Last Day of 2008

This is a great day. I've got the weekend off and I'm watching Fellowship of the Ring on "The Wall," cleaning house, making lumpia for tonight, and being thankful for so many things. 2008 - The first part of the year was hard. Steve and I were still living separately: me with my folks and he in a studio. We continued "dating" until June when we were able to get an apartment together with Dot our 6 year-old Beagle. The view is great at the 526 and I love sitting on the balcony watching the tops of the trees and sipping coffee while the sun rises (o.k. that was in the summertime).

I'm still working at AAA and loving it. Steve is still working at Bank of America and not loving it. We are praying for God's guidance and will in this next year. What does He want from us and for us?

One thing Steve and I are doing is eating better. We got ourselves a Vitamix from Costco for Christmas and it was just the right motivation for us to now eat at least 5 fruits and vegetables each per day! We even cook soup in it. :D This is one New Year's Resolution we are keeping as we speak, so I'm confident we will continue! Finally, a success!

And as we start 2009, I pray for continued wisdom most of all. Wisdom for making choices, spending time, and growing closer to God. I wish you all a Happy New Year and the blessings of God.

-Jen

Do Something... Anything!

I just read Tony's 2 Cents and I'm inspired to do something, anything, even if it fails. It doesn't matter if 1000 people think I failed. Maybe 1 person will think about God or pray or remember... I will always remember this one girl in high school who signed my senior yearbook. She was a sophomore at the time and said I was inspiration to her Christian walk because of how I lived my life and ran the newspaper... I had no idea I had made an impact on her life for Christ for two years!

So whenever I say, "I know I don't do much," or "all I do is play music," I know that's just the devil's influence trying to make me quit.

Lead a small group in worship, buy some socks for a homeless person, pray for a coworker, mention Jesus' name as the reason why do did something nice... something... anything.

Bill Leahy

It still hasn't really hit me yet. I keep telling myself that it is real, but it doesn't make sense. My mind keeps telling me that he's gone, maybe to remind myself or make it sink in. I can't believe he's really done with this world... I'm jealous sometimes but I know that we all have our purpose here on earth for the glory of God. Bill served God, and I'm happy to say, he had to fly.

Time to Fly

You took the call to serve
and you took to the sky
gave your time to the lesser kind
lived by faith and not by sight

I feel the need
to follow you
'cause you followed Christ...

You planned your life and then
you raised a family
gave your love to friends in need
stood for what you believed

I feel the need
to follow you
'cause you followed Christ...

Your time to fly
to reach the heavens and know
the joy that's waiting there.
Your time to fly,
to finally know the answers
we were always searching for.
Your time to fly,
to follow Christ in ways
we can only dream on earth...
I feel the need
to follow you...
'cause you had to fly.

You had a sense of selflessness,
a quiet air of peace
We knew that you were listening
the way you paused when we would speak.

I feel the need
to follow you
'cause you followed Christ...

Did you know that very instant
that you had gotten your reward?
Is it everything we heard about?
Do you run on streets of gold?

I wish I could
follow you
‘cause you followed Christ…

Your time to fly
to reach the heavens and know
the joy that's waiting there.
Your time to fly,
to finally know the answers
we were always searching for.
Your time to fly,
to follow Christ in ways
we can only dream on earth...
I feel the need
to follow you...
'cause you had to fly.

- Jen Ehinger

On Getting Ready to Go Camping...

The combination of getting older and recently moving has created a situation of unpreparedness when it comes to heading out to go camping. It took us ALL day today to get packed and stacked to go live in the dirt out of boxes... It was a very nice day. We went to coffee and Costco and even took a nap. Naps are good. Someday, we'll have an official "camp box" already packed so we can just jump in the car with our gear.

* Insert your own clever analogy to spiritual life here. *

So we head off tomorrow morning for the Jackson State Demonstration Forest (no fires - we checked), and we are going to pick up a U-Haul in Clearlake on Thursday to get the rest of our belongings from Steve's grandma's house on the way back. P.S. if anyone reading this is available on Friday to help us move some things upstairs it would be GREATLY appreciated and rewarded... There is an elevator, but still. Leave me a message and we'll get in touch Friday afternoon :)

Anyway, see you next week. All our cars are safely parked so don't try to ticket us ;) - Jen

HTML

I love knowing basic HTML. If you don't know it, learn some! It's cool.

It's Official...

After 1 year, 5 months, and 18 days of being separated, Steve and I are finally going to live together again. This Saturday we move into our new apartment in San Mateo and I am so excited! Aside from the fact that we are still in the Bay Area and the place is amazing... I'm so anxious to just be a family again. We have been going through a lot these past months with jobs and church and families and money! Sheesh... money! But I praise God for the blessings He gives and for the trials He knows we'll get through. I look at my life and say "Thank you," because I am so rich and loved and blessed; I feel like I have no right to complain about the "little" things that go wrong or that I don't like in my life because I am not starving, I have always had a place to sleep, I have clothes to wear, and I have tons of people who care for me and pray for me. Thank you all! And thank you God! :)




New address to follow...
and an awesome party at the club house! Keep an eye out ;)

My New Addiction

Aime Street @ http://amiestreet.com/

I've been getting free and cheap music on Aime Street, writing reviews and getting credit for more songs, and low and behold, today one of my recommendations is the Single of the Day! It's a weird song by a weird guy but it's still really cool.

And Then I Ate A Reese's Peanut Butter Cup...

"There's no wrong way to eat a Reese's."

I Think They Call it an Ear Worm...

O.K. maybe it doesn't work... Just testing out this new thing I found on Amie Street. (It didn't work for me but it looks like it should.)
If I sent you an email, come join! You can find free and/or cheap music and you can recommend songs to gain points to buy MORE music! I started with my free $5.00, haven't spent any "real" money and I have over 100 songs. I got plugged into it thanks to Matt and you can support his music on there too. If I didn't send you an email and you're interested, let me know and I'll send you the link. I didn't want to send it to a bazillion people...

Anyway, I've been waking up with this song playing in my head for the past several weeks even though I haven't listened to it in a while. Specifically the line "Sometimes rain that's needed falls
We float like two lovers in a painting by Chagall"







There's a lot of floating going on in Chagall's paintings... Who knows which one The Weepies were referring to? I had forgotten how much I enjoy art. Good old classic paintings by the masters. But if I were to hang a Chagall in my living room (if I had a living room), it would be this last one. It's called "Three Candles."





















About the Artwork
Marc Chagall (1887 – 1985) embraced the philosophy that love colored his paintings. Focusing extensively on his childhood, his happy, optimistic paintings defy the poverty of his upbringing in a Russian Shtetl. After a brief time in Paris, Chagall escaped to the US during World War II where his career reached new heights including a rare exhibit during his lifetime at the Louvre.

Mmm... Blogging

I'm at work right now and I'm alone in my department all day. It just feels right to blog for some reason. I had a dream last night about helping some of you, my friends, here at AAA (it's scary when you start dreaming about work...), so come on down to Palo Alto and I will hook you up!

I love music so much, sometimes it's all I can think about! I'm blessed to have this weekend filled with musical opportunities. Last night, the S@6 band rocked The Little Fox in Redwood City for The Nightingale Farewell with some of PCC's favorite worship songs and I was honored to be included as a guitarista. Tonight I get to lead worship at CR with Leslie Crouch (woo!) and Sunday Night (@ 5:30) we will come to God together and praise Him with everything we have. Get ready for these songs: I Know Who I Am, Friend of God, Lord Come to Me, and Lord Reign in Me, Center, and Marvelous Light. I pray that you will be blessed as much as I always am when I get to humbly lead you before our King. I'm so not worthy on my own, and yet I'm a daughter of this King. This King who will come back and reign forever. I seriously can't wait.

If you get a chance, check out The Trumpet Child by Over the Rhine. Not only is it one of the greatest albums from start to finish, but the title track has got to be the sexiest song about the second coming of Christ I've ever heard. Jesus is so in love with us, that I think he really enjoys this song... I know I do.

On a non-musical note (although I could make it one quite easily), Steve and I are once again looking for a place to live. We appreciate all the prayers over the past years for our marriage, our lives, and our finicial situation. We really want to stay in the Bay Area since we have such a great support system of friends and family here, and so we are looking anywhere from Sunnyvale to Burlingame. Ideally we would love to stay in Redwood City 'cause it's the best, so if you have a place for rent or know of one that takes dogs, please let us know! :)

Free to Run,
Jen

Letting Go of Letting Go

"Let Go and Let God," they say... Easier said than done, right?

Right.

Trying to control things in my life has subconsciously become a hobby for me over the years. Letting go would be great... and sometimes it is. The feeling of relief and release as I give my struggles and worries and needs to God has been literally uplifting at times. If only I wouldn't take those things back from God, hang on tight, and "let go of my letting go."

So maybe instead of saying "Let Go and Let God," I'm going to start saying, "Let Go and Let Go," or "Let Go and Leave it at the Cross." Because the only way to truly stay free from something is to let it go completely, give it to Christ, and let Him keep it. Come on take it, come on take it, take it from me!

Some scripture I'm sitting in today:

(Leave Your Sin...you've been forgiven)
In the gospel of John, chapter 8, "Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" "No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."

(Leave Your Cares...He'll care for you)
Psalm 55:22-23 "Cast your cares on the LORD
and he will sustain you;
he will never let the righteous fall.
But you, O God, will bring down the wicked
into the pit of corruption;
bloodthirsty and deceitful men
will not live out half their days.
But as for me, I trust in you."

(Leave Your Worry...Classic Jesus)
Matthew 6:25-34 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Hanging On to Hanging On

Just a thought:

Why do I want to remember things so badly? I keep things to remind me of moments in time that are gone. They were good times... times I felt connected, loved, approved. I have transcripts and report cards, special birthday and Christmas cards, ticket stubs, and in this new age... emails, text messages, even voice mails. And when it gets to the end of the 14 days it will save a voice mail, I send it to myself and save it again. I cling desperately to fleeting things, moments in time, the past.

Paul says to forget what is behind and press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. But it feels so good to remember. And so I guess the trick is to live every day with love so that each day will be filled with moments we would want to remember and cherish. We won't need to hang on to old memories because we will make new ones every morning. God's grace is new every morning, so should ours be.

So I delete saved voice mails and emails, I recycle old cards (most of them), and try to weed through the trinkets. I will try to spend more time with you, call you more often, send you a card out of season... we'll see.

Leap Year!

Woo Hoo! It's a day that doesn't exist for the majority of our years and I had to get a blog in! I would hate to have been born on Feb 29...

Well, a ton is going on in my life, but what I really wanted to talk about is corpuscular rays. :) They are one of my most favorite things to photograph. If you don't know what they are, it's what they call rays of light (or the absence of light) that break through some other atmospheric material. (i.e. clouds, mist, smoke...) Here's a photo I snapped with my phone as I was driving to work on the morning of Feb 21, 2008.



It's not the greatest photo, but it captured the moment. It was another one of my first days of freedom, and whenever I see the sun shining through the clouds, it's like God is coming down through sky and time to touch the earth once more. I love it. I imagine Him saying, "See, I'm here..."

Whoever He Really Is, He's the Real God...

I've known for a long time that God isn't who we think He is.
He's so much more than human words and minds can imagine.
When someone comes to a fantastic idea about God, it seems that they write a book about it, the idea catches on for a while or in a certain area of the world, perhaps a new denomination of Christianity is formed... perhaps a new religion is formed... Well, I'm not going to write a book - I may read one or two of the books already out there that are seeking the "true" nature of God, but I'll be content to blog and pray, "hoping to God" that I'm not deluding myself or making it more difficult to commune with Him.

"Commune with Him." Sometimes certain phrases I've said all my life strike me and make me stop and think how crazy and wrong I must sound to someone who does not know God. But then I think about all the other religions that have their own ways to God like "following the Noble Eightfold Path" (which is actually pretty good until the last one...) and "Worship Allah as if you see Him."

And so I, because I have grown up in Christianity, have come to believe in the God of the American Protestant convention. Don't get me wrong, whoever He really is, He's the real God, creator of the universe, and He loved us enough to give us the choice to love Him - because who really feels loved when the other person has no choice? And He loved us enough to come rescue us when we blew it and turned away from Him.

But, but, but, the waves of doubt crash on my forehead... what if we're not completely right? Or what if some of those other religions are on the right track but just haven't reached the Jesus switch? At times like this I turn to the book I have that for centuries has been snipped and stretched, translated and screen played, but has always been called "the Word of God." This is an excerpt from the book of Romans. (Romans 1:1-7, 18-28. My emphasis added.) Paul was a killer of Christians who was forgiven by Jesus in a blinding flash of light. Then he couldn't stop telling people about the love of God...

"Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God— the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him and for his name's sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

- - -

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."

Sit in that for a while. That's what I'm going to do... thanks for reading.
- Jen

Sometimes I Say It Pretty Well Too...

Ahhh, "vacation." Right now, I'm sitting on the couch at Steve's place and we are watching X-Files all day on the Sci-Fi Channel. But we are also each on our own laptops; (what's the world coming to?) he's playing Texas Hold 'Em and I'm finding and listening to new music, Googling things we see in commercials, and checkin' the old email.

See, yesterday was our 12-year-anniversary and even though we aren't going anywhere special, we kind of are, because we are together, just living. It's nice. Thanks to everyone who has been praying for us. Our plan is to find a place that we can afford and takes dogs around April 1 (no joke...) when Steve's lease is up.

There's so much more going on, but that's the general plan for now. God works miracles.

Others Always Say It Better...

New Creation

Today's Scripture

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come” (II Corinthians 5:17).

Today's Word from Joel and Victoria

Everyone loves to get something new. But as a believer in Jesus, you’re not only getting something new, you are something new. You are a brand new creation! Your eternal being, or the spirit on the inside of you, is re-created in Christ. The old is gone, the new has come. The Bible says that we are to work out our salvation. That means you have to retrain your body and mind to act, think, speak and live according to the new spirit within you—instead of the old habits you used to have. Don’t ever get stuck in a rut thinking, “I’ll never change…that’s just the way I am.” No, the Bible says that the Spirit of God aids us in our weakness. He gives us strength to overcome. He empowers us to live as more than conquerors. Is there something you want to change in your life today? Remember, you are a new creation in Christ. You are empowered to overcome. You are equipped to walk in the new, abundant life the Lord has in store for you!

A Prayer for Today

Father in Heaven, thank You for making me a new creation. Thank You for empowering me to live as an overcomer. I give this day to You and ask You to help me fully understand the plan You have for me. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Variation on Similar Situation from Oct 22, 2007

It's that feeling when you wake up, that it's the most warm, safe, cozy place you've ever been, why would you get up? The cotton flannel sheets come up just right over your nose and mouth, allowing you to breath without suffocating you, but keeping you warm. The good feelings from the dream you had still linger in your subconscious. Your head swims, a little dizzy from the cough medicine you took at 3am when you couldn't stop coughing...

I called in sick today. I always feel guilty calling in sick. I am sick, but I could have gone to work. I'd be miserable and coughing on people all day. So, I'm sorry, but not too sorry. I won't beat myself up over it.

I just thought to write about it now. It's at that point when it would no longer be feasible to go in for the rest of the day. Almost like that feeling when you would stay home from school and the clock would hit 3:30pm and you knew all your friends were home too... at least that's how I was. I didn't have to feel guilty anymore - even if I was truly home sick...