requirements

On Sunday morning, my pastor preached a wonderful message. It was about women and their relationships with their husbands, but towards the end he talked to those of us who are not yet married but are approaching marriagable age. He said that we should not be concerned with looks or whether or not they meet all those little requirements that we have that aren't important, but that we should be more concerned that they have a close relationship with God. He told us that if they didn't have that, then even if they met all our requirements it wouldn't matter, because if they don't have a close relationship with God the marriage wouldn't work.

I've heard messages like this before, but they always just seemed to concentrate on the fact that our future spouse needs to be saved. I know that it's very important to have a spouse that's saved, so I'm not downplaying the importance of preaching on that, but that seems like that's all that a young person is told about qualities that thay should look for, like having a close relationship with God, being a leader (if your a girl looking for a guy), etc.

Well, I've rambled on long enough now. Just thought I'd share my thoughts about that subject.

Update

Well, it's been a little while since I've posted. Here's a little update.
July-We put our house up for sale around the end of July (I think.) We had it on the market for about 10 days before we got a contract on it. They have to sell their house first, but if they don't sell it then his dad is going to buy it and rent it out. That way they'll still be able to buy our house. The contract on our house comes up the end of November, so it looks like we'll be moving around the end of January, beginning of February.

August-Holly went back to Ambassador Baptist college for her sophmore year. One of her roomates is Jane Prain, a friend from camp.
I graduated from high school! I homeschooled through the summer so that I would be able to start working fukk time sooner to save up more money for college, and also so I would be done before we started preparing to move.

September-Chase turned five! I can't believe it. I rememeber sitting on the couch feeding him his bottle like it was yesterday. He's so big now!
Chase and Cole went to preschool and daycare, respectively. Chase absolutely loves it, no surprise there, and Cole absolutely hates it, no surprise there either. Poor Cole just sits there and cries when his mom leaves. I feel so sorry for the poor little guy. :(

October-We went down to North Carolina for vacation and to house hunt. The vacation was wonderful, and we were succesful in our house hunt. We found a house in Boiling Springs, a quiet little community. It's not in the area we were planning on moving to, but we all love the location.

Well, there's a little update in a nutshell. Can't promise when I'll get back on here to update this again now that I'm working full time, but I'll try my best!

Camp

I just got back from camp today. I had so much fun! I wish it had lasted another week. The speaker was Evangelist Dwight Smith. He was excellent.
Pretty much all of the messages spoke to my heart, but the one that spoke to my heart the most was about intercessory prayer. He challenged us not to give up on praying for someone or something, but to keep on praying, no matter what.
Another message that spoke to my heart was a message on soulwinning. Brother Dwight challenged us to not just go out on organized church visitation, but to witness each and every way. He told us that we should look for opportunities to turn earthly conversations into heavenly ones. He also said that we should witness to our coworkers and relatives, and not be afraid of what they'll say. I've been really bad about doing this. I've worked at Taco Bell for almost a year now, but I haven't witnessed to them at all. I made a decision that I would take every oppurtunity I got to witness to them.
I'll probably write more later on, but I'm going to go crash now. I'm exhausted.

Puppies

Well, we sold all the puppies except the on e that we're keeping. We named him Buckeye, because he looks like he had little buckeyes above his eyes. Isn't he cute?

What American accent do you have?

Your Result: The West

Your accent is the lowest common denominator of American speech. Unless you're a SoCal surfer, no one thinks you have an accent. And really, you may not even be from the West at all, you could easily be from Florida or one of those big Southern cities like Dallas or Atlanta.

The Midland

North Central

The Inland North

The South

Boston

The Northeast

Philadelphia

What American accent do you have?
Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

I got this from a friend, and I thought it was pretty funny.

North vs:South

The North has coffee houses,
The South has Waffle Houses

The North has dating services,
The South has family reunions.

The North has switchblade knives,
The South has Lee Press-on Nails
>The North has double last names,
The South has double first names.
>
The North has Indy car races,
The South has stock car races.

The North has Cream of Wheat,
The South has grits.

The North has green salads,
The South has collard greens.

The North has lobsters,
The South has crawfish.

The North has the rust belt,
The South has the Bible Belt.

FOR NORTHERNERS MOVING SOUTH . . .
In the South: If you run your car into a ditch, don't panic. Four men in a
four-wheel drive pickup truck with a tow chain will be along shortly. Don't
try to help them, just stay out of their way. This is what they live for.

Don't be surprised to find movie rentals and bait in the same store....do
not buy food at this store.

Remember, "y'all" is singular, "all y'all" is plural, an d "all y'all's" is
plural possessive.

Get used to hearing "You ain't from round here, are ya?"

Save all manner of bacon grease. You will be instructed later on how to use
it.

Don't be worried at not understanding what people are saying. They can't
understand you either. The first Southern statement to creep into a
transplanted Northerner's vocabulary is the adjective "big'ol," truck or
big'ol" boy. Most Northerners begin their Southern-influenced dialect this
way. All of them are in denial about it.

The proper pronunciation you learned in school is no longer proper.

Be advised that "He needed killin" is a valid defense here.

If you hear a Southerner exclaim, "Hey, y'all, watch this," you should stay
out of the way. These are likely to be the last words he'll ever say.

If there is the prediction of the slightest chance of even the smallest
accumulation of snow, your presence is required at the local grocery store.
It doesn't matter whether you need anything or not. You just have to go
there.

Do not be surprised to find that 10-year olds own their own shotguns, they
are proficient marksmen, and their mammas taught them how to aim

In the South, we have found that the best way to grow a lush green lawn is
to pour gravel on it and call it a driveway.

AND REMEMBER: If you do settle in the South and bear children, don't think
we will accept them as Southerners. After all, if the cat had kittens in
the oven, we wouldn't call 'em biscuits.

Puppies!

We have some new members of our family. Actually, we've had them for quite a while now, I just haven't gotten on here to post pictures. I tend to forget about my blog a lot. :( They're six weeks old now. You can see pictures on my shutterfly account, ohio2carolina.shutterfly.com.

Name Change

You may have noticed that I've changed the name of the blog to Higher Ground. Littlesis2bigsis was just a temporary name that I made because I couldn't think of anything else at the time. The new name is the title of one of my favorite songs, Higher Ground. My favorite verse of this song is the last:

I want to scale the utmost height; And catch a gleam of glory bright;
But still I'll pray till heaven I've found, Lord lead me on to higher ground.
Lord lift me up and let me stand By faith on heaven's table land;
A higher plane than I have found- Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.

In a few weeks I'll be changing the web address of this blog to http://ontohigherground.blogspot.com, so make sure that if you've linked to my blog you change it, cause I'm not sure what blogger does when you change the web address.

Virginia Tech tragedy

Wow! What a shock! I'm saddened that something so horrible could happen. I got on the Internet Monday to check some stuff, and I saw 20 people killed in a shooting at Virginia Tech(this was before they had the final body count). I was shocked. I went in and turned on CNN, and very shortly the number of victims went up to 29, then 32.
I watched the news the rest of the day until it was time to go to work, then I watched it again Tuesday and Wednesday. I finally had to turn it off because all they were showing were the videos the shooter had made and the pictures he had taken. If you haven't seen them, believe me, you don't want to. They are disgusting and gruesome. He calls himself a martyr and compares himself with Jesus Christ. He calls Eric and Dylan(the two Columbine shooters) his "brothers".
I can't imagine what the students and faculty and family and friends of the victims are going through right now. My prayers are with them during this hard time.

Yikes!

I didn't realize that it's been so long since I've posted on here. I guess probably cause there's been nothing to tell, except for the fact that once again we've switched churches. There really wasn't anything for us to do at Newark Bible Church, and we really want to be able to serve in the church that we go to, so we decided to go to New Lexington Bible Church instead. It's still pretty small, only about 40 people at the most, but there's plenty of area's to serve. We're going to be doing the nursing home service next week. I'm excited about that. Well, that's pretty much all for right now. Cole's birthday [party is on Saturday, so I'll probably post more(with pictures) after that.

News you probably haven't heard

Britney Spears cracked over the weekend. She shaved her head, got two new tattoos, and set up a web site auction for her hair and other items, for a minimum price of 1 million dollars. "This is it, the opportunity of a lifetime," according to BuyBrittneysHair.com. The winning bidder gets Spears' dark, knotty hair extensions, the clipper she used to cut them off, the Red Bull she drank at the salon and her cigarette lighter.

Speaking of shaving, Donald "Comb Over" Trump and WWE owner Vince McMahon will each pick a wrestler to represent them in the ring at Wrestlemania 23. Trump told his rival, "If my guy loses, you can shave my head. But if you guy loses, I'm going to shave your head."

The youngest surving premature baby was born after spending less than 22 week in the womb. Amillia Sonja Taylor was born weighing only 10 ounces and measuring 9 1/2 inches. Amillia was born with a mild brain hemorrhage, respiratory problems and digestive problems, but her doctor said she showed a strong will to live. She made efforts at breathing, [an] attempt to cry at birth. She is now almost 4 months old, weighs 4 1/2 lbs., and is between 25 and 26 inches long. She still needs a little bit of oxygen, but that's to be expected. Her future looks bright at this point.

Jennifer Mee can't stop hiccuping. For more than three weeks now, the 15-year-old St. Petersburg teen has hiccuped close to 50 times a minute despite the best efforts of doctors and home remedies. She's had blood tests, a CT scan and an MRI. Drugs haven't worked. Neither has holding her breath, putting sugar under her tongue, sipping pickle juice, breathing into a paper bag and drinking out of the wrong side of a glass. And, yes, people have tried to scare them out of her. The hiccups do stop when she's sleeping. It is not clear what triggered Jennifer's hiccups, which started in school Jan. 23. Her mother, Rachel Robidoux, recently turned to the local newspaper for help. "I'm just looking for some answers where somebody's gone through this," Robidoux told the St. Petersburg Times. "At this point, we're willing to do anything."

A school in Massachusetts uses "aversive stimulation" to treat some students with the most severe cases of autism and emotional and behavioral challenges. Students receive an electric skin shock when they engage in aggressive or self-injurious behavior. Students carry a backpack holding the device, which is connected to electrodes that are strapped to their arms, legs and torso. Although many people are outraged over this, others, whose children have been treated in this manner claim it really does help.

Interesting Presidential Facts

1. George Washington had to borrow money to attend his inauguration.
2. John Quincy Adams had a pet alligator, which he kept in the East Room of the White House.
3. John Tyler had 15 children. He was playing marbles with his sons when he found out he was president.
4. James Garfield could write with both hands at the same time-in two languages (Greek and Latin.
5. Chester Arthur had 80 pairs of pants.
6. The Baby Ruth candy bar was named after Ruth Cleavland, Grover Cleavland's popular older daughter.
7. In 1912, after being shot in the chest, Theodore Roosevelt delivered a speech before accepting medical help. The thick manuscript in his coat pocket slowed the bullet.
8. William McKinley had a pet parrot that could whistle Yankee Doodle.
9. George Washington was afraid of being buried alive. He made provisions that, after his death, he should be laid out for three days to make certain he was dead.
10. Thomas Jefferson served the first french fries in America at his Virginia home, Monticello.
11. Poker fanatic Warren G. Harding once gambled away a set of White House china.
12. Franklin Delano Roosevelt started collecting stamps at age 11 and compiled more than 25,000.
13. David Rice Atchison was president of the United States for exactly one day. President James K. Polk left office at noon on Sunday, March 4, 1849 (Vice President George M. Dallas left office two days earlier),and President-elect Zachary Taylor refused to be sworn in on the Sabbath. Atchison, president pro tem of the Senate, filled the void.
14. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe all died on July 4- Adams and Jefferson in 1826, Monroe in 1831.
15. All U.S. presidents have worn glasses; some of them just don't like to be seen wearing them in public.
16. Theodore Roosevelt's mother and first wife died on the same day in 1884.
17. Harry Truman's middle name was just S and not short for anything. His parents couldn't decide between two names beginning with S.
    
18. Gerald Ford was once a model.
19. Jimmy Carter is a speed-reader (2,000 words a minute).
20. Richard Nixon called Don Shula, the coach of the Miami Dolphins, before Super Bowl VI to recommend a play. The play didn't work.
    

The Boys

Let's see here...Colee can now say Bob the Builder, gum, and make monster sounds(he sounds so cute when he does). Chaser is as anoying as ever...lol. He loves going out in the snow to play, as does Cole. Of course, their favorite thing to do once they're out there is to throw snowballs. Their favorite target? Me. Of Course.
One of Cole's favorite things to do is snuggle. He'll snuggle with anyone. He's always begging(in his own little way)us to take naps with him.
Chase's favorite things to do are read books, do school, pick on me, sit on me, beat me up...well, you get the point. The only time he stays away from me is right after I wake up. Can't figure out why. :-P I've gotten him hooked on the Land Before Time Movies, and there's a new one coming out. He can't wait to see it. He printed of a dinosaur mask the other day. A picture I took of him is to the left.
Well, that's all for now. More later.

Heartland Baptist Bible College

Pastor Jim said that Heartland doesn't believe in a universal church & a local church, but only in a local church. In other words, according to dad, they believe that their church is going to be the only Bride of Christ.
Mom & I don't see how they can believe that, but let their students go to other churches after their freshman year. Pastor Jim said at first that he didn't know anything about it, so Mom & I are hopin that maybe he was thinking of another college.
Other than that, Pastor Jim couldn't think of anything else wrong with it. He also said that this was back in '95, and they've had at least one new president since then, so the President in there right now might have a different stand on it.
I'm still considering the college.

Pastor Jim's Answers

Well, we talked to Pastor Jim & Carolyn this afternoon. Some were good, but some we had concerns about.
1. The main thing was that his wife & daughters wear blue jeans, and they feel it's modest. Carolyn. has worn dress slacks to church when they were in Billings. We're concerned that eventually, all the other women will be wearing pants to church. What they do in their personal life is their conviction, and we don't have a problem with it, but we're not sure how we'd feel about going to a church where there's a possibility that in the future all the other women will wear slacks.
2. Pastor Jim says he believes that a Christian can be controlled by a demon. Not possessed, so a demon isn't living inside them, but controlled. In other words, a demon is controlling your thoughts, for example if someone was addicted to drugs or alcohol, Pastor Jim says that's caused by a demon. Dad believes that that's the flesh, not a demon.
3.Pastor Jim said that God doesn't want everyone to go to heaven, not that some will be saved and some won't, but that God doesn't desire for everyone to go to heaven. He thinks the verses that say He does don't apply to that subject, but to another one(he didn't say which one it was.). Dad, Mom, and I don't agree with that. We think God wants everyone to go to heaven, but that only those elected by God will.
Those are pretty much the only ones we had a problem with, but we're going to talk to him again on Thursday night. We're afraid that what may be little problems now could turn into bigger problems later on.

Hey Holly, Started A Blog!

Hey Holly,

I started a blog. Please get on and read every once in a while. :-P
Talk to you later.