Young Maidenhood - A New Season of Life

Hello my well missed friends! Life has been rather busy lately and I haven't had much time at all to keep my fingers in everyone's pies, but I haven't forgotten about any of you! However, I recently spoke at a friend's "Young Maidenhood Party" and I thought I would share what I presented with you. Love you all!

Young Maidenhood is a new season of life. No longer are we the completely carefree little girls we once were; we are now blossoming into a time when we are beginning to ponder questions of life. We begin to look outside of ourselves, outside of our families and see possibilities of new things, new ways of life. We ask ourselves, why is our family living the way we live? Why do we hold the convictions we hold? Do I agree? And for what reason? The truth is, the world is an ugly, sinful place, as many of you are starting to see as you grow out of that innocent, ignorant stage of girlhood. The apostle John said in 1 John 5:19 that the whole world lies in wickedness. Young maidenhood is a time of preparation for our lives. To thrive as godly women in this world, we need to figure out what we believe and why, and quickly. You see, Satan runs a dog-eat-dog world and will not hesitate to devour you as well. For that reason, we must seek out the truth; for we are growing into the women we will be for the rest of our lives. Let’s continue on in the right way! Ephesians 5:1-2 says, “Be imitations of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love.”

So how do we form our own convictions? The first thing we should do is pray, and ask God to guide us to people and things that will push us toward Him. He is certain to help us as he promised in Luke 11:9-10, “Ask, and God will give it to you. Search and you will find. Knock and the door will open for you. Yes, everyone who asks will receive. The one who searches will find. And everyone who knocks will have the door opened. We also need search the scriptures and learn for ourselves what we are supposed to believe and how we are supposed to live. Living for God on autopilot and just going through the motions because we live in a Christian family is not living for God; it is immaturity. Read books on theology, politics and family living. Young people need to know where they stand on these areas too!

To help form convictions, we should also search out people who can help guide us on the narrow path of believers. Our parents are a good place to start. They have only our very best interest in mind, and while we are under their protection and headship we need to be following them as they follow Christ. As we form our convictions and explore different ideas, our parents should be the first people we go to, to seek guidance from and ask for counsel.

In every girl’s life, there are also those who have chosen to walk the path of the status-quo. As we observe them and the choices they make, we should also observe the fruit of those decisions. Instead of just passing judgment and thinking, “Oh, well, I’ll never do that,” try to see what the root of the problem is. Oftentimes, it was discontentment, rebelliousness, a lack of self-control, allowing the enemy to whisper lies into our minds, or simply not pursuing a healthy relationship with God that started the trouble in the first place. Now, we know that every one of us struggles with these things; “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:23. If we were to allow these actions or thoughts to continue, we would be in the exact same shoes of those who fall into the world’s trap. So, while we observe others who are going down a different path then we are, or those who are starting to stray, let’s learn from their mistakes so we don’t have to deal with the same consequences.

Young Maidenhood is also a season of life we need to cherish. Instead of wishing it away for marriage or other circumstances, we need to embrace this time of life and live it to the fullest. If you died at the age of twenty, and that “special someone” hadn’t yet popped out of the woodwork, what would your later years have looked like? Would you have wasted them away by yearning for doors to open that hadn’t?

Just like childhood, young maidenhood is only a short time in a girl’s life. All too soon our situations will be changing; in life that is one thing which will always be guaranteed: change will come. As I mentioned earlier, this time in our life is for preparation. Along with forming godly convictions, we need to learn homemaking skills which we will use as wives and mothers, roles that God will call most of us to. Read the part of Proverbs 31 which tells of a marvelous woman who certainly knew the ins and outs of her dominion. It might give you a few ideas on where to start!

The best person to learn these skills from is our own mothers, which will mean joyfully spending time at home and helping alongside them. In cherishing this time of young maidenhood, we should really be spending large amounts of time with all our family members. Once we get married and move out of the house, things will never be the same again. Oh, we’ll be able to visit our family and we’ll still be their daughter and sister, but we will no longer be a part of their home life and daily system. Therefore, we need to enjoy the family God has placed us in for this season.

Just like our mothers have a wealth of knowledge they can teach from, so do our fathers. They can teach us many things about life. Our dads love and care about us, they want to help us along in our daily walk offering protection, guidance and security. And I can tell you from experience, they appreciate it when we come to them with questions and problems to solve. Remember, they are our leaders, whom God put in place over us!

We should be spending lots of time with our siblings as well. If you have younger siblings, take advantage of the fact that they look up to you and be a good example for them, because they will follow and copy you whether you want them to or not! If you have older siblings, try to be the good sister who they can come to if they need help or someone to confide in. Either way, we need to make sure we are enjoying this time at home when we can get to know our siblings, because once we are gone we will never have the opportunity to be so close-knit ever again.

According to the Bible, young maidenhood is a season of life given by God, for Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.” This season of life is no more important than the one before or the next season coming up; it is only the one we are standing in right now. However, the choices we make now will affect us for the rest of our lives, so let’s choose to follow our Lord and His plan and purpose for our lives joyfully and to the fullest!

Patience is a Virtue - So Get Rid of Those Pet Peeves!

Being a big sister, there are some things you just *have* to chillax about.

Take people running through the kitchen after you've mopped the floor, for instance. That used to seriously get me. Anyone who walked through the kitchen as much as twenty minutes after I had mopped was just too inconsiderate. Didn't they care that I had just spent all that time cleaning all their dirt marks off the floor? Well, anyway, now I've realize that the kitchen floor is there to be walked on, whether it's clean or not. But if you walk through before I'm even done mopping...well, then you'd better watch out.

Another pet peeve of mine used to be finding a bunch of bath toys all piled up at the tub drain when I went to go take my shower. It probably took me an entire five minutes to sit there and hold each candy-colored speed boat upside down to dry, and squeeze all the water out of every single rubber duck, spitting frog and kissy fish. An entire FIVE MINUTES! What are these children thinking? I only have one hour before bed to shower, give myself an organic avacado face mask and put my hair in curlers... and that's pushing it. *Sigh* Now I've learned to pre-make my face mask and lay out my curlers ahead of time, so that I can fit De-Youthing the Tub into my nightly routine. I can't afford an extra five minutes; eight hours of sleep are a girl's best friend!

So I guess you're getting the picture of what we older sisters go through. If you have young siblings, I'm sure you deal with things like this every day! Or even if you have siblings that aren't super young, life can be just as crazy. Either way, it's not always easy to keep a smile on when you have so much insanity going on in the house (toys in the bathtub? Oh my!) But then again, life in general is pretty insane. God probably knows what He's doing... preperation for some future truly hectic time in our lives.

I find it encouraging to know that He will never tempt us with more than we can handle (1 Cor. 10:13). Sometimes I wonder if maybe God thinks a little too highly of me at times, but as you can see I haven't let the bumps get to me yet. Getting rid of my seemingly insignificant, but well-able-to-add-up pet peeves is one of the ways I'm trying to keep it as easy as possible on my part to stay patient.

You know, I seem to be especially weak in this area. Sometimes I can get to the point where the dirty car and the unswept porch just drive me up the wall! I've realized now, though, that caring about every. little. insignificant. thing. is just too much for me to deal with at this point in life. I need to focus on the truly important things in life before I start worrying about immaculate floors and Better Homes and Gardens bathtubs. But maybe you're different. You got this patience thing down in a snap. Well then, I give me some advice, lady! I need some tips! :-)

You know though, achievements get easier to grasp the more you perservere, so maybe I am starting to get the hang of it. ...Waaait a minute. While I was making last night's dinner things did get a little out of control...

After I had stood at the kitchen counter and put some Fiesta Dinner on plates, I turned and started putting whipped cream and strawberries on our Very American Dessert. Over my shoulder I asked two year old Sweetie Pie to put forks on the table (one for each chair, please) and quickly finished my crowning glory. A few seconds later I turned and saw her at the table, picking the cilantro, tomatoes and onions out of her burrito... fork faithfully in hand.

Patience dear sisters, patience.

Baby Announcement

On Saturday, May 22nd at 1:04 AM my new little sister was born! She weighed in at 8 lbs. 1 oz. and is 20 in. long. She and my mom are doing well and recuperating nicely. We are all very happy! The birth went well for both of them, and for the third time I was able to experience the true miricle of another little baby being welcomed into the world. Thank you for sharing in our joy!

Ten Benefits of Exercise

Part of our daily list of priorities should be to take care of our bodies. With fast food, pre-packaged snacks and frozen dinners there days, it is ever challenging to keep ourselves phisically healthy. While I am not an advocate for teenage dieting, I do think that we should be wise in what and how much we choose to eat. Making sure to get those calories you consume burned, and working to keep your body in shape is also essential for good health. Here are a few reasons why. Get ready for a healthy dose of motavation!

1. When you force your heart to work faster than it's usual pace, as you do while exercising, it has to find ways to pump extra blood through your vessles to carry the extra oxygen needed to cater to the strain. This means it creates new vessles for your blood to travel to, greatly preventing heart attacks and other respitory problems. Since the heart is the organ that makes all the rest work, it certainly seems wise to try to prepare it for unexpected bumps in the road.

2. Exercising strengthens your bones by the osteoclast and osteoblast cells which work to build up the areas that have the most stress put upon them. A German orthopedic surgeon by the name of Julius Wolff constructed a law that describes the result of exercise on bones. It states that bones adjust their shapes to the physical stress put upon them. This means that if you expose your bones to stress by doing things like biking, running, or other physical exercise, they will build themselves up accordingly to have the ability to withstand weight baring activity.

3. Endurance plays a large part in our lives. For my dad, it means being able to lift heavy cases of inventory without stopping for a long period of time at work. For my little sister, it means being able to climb up and down things continually - about every hour of her waking moment. :) When you exercise consistently, and push yourself to work longer when you feel the work out isn't hard enough, your body builds endurance to cater to the hard working parts of the body it is pushing. This not only makes your daily life easier, but helps your body work more efficiently as well.

4. Calories are anything you eat, whether stored or not. Excercising burns these into energy, which rids us of uneeded baggage. :-)

5. Even after you exercise, your body continues to burn calories. This makes you feel as if you have more energy. My mom works out to excercise videos early in the mornings, and she says it helps her feel ready for the day. I jog on the tredmill in the afternoons, which refreshes me with energy at the time of day I need it most.

6. As one of my former science books said, "Muscles are machines which perform more efficiently when in use." When you engage in physical exercise, you shrink fat cells and reveal what you have of muscle. While cardiovascular exercise doesn't build as much muscle like weight training would, it does train and build them according to the stress you expose them to. When you have good muscle tone, a state of slight tension in relaxed muscle, it helps you to have good posture - an important element in not only a healthy back, but of proper appearence as well.

7. Exercising strengthens your body and helps it to guard it against sicknesses. Thus, it can save your life!

8. Aerobic excercise increases the number of red blood cells in our body, the cells that carry oxygen, hence increasing our oxygen consumption.e all love to breathe, right?

9. When you exercise, you increase the rate of which you burn energy, or in other words, boost your metabolism. This is very healthy because it keeps things running inside you.

10. Lastly, excercising prevents many diseases. Heart disease, type two diabites and osteoporosis, to name a few. Did you know that all of these have their risks slashed greatly when you consistently exercise? Don't forget obesity; remember those fat cells we shrank. No, you do not have to be as skinny as a toothpick, but there are many benefits to not being extremely overweight, either.

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All in all, exercising is extremely good for our bodies. We were created to move! Let's remember that the earlier we start conciensely making good health choices, the easier it will be to stick to them for the rest of our lives. Let's take care of our "temples" not only in a spiritual way, but phiscally as well!

Grace vs. Law

Enjoy this article from First Fruits of Zion. It digs into whether or not Christians should still uphold the laws of the Torah, now that our Messiah has come. I feel I really benefited from it and hope you feel the same! You can find many more insightful articles on their site: ffoz.org

Thought for the Week:

Things get backward if we start to believe that we must keep God's Law in order to be saved. Instead, we should keep God's Law because we are saved.

Commentary:

This week's Torah portion contains a lot of laws. Exodus 21-23 reads like an ancient legal code. Of the 613 commandments that the sages traditionally derive from the Torah, more than fifty of them are found in this week's portion.

For some reason, many Christian teachers seem to view the laws of the Torah as if they are a bad thing. It is commonly taught that the law is the opposite of grace. You might hear someone say, "We are no longer under the law. We are under grace." The implication is that since we have received the Messiah, we need not concern ourselves with the laws of the Old Testament. We can call this idea "Grace vs. Law."

Let's think about the Grace vs. Law idea. What do we mean when we say that we are not under the law? Does that mean we do not have to keep God's rules? For example, does it mean that we can commit adultery and theft? Of course not. No one would say that. So what does it mean?

The Grace vs. Law concept is derived from the writings of Paul. In his epistles, it seems that Paul pits the two in opposition to each other. He often says things like "Before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law" (Galatians 3:23) and "If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law" (Galatians 5:18). One might misunderstand these statements to mean that Christians do not need to keep God's rules. Of course, that would be absurd. Paul realized that some people might misunderstand his teaching, so he cautioned us not to suppose that grace gives us free license to sin against God.

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? (Romans 6:1-2)

Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law. (Romans 3:31)

If Paul was not teaching believers that they did not have to keep God's rules, what was he talking about? In Paul's day, many of the Jewish believers taught that before Gentiles could be part of the kingdom of heaven, they needed to become Jewish. The idea that a Gentile must become Jewish before being saved is what Paul calls "being under the law." Paul believed that Gentiles became sons of Abraham and part of the people of God through faith in Messiah. They did not need to earn that status by becoming legally Jewish. They did not need to first come"under the law" in order to enter the kingdom.

The Bible does not actually teach the idea of Grace vs. Law. Grace is God's free gift of salvation for those who believe in his Son. Law is His loving instruction for how His people should live. Grace vs. Law is a false dichotomy. They are not opposed to each other. They are meant to work hand in hand.

The Latest...

As of late, as you probably have noticed, my life has been rather blog-deficient. As we have gotten rid of our Internet connection, I haven't had too much time to blog and comment. So, thank you all for understanding! Really, I'm not trying to be impolite, just not making to the library as often as I'd like to. :)

In the meantime, I've been spending more of my time each day doing school, as I've had a few subjects added to my usual list. One of the "extras" has been reading through the Uncle Eric Series, which is somewhat of a law/economics course. Very good reading material. It's not very challenging reading level wise, but it certainly challenges me in my law and government views! I'm going through the two-book series about the two World Wars, and am feeling like I'm getting a lot out of them. Highly recommended!


Passover is in just one week, and we're hastily finishing up our cleaning. Exodus 12:15 states that we should get all of the unleavened bread out of our home before Passover starts, and my mom likes to make sure that commandment is thoroughly obeyed. :-) Our system is to go through each room in the house; shop-vacing, organizing, Mr. Clean Magic Eraser wiping and ultimately get the room back into tip-top shape. Katherine and I were just talking about how interesting it is that many people are currently spring cleaning. Most likely there's a connection...


I recently participated in a talent show as well, which took lots of preparation time. I had much fun, though, and definitely learned from the experience. The more I sing, the more I love singing. :-)


So what's been going on with all of you? I haven't been able to check up on all the blogs, but it's

nice to hear from you!

How to Make Lip Balm

Last summer while having some friends stay for the weekend, my mom, the girls and I got the priviledge of hosting a little lip balm party. This is the recipe our dear friend Thema searched out for us. It's not the exact same one we used, but we followed the same steps and used most of the same ingredients. And, although it may sound complicated, it's really not. :) Have fun!

Ingredients and Supplies:

Sweet Almond Oil, or Coconut Oil

Wheat Germ Oil

Beeswax pearls

Lip Balm Tubes or Jars (you can buy them very cheaply online)

The rule of thumb is two parts oil, one part beeswax pearls and a drop or two of wheat germ oil. If you want it thin like cream or Vaseline use a little less beeswax pearls. Want it thicker, like the chapstick in the tubes? Just add a little more pearls.

Heat almond/coconut oil in a saucepan and add beeswax pearls and wheat germ oil. Allow mixture to cool down. If it is too thick, add more oil. Too thin? Add more pearls. Reheat.

While letting the mixture cool, add a few drops of essential oils to enhance the healing effects to the balm. Comfry, Rosemary, Tea Tree and Camphor oils are excellent for this. We used more fun oils for yummy scents; like peach and mint, but any will work. After you add the essential oils but your mixture is still warm, carefully pour it into the lip balm tubes or jars. Let cool. Apply to lips as necessary. Enjoy!

Note: 4 oz. Almond/Coconut oil mixed with 2 oz. Beeswax pearls will fill more than enough of 12, quarter oz. tubes and/or jars. Any unused base can be stored for a very long time for future use.