Mikala and Luke Engaged :)

My brother Luke proposed to his beautiful and wonderful girlfriend this past Saturday night.   She said yes and she is now his fiance.    Evan, Jeremy, Chris, and I get a new sister.   Our family is beyond excited and feels so blessed.

Congratulations to you two :)  --- you are loved and blessed.  We are proud of you and cannot wait for you two to get hitched July of this year!

The Continuing Quest of an Aspiring Super Woman Wifie Mama

It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone. 

 Ephesians 1:11-12 The MSG

Have you ever asked yourself the question who am I? Or, have you ever asked yourself what your purpose is in this life?  Have you ever struggled with the expectations that the culture around you puts on you?

Great!  - I have struggled with these questions myself over the past couple of years.   In fact I even have some blog posts to prove it to you:

No Mrs. Iron Pants

Bombs in your heart

God answers my questions to bombs in my hearts

I am no man

Super Woman Wifie Mama

Provision Instead of Pride

Believe me when I tell you that if I took a little bit more time to search through the archives of this blog I could find ten more posts about me searching for who I am supposed to be in life.   I fought my own inner struggle concerning my own femininity, purpose in life, skill set, my role as a wife, and my future role as a mother.

I had no peace and always had this un-answered question clanking around in my heart.   An un-answered question that shaped my perception of people, events, and what other people thought about me.

This past summer I was riding around in my car listening to Kevin Weaver, and God answered my question.   

God always wants to answer your questions.   It is usually a matter of you wanting to actually hear the answer.

God's answer came to me in several parts.   The first part was realizing that I was proud.   My pride manifested in my life out of my belief that God was not big enough to defend and provide for me, so I went around trying to defend and provide for myself.   Underneath my pride was fear.   Essentially I had things in my life that I wanted to protect at all costs.   Things and dreams and expectations that I was willing to sacrifice anything for.   This may be what some people in the bible might define as idols.   

I was afraid that if I truly surrendered to God that he would make me do things that I really did not want to do, or give up things that I really did not want to give up.

This realization that I was proud shattered this wall I had put up around myself to protect myself, and I realized for the second time in my life how good God really is.   God will defend me if I allow him to, and he most certainly will provide for me.   

I had one of those out of body experiences where I saw myself working so hard to hold on to these dreams, expectations, perceptions, and things in my life.   These dreams, expectations, perceptions, and things all had never been fully submitted to God.    I had always told him what my will was and never asked for his assuming that because I had these dreams that they were his too.  

I was like a starving child hunkered down over a piece of bread protecting it, while a kind a loving Father was trying to give me fields and fields of grain that would sustain me for a lifetime and more.  

Riding around in the car that day changed my life.   In a simple prayer and opening up my heart to hear God - He saved me from myself.

I have finally come to a moment in life where I have nothing and there is nothing that I would not be willing to give to God.    This is one of those postures that must be submitted to God moment by moment in life.

In the last six months I have learned so much more about who I am because I am willing to just know God, and in return God is showing me who I am.   As Paul suggests in the verses in Ephesians at the top of this blog: God has designed glorious living for us.  All we have to do is seek him.

Once you have surrendered your dreams, expectations, things, and perceptions to God he will usually give you back the ones that He wants for you.   Once God gives you something it is His responsibility to carry it out and your responsibility to know Him and obey Him.   I find this to be AWESOME because God must provide the way for His promises.

I recently just got the book Having and Doing It all by Christine Caine which basically says by seeking God he will show you what your all looks like.   When your all comes from God then He equips you do it and to have it.   

The most unique and truest YOU can be found in Jesus.   You just have to allow Jesus to show what is keeping you from going deep into Him

Such is the quest of an aspiring Super Woman Wifie Mama .....  along with my growing passion for making homemade pizza :)

ya know ... because that is part of who I am!

The Diamond H Ranch

On January 1st we packed up the puppy and headed to the panhandle to see Chris's family.   

This is the Diamond H Ranch mail box.   Todd, my father in law and marketing expert, would never leave his mail box un branded.   No mail box is complete with out its own customized camo over lay!

No ranch would be complete without its own baby wild boar either.   Meet Spot - who was being babysat by Grandpa Toddy.   Apparently Grandpa Todd would like some grandchildren!

My mother in law, Karra, has two stoves in her kitchen so she can adequately feed all the hungry cowboys.   Her kitchen would not be complete without her own Diamond H brand in her back splash.   Karra understands my love for kitchens and feeding people, so she lets me take over the kitchen whenever I come to visit.   Her kitchen is a picture of perfect organization and I LOVE cooking in it.   

Here is the view from the back door of the ranch house looking out over the north pastures.

Here is the back view of the ranch house.  Todd and Karra added on about 2000 square feet to the old existing ranch house.  The windows at the top are of the bunkhouse which sleeps about 15 people, or 15 future grandbabies.   

This is the side of the front of the ranch house.   Not the best picture but you get the idea.

The mantra of every ranch wife.

We celebrated Todd and Karra's 30th wedding anniversary by making them Boeuf Bourginion from Julie Child's cookbook.    It took all day but it was worth it.

Prepping for the Boeuf

 We made asparagus, roasted pearl onions, sauteed mushrooms, and mashed potatoes to go with the Boeuf.

This is Chris helping prepare the Boeuf.

We also got to help a first time mama cow give birth to her 125 pound son.  It was an amazing experience and not nearly as gross as I thought it might be.

We had a wonderful time with Chris's family.   Going to the Diamond H is like going on vacation.   Cell phones do not work and there is always a perfect sunset.   

This is was Giada's second visit to the ranch.   She learned how to jump cattle guards, almost got killed by donkeys, almost got eaten by hungry mama cows, and learned how to go under fence.   She also got to go to the lake and de-stuffed a stuffed animal.   I would say she also had a great vacation.

Thank you for enduring my iphone pictures

my LOVE - challenged

[ Disclaimer: This post is simply a result of some heart reflecting and does not have to do with anyone directly in our lives.  In plainer words: no, no one has been mean to us. ]

This year Chris and I have probably gone to church less than either of us ever have in both of our lives combined.   When we have gone to church we have even been asked if we are attending somewhere else.

"Why?" -  you ask, maybe even slightly shocked.

Mostly because a lot of our friends have gotten married this year and one of us was usually in the wedding party.   Weddings these days require a whole weekend and usually several before hand.    We have been super blessed by these weddings.   We have been even more blessed to see our friends enter amazing marriages.   The big cherry on top of the all that is having more married couples to live life with.

Not attending a whole lot of community based worship had done three things to me.   The first being that I am required to have Holy Spirit quiet times by myself.   Quiet times have become more valuable because I have to seek the Lord myself and hear from Him myself or I will be completely empty.   I have learned that in order to do that I have to be completely open and humble before God - which is really really hard to do.   Secondly I have realized that I really really miss church and I cannot wait to get back involved and attend regularly.

Finally - I have begun to question some of my Christian based and culturally acceptable beliefs and actions.   You see I grew up in Church and in a Christian family.   I went to elementary in the early 90's.   I am a product of focus on on family parenting.  

I was taught in more ways than not to separate myself from the sins of this world.  Which is a good thing for sure.   But was I also taught to judge the sins of this world?  

Never before in my life have I ever been so challenged to love the sick and hurting of this world.   Never before in my life have I ever felt such compassion for those who do not know the true depth of Jesus's love for them.   I have not (at least up until this moment of my life) ever been called to love the sick and dying of Africa, India, or Haiti.    I have always always seen the sick and dying closest to me and felt the most for them.   The ones in the poor neighborhoods that I occasionally drive by, or the ones I shop next to in the grocery store.  I always think of the ones who might be in sexual slavery in the very city I live in.   While this has been a huge awakening in me this year and I am still trying to work out how to love the orphaned poor here in Houston - something else has also caught my heart.

It is this:  that we as American Christians are some of the most judgmental people on planet earth.   Myself being the chief "judger" of them all.   I started asking myself: Am I condemning more than I am loving?  Am I more quick to call a Christian brother or sister out than to give them an encouraging word?  Am I more quick to judge their actions than to try and understand their motivations?

Unfortunately the answer to most of these questions was yes.

The root cause of most of these terrible characteristics in me was pride and fear.   My own pride and fear came out of believing in too small of a Jesus.   A Jesus whose love was not big enough to cover my own inability and the inability of others.   Thankfully my desperate quiet times yielded some good wisdom and love from Jesus who showed himself to be so much bigger and more capable than my human heart could imagine.

I have realized that my form of Christian love was so mean, so I had to change it out for a God kind of love that is beyond human understanding.   This is no small or easy thing because it sometimes requires you to love even when you don't want to or even when you do not understand.

As Chris and I have grown up more this year we have encountered more circumstances that require more of this kind of love.  

There are two specific categories where my love has had to grow:

1.  People who knowingly sin and suffer the consequences and still need to be loved.
- Yes it might be their fault they are in the mess they are in, but I am not called to judge them.   I am called to love them.   If they ask for advice I can give it, but I am not called to condemn them.    I am defined by Jesus who loves me so much he gave His life for me.    Jesus never shunned these people.   Jesus showed more love than the culture of the time had ever seen.    The Church should be defined as such -- showing more love than the world has ever seen.   Yet, the church is made up of people.

2. Christians who condemn others way more than they offer love.
- This is really where I get in trouble.   My self-righteous flesh wants to go into butt kicking mode.  There is quite possibly no one or nothing more mean in the world than a condemning Christian.   A condemning Christian is afraid of sin and has too small of a view of God.   A condemning Christian believes one must outlaw sin instead of receiving the grace to overcome sin.   A condemning Christian lives by the law of legalism instead of the law of grace.   Yet, a condemning Christian needs my love just as much as any other person does.   When it comes down to it I am not called to condemn the condemning Christian EITHER - I am called to walk in God's empowering grace and love them TOO.

Man --- growing up in HARD.  Kicking butt seems to be a lot easier :)

In essence this challenge to love is really all about faith.   Do you believe God is big enough to cover all?   Do you believe God is big enough to cover all the sin in the world and of the church?  Do you believe God is big enough to cover differences in different theologies?  Do you believe God is big enough to love all of who you are?

Faith comes by hearing the word of God or reading the word of God and acting out what it says.   God never lets you down which why we build up our faith.

It is possible that Chris and I have some condemning Christians in our life.   It is my challenge to show love to them in the hope that they see a much bigger God.

I feel this is a better option than a Jess ready to kick butt?  I know my husband would agree, and probably my would Dad too.

So what does this have to do with not attending very much church?  Being a little more outside of the church I have seen a little more what the church looks like (sometimes) to the outside world.    I want the church to be a place where every sinner feels free to go.   The church should be a place where every unmarried pregnant mother to be feels safe.   A place where every divorcee finds peace.   The Church as a whole should be so much more loving than the world.   There are some churches that do this and there are some that don't.   Unfortunately the world sees more of the churches and Christians who don't.

We must have a balance between  encouraging people to live a grace filled life so they do not sin and accepting and loving those who do sin.   While also calling out those in the church who refuge to stop sinning.    While the perfect balance of these things seem impossible I believe it can be found in Jesus.

A Christmas Blend

A List:
1. We are drinking Starbucks Christmas blend coffee right now.  It is amazingly smooth and delicious.  After you have tried many coffees you realize that some are good and some are amazingly drinkable.  The Christmas Blend is amazingly drinkable.   You will quickly find yourself pouring a second cup.

2.  We had Christmas in Magnolia this year.   It was fantabulous.   One thing Christmas reminds me of on my side of the family is the severe shortage of girls.   My Mom's brother's kids consist of 3 boys and a girl, and my Dad's brother's kids consist of 3 boys and girl.   I also have three little brothers.  

3.  We spent Christmas Eve with my Mom's side of the family.   Our tradition is to open one gift an hour until they are all un wrapped.   In between each unwrapping we fill ourselves with all the wonderful food that continually comes out of the kitchen.   We end the day with a vigorous round of Christmas bingo.    Chris and I dominated again this year, but in true oldest child fashion gave one of our gifts to one of the younger kids.

4. Chris and I laid in bed Christmas Eve night and read the Christmas story to each other.  This made me miss the Hill side of the family's special Christmas Eve tradition of reading the Christmas story as an entire extended family.

5.  Christmas morning is spent with the just my immediate family.   This year I made Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls and a special batch of gluten free rolls for my brother.   I love this morning every year.   We only let one person open one gift at a time to stretch it out as long as possible and to see what everyone got.   The sibling love gets better every year.   My brother's girlfriend got the boys nerf guns.   Needless to say a huge nerf war quickly ensued.

6.  We spend Christmas afternoon with my Dad's side of the family.   I love this time because it is always super chilled.   When we gather with this side of the family the testosterone levels always rise to incredible heights as we have 7 boys ranging from 15-26 all in the same room.   My only girl cousin and I always manage to find a spot away from all the manliness.

7. We are leaving this Saturday to drive to the Diamond H ranch in Childress, TX to spend Christmas with Chris's family.   I cannot wait to drink coffee on the couch with my Mother in Law (love) :)

8.  I am babysitting my brothers great dane for a couple of days.    Jack The Great Dane is my Giada's best friend in the whole world.  She is completely in love with him and cannot be reasoned with in any way when he is here.  Jack on the other hand is in love with Luke (my brother) and mopes around and cries when separated from him.  

9. This Friday we have our last wedding of 2010.  We will have officially attended 12 weddings this year.  Chris being in at least 4 and I in one.

10.  The weekend before Christmas was my birthday.  Which was spent attending one graduation and two weddings.   Chris still managed to squeeze in a cupcake party for me :)

Thou Mayest

Remember this past summer when I decided to read East of Eden by John Steinbeck?

Several of our friends LOVE this book.  It took me about two months to read this book because it is dense, man!  It is jammed packed full of humanity making good and bad decisions and all the suspense that goes a long with that.

Once I finished the book I could not figure out why so many people loved the book.   It was sad.  It made people look sad.   It had that whole Lord of the Flies thing happening where you finished the book questioning if you were inherently evil or inherently good.  

The entire point of the book just straight up hit me in the face several months after I finished reading it.

The point is this:  In the book Lee discusses the verse in Genesis where God is responding to Cain after God rejects his sacrifice but accepts Able's.  Genesis 4:6-7  So the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? ⁷ If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.”    


Steinbeck figures out, after talking to some Jewish Rabbi, the Hebrew meaning for the word "should".  The word is timshel and basically means "thou mayest".   The last phrase in verse 7 means "thou mayest rule over it".   Steinbeck implies in the book that this verse in Genesis means we have free will choice over sin - even though sins desire is for us.

[ Please make note this is Steinbeck's rendering of a Jewish Rabbi's understanding of Hebrew ]

Nevertheless, the point Steinbeck is making is awesome and terrible at the same time.   God gave us free will to either choose good or choose evil.   Which means when we stand before God one day we will be judged for the CHOICES we make.   We will not be judged for the choices other people make or how their choices affected us.   We will be judged for how we CHOOSE to react to the CHOICES other people make.

You might be wondering why this applicable to my life right now?  It is always applicable to my life at every moment, but I have been considering it more this morning.   Do you remember me telling you that when I was a freshman in college that God spoke the words Vulnerably Dependent to me?   I have come to realize that vulnerably dependent means that you choose to be dependent on God and not on yourself or other people.   In theory this makes a lot of sense and in practice this a very hard thing to do.

I think God takes us through various levels of dependence on Him as we grow to trust Him more.   Meaning that one person's dependence on God can look very different from another person's dependence on God at any given time.

This past weekend I was talking to one of my single girlfriends who bravely came to the Lone Star Marina's Christmas party called Sausage Fest.   We make Sausage.  At this party it is safe to say that about 98% of the people are married, engaged, or seriously dating.   So my friend coming and enjoying herself is a big deal.   One of the first things I learned to do after God started speaking to me about being Vulnerably Dependent was to fall completely in love with Him.   Instead of freaking out about fearing that I would never get married, or getting over some boy, or dating some boy - God let me choose to fall head over heels in love with Him.   In doing so I learned to trust God with all the desires of my heart regarding marriage.

I told my friend that this is the secret to finding the person that God has for you.   I told her that the most attractive thing you can do is to choose to fall in love with Jesus, and that as you do that a beauty will be released in you that is unparalleled on this earth.  

These days my version of being Vulnerably Dependent is trusting that God will qualify me to do what He is calling me to do.   God has called me to write.  I am pretty sure it is safe to say that nothing has ever terrified me more than being calling to write.   In learning to be dependent on God in this area of my life I am learning what true humility really looks like.   Without Jesus speaking through me my words really and truly do not mean that much.

I am trying to tell you this morning that I am in one of those moments between choices.   I am either going to choose to obey God and sit down at my computer and allow him to write through me, or I am going to figure out every single other way to fill my time and never find time to write.

I want to choose to write.  I just have to decide that I will no matter what I feel like doing.  It is my choice and I want to steward my free will to the best of my ability.

What choices are facing you today?  Do you trust God enough to choose the best choice He has for you?

He just walked right on in.

I am sitting here on my couch with coffee and small puppy (though not quite that small anymore :) ) beside me, and I am an extremely happy camper.

You see, here's the thing, I love being right here.  Ok, I love drinking coffee with the puppy, but more than that, I love writing.  For the last two months or so we were in the barn I had the worst case of writer's block.  I would want to write, but simply had nothing that pulled me into writing.  (That was very strange and frankly awful for me.)

Now we are moved into our first home, and the transformation has been fairly amazing in my life.  I now drive a scant 11 mins and 30 seconds into work instead of 45 minutes on a good day.  HEB, Costco, Freebirds, Five Guys, and Lowe's are all within 5 minutes of the house.  I can see friends any night of the week that we want to without having to drive an hour.  It is so wonderful, such a blessing from the Lord, and my heart is happy here with my small wifey (Who is currently sleeping in the other room still.  She is a super cute sleeper.).  

So lately, I find myself with another sort of conundrum.  I drive to and from work or to run and errand for said small wife, and I keep getting flooded with things to write about.  Good?  Yes, absolutely.  Bad also.  Why?  Because I'm in the car with no "writing" option.  

Summary of this thought: I have got to find a way to record these ideas for future scribbling because Jesus put this writing bug in my heart.  Whether done poorly or well at this point, it is something that I love to do and something that God continues to draw up.

So, without further adue, I have a very firm recommendation for each and every one of you out there who likes good music.

Wes, Sheridan, Jess, and I all went to the Needtobreathe show at House of Blues (great venue btw) the other night expecting to see a great show from them.  Luke Friesen's little bro, Toby, is currently playing keys and a little guitar for them, and they went even harder than we had expected them to.  Expectations surpassed.  Well done, gents, and your heart matches.  Too fun.

What we did not expect:

The Daylights

Opened for NTB.  I was floored.  They were good.  Huge sound for a three piece gig.  

Then all of the sudden they play this song called Weapons (on myspace page).  

I have no explanation for what happened at that point, but all I know is that out of the clear blue I felt God's presence just walk into the room.  It was marked, and it was unmistakable.  (Also rather fantastic.  I mean, how cool is Jesus?  "Yea, sure, let me waltz into this House of Blues bar and show up at a concert that is not branded as 'Christian'.")  For the record, He stayed the rest of the show through NTB. It was so much fun to worship to Something Beautiful with my hands held high.

I know this:  When a band is good, and God's hand is on them like that, they are someone worth getting behind.

Summary of band/concert thoughts: If you trust me or Wesley Charles Whitney at all about bands, buy The Daylights CD on iTunes or Amazon, give it two spins, and you'll be hooked.  Great lyrics and a sound that is plum stuck in my head.

OK, I'm off to my favorite pastime - basketball.  Hope you laughed.

Mr. Hill

{Whatever you say I will do}

Ruth 3:1-5 AMP

1THEN NAOMI her mother-in-law said to Ruth, My daughter, shall I not seek rest or a home for you, that you may prosper?
2And now is not Boaz, with whose maidens you were, our relative? See, he is winnowing barley tonight at the threshing floor.

3Wash and anoint yourself therefore, and put on your best clothes and go down to the threshing floor, but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking.

4But when he lies down, notice the place where he lies; then go and uncover his feet and lie down. And he will tell you what to do.

5And Ruth said to her, All that you say to me I will do.

Luke 1:35-38 AMP

35Then the angel said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you [like a shining cloud]; and so the holy (pure, sinless) Thing (Offspring) which shall be born of you will be called the Son of God.(A)

36And listen! Your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is now the sixth month with her who was called barren.

37For with God nothing is ever impossible and no word from God shall be without power or impossible of fulfillment.

38Then Mary said, Behold, I am the handmaiden of the Lord; let it be done to me according to what you have said. And the angel left her.

Today this is my theme.

Lord, all that you say to me I will do.

Is is scary, but I know it is the highest good.