A Life After Death

So if I haven't mentioned it on here, my home church is Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia...I legit love my church. I've grown up there, literally, my family came to know the Lord shortly after I was born and I got thrown right into the nursery. I can remember fighting in the 3 year old class with some boy over a stuffed pink My Little Pony in sunday school (why did that boy want that My Little Pony??? as  you can see, I'm still a little bitter). Anyway, but even recently, I've grown to just love my church more- our Pastor is such an incredible man of God. So humble. So submitted to the Word of God. Growing in just submission to the leading of the Holy Spirit. So real with just the work that the Lord is doing in his life and with his need for grace and growth still! And I really believe the Lord has continued to work and move and bless our church because of the heart of our pastors and elders (who have just this same heart as Pastor Joe!) and its incredible to see the whole church body growing in these areas also...yeah, so anyway. Calvary Philly has birthed other fellowships in the area over the years and one of them that is very recent is the Calvary Chapel in Germantown. 


So a few weeks ago I got to help with an outreach that our church was partnering with the Germantown fellowship  to do. It was an outreach to the Women in the neighborhood and  also to a local Women's Shelter (they brought the women and their children to the outreach in vans). So somehow or other my friend Sara and I ended up planning a craft for the kids, planning a jewelry project for the teens, finding a movie for them, creating a lesson, and finding volunteers and supplies for nail painting for the teen girls...so needless to say, it was a hectic few days before it and definitely had some hectic moments in it...but it truly was all worth it!

So the plan was have the mom's go back with some older women who came from our church to have their nails done and have a break (and hopefully have a chance to be prayed for and hear the gospel one on one from someone who loves them with the love of Christ!) while Sara and I and our volunteers from our college group and sr high took care of the teens and kids!

I dedicated a "page" to this project which you can find here

We decided a few days before to do the Parting of the Red Sea as our lessons because for some crazy reason I had a MILLION fish stickers in my closet and still to do this day have no clue where they came from. So we had them make their own "red sea" so they could have a visual while we shared the story with them!

So while some did the craft, other played outside, and we let the older ones make "salvation bracelets" (colored bead bracelets that coordinate with the gospel- ex. red= blood of Christ)

The most incredible part is that a few Muslim women came from the shelter with their children. We ended up getting to share not only the story of how God parted the red sea to them (and these little girls paid more attention than any of the other kids!), they also got to make salvation bracelets and hear the gospel, and than we let the girls get their nails done where my friend Ellie (who only just got saved in September) shared the gospel with them again! The older muslim girl said to Ellie, "I wish that i could have this in writing so that I can tell all of my friends who don't know!" But she was hesitant to pray to accept Jesus. The best part is we found out a few weeks later from the pastor's wife that the mom got saved!!!

One of the highlights of the outreach for me was when we went around inviting women in the neighborhood out to the outreach, we came across a woman who had just had leg surgery and couldn't walk down to the church but she let my friend Beverly pray for her. Than Bev send me and another woman and a man to escort us back to their house to bring the outreach to them! Joan did the woman's nails and her and the man from the church spoke with her while I was able to share the story of how God used Moses to part the Red Sea and did the craft with the kids who were super attentive. There was also a 25 year old handicapped boy there who loved doing the craft...it was just so sweet to serve them in the name of Jesus. The one boy even colored me one of the Moses's and gave it to me to keep!

I was definitely exhausted by the end of it but it was truly such a wonderful opportunity to be the hands and feet of Jesus and I love just proclaiming the glory of God to the world. He's so worthy of it. And we should never be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ- it's salvation! And with all that's been going on lately in the world between Osama Bin Laden being killed and the earthquakes and tornadoes and wars in the Middle East and rising gas prices...I'm so much more urgent for people to come to know the Lord because time is so short, Jesus Christ is coming back soon! And I'm excited for Jesus Christ to reign as King in Jerusalem on this earth one day...

I finished reading through Chronicles recently and one thing that really stood out to me was the heart of the men who followed David to see him be king in Israel. "All these, men of war, arrayed in battle order, came to Hebron with full intent to make David king over all Israel. Likewise, all the rest of Israel were of a single mind to make David king." 1 Chronicles 12:38 What is my full intent? What am I single minded on? Is it to see Jesus Christ be make king in the lives of those around me?  I've been challenged...soon and very soon every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord! But how I long for my friends and family who aren't saved now to see His kingship and His Lordship while they still have a chance to choose Him...

my mom and her mom...my grandmom loves Cindy and calls everyone Cindy whose a girl, even me!

my mom was the baby of the family...aren't they too cute?

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my grandmom loves to watch "in touch with charles stanley"- she said that the speaker was wonderful and he brought tears to her eyes...here's a picture of her reading what she calls "the story of love" (aka- the Bible)

my brother jeremiah and grandmom have the weirdest relationship...

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”

 “O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?”

 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain."

And that made her smile...

anyway, the rest of the day was lovely, church, cooking, baking- and my cousin Phil came over and his parents, my aunt and uncle on my dad's side, came down from the Poconos for dinner with their grandson and we had a wonderful afternoon and evening!

Thank you Jesus Christ for the hope that one day my grandmom's body and mind will be restored and we'll see our Comforter face to face... Oh Glorious Day!

My little sister Emilee turned 7 on Wednesday and basically April and I pulled together the coolest super hero party that ever existed!

Super Em getting ready for her party!

Em drew her own invitations- april got them photocopied with all the information for her super guests!

This was our Super Hero HQ (that's what my brother said is what all the cartoons call the super hero headquarters!)  Notice that april spelled "telephone" wrong- I almost killed her!

April made Em's awesome Happy Birthday Banner. We set up the table so the kids could make their own masks to protect their secret identities!

Hailey made Em's cake with her "Super Em" logo and personalized cupcakes for all the Super Friends!

Some of our props for the photobooth and also one of our games (x-ray vision of course!)

Super Guests arriving! (is there anything cuter than batgirl and Super princess fairy (what was that kid thinking?) being reunited!?)

Highlight of their day- chasing chickens! Why did I bother to plan any games???

So these were our super villains- The Evil Dr. Birthday Basher and his henchman...Jo Jo. Anyway- we made a super video maybe I'll put up later where the Evil Dr. Birthday Basher threatened to destroy Emilee's birthday party by planting a bomb (i know...violent!) somewhere at Em's birthday party. The bomb was really a pinata that we made to look like a bomb!!! I know- too cool!

Our Super photobooth!

 

 So the kids did end up saving Em's Super Birthday party and destroying the fiendish plan of the Evil Dr. Birthday basher (after Joe Joe and Jesse broke a window...but what's a birthday party without a little drama?) And I did test the super powers of all of Em's super friends and found that the majority had super flexibility (limbo!!), one had super speed (musical chairs), and all of them had x-ray vision (our guessing what's in the box game)!!! And of course, they couldn't have broken our pinata bomb without Super Strength!
So I would say, all in all, it was a Super Party and that it really ended with a blast ;)

p.s. yes, I might have had way more fun with this party than the kids...i have no life :)

Blogs are so weird. You can kind of be whoever you want to be until people you actually know read your blog and than you start to overanalyze everything on it...

Well, after 100 posts I figure I should post the truth: Taking care of grandmom is easy. Yup, go figure- I am not a saint. I get a lot of glory for taking care of my grandmom. And yeah, there have been some incredibly difficult times these last few years, and I do not want to take any credit away from God- that truly was the whole point of this blog- to show that God is strong enough to take a self centered young adult and to change that girl's heart to give her the love she needs to care for her demented bed ridden grandmother. And truly- God has done that. But I think I got little one sided in my blogging and I would only post the "good things" and things that made me look good...Or the difficult things that also make me look good.

And that just is not fair to everyone else-

So please do not call elder abuse when I show you a real picture of life taking care of grandmom that proves that I am the worst grandmom caretaker ever:

-Lately I've been oversleeping till like 11 and my grandmom (who also sleeps late) lays around in a wet diaper. (I know I am horrible!!!!)
-Since we sleep so late grandmom gets breakfast at 12 and we just skip lunch...(ugh, it just keeps getting worse)
-I rarely brush my grandmom's teeth (all like 12 she has left)
- I also am too lazy to soak her hands and stretch them so they just keep getting more clenched and gross
- Her room is  disaster because I usually hide the rest of the junk from the house in there and try to clean it up nice only when people are going to see her
- I almost never give her her night pills and often just forget to give her her morning meds
-I'm too lazy to call a visiting doctor to come out and see her so she's had no real medical evaluation since last July!
-The kids ate most of her chocolate she got for her birthday
- I feed her frozen meals for dinner more often than not

I'm sure this list could go on forever. Yes, you can judge me. I'm horrible and selfish and a failure. Of course this blog is used mostly to paint a picture of us snuggling all day, having big birthday bashes, and us baking together (I usually do not even take my grandmom out of her room...)
Ugh.
You see, I've been dealing with my own failure  a lot lately. As a daughter, granddaughter, friend, human being, Christian. Ugh. But it just makes me more thankful that God sees all of my failure (even the things I will never be bold enough to share on blog) and loves me the same. His love is unconditional. And I'm washed so beautifully in the blood of the Son.
But I know that doesn't excuse my sins of laziness, selfishness, gluttony, etc.
And so this is the verse the Lord has not just been teaching me knowledge-wise- I'm actually learning that it is true through experience:
"My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever" Psalm 73:26
I'm a failure. God is not. And I cannot change myself. As much as I try, I cannot wake up in the morning. And it drives me insane. BUT GOD. Am I going to depend, lean on, cling to His strength? Step out into it. Allow my life to show that God is stronger. And am I going to still struggle and have trouble waking up in the morning? Probably. But daily I'm going to lean on the Lord, for His mercy, His grace, and His strength- because the Lord is working in me and perfecting me and disciplining me, because He loves me and I'm thankful.

So I hope you all now realize I am not perfect. God is. I'm just sinner saved by grace. I'm so thankful.

So once upon a time I went to Africa. I had just graduated highschool and was going with my Sr High youth group- trusted friends, mentors, pastors. Toward the end of our trip we were going to be staying at a Wildlife Resort and going on a safari. I overheard my friend Brianna making a comment to our youth pastor Brian about (what I thought I heard were) the "mechanical animals" we were going to be seeing. This absolutely made so much sense to me because I had already questioned why our leaders would take us to on a dangerous safari with real live dangerous animals- I mean, we were in AFRICA after all= danger! Once my friends heard that I thought that the animals were going to be mechanical (like robotic, if you don't know what I mean by "mechanical"), the new hobby of this "missions trip" team was to play mind games with me. Who do I trust? One minute, "yes, Tif, the animals are mechanical- you seriously thought we'd take you on a safari with real live lions?" and the next minute "Tiffany, honestly, they are real animals!" You can imagine my utter despair as this goes on for hours...anyway, finally at dinner, I get my friend Christa, who I knew I could trust, to tell me the truth- yes, we were going to see REAL lions, elephants, hippos on this safari.

So, the great justice of this whole ordeal came when we were riding in our completely-exposed-to-the-forces-of-nature-jeeps (weaponless, we later found out) and basically stall out in front of two young male lions who were both attempting to woo a young lioness. While everyone else's hearts were beating out of their chest in fear, I was living in some alternative universe- I literally had no fear. Honestly, there wasn't a concern in my mind about being mauled to death in the African savannah. The reality of the situation just was not real to me at all.



And so, I was reading Revelation 4 this morning describing the throne room of Jehovah God  and I was just like- why is this not shaking me to the core? And I realized, its because I have such a dulled sense of reality. I live in an age where special effects and technology have made it possible to have a 3-D Television in my home (if I wanted and could afford it!) and put on a pair of glasses that basically could make a lion jump out of the screen at me. I can see Niagra Falls in the comfort of my own home. I can go down to the Franklin Institute and lay on my back and look at a ceiling and travel through the human body if I really wanted to. And so when I'm truly experiencing Niagra Falls itself, the power of it, the reality of it just isn't what it should be. It should be awe inspiring- and in a sense it is- but ugh, how this technology has dulled me to what it should really produce in me. And that's how I felt when I read Revelation 4- this description- John truly experienced and tried to describe to the best of his ability what He was seeing when he faced the throne room of God. And one day I'm going to experience that. And I want it to stop me right now and make me declare: "Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created."

You know it's an exciting birthday party when you have to call 911, right?

Anyway, my grandmom turned 81 on Thursday and we celebrated by eating salmon and chocolate cake- a few of my grandmom's favorite things!

So Saturday night we invited over some of my dad's side of the family who, over the last few years, have grown  closer to my grandmom than her side of the family since her daughters and their kids live out of state (very different than my dad's insane Irish-catholic family with the 30 grandkids who are basically over my house every other weekend)...

Anyway we were having a great time partying it up with lunch meat and cheese and crackers (a few of my grandmom's other favorite things!), when we moved onto dessert. I fed her some her famous cream puff cake and had given her a bite of coconut cream pie when I look over and notice her not breathing and her eyes all unfocused and what not.

Well of course my grandmom would choke in the middle of her birthday party!

Anyway, my dad (recalling the incident  a couple of weeks ago) sprang into action and pulled her out of the wheelchair (with my uncle grabbing her legs and getting tangled in her birthday balloon that was tied to her chair!!!) Next thing I know, my aunt is screaming "Oh God no!", my other grandmother is throwing Lourde's Holy Water on her (while her and my grandpop continue to eat dinner), and we're screaming for the kids to leave the room because my grandmom is like dead on the floor and it didn't look like she was coming back this time...
 I, with my intensive medical training from my responding to emergencies class, go to grab my CPR mask (which totally makes sense when someone is choking- not! there are many reasons I am not going for nursing), meanwhile my dad and mom have my grandmom laying on her side on the living room floor while April calls 911. I'm ready for them to bring the body bag when next thing you know my grandmom starts chewing...to wrap up this death defying tale, my grandmom lives on! The paramedics came just to check her out and the party continued (my grandmom did seem to have more life in her after that, though the rest of us were exhausted!)

And so we've learned that my grandmom really knows how to kill a party (que drum and cymbal corniness)

I had a little mental goal of having 100 posts by my grandmom's birthday, but since i'm at like 96 posts or something and today is her birthday...eh, oh well? Maybe I'll pull 100 by 100???

Eighty-one. yup! I never would have imagined her making it another year, especially after this last year we had, but I guess God has some reason that my grandmom is still alive!

So Happy Birthday Lydia Dora Roach! I love you!!!!