Dinorah's blog

Peace and Joy,
Just a thought...do you know the difference between joy and happiness? Think about it for a minute. The difference is that happiness is the way we appear on the outside. Joy is what we experience in our souls because we know we have overcome some powerful obstacles and we realize that God brought us through it. I wish you peace and pray that you are in a place where you know it's going to be alright and joy because that's what we need to feel in our souls and let it flood out of ourselves.

To our Adult Team:
I feel joyous knowing that we made it through this year with God's peace and direction. One big "Yeah, God" from me is that Joe and Tina stayed on after I was hired, Art continues to put with me and remain active with our youth group,and that we have built a dedicated team by adding 8 more the that team, and that Rick is back!

To COF Youth:
My favorite memories from 2008 are in the one-on-one conversations that I have been part of with many of you. Those conversations where you share what's on your heart, admit your struggles, and reveal things about who you are that I didn't know. Those are my God-moments for 2008. Thank you for opening up and allowing God to use you to make my life better than it was last year.

Joining our team for 2009 will be George and Joyce Gillette. George and Joyce are an older couple that will fill a much needed role for out youth. I realize Christmas Eve night that they will fit right in when Joyce was looking for a glow stick and she said, "I have no problem wrestling one away from a kid, but I think I'll wait for another time." By the way, it doesn't hurt to have 2 retired police officers in our youth group! I encourage you to take time to get to know them. One tip...George loves Starbucks.

Thank you for blessing and enriching my life repeatedly over this last year.

Shine On,
Dinorah

There's a lot of stuff going on! It must be that time of year. Wait a minute...what about "A Charlie Brown Christmas" where we are supposed to slow down and remember the true meaning of Christmas? I totally agree. Ask my family, that's why I wait so long to put up decorations and a Christmas tree. To me, it is more important to see Christ and why he came to us by creating opportunities for our youth to relax, have fun, build relationships with each other, and to serve others. Right now, I am reading the book of Revelation. The one thing that keeps standing out to me is that it isn't a book meant to scare us about the "end times", but a book to remind us to worship our God and to honor his son, Jesus. There is a phrase that keeps coming up as I read. It is "passionately patient." By slowing down and being passionately patient, we can learn, and be reminded of, how important it is to stay faithful to Jesus. (Revelation 14:12 The Message) Are you able to slow down, look for God, and wait patiently and passionately for him? Just try it...passionately search for where he is in your life.

Something I read in my time with God this morning really stuck with me because I had never thougt of it in this way:

"You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That's when you discover who you really are, and your place in God's family." Mattew 5:9 from The Message

After this election and all the unrest all around us, that really speaks to me. I know that all of you realize that we are part of an amazing part of history with the election of Obama. I am not using this as a political platform, I am just excited about this time in our lives. I am especially touched by this because of the time we spent at Martin Luther King Center when we went to Atlanta. The thing that impressed me most about MLK and this point of history is that politics, religion, and race are not the issue, but that we do need to cooperate instead of fighting by choosing to put Christ first in our lives. We need to elect Jesus and his ways to govern our lives just as we elect a president...everything else will fall into place and we will find our place in God's family.

Shine On,
Dinorah

I believe this is the busiest fall season our family has ever had. Between football, soccer, fall festival, the upcoming elections, keeping 2 teen boys fed, and all of the other things we have to do, it seems like we forget how to be still. I get even more overwhelmed when I hear about all the activities that all of you are involved in through school and outside of school. When things get this busy, I try to contemplate my favorite verse from the Bible. It is Psalm 46:10 that says, "Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth."

I finally bought a new Bible yesterday...a nice, small, youth-director type, brown, no-pages falling out Bible. (That's a whole other topic to blog!) I felt led to bring home the translation called The Message. It is a modern-day version of the Bible. It is very refreshing. The first thing I did was high-light Psalm 46:10. Yes, I write and higlight things in my Bible. This is what it says: "Step out of the traffic!Take a long, loving look at me, your High God, above politics, above everything."

This verse is so appropriate...especially if you compare both versions. Not just because we need to slow down and pull ourselves out of the busy, oncoming traffic, but because we need to turn our attention back to God. We don't need to flinch in our faith in God. We need to stand still and be composed in our faith because of what we know about God. We have to trust him about his love for us and that he has it all under control. Please take some time out of each day to stop, step out of the traffic, shut down your computer, stop texting, turn off your phone and iPod, and spend time contemplating his love for us, and realize that all God wants is for us to spend time relaxing with him.

Shine On
Dinorah

In staff meeting on Tuesday, Scott led us in a devotional that he pirated from Rob Bell, that has come to chase after me the last 3 days. The scripture comes from 1 Corinthians 13:1: "If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal." Tie that into what James says when he writes that we should be slow to anger and that arguing is caused by the fact that we don't have what we want because we forget how good we really have it. When we argue, our words and actions become like a resounding gong that is offensive to all those near us. We need to remember to be quick to listen to what someone is saying to us, especially if it is truth spoken in love, and think more than twice about getting angry about it. Can your words be like a clanging cymbal to others? Are you truly listening to others? Most of the time, when we just listen to others, we are being used by God.

Shine On,
Dinorah

P.S. If you really want to apply this, watch Pink's video "So What." Keep in mind that we are not promoting this video or song. (The video has some questionable material in it.) However, it serves as a way that we can see how anger can get in the way of how God is working. Also, the video does not show consequences for angry reactions, but consequences always are a result.

Parents: If you are shocked by this video/song, I apologize. However, your youth has probably heard it or seen the video since it is the #5 song on the Billboard Top 100 and the #3 downloaded video on i-Tunes. It is also available to watch on AOL Kids. Go one step further, go to You-Tube, and watch the video with the lyrics. It is important to know the culture that surrounds your youth.