Adventures in Denver: January 2008

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

One Very Full Month

There has been so much going on in the month since we last posted. We sold our big puffy chair so that we'd have room for our Christmas tree. We visited Chillicothe for Christmas, which was a lot of fun. The day we drove out, it started to snow, and it ended up taking us four hours to get there instead of two. Stella slept through most of the trip, thank goodness! While we were there, Stella got to meet lots of extended family. We also really enjoyed getting to spend lots of time with Grammy and Grampy and Uncle Will, Aunt Noodle (Kristen :)), and Julienne, who's growing so fast and is so much fun.

As always Elijah thoroughly enjoyed everything about Christmas and asked everyone if they had a present for him... our mail lady, any friends that visited, random strangers. He was also very sad that we had to take down our Christmas tree, and almost every other day, he asks if we can put it back up.

Stella and Elijah both got a lot of presents. Ben's family sent presents from Colorado, which was fun. We didn't get to go to Colorado this year since Ben's still in school and Stella's so little, but hopefully we'll get to visit next year.

In non-Christmas news, Ben accepted a job to work at a structural engineering firm in Kansas City starting at the end of May. What a huge blessing and answer to prayer! It means a lot of work for him this semester though because he's got classes, he's being a teacher's assistant for two professors, and he has to try and finish his research and write his thesis. He's a busy man! Yet somehow he manages to help out a lot with Elijah and Stella.

I've been spending my time taking care of Elijah and Stella. I've also been officially diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, which means I'll be on insulin for the rest of my life, but God has been good in giving us the means and resources to take care of me thus far, and all of my lab work has come back looking very good. Between Stella's doctor appointments, my post-partum appointments, and diabetic appointments it felt like my new job was going to appointments. Thank goodness things are finally starting to slow down!

Stella is two months old today! She's still eating and sleeping a lot. The last couple of days have been wonderful because she hasn't been as fussy, and she's been sleeping better. She's such a sweet baby, and she makes lots faces. Ben and I have been calling her our "little drama queen" because she can make the saddest faces at the drop of a hat. She's also quite the little diva. Enjoy the new pictures! Oh, and be sure to check out the flickr photos on the left to see more Christmas and more Stella pics.

Devotions

Click the link above for the Daily Devotional, daily excerpts from the book "A Day's Journey" by Pastor Jon Courson.

Selected Article from Abiding Life Ministries Intl.

Coming to a Place of Deception

By Michael Wells

James 1:14, “But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.”

Galatians 5:16-17, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.”

I am starting to believe that people are deceived because there is something in them desiring the deception. First, if Satan has the ability to deceive all men, then all men would be deceived. Obviously he does not have that kind of power. So what does he look for in a man that would allow for a deception? Satan is looking for something in the heart of man where the deception can begin. It would be impossible for Christ to deceive any person, for there is nothing in Christ that the flesh desires. True Christianity cannot deceive, for again, nothing in the flesh wants anything at all to do with Christianity.

Christianity has one message for my flesh: “Move over!” So what is it that makes man’s heart open to deception? I believe it is the desire of a heart that says, “I can be God.” Rephrased, it is the desire of the heart to be independent from God. This is why the Mormon religion is so successful; it is cleverer than the early Catholics who embraced the local gods of the people, or just gave them different names. As you know, many “Catholic” countries are rife with blends of Catholicism and witchcraft. Haiti is an example. However, the Mormons offer something more: man can actually become a god. Man can invite his wife to his celestial kingdom, where she can be eternally pregnant. This “deception” has incredible drawing power to those who have suffered under the hand of their unjust god, or who have served a god all of their lives. After all, who would not want to believe that he could become the one who hands out punishment and receives gifts from others?

Such a person is deceived with a ludicrous teaching, but moving past the cobweb to the spider, we see at the root a heart that says, “I want to be God.” Deceptions all offer the flesh something, and Christ is always taking something away from the flesh. When someone converts to Mormonism, or any of the other “-isms,” I never feel that the Mormons won one while the Christians lost one. Instead, I believe that the person, in believing the deception of Mormonism, actually revealed a heart previously hidden that is anti-Christ. Again, we see that nothing is working against us. God is permitting all the “-isms” for the revelation of hearts. The germ of every cult is this promise of keeping the flesh alive through some kind of God-playing. The amazing thing is that it holds any attraction, when it is so much easier to have a God than to play God.