Every Man For Himself (Woman too)

When it comes to salvation, it is up to you to make that decision to accept Christ as your personal saviour and walk with Him.  Your faith in Him will save you.  Your works do not pay your way but w/o works, faith is dead.  Last week at church, the pastor asked, "How many of you know without a doubt where you are going when you die?"  I raised my hand and a handful of other people including my 15 year old daughter and her friend.  There were many people that I know personally who should have raised their hand.  If they don't know where they are going when they die then they have missed a major factor of their faith .  Either that or they weren't bold enough to claim eternal life in Heaven before a church congregation.  Now if you are unable to do that in the church house, will you have the boldness to speak about eternal life to others?  That is an important factor in evangelism and witnessing.  You must know where you will spend eternity and be able to help other's understand how you could possibly know that.  How could you be bold enough to talk about heaven and tell people how to get there? 
I have heard a lot of Christians admit that they aren't sure if they will go to heaven when they die.  Honestly, there was a time when I wasn't even sure myself.  My Mother was the one who assured me to know and believe without a doubt that I will spend eternity with God as long I continue to follow Him, trust Him and have faith.  Don't just take my word for it but study God's word to show yourself approved.  So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. Romans 10:17

No one can pray you into heaven after you die.  Some people believe that if you die in a fallen state of grace, you will go to purgatory (between heaven and hell) while your living relatives pray you into heaven.  Really?  What is a fallen state of grace?  Does that boil down to not being perfect when you die?  Well that means we will all end up in purgatory waiting for our loved ones to pray for our salvation?  If that be the case then Jesus would've never had to die on the cross for us.  Jesus is the only way to eternity with God aka heaven.  Salvation is a free gift, and it's up to you, not your mother, not your father, not your sister, not your brother.  Please understand that grace is going to lead you home.
 For God chose to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ, not to pour out his anger on us. Christ died for us so that, whether we are dead or alive when he returns, we can live with him forever  1 Thessalonians 5:9-10 .

Whose Job Is It To Make You Happy?

Have you assigned your happiness to someone or something?  Your friends, children, spouse or significant other?  What do I mean by that you ask?  Well first of all, happiness is an emotion which is driven by one thing, your choice.  You do realize that you can actually choose to be happy, sad, angry, etc.....?  Let me just tell you that my emotions are typically all over the place on any given day.  But I am currently learning that I need to control my emotions and try not to let my emotions control me.  That is a difficult task for me but with God's help, I know I can do all things.
  To control your happiness or any other emotion, is to decide what or who makes you happy, sad or angry.  There is a time for everything.  There are times when happiness would not really be appropriate, like when somebody hurts you physically or emotionally.  That would cause you to be angry or sad and that's OK.  The important thing is our reaction, like getting even.  If someone is rude to me, I cannot help but to be rude right back.  But God is not very pleased with me when I do that and He lets me know that right away. 
  Yesterday morning on my way to work, it was so beautiful outside and my morning had a great start.  I almost forgot my coffee which can be a bit disturbing for me, or not.  You never know with me.  So I find my coffee in the garage where I left it and now here I am in my car with my coffee listenin to some good music of course.  Once I get on the freeway I take a swig of my coffee and it spilled down my shirt and into my lap.  Oops, the lid wasn't on tight enough.  Now, my main emotion to this is frustration and my reaction would be a few dramatic choice words.  Yes, apparently I am a drama queen according to my friends and family.  Whatever, they always seem to see things that I don't.  What is that all about?  Anyways, that's an entirely different story and I will write about that some day.  Back to my reaction to getting myself all dirty before I even get to work.  That morning, I had also began my draft on this posting so I was already geared up for this test.  I pulled myself together, thanked God that I wore black pants and only got a small splash on my super cute tan shirt with the giant black flower.  I chalked it up to que sera sera, whatever will be will be and told myself not to cry over spilled milk, well coffee in this case.  I have literally made a big ugly deal over spilled milk before. 
I just happened to be prepared for that test and made the choice to be happy and continue to enjoy my beautiful commute to work.  I would say I got an A on that emotions test for a change.  I ended up having one of the best days at work that I've had in a long time.  I even helped a co-worker channel her emotions when our system decided to crash while she was trying to meet a very important deadline.  I told her, it is what it is, just work on something else but she really didn't have anything else to work on so I told her to take a break, in a nice way of course.  That's exactly what she did and she was happy.

Take Me Out To The Ball Game

On 6/13 I spent my 34th birthday with my family and friends in a luxury box suite at a Reno Aces baseball game.  We had such a great time.  I won 20 tickets, plus VIP parking.  The stadium does not have a parking lot so you have to pay $5 or $10 to park close or hike from the nearest casino. Can you believe that the game just happened to be on my birthday?   I know who orchestrated that and if you don't know, you better ask somebody.  We had an amazing view, the weather was perfect and the Aces won but I can't remember the score.  The mascot came to our suite and sang happy birthday to me even though we have no clue exactly what the mascot is.  Here are a few pics from that special day.  Maybe you can tell me what that mascot is supposed to be.


 

Does Ace look like he's gettin ready to slap the back of my head?

Me and my Bestest Friend aka Soul Mate

My youngest daughter

Say cheese Mom

Sisters from another mister

 

One of these girls is my daughter

 

Mom and Grandma

Life is good

My daughter enjoying the view

Happy Birthday to me

We love this game

They say he was created by Pixar Studios,
he's supposed to be a monster.