Abandon: Living a Cross-centered life.

    April 22nd, 2012 I was reading one of those devotion books. I don't remember which one and usually I'm not a fan of them. But, this particular day God had something for me. A slap in the face. The verse the devotion had me read was Luke 9:23 "And he said to all, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."" The devotion went on to talk about the word abandon. It said something about the greatest word Jesus ever could have told His people was abandon. I spent the morning thinking about that word. It is kind of a strong word.

a·ban·don/əˈbandən/

Verb:	Give up completely (a course of action, a practice, or a way of thinking).
Noun:	Complete lack of inhibition or restraint.
Synonyms:	verb. leave - relinquish - forsake - quit - give up - desert noun. abandonmen         To completely give something up. It cant be that hard, right? Reality check! It is that hard. Jesus wasn't telling them to abandon just anything. He was telling them to abandon themselves. He expects us to deny and abandon everything. For me this is hard. I have a lot of idols in my life that I put above Him. body image Shopping Movies my family Those are just a few examples. Although it may not seem that hard to let go of these things it totally is. For me the hardest one is the idol of body image and what people think of me. It's always on my mind and I am always wondering what else I can do to look better and be seen as a better person. God is calling me to ABANDON these things. Most of you know that I have a small tattoo on my wrist that says abandon. It is my daily reminder to let go of everything and allow God to lead me. If I want to live a cross centered life everyday I have to pray about it everyday. Its not something that just happens. It is something you have to be proactive about. Taking it one day at a time and releasing your days and worries to God is how its going to happen. Also, being in His word. We cant expect to be able to live this cross centered life and abandon our idols without being in regular relationship with our Lord.  He is the creator of the universe and he has defeated sin. We just have to abandon our idols and sins and give it all to Him. I think one of the first steps for me is realizing that I am a bigger sinner then I dare believe. I cant even fully comprehend how much of a sinner I am. And so are you! And once we realize that, we are able to bask in the FACT that Jesus died on the cross and those sins died with him. We are holy and blameless before Him as believers. "...even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will..." Eph 1:4-5 We are adopted sons and daughters and we are called beloved! What an amazing thought. The creator of the entire universe chose YOU and predestined You and adopted You and forgave You and loves YOU! I love you friends and I pray for you and hope this encourages at least one person! I am so encouraged by these gospel truths!

Praising God when its rough.

 Boy! I haven't blogged in a long time. But here it goes...


This week I have been reminded once again how desperately I NEED Jesus. Something I have realized is I don't praise Him in the hard times. Let me explain.
 Paul and I have been going through a rough spot. As you know 5 months ago we had a baby girl. She is amazing. I was scheduled to go back to work when she turned 4 months old. Although I wasn't excited to go back I new it was necessary. So I called my manager to figure out details of my return. That phone called changed everything for us. I was told I don't have a job to come back to. My heart sank. My head immediately went to thinking about how we would pay our bills and buy food and diapers. You see, what I have learned is my reaction should have been to get down on my knees and pray hard and praise God and ask Him what I needed to do next and wait. But that isn't really what I did. I got angry. I couldn't understand why this had to happen to us. And I didn't know how the heck we would buy food. Seriously. I looked at our finances and we had enough from Paul's job to pay bills but that was it. Okay God, how are you going to take nothing and make food? Hmm? This is what I thought. How dare I? Really? The God of all gods. Creator of the universe. The God who feeds the animals of the earth. What made me think that he wouldn't feed me? So, I was angry. But amongst that anger I still prayed to Him for guidance. I didn't have the right attitude but hey at least I was praying, right? Wrong. God's expectation is that we come to Him and ask with complete faith and love knowing He WILL take care of our needs. Well praise Him for being gracious. Even though I had this bad attitude He has provided so far! I am staying home taking care of our kids while Paul works at the church and we have food and our bills are paid. It was until today that I realized that I hadn't thanked Him amongst these hard times. I was driving to the store listening to the Supertones when Jury Duty came on. "You know I haven’t had the best of days but I want to stop and thank you anyway. Cuz every single moment whether sleeping or awake Is your creation And what you’ve made is good I don’t always thank you for the rough days and The hard times in my life
Even though I should." I was convicted. In fact yesterday I had the worst day ever. Today I woke up and just prayed it would be better. Then I heard this song and thought, my gosh I didn't even thank Him for yesterday really. He made the day therefore it is good and I didn't thank Him. Today I am convicted to thank God even in the rough times. 
  I wanted to share this because I know that I am not the only person having a rough patch in life. I have numerous friends going through some very real and very hard issues. I hope that if you read this (You know who you are) you are encouraged and convicted as I was. God is good all the time no matter what kind of a day we are having. We need to thank Him and praise Him every day!


"For it is you who light my lamp; the Lord my God lightens my darkness. For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall. This God--His way is perfect, the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in Him." Psalm 18:28-30

Good things come to those who wait.

  A lot of good things have happened to our family the past couple of months. I finally have a couple minutes to sit down and tell you all about them.
  First, Paul got a new job. This week was his 4th week. He works for a company called Nackard. They distribute Pepsi products along with wine and beer. Paul is a salesman for the wine and beer side of the company. This was a pretty huge promotion for him so we were very excited. He is a little overwhelmed by all of the new things he has to learn but he is doing great. This job opportunity is something we have been praying for for a couple years.
  Next on our list is we moved. We are renting a condo and we love it. Its so much bigger than our apartment was and SO much nicer. We are really fortunate the people who lived here before us thought of us when they were moving out. We moved about 3 weeks ago now and we have loved every minute of it. We are completely done unpacking and decorating. Its so nice to come home from a long day of work to such a nice place. We feel really lucky to live here.
  Ivan is growing and talking and doing great. He is a little gremlin of course. He is 20 months now and I cant keep up with him most of the time. He is a lot of fun though. He LOVES anything that has to do with Elmo. He is a little parate. He tries to say everything that we say. I have taught him that girls have cooties so dont kiss them unless its me. Tonight when Paul gave him a kiss he said, "Icky Kaka". So it looks like I will have to help him with the different between daddy and girls. He is a little ball of energy but we love him. And this now leads to our last piece of news. Ivan is soon to be a big brother! We are going on 14 weeks pregnant on Sunday. I cant tell you how excited we are. Our due date is April 17. Some of you know that we actually miscarried Easter weekend this year which was of course devistating. So we feel so blessed and excited to be at 14 weeks and doing so well. I feel aweful on a daily basis which is good because that means hormones are doing what they should but bad because I have no energy. But in the end it will all be worth it.
  So that is all there is. Lots of good stuff. For those of you who continue to pray for us thanks so much and for all of you Oregonians we miss you!!!!!
 

The world keeps spinning...

Well, in case you were wondering, yes we still exsist. Its been super long since we have updated our blog. Life is just going and going and going.
Whats new with the Sherman's you may ask?...wells lost of things.
Ivan is HUGE. He is talking (in another language) but non the less talking. He can say lots of words. He is healthy and continueing to grow. Currently his favorite thing to do is jump off the sofa. He is a little dare devil. We love him though. We are trying to have another baby and I know he will make an amazing big brother when the time is right.
Paul and I recently made a very hard decision to step down from youth ministry. There are lots and lots of reasons why. Some good and some bad. We love the students SO much so this was a very hard decision but it was one that had to be made. Now we have more time to focus on family.
Both Paul and I are working very hard. Its seems like all we do is work sometimes. But thats what pays the bills.
Here in Show Low AZ we have been experianceing what the locals call 'monsoon season'. Its pretty amazing. Its just down poors super hard and there is really loud thunder. Power goes out and buildings shake. Its awesome. We love the storms.
We will prayerfully be moving into an amazing townhome in October. We absolutly love this place and hope and pray our friends that live there now get there home loan approved so everything works out. We would have SO much more room.
Well I think that pretty much covers the Sherman's update. I will try to get on more often. :)

A new home...

 Well, we are settleing into AZ quite nicely. Actually, to be quite honest we are loving it here. Here are some updates on the Sherman fam.

 We are attending Calvary Baptist church. We became members about 2 weeks ago. Paul is involved in the music ministry for main church and for the youth group. He is really enjoying that. I am helping with the youth group as well. We are really enjoying serving the Lord in this area. The kids are great. I am working on getting to know some of the girls and paul likewise with the boys. The other co leaders are AWESOME! We are having a lot of fun. This church is amazing. We have never experiance a church that is like a true family. People are really close and the Pastor knows every body and has made an effort to spend time with everyone. Its pretty amazing what God is doing in the church and in all of our lives.

We have made some new friends of course. Its so nice having people to hang out with. Its like we have all been friends forever. Although we miss our friends from Oregon very much we are fitting in quite nicely here.

We recently (on Monday) moved into our own place. We spent all week unpacking and decorating. We are exhausted from it all. We love being on our own again though. Its nice to have all of our own stuff out again.

We are thankful to the Lord for all of these blessing and now we are hoping to add one more to the Sherman family soon. We are trying hard but we know the Lord has his perfect timing. Pray that we will continue to serve Him and trust Him and that He will use us and work through us.

We love all you Oregonians and miss you!!!

It's a zoo out there!

Its been a little while since I have been on here to update everyone. We have had some exciting things happen.

Last week on Monday we went to the Phoenix Zoo! It was the most amazing zoo ever. We got to feed giraffe and pet sting ray. So fun. Ivan really loved it to. He got to run around and chase birds and squirrels.

Ivan has finally completely adjusted to being in a new place. He is now only taking one 2 hour nap a day. He goes to bed at 8 and sleeps until about 7 ish A.M. He is happy and growing. I cant believe he will be a year old on the 25th! He is growing up way to fast!
I will be turning 23 on Tuesday! Yay! I love birthdays! We plan on going back to Phoenix to the Zoo safari...I guess its a little bit different then the actual Zoo. So for Ivan and my birthday that's the plan.
Paul and I are both employed officially. Praise God! Paul starts on Monday. He will be working for Coke. I start the 21st and I will be working for Chase Bank. We are so excited the Lord has blessed us with great jobs in such a short amount of time. He has a plan for us and he is providing every open door needed.
We met with the pastor of the church we are attending. We wanted to know how to get plugged in and involved in different ministries. We know God has us in this little pow dunk town for a reason. Now we are praying and being pro-active to figure it out. It turns out there is a ready big need on worship team (which is great for Paul). And there is a huge need for female leadership with the high schoolers (which is great for me). Also, there is a HUGE need for some sort of young married couples group or Bible study. They have Bible studies for the oldies and the yougies but nothing really for in between. So we are praying and asking God to show us were he wants us to serve. I know my pray is just "Use me Lord". I don't really care where he puts me I just want him to use me. At this particular church we do have to become members before serving in a ministry. Thus, we are working on that. We are so excited to be in a new place with new opportunities to serve the Lord. Its amazing what he is already doing in our lives.

I have recently taken up crafting. When I first decided to start crafting I obviously went on line to try and find a craft store. Much to my dismay craft stores don't exist in this area! I was freaking out. Finally I found a scrap booking store a couple of towns over. I had to drive 45 minutes to get there but it was so worth it. This place was so stinking cool. Its a small family owned business. The girl has collected all of this awesome antique stuff and she has tons and tons of paper and stickers and buttons and whatever else you might want. Here are a couple pictures of some candles I decorated.

Well, I think that is everything for now. We love and miss all you Oregonians!

The things we have been up to...

This last week has been lots of fun. We have been exploring town and trying to get to know the area. We went swimming at the local pool on Thursday. Ivan loved it! He is growing SO much. He is really trying to talk more. He repeats (in syllable form) everything we say. So fun! He is teething like crazy. He recently got his 5th tooth in! He is also finally sleeping through the night again. It took a couple weeks for him to get used to a new place but he has finally done it. This obviously means we get more sleep and we arent so cranky. :)

We also visited the Petrified Forest. It was beautiful!

This is Paul and Ivan in front of the base of  petrified tree.

This gives you an idea of how beautiful the inside of a petrified tree is. It turns into agats and crystals. Pretty amazing.

All three of us infront of the Painted Desert.

This is just a giant petrified log.

As you can see its pretty amazing. If you ever happen to be in AZ road tripping it I recommend going to the petrified forest.

On Saturday we went to Hon-Dah. Its an indian reservation. They had something they call Winterfest going on. Basically they get huskies together and do dog sled races. They then do a do show, dog weight pull and some ice carving.

This guy was pretty crazy.

He made a yeti.

He then went on to make a dog sled with a little eskimo.

This is just a family picture right after the winterfest.

Come Saturday night it was Ivan's bath time. Always a fun way to end the day.

And that ends our third week in AZ. Monday we will be going to the Pheonix Zoo! I am so excited. Obvisouly there will be pictures to come.
We love and miss everyone. Have a great week!