Kansas City Convention!!!

The view of the city from the 32nd floor. :)

This past weekend my family and I, along with about 30 other people from our church, were blessed to attend the Leadership Training for Christ (LTC) convention in Kansas City, Missouri. We had a wonderful, fabulous time, and the Lord was certainly working! The kids did events such as Bible bowl, Bible quiz, Bible reading, speech, poetry, Live Drama, song leading, photography, scrapbook, and more. They were awarded either a bronze, silver, or gold medal. I don't think anyone got lower than a silver! Well the Live Drama was what I was so nervous about. I had been working with the kids on it for months. I tried to give them some last minute tips, and then just prayed that they could do their best. They were amazing!! They gave a wonderful performance for the judges, and got a gold medal for it. And as if that wasn't enough, their drama was chosen for the encore performance!! They got to perform it for over 1,000 people!! I was so proud of them. :) Not only did the kids all do very well, they spent a lot of time in God's word to prepare for the conference. I know they have done a lot of growing. That is a great thing to see.

Well if all that wasn't good enough, I also got to spend a lot of time with some of my best friends!! We stayed up into the wee hours of the morning talking, telling silly jokes, jamming on the keyboard, singing, and just enjoying each other's company. I have come back so encouraged. :)

So I hope this encourages you, and if your church is not involved in something like LTC, look into it!!

~Brooke

Homeschooling

Okay so I want to talk a minute about homeschooling. I am a homeschool graduate. And I have to tell you that I absolutely LOVED it! Sure it wasn't always easy... but in the end I think it was all worth it. The fact that my family chose to homeschool was definitely a God thing. My mother tells me how she never even was considering homeschooling. She thought she had everything planned out - she had a job that she absolutely loved. But then after she had me, she realized that she did not want to have to continue to leave me everyday. The Lord started drawing her towards homeschooling. She did a lot of research on it. And eventually she and my father decided that she would stay home and homeschool me and then later my brother. So I was homeschooled from day 1. And yes, I would choose to homeschool any and all of my future children. Homeschooling allows you to teach your children the way God shows us in His word, and it allows us to avoid the public school's agenda. Homeschooling allows us to give our children a Biblical worldview. It allows us to raise them with Christ being the center of their lives. It allows us to protect them from the evil influences of the world. So yes, I am a super big fan of homeschooling. :)

Award

~Thank the person who gave you the award
~Tell seven things about yourself
~Award other bloggers whose blogs inspire you!
~Contact the other bloggers, and let them know that they have received the award!
 Thank you for the award Hannah!! 


1. I love writing. I want to be an author someday soon.
2. More than almost anything in this life, I want to be a wife and mother someday.
3. I'm a certified lifeguard, but I've never officially worked as a lifeguard.
4. We've always had dogs, but I love big dogs the best.
5. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE martial arts. I've been in the same club for almost 7 years, and it is the oldest club in my state.
6. I will soon be graduating from an online school and will hopefully get a job working form home as a medical transcriptionist.
7. I was diagnosed with scoliosis at the age of 10. 


I would like to award: Tahirah.

My Thoughts on Prayer

Hello readers. How are you all? I hope you are staying strong in your faith. Today I'd like to talk a little about prayer. When it comes to my relationship with God, prayer is the one place I have struggled the most. I'm usually very good about reading my Bible daily, but not as good at praying daily. Lately I have really been trying to change that. Personally, I like to pray just before I go to bed at night. I like the idea of talking to God just before I go to sleep; anything that has come up during the day I can bring before Him. I have also tried to start talking to Him more throughout the day. Sometimes I just sit on the floor in my room and pour my heart out to Him. For too long, I've thought about prayer the wrong way. I've put too many rules to it, prayed too much for just what I want. Now I try to just simply talk to God. I have also started trying to praise Him more. I know I can only do my best, and He knows what I need. This verse is so encouraging to me when it comes to prayer: In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through groans that words cannot express. -Romans 8:26 
I know the Lord will help me when I have no words to pray. 


~Brooke

Where Did All the Jonah's Come From?

In the past I talked a little about men and women after God’s own heart: David’s and Mary’s. Today I will talk about another person- Jonah. Did you notice how our world is full of Jonahs? What do I mean by that? Well think about Jonah of the Old Testament. God told him to do something, and he ran away. He even hid. Later we see examples of his selfishness and self-centeredness. A far cry from the man who tried to follow God with his entire heart and being. So did you notice how so many young people these days are being raised to be Jonah’s? We continue to see young people who are selfish, self-centered, and running from God. So many young people are falling away from their faith and the church. So many of them are becoming Jonah’s. What can we do about this? First, we must make a commitment to never become a Jonah. We must strive to be a Mary or a David. We must make it our goal to follow God with our hearts, minds, and souls, even when it’s hard or inconvenient. We must be godly examples to other young people in our lives. Secondly, we must purpose to raise godly children. We must realize that we need to someday teach our children to be Mary’s and David’s. We must help them realize that their life is about serving God, not serving themselves. Then maybe we can rid the world of the Jonah’s. 

~Brooke

Do Not Be Unequally Yoked

“Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: ‘I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.

‘Therefore come out from them and be separate,’ says the Lord.

‘Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters,’ says the Lord Almighty.

“Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.” – 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1

“Do not be yoked together with unbelievers.” How many Christians have broken this very commandment? Notice this is not a suggestion, but a commandment. When God said, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” we take that as a commandment. So why do we treat this as a suggestion? God does not give us suggestions; He gives us commandments.

He gave us this commandment to keep us pure and to make life easier for us. I have seen the torture and struggle that comes from being unequally yoked. God doesn’t want us to have to go through that. He also wants us to be pure. In the Old Testament times, He did not want his people to marry the unbelievers, and at times even sent plagues when they disobeyed this law. (Numbers 25:1-13) The Lord did not want anyone to take His children away from Him. He knew if the Israelites married unbelievers, they would soon be worshipping other gods. And that is exactly what happened. Why do we think it would be any different for us? Do we think we are that much smarter and wiser than the Israelites, that we can intimately associate with unbelievers and not be pulled away after other gods? Are we that more righteous than they were? The answer, dear friend, is no.

As a side note, I believe this Scripture also applies to friendships. If we constantly intimately associate ourselves with unbelieving friends, we soon find ourselves being pulled in the wrong direction (1 Corinthians 15:33-34). Yes, we need to have some unbelieving friends so that we may reach out to them and show them the Good News of Christ. But they do not need to be our most intimate friends. We should seek out intimate friendships with fellow believers, that we may be edified (Proverbs 27:17).

So dear friends, let us all save ourselves the trouble, let us learn from the Israelites’ mistakes, let us follow God’s commandment to be not unequally yoked. It is His will for us.

~Brooke

A Woman After God's Own Heart

David was called “a man after God’s own heart.” Isn’t that amazing? Imagine being called a person after God’s own heart. How humbling that would be. So we all think of David being a man after God’s own heart, and that got me thinking. What about a woman after God’s heart? Now I know that there is never a woman in the Bible who is actually called this, but if there was I think it would be Mary, the mother of Jesus. Consider her reaction when she was told she would bear the Saviour of the world: “Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ the angel answered and said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God…’ And Mary said, ‘Behold, the bond-slave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word.’”- Luke 1:34-38

Though Mary didn’t really understand how the things the angel told her could be, she realized that God was in control. She willing put herself into His will and plan- “May it be done to me according to your word.” I think Mary’s faith and selflessness makes her a woman after God’s own heart. I hope that I can follow her example and also be a woman after God’s own heart.