Gist Family Adventures: listening, following, moving ...

For those of you who don't know, I grew up Catholic. Well, okay, I spent a majority of my life being Catholic. Before I started attending Catholic school when I was 6, my parents and I went to various Christian churches (Nazarene, Baptist, etc) and they would drop me off at Sunday School while they went and had breakfast. Don't ask...If you knew my parents you'd probably understand though.

Anyway, when I was 9 or 10, my parents finally became Catholic and attended Catholic church faithfully every week. In all the years I was Catholic, I hardly remember opening a Bible. I think I was a freshmen in high school before I remember taking a Bible study class...We always had religion classes, but I don't remember ever having a Bible in school. We went to Mass...We knew about the sacraments, Saints, doctrine, etc, but actually reading the Word was not a part of our daily education or lives.

Over the last 4 years since I started going to Church again (at a Nazarene Church) I have been much more diligent about reading the Bible. And I'd say since the beginning of this year, I have made sure to open it EVERY DAY. It was hard for me at first to find the time to really read the Bible and focus on it. But now, it's a habit. Now I need it. Now I crave it. I don't think I realized how important reading the Bible was until I really started to make it a part of my daily life. I hate to say that it's taken me until I was 28 to really get into Bible reading. I will also admit, that sometimes to be able to get the time with as little interruption as possible, it means turning on Curious George, or Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, to distract the kids. Not always, but sometimes. But it's important I get the time in. It's important I don't just skim it. I have to really focus. I have found a great blog (she's a mom to five and soon to be 6 kids) and often times she gives me scriptures and things to think about. I thoroughly enjoy reading her blog. You can find it here. She has an amazing gift and I'm so glad I found her blog.

I have started reading a devotional, "Made to Crave" and it gives me a little something to think about every single day. I have realized that over the years I have used food to try and fill this emptiness I feel somewhere in my soul. I have used food to deal with whatever is going on in my life, when in fact I need to be looking to Jesus and to His Word. As I read today, "Food can fill my stomach, but not my soul." My soul was made to crave Jesus...Not food. I have so many layers covering up me...Covering the person I really am. The person I know I'm supposed to be. I've been hiding underneath all these layers and it's time I shed those layers.

I can tell you that everyday I feel a little stronger. I feel a little more healed. I feel a little closer to Jesus. I sometimes forget that Jesus loves me. That He died on a cross for ME. On Easter Sunday we were singing about how much Jesus loves us and how we'll never know or understand why. And it's true. I've always thought about Jesus in an authoritative way and never really in loving way. I mean I've always known He loves me. But, I don't think I realized I could have this intimate relationship with Him. I realize that Jesus loves me always. He's seen my worst. And He still, somehow loves me. If Jesus can love me, surely I can love myself too.

With all that said, I'm trying to be better at listening, following, and moving. Lately with all this talk about possibly moving to Phoenix, I myself, have stopped moving. I've put life on hold in case we get a call and things move quickly. And today it's been on my mind and on my heart that I can't stop. (And I know, I know it's the Holy Spirit) I have to keep going forward and living life as normal as possible. It's our job to just keep moving. God will provide the direction. It's our job to listen and move. (I hear Dory from Finding Nemo in my head...Just keep swimming!) Whatever the decision is...To move or not, we know with God leading the way, it'll be the right decision.

Well, this is a very long post! And I probably didn't articulate all this in the best manner. It's taken me all day to write this one post, so I've had various thought processes each time I sit down!

How about some pictures?