated she is for people seemingly forcing church attendance down her throat. She doesn’t need to go to church, she says along with other things. All the points as to why she doesn’t want to go to church are all seemingly valid points. However, I can’t agree about them. I did have to say, we would have to agree to disagree and that led to a little more convo about it. I don’t know if she will read this blog or not and I’m okay with that. I just wanted to voice my opinion, based on what I know the bible says, about church attendance. Please if you have a different opinion, feel free to share it, but please don’t use bad language or get angry, it’s my blog and my viewpoint!


It IS important. In Hebrews 10:25 it tells us not to give up meeting together as a lot actually end up doing. So, if for no other reason, we are commanded to meet together with fellow Christians for encouragement in the faith and the Christian walk. One may argue that it doesn’t say go to the church building. I agree! As my church often says, the church is the people, not the building, if we don’t come together, we don’t have church! Meet in a gym, meet at your house, or meet in an open grassy field. I don’t really care WHERE you meet….just meet! Worship God, Learn about God, Grow closer to God!

1 Corinthians 12 talks about the many different parts of the body and how they should all work together as a whole. If we aren’t a part of a church body (call it whatever you want) then how can we expect to work together like your own physical body parts do? If you detach you left hand and it’s never used or practiced with, how do you expect to give an even decent guitar performance? Are you following me on this one? God calls us, as Christians to meet together, to be one body.

There are several purposes to attending church besides what I’ve already said; some are for us to grow up in the faith, to learn to serve others, to learn to love one another and also to learn to forgive others. Yes, I hear often that the church is full of hypocrites! Shaun always says, well, there’s room for one more, come join us! Granted he is joking, but think about it! The church is made up of humans! We screw up all the time. That is why we have Christ as the head of the church, and so very thankful He forgives us!

That may not be the extent of my thoughts on this, but I hope it at least communicates to you all my heart on the issue. Christ died for all of us, so why are we wasting our time not coming together to worship Him for it?

Picture time!

These are photos Shaun took on his phone when we were having fun with his neice, Caroline!  We are silly sometimes! But it's so fun to be silly!!

Love to get those sweet baby kisses!