A few of you asked how it is done...it is amazingly simple...if you have time and a some what capable hand. My sis looked up pumpkin patterns on-line...then we went to Wal-mart and bought pumpkin carving tools...about 3 bucks if I remember correctly...then you tape the pattern to the pumpkin, punch through the pattern onto the pumpkin, next use the tools to cut along the dots you have made or shave off the outer peel on areas that don't need to be cut all the way through....and VIOLA, there you have it! I think it took me about 2.5 hours to do mine...I started off doing Wonder woman...but my pattern was CRAZY hard so I switched to Napoleon.   I think it would be fun to do this every year...but each year pick a theme to have the whole group of carvers work from...
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Pumpkin carving at my sis's house tonight! I feel as though I am actually experiencing America this year...participating in holidays I have not been apart of for years while overseas...it is kinda nice.
Jen's pumpkin:

And then mine:

Fun times.

As diamonds grow more brillant under pressure, and as iron sharpens iron, so do the times of difficulty try us and make us strong. For God, in His love, has plans for you beyond all your imaginings. -The gift and the words from Jonathan yesterday.

I feel as though it has been a heck of a week. What has remained true? That God is always on His throne. He is perfect and graceful. That when we are struggling, He is right there...with His perfect Word and timing. I love the people at my Church. I love getting to sit and talk with different members about God and being forced to remember His goodness and the lessons He has taught me the past 9 years of my walk. It was hard for me this week as I looked into the Word and walked away...not doing what it said..and spiritually feeling the consequences.

I am looking forward to the afternoon...some fellowship with a great couple from Church as we watch the UT football game verses Bama and grill out. Jonathan and I are going to make dessert...and he WANTS to help...should be fun and interesting...I have never baked with a boy before.

So, I had a dream that Jonathan put a ring on my finger last night. THAT has never happened before...

Anyway, what I find amazing about God is how He speaks to our hearts. Last night Jonathan brought up the question, (after hearing me squeal in excitement over a voice mail from my dear friend Jassi Rose, whom I felt the Lord telling me to call yesterday, which I thought about, thought it was too early, and didn't, hence my excitement that obviously I was supposed to have called her b/c she ended up calling me. I just think things like that are rock on cool, even though I didn't call her like I felt I should have, but that is beside the point, right now anyway) if sin had not come into the world, would we ALWAYS be able to hear the Lord's voice and follow it right away?

On another note: My biggest struggle this past week? Being called, named, esteemed, and known as "the missionary." I found myself thankful this week that God calls me by name...not by occupation, tasks, sin by which I have fallen short of His glory, or otherwise...for in none of those is who I am...in none of those is my true identity...for what I long for is my only identity to be that of Barbara, dearly beloved daughter of THE KING. In THAT identity is my fullness.

I AM blessed, by The One who loves me more than any human possible, by The One who's grace knows no bounds...

Well, I have been pondering how much or how to share with you all what God has been showing me the past few months in regard to relationship. I was responding to a question a friend posted, and thought, I should just steal my own comment and make it my post. It is kinda long...but it is my heart...so here you go...

You know...I read your last post last night and wanted to spend time thinking about it before I responded. :) And now here is another one. :) Are you ready? This could get long!!

Let me first tell you that I have commitment issues myself! My relationships have not lasted either but BOY AM I THANKFUL I did not force the issue with any of them! And when God speaks to your heart about a relationship and tells you to keep walking in it...then the difference comes. I have been on my knees about this relationship I am in and only because the Lord first told me to get over my fears and date this boy have I done so. I think that it is right that your first desire is for Jesus, and you realize that at the end of your day you would rather have Jesus than a man. If you start any relationship thinking any other way I think it is bound for destruction. So often relationships destruct because we get out of focus and think that a "man" can provide the heart things we "need", when we both know they can not. Then we end up putting pressure on a man to fulfill a role, to be something he was never meant to be...that whole "you complete me" line is a bunch of crap. So as long as your first desire is for the Lord and you are not expecting this guy to be the Lord...then things will be right where they are supposed to be.

I think another thing we tend to do is see our relationships as about "us". God has been talking to me about that this week. God has been telling me that my relationship, mostly in marriage form, is my ministry not only to my husband, but almost as important, to others. God intended marriage to be yet another example of His role in this world. Husband love your wife as Christ loved the Church, the husband being the example of God to man, and wives, submit to your husband, the example of how we as humans should relate to God. We so often enter into relationships because we are selfish and forget there is a higher purpose. Jonathan said to me to other night a paraphrase of a verse that we read together last night that talks about a man's wife being his glory. Jonathan knows that God has commanded him to love his wife as Christ loved the Church. He knows that people will see how he treats me and that is a witness. He knows that how he treats me and how I respond is for his own good as well. He wants people to look at his wife and know that he is the husband.

My man is solid. I can tell you that. Let me tell you girl...the Lord has been teaching me TONS through this relationship with this boy...and I am thankful for it every day. Another example is last night. Our Church has dinner every Wednesday night. Jonathan always takes my stuff and throws it away for me...which in turn allows me to do that for other people. His service to me then allows my service to someone else. And let me tell you, other people notice...and while they have yet to see that it is mostly because Jonathan is serving me that I am able to serve them...they will the next time they talk about how sweet I am...b/c I am able to be sweet to them because Jonathan was first sweet to me...do you see the parallel I am drawing here...relationship...such an example of Christ in our lives...a tangible example. BUT only if the man is right where he is supposed to be as well. Only if his view of the relationship is God's view...b/c we both know how selfish not only we can be but men can be as well!! We have not trained our youth well...we are slipping away...

Cuddling. Ooo boy do I like cuddling! But, the times that make my heart love Jonathan? The times we spend together with him playing worship songs on the piano as we sing to the Lord and then spending time in prayer together for the needs that have been brought before us that week. The times we spend sitting on the stripped couch in my living room reading the Word side by side discussing the Truths the Lord has placed in there for us to follow. The times I hear him sharing about God's grace for him and seeing him live that out despite the opposition he sees from, yes, our own Church members. There is nothing more manly to me than a godly man. And when I hear an adult in Church say "God is all over that boy" in regard to Jonathan, that is when my heart swells up. That is what makes the cuddling times to me hugely sweet. They are sweet because I know that the one I am cuddling with loves the Lord more than he loves life, more than he loves me. And girl, I can tell you this boy treats me WELL! He loves me well...So I can only imagine that the Lord knows how much he loves Him. I think the physical is an expression of love, God intended it to be that way, but as usual we have perverted it...and when we partake in it in that way...that is when things feel off...Jonathan and I have actually kissed, which was great...but as we grow closer to the Lord, those are the moments that make my heart flutter, to be proverbial. I am glad I allowed kissing...as it did take some pressure off, but what I am even more glad about? Is when Jonathan would put aside physical desires for us to pull out the Word and read it together instead. How rock on awesome is that?? Yeah, that is what makes my heart love him...not those physical moments...b/c the lust of the physical will pass...but the solid relationship based around Jesus? It will only grow...which then will make our physical grow as well. It is all related.

So, there we have a few of my thoughts. Did this help you out any? I am sure I could go on for a LONG time about the things God has been showing me through Jonathan...about tons of things...but this I know, I am blessed by the Lord, why is it me and not some other girl? I don't know but I "ain't" giving him away to anyone else! He is God's gift to me and I hope I never take that for granted. Every girl deserves to be loved as Christ loves the Church...what freedom that brings! Yet another way God has shown me His perfection. Praise Him!

The other day during my quiet time God told me that sharing about the time He had me in South Asia was going to be my ministry. I thought He was telling me that to take the butterflies out of my tummy as to the two speaking engagements I had coming up this week. Today I spoke to a Sunday School class and actually, they had asked Jonathan to lead us in worship before hand, so he played the piano and sung a song that ended up being a perfect lead in to what the Lord had wanted me to share. Anyway, these people have been praying for me for two years. I thought there might be about 20 people there...ends up, as Kelly the missions pastor said afterward, there was standing room only. There had to have been almost 80 people packed into that room. Wow. I don't know how I could have stood up there without God. I am thankful He has given me a story...and thankful He helps me during these speaking engagements.

And now, after today, I have been asked to speak two more times with different groups. In addition to the group of ladies I will be speaking with tomorrow night. Did someone say that people were not going to want to listen to us once we got home? I am having my Moses moments...but God is faithful...and blesses me so much each time...so onward ho...

Off to Greek class I go...

I feel as though God has been speaking to me so much this past week it is almost impossible to settle on one good thing He has shown me...

So, I will expound on one of the many realizations that hit me this weekend...a realization that at 27, I feel as though I should have had many many years ago...but I suppose that is why God says we will never be fully mature until the day of Christ...as we will always be changing and growing in our knowledge and understanding of Him...and learning the best way to walk through life here on earth...His way...with expectations He sets forth in His Word for us to have.

So anyway, what brought about an amazement in my heart this weekend was sitting, observing relationships between men and women that came across my path. Specifically, I sat and listened to a husband yelling at his wife, stomping around, completely irrational, blaming, and threatening, and the wife in a state I would NEVER want to find myself in...and that is when Jesus hit me over the head...
He told me...that what I am to expect from a man, a husband, is that he is to love me as Christ loved the Church. The immensity of that verse is far too often overshadowed by the hoopla of submission of the wife. In reality, the men have the hardest job of the two. I can easily submit to a man who I have no doubt loves me as Christ loves the Church...as Christ gave up His life for it.

How selfish we have made relationships these days. I am coming to understand how, if I settle for treatment less than that of Christ for His Church, then that is my own fault in a poor relationship. I love that I have every right to expect that my man will treat me as Christ has set forth I be treated if I choose to be with a man that loves Christ more than he loves me, and therefore follows the Word in how he is to treat me. If I am to be involved in a relationship with someone whose heart is not fully set on Christ, then I can have no expectation that he will treat me the way I should be treated. After all, what standard does he have to live up to? I want my man to strive after God's standards for life and how he should treat his wife, and his family. I see no greater man than the man of Christ...treating others as Christ would want them to be treated.

I am done with settling...after all...settling is our own fault and not glorifying to God. If we have less than God's best...that is our choice is it not? I have sought after God's heart and His Word in my life since I became a Christian 9 years ago and I have seen nothing better. I have been all over the world and have seen nothing better than God's way...it is just too often people settle for less than God's standards so we can never exactly see what life in the fullness of Christ is really like...I don't want to be that girl anymore.

So, I got to substitute 5th grade yesterday and I loved it! Elementary kids are so cute...and heartbreaking at the same time. I saw one of my boys crying in the hall yesterday and it broke my heart. What must a heart be going through at the age of 10 to cause tears as such? Unfortunately with the way the world is today I don't even want to ponder the possibilities too long. I was glad to get to ask him if he was doing OK, but sad to know that the bell was ringing to wisk him off to his next class so I could not find out more...

God is changing my heart...in ways I would not have imagined. He is such an amazing God.

Oh, and apparently I look Mexican. I can't count how many of the kids asked me if I was Mexican yesterday...ha ha. Never a dull moment up until the final bell rung...I even walked away with a "rockin" American flag peace tatoo from one of my boys. Now is that what life is all about or what?
On the boy, eh hem, man note, Jonathan met the fam yesterday and is was good. We took a little boat ride and ate dinner lake side and it was nice. My mom is in town and so far my "spawn of satanness" has not emerged. Only by the grace of God and the prayers of the many faithful I am blessed to have in my life. Thanks God.

I had a request tonight for a picture of Jonathan. So, here we are...

It only gets better every day.