A sweet moment with my baby sister

Alayna and I just had a really sweet moment that I just need to write down.  It is one of those moments that you never want to forget.  I have started to pack up my room a little bit today, just because life is going to get really crazy after this weekend and I know that I will be more motivated to keep packing if I start.  Anyways, Alayna has been hanging out in the basement with me all day and I had just finished taking everything off of the walls. (I have TONS of stuff on my walls, picture frames, posters, flags from the countries I’ve been to, etc.) Alayna walks into my room and really sadly looks at the wall and says, “Ashey I really do not like your walls looking like this.”  And comes and sits on my lap.  She is chattering about how we should put everything up really quick before mom gets home, and is just being really sad.  So I looked at her and said, “Lane, you know how I’m getting married in August?”  And she replies, “to Seth, right?” “Yeah babe, to Seth.  Well, when Ashey and Seth get married I’m going to go live in a new house with Seth, but I will come visit you a lot and we won’t have to miss each other that much.”  She looks at me and says with tears on her little cheeks, “But Ashey… I will miss you 100 if you leave here.”  Oh my it just about broke my heart.  We sat on my bedroom floor crying for quite a while, I am sure we just looked ridiculous.  We both were consoled however, when Alayna looked up and me and said, “Well, didn’t Seth find you a house with an Alayna room in it?”  Why yes babe, yes he did!

I am so excite to get married and live with Seth and start my forever with him.  But as humans I think that we like to resist change.  I have lived with my family my entire life.  I never really did that whole move out of the house thing during my college years, and so now this is extra hard!  I am so excited about my “new” life, but sometimes it can be overwhelming.  Especially when I am dealing with 3 year-old emotions!  I just love her (and the rest of my family) SO much; it is hard to think about leaving them! 

But that my friends, is just part of growing up, and I can’t wait to see where God takes us!

He's already there.

Our actions should speak louder than our words.

Romans 12:2 says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is- His good and perfect will (NIV). 

Paul is trying to tell us here that we need (of course) to be living in the world, but need to act as if our citizenship is elsewhere.  In Philippians Paul writes, “We, however, are citizens of heaven, and we eagerly wait for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, to come from heaven.” (GNT)  As Christ follower and lovers of the Lord we need to remember not to “put all of our eggs in one basket.” 

This life is not all we are given and is certainly not all we are promised.  We are promised full happiness in our eternal life, not here only on this earth.  That is something we as a body need to keep in the front of our brains.  Everything that this world says to be fun is not going to be worth it once we get to heaven and need to explain ourselves to the God of the universe.

And I might really make myself sound like a nerd here, but I have can have a-stinkin’-lot of fun without sinning.  You don’t have to sin to have fun in this world.  I know it can really seems like it (I fall in that pit a lot), but it is a lie that Satan is telling you, to try and get you to fall away!  We must be strong!

Are we really going to be able to justify all that sin to the God who sent down His own son to atone for the sins of the entire universe?  I know that I am not going to be able to.  I think that we need to take that into account everyday with everything that we do.  We need to think, “Is this sin really worth it?”  Is this sin really worth risking the treasures that God has intended for us in heaven? 

I think that we will find that the answer to that question, is no. 

He’s already there.