Cbgrace’s Weblog

Our nephew, Evan is TOTALLY into super heroes these days.  His mom bought him a Batman costume which obviously his Me-Maw ripped off. 

We thought some of some great captions for this picture like “What happens to superheroes when they get old”.

We are open to suggestions.  This picture was just so cute we had to share it.

This is a must see video and totally applicable to the church today! 

The “Fat Christian” (Before you are immediately offended by the word “fat”, watch the video)

http://www.sermonspice.com/videos/16208/fat-christian

Don’t be a “Fat Christian”!

**This message was not approved by any pastor, leader, candidate of PromiseLand Church San Marcos or the Lawn Care Ministry.

I can’t give you all the details yet, but we are planning a Prayer Conference at PromiseLand San Marcos.  As we get approval, I’ll post more details.  As of now, the conference will take place in July.

The Hays Free Press was burglarized on Sunday night.  The thieves stole all the Mac computers they could get their hands on.  Ironically, they left my brand new Dell. 

Yes, there will still be a paper this week. 

If you happen to see some guys selling Mac computers out of the back of their van, give us a call.

So Chico’s Tacos in El Paso is suing Chuco’s in Austin for trademark infridgement…. Read more here http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/05/08/0508chucos.html .  Be sure to read to comments, they are hilarious.

This past weekend, Dennis finally recorded one of his songs (BIG THANKS to Mike Hall who allowed Dennis to use his recording equipment and helped him with the recording).  You can hear it at his new music myspace. 

http://www.myspace.com/xtremeelement  

While I like the song he recorded, he has several others that I LOVE even more than this one. 

Last night I was praying…well, really, I was just having a conversation with God.  I was telling Him that I am tired of fighting the same battles.  I’m tired of being the same.  I see myself accepting the person I am,without fighting it. I don’t always like the person I am but I’m tried of trying to change. 

This weekend I was spending time with my nephews.  I get to play crazy games with them; put a new spin on “Ring around the Rosies”  by changing directions several times: Goofy stuff.  I wonder if I will have as much fun with my kids.  Being the aunt is just fun, being the parent requires you pay total attention to a child’s character development.  I don’t want to become the mom who is constantly yelling and continuously nagging a child to “do the right thing”.   That is a person I do not want to be.

My sister told me someone told her that how she says things sometimes is abrasive.  This describes me to a tee.  I am often told my directness and straightforwardness come off as abrasive.  I have been misunderstood so often that I am at the point of not caring any more.  My attitude lately is, if you don’t like me, I don’t care.  I sort of do care.  I think you come to a point in your life, an age maybe, when you just think, “This is who I am” and you stop trying to change.  That is how I feel lately.  This is who I am and if you don’t like it, okay.  But I know that I haven’t always been who I am now.  I used to laugh more.  I used to love people and want to help them.

Throughout my life, I have been misunderstood.  It seems as if it has been a constant struggle to be who God created me to be while not allowing others to define me.   There have been so many people in my life who made me think, “I don’t want to be this person in anyone else’s life”.  I feel beat up.  I feel beat.

I am the type of person who gets things done.  If someone asks me to organize or perform a task, I will get it done…come hail or high water, I will complete the task.  I overcome obstacles, even if those obstacles are people.  I heard a quote once that said, “Use things, not people”.  People have become the “things” that I overcome.   I don’t want to be a person that views others at obstacles I have to overcome.

Several years ago something happened that changed me.  Some friends of mine, well, I thought they were my friends, sat me down and told me that I was damaged, I needed to change, I needed healing…what I heard was “You aren’t good enough.  We disqualify you”.  A part of me listened and believed.  They labeled me an enemy of their cause; it was NEVER in my heart to be their enemy.  They disqualified me from ministry and told me I had poor people skills; it sounded familiar, very close to things I’d heard before. 

There have been times in my life when I loved serving God’s people.  I loved working with people to find their purpose and niche.  I loved seeing that light go off in their heads when they realized what they were designed for fit perfectly with all the things they loved.

So for the past few years, I’ve been trying to change; to be different.  I don’t think it’s working.  When I hold everything in, it just comes out in some other way.  When someone asks me an opinion, and I try to be diplomatic, I feel like a liar and a fake.  I can not stand liars and fakes.  I would rather say to someone’s face what I think than to talk about it later behind their back.  I would much rather have someone tell me to my face what they think than to tell someone else.  To me, raw honesty, is true and loyal.  The Bible says “Faithful are the wounds of a friend”.  By the way, me trying to change hasn’t worked.  It’s just been frustrating to me.

The times in my life when I felt most sucessful, the most joy, the most LIFE were the times when I relied the most on the Holy Spirit.  The times when I paused and waited for God when responding in a difficult situation.  The times when I was involved with intercessory prayer at my church.  The times when I didn’t try to change, I just tried to listen to Him.

Maybe people never change.  Maybe we cannot change.  I’m finding when true, authentic change happens in my life, it is a result of God changing me, not others changing me and not me changing me.

I liked this blog John Ragsdale posted…it made me think that what I really need isn’t to change so much as to just rely more on Holy Spirit.  http://johnrags.wordpress.com/2008/05/06/checking-in

This week I was listening to a Graham Cooke tape while driving to Fredricksburg.  It was about spiritual warfare.

He said every battle must be fought twice…once to gain deliverance and again to maintain it.  But both battles are not the same and we must ask God for the battle plan.  At times we must, stop from engaging the enemy and wait for God’s plan.  

God uses different battles for different purposes.  Some battles are designed to build endurance.  Some battles are for us to draw closer to one another through the situation. 

Battles are meant for us to experience victory and the abundance of God. 

He used a great example…He said in their city they wanted to setup a youth facility.  They had volunteers lined up to run the program.  They had a site chosen.  The leaders of their city told them there were restrictions and the site they wanted would cost $50,000 a year.  He said many people began to pray “casting down restrictions”.  As he prayed about the situation, God told him, to begin praying for Spirit-filled leaders to placed in those positions.  The church joined together and prayed.  What happened next was amazing…the three leaders were found to be corrupt and they were removed from office.  Three Spirit-filled believers were placed in office.  They removed all the restrictions, gave them a facility 3 times as large for $2 a year and even funded the organization 3 full-time positions.  There is victory and there is VICTORY!

One of the girls I work with is married to our local Fire Chief.  He stopped by the office today.  He had a letter from the “Safety in Transportation Commission”.  It was charred; burned black.  A couple of weeks ago, one of the post offices big rigs caught on fire.  Surprisingly, although we could barely read his address, he received his mail.

Speaking of the post office, they did not deliver the paper to one of the local cities on our circulation.  I spoke with someone at the post office today and they sent our papers to Dallas.  (papers that are usually delivered the day after they are printed to subscribers will be delivered today or tomorrow instead).  You wouldn’t believe the hostile phone calls we have received from people missing their paper. 

Also ironic is how many words I misspelled writing this short blog…

If you have been reading my blog for a while you may have seen this one about Chico’s Tacos in El Paso http://cbgrace.wordpress.com/2007/11/27/chicos-tacos/ .  It is one of the places we always eat at when we visit El Paso.  Several “El Paso Connections” in the area have been telling us about two places here in Austin that serve similar style tacos or taquitos (hopefully that is spelled correctly).  We’ve been hearing about a place down on 10th street near the intersection of Lamar called Chuco’s Tacos.   We actually heard it was on Lamar (it is on 10th street) so we had, had some trouble finding it. 

Yesterday we trekked into Austin to go to the LBJ Presidential Library.  Dennis and Kathy had never been.  And I’m a bit of geek; I think Presidential Libraries and Museums are interesting and cool.  We spent the afternoon going through the Library.  And then we headed over to Chuco’s. 

If you aren’t familiar with Austin, it’s what I call a little eclectic.  One of the common slogans of the area is “Keep Austin Weird”.  There are great restaurants in old houses downtown (check out Kirby Lane Cafe, Austin Java Company or Magnolia Cafe).  So Chuco’s is in a little house right on 10thstreet.  It fits perfectly with the “Austin Vibe”. 

We lucked out because Thursdays are $.50 taco night.  The tacos were great!  They were very comparable to Chico’s tacos.

Chuco’s managed to combine the flavor of El Paso with the eclecticness of Austin.  We plan on visiting Chuco’s Tacos again.