On the nonessentials

Our church has been having some issues lately. Certain people are very picky about doctrine (although we need to be very careful to not stray on doctrine, they are being too picky). I'm really tired of Christians being so against each other based on some silly doctrinal differences, namely, nonessential ones. Why do we have so many different denominations? Because of the nonessentials. I think that the essential beliefs of the Christian faith are that we are separated from God by sin, that Jesus is God's only Son, He lived a perfect life, died on the cross for us, and rose again (defeating Satan and death). Most churches I've come across hold to those things. But if we get so nit-picky as to think that other people aren't Christians because they don't believe in premillennialism or a literal 6 day Creation (or much smaller issues like expository preaching), isn't that going exactly against what Christ taught here on earth? We are supposed to be HIS BODY. My legs don't constantly find problems with my fingers. They try to work together so that I can function. Shouldn't we try to work with our brothers and sisters, even if some of our views are a little off, instead of completely shutting them out because they think one "wrong" thing?

We are supposed to be lights of Christ to the world. If we're so caught up on searching out each others' doctrinal mistakes instead of showing everyone Christ's love, aren't we going completely against the Gospel?

Okay, sorry. I'll get off my soapbox now. I'm just a little passionate about unity.

On being sick...

So I didn't feel too good on Saturday night and decided to take my temperature. It was 99 and climbing, finally topping off at 101.2. It didn't drop until about 4am on Sunday morning. Needless to say, I slept horribly. Then on Sunday morning, I felt horrible still, although I had no more fever. So poor Andy had to go to church by himself, teach Sunday School, be at the church annual business meeting, and finally, do our Prayer Hour for our Ensenada Trip by himself. My fever came back at 2pm and stayed until about 8 or 9pm. It sucked. Then it started snowing really bad, so Andy cancelled youth group and came home a little early. It was lame when Andy was gone, and better when he was home. I hate being sick. But at least I didn't throw up (I haven't thrown up in 17 years, no joke). I slept really good all night last night and woke up feeling much better. Yay for not being sick anymore.

The only good thing about being sick was that I had a lot of time to pray and watch lots of movies. I got all the way through the BBC's Pride and Prejudice. It was fantastic.

My very favorite breakfast recipe

I absolutely love getting up every morning and eating Steel Cut Oats. It takes a while to cook (15 min, I cook it while I'm getting ready in the mornings), but it's delicious. I use Bob's Red Mill oats, and add 2 Tbsp. ground flax seed, 1/4 cup walnuts, and 1/4 cup frozen blueberries. Sometimes I add a little brown sugar, but I didn't today, and it still tastes great! The best thing is that Andy likes it too! So, that's our favorite breakfast, and I highly recommend for you all to try it.

In response to Carla's comment, yes, I will be posting pictures on my blog. For example, here's a picture I took last week on Jeffrey's first birthday. Isn't he getting handsome?

This is how big he was at 3 months old. Quite a difference!

I'm super new to blogging

Hi anyone who might be reading this. I've recently been inspired to start blogging by a few of my friends who have blogs. Not that I'll keep up with it, I tend to start doing something with all intentions of continuing forever, and then forgetting about it after a week or so. However, I started exercising last month, and have actually done it more each week since, instead of less! I'm very excited about that.

I've recently been introduced to essential oil therapy and I'm hugely interested in nutrition. I know, it sounds like I'm going all hippie on you. But I'm really convinced that these things are extremely good for the body and can even help heal some of the diseases and things that plague our generation.

It's kind of interesting, blogging out to whoever might stumble upon this blog. I've heard that it's kind of an outlet, the ability to let all of your feelings be known to nobody in particular, and as so, it's a release of pent up emotions. So I figured I'd give it a try. Not that I have that many pent up emotions, though.

So here's to my first post on my new blog. Maybe I'll keep updating, maybe I won't.