campaigning debut!

today, the kids and i joined tammy and her kids for a couple of hours of sign waving at one of our local precincts. we were hootin and a hollerin "yes on 2!" in support of the 2nd amendment to protect the definition of marriage in florida between one man and one woman. this is an extremely important issue, and we were so happy to show our support! and the kids were so happy to get to yell and wave at people. :) tammy's husband, jonathan, is very involved in politics in our town (um, yes, tammy, i realize that is a huge understatement!), so he found out where our influence would be most needed today. we set up camp around lunchtime, hoping to persuade hoards of voters flocking to the polls on their lunchbreaks. wellllll, thanks to early voting, flocking was not exactly the reality of it all. it was more like a voter here, a voter there... in two hours, we maybe saw 30 people actually walking into the precinct to vote. we did, however, wave and holler at lots of cars passing by. natalie, jonathan & tammy's oldest, has been her daddy's little campaigning sidekick this election year, and she loved cheering, "one man one woman!" it really made me smile everytime i heard her! natalie was also very into how much response we got. we had fun analyzing things... like what is better? a smile with no wave? or a wave from a very unhappy looking person? we decided thumbs up was the best, only second to a big loud HONK! the kids drew a lot of attention just sitting there in a row with their individual signs.


after awhile, it hit me that tammy and i were two women waving with "one man, one woman" signs!! we got a big laugh out of that, but we are happy to say that we are both happily married to MEN!


here is tammy with baby claire, who even got into the waving!


we were also pleasantly surprised to see our friend kj and her kids there when we arrived! the more the merrier! the kids took breaks from waving to explore the intriguing grate behind our post. they went from hard at work...


to hardly working!


they even got creative and made trains and towers out of the many signs we had...



i hope we were able to get the message out to even just a few people that had not yet made up their minds about amendment 2. if nothing else, we encouraged those that also believe in the importance of traditional marriage between one man and one woman. may all the glory go to our God, the One who created the blessing of marriage!

on the eve of election day...

john piper shares some wonderful, encouraging points on the election. please take time to watch the entire video. about halfway through, he admonishes that we should not be so worked up about this election... that we should not react as though the whole world is going to collapse if our opponent wins. he goes on to encourage us to say,

"i am God's child. Jesus Christ is my King. america is not my allegiance. God & heaven are my allegiance. God can turn this for good no matter who gets elected. i will always be pursuing His kingdom first and let the political chips fall where they will."

keep that in mind as we bite off our fingernails in front of the tv tomorrow evening!

national confession

during each sunday morning worship service, our congregation has a time of corporate confession of sin. not to be confused with the catholic church's sacrament of penance, this congregational exercise is done to come before our High Priest, acknowledging the sin in our lives and our continual need for Him. i did not grow up accustomed to this as a part of worship service, but i have grown to love this time. we read, as a congregation, a variety of prayers, including those of the puritans and protestant reformers. the confession is always followed by an assurance of pardon, a scripture read to encourage us as christians that by the blood of Jesus Christ, we have been forgiven! praise the Lord for such an assurance!

today, our worship was centered around the election, and we read aloud this national confession of sin. i believe it was mostly written by billy graham.

Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good', but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values. We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your Word in the name of moral pluralism.

We have worshipped other gods and called it "multi-culturalism."
We have endorsed perversion and called it an "alternative lifestyle."
We have exploited the poor and called it "a lottery."
We have neglected the needy and called it "self-preservation."
We have rewarded laziness and called it "welfare."
In the name of "choice," we have killed our unborn.
In the name of "right to life," we have even killed abortionists.
We have neglected to discipline our children and called it "building esteem."
We have abused power and called it "political savvy."
We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it "taxes".
We've polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it "freedom of expression."
We've ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it "enlightenment."

Search us, Oh God, and know our hearts today. Try us, and show us if there be any wicked way in us. Cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Guide and bless the men and women we have elected and will elect into office and who have been ordained by You to govern over us. Grant them Your wisdom to rule, and may their decisions direct us to the center of Your will. We ask it in the name of Your son, the living Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen!
and the assurance of pardon: psalm 34:17-18

The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
i am guessing that most of us have the upcoming election on our hearts and minds, as well we should. but praise the Lord that, as our pastor reminded us today, God will still be on the throne when we wake up wednesday morning. that is something for which we should be so very thankful!

a beautiful day for a game!

brian and i had a fun "date day" last saturday... my dad gave brian tickets to a florida state football game for his birthday, so we left the kids with our parents that morning and headed over to the game. brian has grown up with "the chop", thanks to his parents being FSU fans, but he'd never actually been to one of their games. i, on the other hand, grew up loving the florida gators (in the days of beloved danny wuerffel!)... so i'm sure my mom chuckled when i drove away with my husband adorned in garnet and gold vs. orange and blue! oh what love does to you. :) haha.


besides the excitement of the football game, we were also looking forward to spending the day with my friend daisha and her husband jr! daisha and i spent 6 weeks together in scotland on a summer mission trip during college, and we unfortunately lost touch after graduation. well, you can imagine how surprised and excited i was to see a comment from her one day last summer on my blog! daisha found my blog through a mutual friend, and we've been keeping up with each other since then. we hadn't met each others' husbands or kiddos, so i was so happy that she and jr were able to join us for the game. we first met for lunch at momo's pizza, where they say that the slices are as big as your head... and they're not lying! (i can't believe i didn't get a picture of this pizza!) daisha's sweet children, gideon and naomi, joined us for lunch, and oh, are they cuties! (i can't believe i didn't get pictures of them, either!) well, check her blog to see those beautiful eyes! after lunch, we headed over to the game. i don't think daisha and i stopped talking from the minute the guys dropped us off at the game before they parked the car (thanks guys!!) till we hugged goodbye. we had a lot of catching up to do!! but we did pay attention to the game...

here's the seminole team making their entrance onto the field. man, that stadium went wild!


we could not have asked for better weather for the game. it was a beautiful, sunny yet cool day, and thankfully, we were in the shade for the most part! i can't imagine sitting out there in the sweltering heat or the freezing cold... we really had the best weather! in this picture, you can sort of see the beautiful day. you can also see all the fans in the sun who wished they had our shady seats!!


i was pleasantly surprised at how much we could actually see from our seats! well, that is when the 5-college-guys-crammed-into-4-seats in front of us were sitting down. which wasn't very often. my first reaction was to be really annoyed, but then again, you can't get upset at people for standing up at a football game! and most of the time, 4 of them would sit down, and the one left without a seat would just be in our way! here's one of the 5 quite jubilant after a touchdown...


we still got to see some great plays. a few times, i even went from sitting to jumping up on the bleacher in front of me in no time flat! and without pulling any muscles or knocking anyone over with my belly! :) it really was fun to be there in person, whooping and hollering with 90,000 strangers. i will say that i missed the yellow first down line that they show you on tv! here's an action shot of an extra point kick...




daisha and i got a good laugh out of just watching and listening to people during the game. there were the dancers who really forgot to put on the rest of their clothing. there were the men behind us providing commentary for the entire game, just in case we were sad about missing the TV coverage. there was the guy who stood up after every flag was thrown to announce the penalty in referee sign-language before the actual call was made. and then, my personal favorite, was on kickoff. i've never seen so many grown men voluntarily doing "spirit fingers" in public! :)


after a lack-luster first half, the seminoles played an exciting 3rd quarter and ended up beating the virginia tech hokies 20-30. as we exited the stadium, we were greeted by this scene... it was definitely a picture-perfect way to end the evening!


so we had a wonderful day. it was a blessing to spend some time with my old friend, though it really went by too quickly. i hope we'll be able to get together with daisha and jr again soon. i know that gideon and ethan would have so much fun together, and i'm sure caroline would love seeing baby naomi! daisha has been working on a special piece of artwork for amelia's nursery, and the delivery of her work was another reason for our getting together last week. i'd been anticipating what it would look like for weeks, and oh, i could NOT have been happier! daisha is so talented and did such a great job creating something so perfectly for a room she has never seen. as soon as amelia's room gets put together, i will brag on daisha some more with pictures. :) but for now, let me just say that it is a very special thing for a dear friend to create something for your child. thank you, daisha, for all of the hard work that you put into this piece of art. i really could not have imagined anything more fitting for her room! i could go on and on, but instead, i'll end with a picture of me and daisha. what a blessing to catch up with old friends!


and now if i could just get the ringing out of my head...

F-L-O-R-I-D-A-S-T-A-T-E!
FLORIDA STATE! FLORIDA STATE! FLORIDA STATE! WOOOOO!

a must read article!!

i haven't talked much about politics on here, but this article is too right and too convicting to not pass along. most of you who read this blog probably already agree with what randy alcorn has to say... here's a snippet of his well-written article...

Believing what I do that the unborn are human beings in the fullest sense, to be pro-legalized-abortion is exactly equivalent to being pro-legalized-killing-of-three-year-olds. Or pro-legalized-killing-of-teenagers. Or pro-legalized-killing-of-women. Or pro-legalized-killing-of-Jews.

What would you think if a politician said "I'm not pro-rape, I'm simply prochoice about rape. And though I would not choose to rape a woman, I believe that every man should be free to rape a woman if that is his personal choice." And what would you do if that politician promised the rape lobby that if he is elected president, the "first thing I would do" is to sign legislation that would invalidate all the state laws that restrict rape in any way?

Well, I think I would say that man is pro-rape, wouldn't you? But technically, no, he is simply prochoice about rape. Well, okay. Be prochoice about whether someone should eat Mexican food or Chinese food, or cheer for the Phillies or the Rays. But don't be prochoice about whether men rape women or kill children. Because that is to be pro-rape and pro-killing.

Now, no doubt Obama supporters will think this is an outrageous analogy. And those who don't believe unborn children are really human beings would understandably feel that way. (Though, both scientifically and biblically, they are absolutely wrong.) But what about all the people who keep insisting they are prolife, that they really DO believe the unborn children are precious human beings created in God's image? If that's what you really believe, then you must accept the analogy as valid. (On what basis is it invalid unless it's because the unborn aren't really human and therefore don't have human rights?)

Is rape, despicable as it is, really worse than overpowering and tearing apart an innocent child in his mother's womb? If you are REALLY prolife, not just if you say the words "I am prolife, but there are many other issues," but I mean if you REALLY believe these are children, then the analogy to rape, kidnapping, or killing teenagers or women or Jews or African Americans is perfectly legitimate. How could it not be? Don't skim over this—seriously, I want to hear your answer.
so please pass his message on...

Do this so that innocent blood will not be shed in your land, which the LORD your God is giving you as your inheritance, and so that you will not be guilty of bloodshed. (Deuteronomy 19:10)