Tim and Jennifer: Food for Thought

I have our month in pictures to catch up on below. We are very excited about summertime over here!
I feel like God has been teaching me so much and I don't want to forget it. I also feel like I am just soaking in some verses and trying to land somewhere with them.
That's what this is.... some verses and thoughts and maybe it will shed light in someone elses life.
I'm realizing if I look at it right, I can see God's grace in others lives all the time. Rather than comparison, jealousy, or trying to understand the "fairness" of life..... people (and myself) get things they don't deserve. That's God's grace, not our own merit. When you really think about it, we deserve death for the payment of our sin. God sent Jesus so we could have life instead. So we dont just deserve "nothing", but death.
It's dangerous to live in entitlement where we think God owes us for doing _________ (fill in the blank). That is a lie. Its also dangerous to live in Martyr-dom (i like to call it that). Where we feel sorry for ourselves and our suffering should be cancelled out by blessings. Which one do you fall in? My struggle is the latter.
Let's talk about Blessings. I'm starting to hate that word a little. Especially in America and social media. Everything is hashtagged #blessed #blessing #iamblessed. (please don't feel guilty if you do that... its just how many times do you see God's word hashtagged as a blessing, it is always "stuff")
What do we associate blessings with? Do we actually even want Jesus anymore or just his "blessings"?
Are blessings stuff? Is being blessed having a nice home, lots of money, lots of kids? Is that was being blessed is?
If so, then what about when James says blessed are the poor.... blessed are those who mourn... blessed are those who suffer.... blessed are those who are persecuted..... blessed are those who persevere.
I don't think anyone would ever say priests and nuns aren't blessed, because they can't get married or have children. Missionaries typically aren't making 6 figures, so are they not "blessed"? What about a barren woman, is she blessed?
Also, that statement would cancel out most of the people who even wrote the Bible and mean that they were not blessed.
Does God want us to be poor and sad? Maybe not....but those circumstances make your heart in a place that is golden. Is that your worst fear, can you even go there to lose it all? I speak from losing it all before and now I can stare that fear in the face.
So, things of this world do not make us blessed. That would mean we believe Health and Wealth = Jesus. That we take the gifts of God as the presence of God. That you have done something right.

Yuck.
Do we even get it? Even a little bit? We all fall short. Period.
I don't have this all figured out. It is just good questions to be asking yourself and things I want to think about.
That last thought is a conversation I had with my bestie, Jess, who shared this verse with me.
"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field." Matthew 13:44

She was telling me, whatever that man had, whatever it was, he sold EVERYTHING he had for it. Thats what was important and what he left everything he had for.
What do we have in our hearts that we would leave it all and sell it all for?

He had it figured out, I know that.
I want Jesus. I want Jesus for my family. I want what that man had in the field. I dont want the thief of joy, comparison, to be apart of my life.... but, to see it as God's grace in others lives. The world calls it luck, good circumstances, things going your way.... the Bible calls it grace. This world has nothing for us, I want what Jesus considers to be a blessing. Lets boast in Christ and not his gifts.

If you are reading this, you are getting what you don't derserve anyway. Life.

Here is a small glimpse of the life God is letting us have :)

David swimming, he is a great swimmer this summer and his favorite thing to do is go to the bottom of the pool and get his sinking torpedos!

Mackenzie just learned to swim this week after lessons!

My 60 lb, almost 7 year old at the dentist.... everyone was cavity free!

Mackenzies room all clean!

We opened an antique booth at Cobb Antique Mall for me to sell all the furniture that I love to re-finish and antiques that I find. The kids think this is the greatest thing ever that we have a "store".

The lake with my parents

We surprised Tim with an early Fathers Day gift, a canoe!! Love this picture of him and the kids together.

My new antique for our kitchen!

Summer fun with friends at the Roswell Spraygrounds!

Spent the weekend in Phenix City, Alabama with Tim's family for Memorial Day weekend celebrating the last grandchild graduating!! (#15 I think for them)