Day 19

A Talent of Yours:
Well, I guess it would have to be my art skills, I'm not particularly talented in music or writing like my sister's but I am able to draw fairly well.

Day 18

A Time When You Felt Passionate and Alive:

I feel most passionate and alive when I'm either studying or speaking with someone about the Word of God and His Awesome power! It blows my mind when I really start looking into everything He has done and what He has told us He will do. And the more I learn of it the more I want to live my life in a way that shows it to all those around me, the more I want to know and glorify Him in every aspect of my life. He is everything that I am here for and how can anything else excite my passion more than His glorious name!

"Those who look to the Lord are radiant, and their face shall never be ashamed."

Psalm 34:5

I Love My Cello...

And I got to spend the afternoon with a lovely friend of mind playing cello duets! It was so much fun, the first time I've ever really gotten to actually just sit down and play for while with someone. Usually I just play for myself and my very patient family. Played mostly just by sight reading stuff, which is something I've really been trying to work on so I can get up the gumption to play at our church... still am not there yet.=)

Now am sitting in my nice, dark room. My blinds broke several years ago and I've never replaced them so on especially hot days I put a big blue sheet over the window to keep things cooler, sometimes makes me rather sleepy too, walking into my room is kinda like walking into a cave.

And here's me right now, not sure why I'm feeling like posting these random pictures of myself but, well I'm not actually sure what the "but" is for...

Anyhoo, finished addressing all the envelopes yesterday, yay! It feels really good to have that done even though we don't really need to have it done for another week or so, it's just one more thing we can check off the list. I finally got myself to get back to work on Hayley's dress, was just so frustrated with having to redo the entire top I needed to take a little break from it, but now I'm back on the wagon and it's coming along quite nicely.

We're expecting our guests from Seattle to arrive sometime this evening, so the house is all unnaturally neat. Took a bit of doing as our guest room had become wedding central, but now everything is safely stowed in my parent's room, we just need to blow up some air mattresses and they should be set.

Hope you all have a lovely evening!

Day 17

An Art Piece:

Day 16

A Song That Makes You Cry:
I don't really cry at a lot of things, though I can if I allow myself to be pulled into it. Schindler's List makes me cry because I can't listen to it without thinking of the story behind it.

Day 15

A Person You Admire:

I have a few different people I admire in different ways, most prominent among them being my father. I admire him for his audacity and fervency in proclaiming the gospel, his desire to serve his Lord and his family, and his constant seeking to learn and study out more and more of the Scripture that he may better be able to teach and apply principles in his own life.

This Day Is Slowly Going By...

It's been somewhat of a down day for me, I'm not feeling too great, so after trying to continue things as normal this morning gave up and am spending the afternoon in whatever comfortable position I can, right now it is laying flat out on my stomach.

I did start addressing envelopes today for my sister's wedding invitations, it is something I very much enjoy though it can get long. I know one thing, I will never forget the address to my parents house, between doing this for Caitlin's graduation announcements, and my own, now for her wedding and most like someday for mine, it is permanently embedded into my brain.

Here's me right now, you can probably tell that I'm rather out it.

I've been doing a lot of studying lately based off some conversations I've had with others and things that have been being taught and discussed in our church. Warning: if you get involved in a doctrinal conversation with me and it doesn't get fully resolved(or even if it does), most likely you will have to talk with me again next time I see you so I can unload everything I went home and discovered.

Most recently my studies have been on a question I overheard two good friends discussing and which I later discussed with them myself:Did God create evil? It is definitely a difficult thing to think about. We have a God who created everything, nothing can be created outside of Him, so with that in mind it is simple to say yes, He created evil. But we also have a God who is holy and many question how a holy and righteous God who cannot sin could be responsible for evil. When talking with my father about this, he brought out the point that much of it has to do with our human perspective of evil, everything God does is righteous, and what man may intend for evil He uses for good. He has ordained that some men are going to be wicked, has prepared "vessels of wrath for the for destruction." If man had not fallen into sin, we would never know the richness of His grace and mercy.

Rather than questioning God in His creation, we should look at ourselves and who we are, how we can have the arrogance to question our God, on this note please watch the video I posted a few days ago by Voddie Baucham.

In the end, I believe the question of the creation of evil is not one we find a definite, biblical answer on. Nothing can be outside of His creation, He is sovereign over all things and holy and righteous in all that He does, who are we to question it? What are your thoughts? If anyone has done some study on this and has some Scripture to help clarify on this please share.

The other studies I have been doing has involved listening to a series of sermons by Dr. S. Lewis Johnson on Systematic Theology, this was suggested to me by my father and I have been very much enjoying it. My family has had this view point on studying Scripture, but this is really helping me to get a clearer view and solidify it in my own mind.

This past Sunday we listened to a sermon on the way to church by John MacArthur teaching on Romans 15:1-7, it was mainly teaching on some things that we had studied in church the week before and my father wanted to look into a little more as well as have our entire family hear some things on. Basically being about serving one another as Christ and how we in the church are to love one another. Many have a clouded or even mistaken view of how we are to love one another. Truly loving one another in Christ means speaking the truth to one another even when it may hurt the other person, some would call this harsh and question if it is truly loving, but for my part if I see a good friend of mine who is following after the things of the world I would rather say something to them and have them be offended than know that they may suffer eternal damnation and I never showed them the truth of where I knew they were headed. Loving each other as the body of Christ is constantly seeking to build each other up which means at times discussing doctrines that we may disagree upon, one or both of us has to be wrong. And we need to be able to discuss and consider the other person's side, able to defend our own. If we cannot defend it from Scripture than we need to seriously reconsider our belief. And when we do defend with Scripture be oh so careful to keep that Scripture within it's proper context, studying the entire passage, not just the one verse that may apply to the situation.

When we are speaking truth into another's life as part of loving them, I think we also need to look carefully at our own attitude coming into it. Are we doing it because we love them or to point out all the problems we see in their life and put them beneath us because of them. Many choose to be silent about issues and say it because they love them and don't want to hurt them, this is wrong and not truly loving that person, but very carefully consider your motive when you do feel the need to go someone on a difficult matter that you feel should be addressed.

"Love is an act of the will, accompanied by emotion, which leads to action on behalf of it's object." Voddie Baucham

Day 14

A Vacation You Would Like to Take:

I have a lot of vacations I would like to take, there are so many places I would love to travel. But right now the foremost on my list is to go to New England, and basically do a history tour.

Day 13

A Guilty Pleasure:

I guess I'll have to go with a very common here, coffee & chocolate. I do have other ones, like sleeping in pretty much whenever I can get away with it, reading can sometimes be one, it can be so hard to put a book down even when I have a long list of other things that I really should be doing.

Day 12

A Song That You Want Played at Your Wedding:

I really don't know of any songs that I really want at my wedding, I like a lot of film stuff like Emma by Samuel Sim, Nicholas Nickleby by Rachel Portman, and various other stuff. But nothing particular that stands out to me as being very special and wanting to have at my wedding. I'm sure when it comes down to it there will be some hymns and such but right now I got nothin'. =D

AmandaBeth Giveaway!

Ladies,

There's fun giveaway going on at AmandaBeth Online

Always nice to find a modest way to enjoy swimming, especially as it can be such a challenge.

Be sure to check it out!

Image from HydroChic

Day 11

A Photo of You Taken Recently:

Why does God Allow Bad things to Happen?

Day 10

A Photo of You Taken Over 10 Years Ago:
Here's one with big sister Caitlin, hard to believe she's getting married in a few weeks! I think I'm about two here, so a bit further back then 10 years.

Day 9

A Photo You Took:
I don't take a lot of photos around this house, and most of the ones that I have seem to have disappeared. But here's one taken last spring.

Day 8

A Thank You Letter to Someone Who Has Changed Your Life:

I'd like to have this post be to Lynne Mason, one of the most wonderful, godly women I have ever met.

Lynne,

You have been such a marvelous example to me of the Proverbs 31 woman as she is lived out practically in everyday life. You have changed my life in many ways, challenging me to further godliness and being able to speak boldly and clearly about my faith, to use for others the gifts that God has blessed me with rather than just for my own personal satisfaction. And to be constantly living everyday for a greater purpose than just simply going through the "mundane" tasks, that are inevitably, but viewing them as opportunity's to glorify the Lord.

Through you I had my first interest in midwifery, while right now I may not be pursuing it, the things I have learned in the courses I've done and books you have given me, have given me skills that I may use to serve others and a greater awe of the wondrous work God has done in creating life!

I love you Lynne, and give God thanks and praise upon every rememberance of you.

Day 7

5 Things You Couldn't Possibly Live Without:

I try not to have things like this, would rather see what I can do without rather than what I can't. Of course there are the essentials like food, clothing, water, air. But I don't think that's what their looking for, so here's a few things that I really like having around, and would rather not do without.

I seriously think that this is one I could not live without, I love my books and am not sure that I would survive without them.

I don't really need my coffee, but it can make my day much pleasanter overall.

And I very much enjoy my laptop, probably too much, maybe after this blog challenge I'll go on a "computer fast"... or not.

I really don't think I could live without music, that's a very painful thought. I love listening to it and am so enjoying playing cello.

Last but not least, well maybe they are least actually... My knives. I really like my knives and their something that's quite useful too. This is one that I actually do have and it is my favorite, that and my Kershaw.

Day 6

A Moment You Wish You Could Relive:

I don't know that I've had any of those yet. I'm all for pushing ahead in what is before rather then dwelling on the past. Although I have sometimes wished that I were little again so I could sit on my father's lap and cuddle with him.

Day 5

A Favorite Quote:

I love quotes, I have notebooks just for all my quotes, and am always searching for more to add to my collection. One of my favoritest ones is from Voddie Baucham:

"Love is an act of the will, accompanied by emotion, which moves to action on behalf of it's object."

Now, aside from the Blog Challenge.

Things are quite busy at my house, with plans moving along full speed ahead for my sister's wedding in September. We were able to get a building secured this week, a Lutheran Church in Bigfork, very conveniently located and quite spacious.

I've been sewing some everyday this week, finished a practice bridesmaid dress, which turned out quite lovely, it's a pity it will never be worn. Am almost finished with mine, probably would be finished if not for some zipper trouble, I loath zippers! All of our shoes came this week,their a little big for us, we had ordered the same size for all of us. Hayley's actually got the biggest feet, then Jillian, and then myself, so it's definitely looking like I will be the short one in the Carstensen family.

Our biggest thing right now is trying to find a photographer, it's proving quite difficult, so please be praying that God would lead us to the right one!

Theos Eneulogeomai!

Day 4

A Favorite Television Program:

Our family doesn't watch tv at all really, so I'm not familiar with what's out there right now. But we do have some stuff that we like to watch after it comes out on DVD, my favorite being Stargate:Atlantis.

Day 3

A Favorite Book:

Here again I'm going to have to go with my most recent favorite as I have so many. My all time favorite is the Word of God, but as far as other things one of my new favorites is John Adams by David McCullough.

Day 2

A Favorite Movie:

Again it is so hard to choose just one favorite, so I'll have to go with the newest addition to my ever growing list. Alice In Wonderland

Day 1

A Favorite Song:

I have a lot of favorite songs, it's really difficult to choose just one, but right now I'm really enjoying "It's In the Rain" by Enya.

Have always loved just listening to rain fall, so this one rings a bell with me!

30 Day Blog Challenge

Found this on another blog and decided to give it a try, not sure if I'll be able to stay completely consistent but they're pretty short each day so hopefully I'll be able to keep up with it. I'll be starting tomorrow, wouldn't mind if someone joined me! =)

Day 1: A favorite song.

Day 2: A favorite movie.

Day 3: A favorite book.

Day 4: A favorite television program.

Day 5: A favorite quote.

Day 6: A moment you wish you could relive.

Day 7: Five things you couldn't possible live without.

Day 8: A thank you letter to someone who has changed your life.

Day 9: A photo you took.

Day 10: A photo of you taken over ten years ago.

Day 11: A photo of you taken recently.

Day 12: A song that you want played at your wedding(or was played).

Day 13: A guilty pleasure.

Day 14: A vacation you would like to take.

Day 15: A person you admire.

Day 16: A song that makes you cry.

Day 17: An art piece.

Day 18: A time when you felt passionate and alive.

Day 19: A talent of yours.

Day 20: A hobby of yours.

Day 21: Something you know you do differently than most people.

Day 22: A website.

Day 23: A way in which you want to be remembered.

Day 24: A movie no one would expect you to love.

Day 25: A recipe.

Day 26: A childhood memory.

Day 27: A physical feature you love.

Day 28: A scar you have and it's story.

Day 29: Hopes, dreams and plans you have for the next 365 days.

Day 30: A motto or philosophy.