Snapshots from the Weekend

Yesterday I spent (probably way too long) chatting with my girlfriend about how excited I was for all the amazing things that I’ve been watching God do in my life and the life of my friends. Dreams coming to fruition, businesses growing, blogs flourishing, our children really and truly starting to understand just how amazing God is. Even now as I write this, I can feel myself starting to relive some of the excited emotion in that conversation.

It’s like God has taken all of us, who never thought we were capable, strong enough, confident enough or had the ability to be used and He’s showing us that through Him we really can do all things. Ahhh, I just wish I could convey the excitement for the community being built. I just love seeing how God is using all of us, His vessels to do his work.

While I was talking I found myself saying over and over just how good God is that when we rejoice in Him through our trials, he picks us up and brings us to the finish line. I’m just loving watching him write my book of life. Do you feel that way too?

This morning we made it to church for the first time in 4 weeks. People, 4 weeks is a long time for me to go without being in God’s place of worship. Not that I don’t feel him daily, but there’s something about praising Him alongside others that stirs in my spirit in a way that I can’t explain. As our pastor spoke, he talked about the parable in Luke 14:12-24 where Jesus talks about the man preparing for a great feast and banquet and he invited all his neighbors and one by one they all gave the mans servant some lame excuse for why they weren’t able to make it. Angry, the man told his servant to go and invite the people in the street who were lame, poor, beggars, crippled… basically the “outcasts.” The point of the parable is this: sometimes we are so caught up in things going “well” in our lives that we miss out on the banquet God has in store for us. We miss his calling.

Then our pastor asked us if we thought we were so secure in our lives and what we have that we’ll choose to miss out on the banquet God’s invited us to. Uh, this totally struck a cord with me!

See all those amazing things I’m watching God do in my life, marriage, family and my friends lives is the direct result of us accepting that invitation to God’s banquet. Sure, we could probably go be successful all on our own, but I don’t even want to think about the blessings we’d miss out on if we did.

After being blessed by God at church we headed home, took a nice 3 hour long nap. Yup! We all slept, including Oletta, my in-laws puppy we were puppy sitting this weekend. It was heavenly. Then we headed down to the beach to take Oletta home and spend some time at the beach. It was the perfect end to a really hot week that has kept us cooped up inside our house and a great way to celebrate the amazing things God is doing by rejoicing in His creation.

I hope you all had an amazing weekend and can I tell you, I’m so excited for you! God is doing BIG things in your life, I know it, I can feel it. I can’t wait to hear all about it.

Oh and on a total side note, my space had a mini sidebar “blog lift” this weekend by the lovely and talented Lindsay from LLY Designs. A new “Meet Alissa” button, shop button and new sidebar navigation tools so you can find some of my favorite posts with a click of a button. What do you think? Go check out Lindsay, if you need work done, she’s your girl!