What is on my heart ~

With the craziness of a new home and second child on the way I have had little time to sit down at the computer and put thought into a new blog post. I've written many in my head and thought oh, I should share this or that. I want to post some pictures of the house being (slowly) decorated and Cade's newest tricks, but that will have to wait for now.

What is on my heart is the gospel... I was recently reminded that it is not of my own strength that someone is won to Christ. I lovingly and armed with scripture pointed out someone's sin and was met with criticism and harsh words. It hurt, I cried and still it haunts me at times, however, I have a loving God who reminds me that I was faithful to His word and wanted only to glorify Him as I was sharing with this person. I am grateful God gave me the courage to speak and ever so grateful that I have a husband who was encouraging and so proud of my boldness.

This instance reminded me of a book I've been reading called "A Gospel Primer for Christians" by Milton Vincent. He was a seminary student at the Master's College and his journey is incredible. He is passionate about preaching the gospel to himself daily and writes, " The gospel is so foolish (according to my natural wisdom), so scandalous (according to my conscience), and so incredible (according to my timid heart), that it is a daily battle to believe the full scope of it as I should. There is simply no other way to compete with the forebodings of my conscience, the condemnings of my heart, and the lies of the world and the Devil than to overwhelm such things with daily rehearsings of the gospel."

He then goes on to tell us all the reasons we should rehearse the gospel, but what I continue to read over and over again is his gospel narrative, which he writes in a prose version. It's long, and I hope you'll read it because it is absolutely beautiful. It has brought so many ways for me to think about the gospel and just how undeserving I am Christ's sacrifice because of the magnitude of what he absorbed on my behalf.

A Gospel Narrative ~ Prose Version
The Glory of God
1 My God is immense beyond imagination. He measured the entire universe with merely the span of His hand.
2 He is unimaginably awesome in all of His perfections, absolutely righteous, holy, and just in all His ways.
3 He has also been unbelievably good and merciful to me as the Creator and Sustainer of my life.
4 Every breath, every heartbeat, every function of every organ in my body is a gift from Him.
5 Every legitimate pleasure I experience is a gift from His loving hand to me.
6 All that I am and all that I have I owe to Him and to His goodness.
7 My life in every way is, and will continue to be, utterly dependent upon Him in whom I live and move and have my being.
8 This wonderful God is the most supremely worthy Object of admiration, honor, and delight in all of the universe;
9 And He has created me with the intention that I might glorify Him by finding my soul's delight in Him and by living in joyful obedience to Him in all of my ways.

My Sin Against God
10 Yet I could not have failed this great God more miserably than I have.
11 Instead of giving thanks to Him and humbly submitting to His rule over my life, I have rebelled against Him and have actually sought to exalt myself above Him.
12 Going my own way and living accordingly to my own wisdom, I have broken countless times either the letter or the spirit of every one of God's Ten Commandments.
13 Thinking myself to be wise, I have shown myself to be a fool; and because of my arrogance, God has every right to damn me to the everlasting experience of His terrifying wrath in the Lake of Fire.
14 So as for myself, apart from Christ I am bound by the guilt of my sins and also bound by the power of sin enslaved to various lusts and pleasures.
15 Apart from Christ, I am also utterly deserving of and destined for eternal punishment in the Lake of Fire, completely unable to save myself or even to make one iota of a contribution to my own salvation.

God's Work on My Behalf
16 However, what I could not do, God did - and in doing it, He did it all, sending His own Son into the world to die on the cross for my sins, thereby showing me unfathomable love.
17 God loved me so much that He was willing to suffer the loss of His Son, and even more amazingly, He was willing to allow His Son to suffer the loss of Him at the cross.
18 Jesus loved me so much that He was willing to lay down His life for me. No one could ever love me more or better than Jesus.
19 On the third day after Jesus' death, God raised Him from the dead, thereby announcing that His death was completely sufficient to atone for every sin that I have or will commit throughout my lifetime.
20 God then exalted Christ to His own right hand, where Christ now reigns from on high, granting salvation and forgiveness to all who call on Him by faith.

My Salvation
21 Now when my time came and I placed my faith in Jesus, God instantly granted me a great salvation.
22 He forgave me of all my sins, past, present, and future.
23 He made me His child, adopting me into His family.
24 He gave me the gift of the Holy Spirit, who gives me God's power, who pours out God's love within my heart, and who tenderly communicates to my spirit that I am a child of God and an heir of eternal glory in heaven.
25 In saving me, God also freed me from slavery to any and all sins.
26 I no longer have to sin again, for sin's mastery over me has been broken!
27 In saving me, God also justified me, and being justified through Christ, I have a peace with God that will endure forever.
28 In justifying me, God declared me innocent of my sins and pronounced me righteous with the very righteousness of Jesus.
29 God also allowed His future and present wrath against me to be completely propitiated by Jesus, who bore it upon Himself while on the cross.
30 Consequently, God now has only love, compassion, and deepest affection for me, and this love is without any admixture of wrath whatsoever.
31 God always looks upon me and treats me with gracious favor, always working all things together for my ultimate and eternal good.
32 God's grace abounds to me even through trials.
33 Because I am a justified one, He subjugates every trial and forces it to do good unto me.
34 When I sin, God's grace abounds to me all the more as He graciously maintains my justified status as described above.
35 When I sin, God feels no wrath in His heart against me.
36 His heart is filled with nothing but love for me, and He longs for me to repent and confess my sins to Him, so that He might show me the gracious and forgiving love that has been in His heart all along.
37 God does not require my confession before He desires to forgive me.
38 In His heart He already has forgiven me; and when I come to Him to confess my sins to Him, He runs to me (as it were) and is repeatedly embracing and kissing me even before I get the words of confession out of my mouth!
39 God does see my sins, and He is grieved by my sins. His grief comes partly from the fact that in my moments of sin, I am not receiving the fullness of His love for me.
40 He even sends chastisement into my life; but He does so because He is for me, and He loves me, and He disciplines me for my ultimate good.
41 I don't deserve any of this, even on my best day; but this is my salvation, and herin I stand. Thank you Jesus.

Oh my!! 36-41 make my soul sing! I want to repeat this daily so I can fully understand the gospel as Christ meant me to. I hope you are renewed as you read this as well.

A FUN Surprise

One of my dearest and oldest (only by # of years we've known each other) friends Kristin is expecting a little girl any day now. She has been such a trooper braving bed rest for the last few months and still maintaining her sunny attitude all the way through. We were blessed to be able to throw her a baby shower in the Bay area before her little one makes her arrival. Check out my sister's blog for full details on the shower. She captured it so beautifully (click here). It was a farmer's market theme. Very "green", fresh and so much fun! I decided to give everyone a little surprise - announcing I was pregnant - at the end of the evening when it was just us family/close friends hanging around. It took everyone a little too long for my sister and mom's liking to catch on so Jenny said to our friend Katie, "ask Melissa what her shirt says..." Jenny thought Katie would get up and come over to me to look at my shirt and instead Katie shouted at me from across the room. It made it a little more fun. Below are the reactions of everyone in the room and those in the other room who came to see what all the noise was about.

The shirt said "Pink or Blue either will do mommy's expecting #2"!!!The "mama-to-be", Kristin had my favorite reaction. Speechless and pointing at my fun shirt :)

Jana screamed. Love her!

Katie looking puzzled...

Now she gets it... and baby #2 is due just days after her birthday. She was excited about that!

I can always count on a great reaction from Marci! xoxo

"The Glorias" as they were nicknamed for the weekend.

Al (Kristin's dad) didn't get it at first, but once he read the shirt I got a BIG hug!

Retelling the story of how we discovered I was pregnant. I just knew something was up so I took a pregnancy test on New Year's Eve and it was positive! Eric wanted to be surprised the next time I told him we were pregnant, so I made a little sign that said "We have a bun in the oven" and wrote "September 2011" all around the edges. I decided to put an actual bun in our toaster oven and set the sign in front of it. When he came home I said I baked you something. The look on his face was so wonderful. Needless to say we had a great time ringing in the New Year :)

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas...

We are heading into 2011 now, but I wanted to at least post some of our Christmas celebration. We had a memorable Christmas celebrating with some familiar traditions and new events.

Even though it was Cade's second Christmas, it was the first that he was awake for ;). We celebrated tradition at the Buron home with Grandma's famous brisket. All the grandkids had a professional picture taken for Grandma, and she was thrilled to receive it.

Christmas morning we woke up early and did our Matthews' family Christmas and watched as Cade played around with his wrapped presents. As any 1 year old would be he was more interested in the paper then he was the actual present.

We headed to Gramps and Grammie Cooper's for Christmas morning brunch and opening presents with the Poladians, Mimi and Uncle Tom. We were busy on Christmas because I then made my first Christmas dinner for Eric's parents and his sister Katrina. What a blessed day it was! Christmas is my absolute favorite time of year and it was so wonderful to be able to share it with so many very special people.

Gramma's excellent brisket. It just isn't Christmas Eve without it!

My handsome little guy

The mama's with the photos of their kids and Gramma with all the cousins :)

Jenny and I were so excited about our homemade gift from mom and dad. Using old window frames they added cork board and made these really fun and beautiful cork boards for us! Something I found out later was the window frames came from our realtor's old home. She just about cried when she saw it in the new home she had just helped us purchase! I love it even more!!

Oh that face!

Cade with his new truck from Grammie and Gramps