My Rusty Armor

Last Monday, I had a paper due for my psychology class on a book that we were suppose to read. I totally forgot about it, so I quick read 2 chapters of the book, there were only probably 6 chapters at the most so it was a small book. Basically it was about a knight who was kind and good, and he had very shiny armor. He eventually became very proud of his armor so much that he never took it off. He didn't take it off for so long that it became rusted to him. We were suppose to write about what our rusty armor was and how it inhibits our personal growth. The following is the paper I wrote.

I believe my armor, is my fleshly nature. It gets in the way of every aspect of my spiritual walk with the Lord. I would not be who I am today without my spiritual walk, and my fleshly nature tends to rise up and beckon me to come back to my old ways and habits. Satan and the flesh work hand in hand and can be a strong force, but my God is bigger and mightier than both of them working together. By HIS grace I can overcome. In this day and age, Satan’s tactics can be so easily enticing. When my armor does get in the way, I have to take a step back, look at the situation, and ask God to help me to overcome my temptation. I was 16 when I gave my heart the Lord, and I’m not sure how I lived without Him before. I lived in such sin and darkness and my life was a slave unto sin. It was then when I had fallen so low and didn’t know what else I could that Jesus called me by his mercy. I knew what I had to do, and I was willing. The next morning after I was called, Satan really told me that everything I had just done was a dream so I put off my calling. It was about a month later when I actually realized that I could not do it on my own, and that is when I fully surrendered my heart to God and His service. One way that my armor can get in the way of my personal or spiritual growth is by fear. I always fear new changes. This year especially has been full of different changes. I had a lot of friends get married, which is a big change when they have to move away and are in a different town or state. Another big change was graduating from high school. I was hoping to just get a job and not go to college, but that was not God’s plan for my life. I was fearful of not knowing what to do, and college absolutely terrified me. I tried everything I could to get out of college, but it was not meant to be. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, because all of my other friends were so excited to go to college.  That was really my flesh and Satan rising up and telling me I was the only one, and putting thoughts in my head of all the things that could go wrong. I finally had to rise above my fleshly nature by God’s grace on the first day of school. I have loved everyday of college thus far, and it goes to show that God’s ways are better than ours, and we have to get rid of our fleshly, rusty armor to let Him work in our lives. It was after I was getting into the routine of school that I started worrying again how I was going to pay off my college tuition, considering all I did was clean for 2 hours on the weekend.  It was in mid-September that I got a call from the bank that I had applied at earlier in the summer. They said they were looking for a part-time employee at their Peoria branch. They asked if I could come into and interview and I accepted quickly. My interview lasted probably less than 5 minutes, because they knew they wanted me.  I started working a few days after that, and it was been such a blessing working there. It really goes to show that we don’t have a clue what is best for us. I really had never seen myself working at a bank, especially since that was my sister’s dream job and we have complete opposite personalities. Really learning to trust in God’s will and timing can be a very difficult thing, because my fleshly nature really thinks it knows what is best for me. I must daily commit my will unto God’s will and ask Him to take away my fleshly desires. I must also ask Him to truly humble me so that I may be submissive to His will. It can be so hard to trust Him, especially now since there are so many changes at this stage of life and not a lot of time to make decisions. My flesh constantly rises up with in me and nearly overpowers me, but God truly is mightier than it, and can calm the storm within me. I only need to ask.

So this was my paper, very last minute(I didn't do it until the day it was due.) and surprisingly, I got a 100% on it. I was pretty nervous about turning it in, because I wasn't sure how my professor would react to it and if she would be mad, because it was a spiritual paper. I was wrong. Right underneath my grade, this is what my professor wrote. 

Good work, Lynelle! I appreciated your openness and honesty to look at some of these issues regarding life and faith. Certainly fear inhibits both areas! Self-awareness and faith in God are always keys to change. I think you have identified areas for growth and gained some good insights. I am confident that these lessons and insights will help you as you continue to journey along this lifelong

path towards your truest self! 

So then one day, she told us that she worked at the Antioch Group which is a christian counseling group. So then I was curious, so I looked up the Antioch Group and it a bios about the different counselors, so I read hers, and come to find out, she was a missionary also. So I pretty much have the best psychology professor ever. I am pretty blessed to have her, because some of my friends don't have very good professor. So once again, God has blessed me so much more than I deserve and all I can do it praise and thanks Him. May you shine your godly lights this week!

a good, good weekend

Well, this week was calm for the most part. Wednesday night we had ICC church rotation in Eureka. It was a good turn out, and I think everyone that went felt it was a blessing. After church we went to someone's shed(it was heated and had a living area in it). Some of us girls went upstairs and played dutch blitz. I heard some music, and went down to check it out. Some of the brothers were playing guitars, mandolins, and banjos. Us girls all decided we wanted to go down and listen so we piled down into the living room and listened someone suggested we sing. It was a great singing and the instruments really made it sound awesome. On Thursday I worked, then came home and did some cleaning, etc. Thursday night we had our Single Sisters Bible Study at Jim and Marlene's. It was on True Worship, and it really was an uplifting/convicting evening. I always enjoy our Bible Studies. It's always a good way to get to know people on a different level. Friday, I had school, came home after school to clean, went to work after an hour, worked until 5, came home and cleaned for an hour, and then the people started coming. We had a supper and singing at our house. It was a soup supper and I think people really enjoyed it. We had a pretty good turn our, and I think everyone was glad they came. Saturday I had good intentions of sleeping in, since most days I wake up at 5:30. Anyways I woke up at 9, which was really early for most people in this house. I realized I just can't sleep in anymore. My mom said I'm growing up;) I just sat around and did nothing until 12:15. At 12:15, I drove over to Panera to eat lunch and study with Heidi Bradle. It was delicious, but I'm not sure how much studying we got done:) We are both in the same Earth Science class AND lab! We have gotten super close, since we really didn't know each other very well before having a class together. We studied until 3:15, then headed to Berean Bookstore and just browsed awhile. We then went to Starbucks to grab some free coffee:) She had a gift card from her mom and they have this deal between 2-5 that if you buy one of their holiday drinks, you get one free, so of course we skidded in at 5. I picked up Claire at Grand Prairie and headed home. We had memorandum at 7. John Wiegand from Silverton, OR was here to assist Jim. One topic I really thought about a lot was Spiritual Responsibility in the Home. I thought about what my job was and the Spirit really convicted me that I need to let my family members and others how much I appreciate them. So, when we got home, I wrote notes to everyone in my family letting them know why I appreciate them and encouraged them to continue using the gifts they have. I really prayed that they would know and feel they were appreciated and at breakfast when the opened them, I could tell that they really liked the notes. I really need to try harder at doing that for my friends as well. We always assume people know they are appreciated. Today, John Wiegand was in church so he had the morning service and Jim had the afternoon service. In a few minutes we will be heading up to my Grandpa and Grandma Endress's for my cousins Autumns 1st birthday. Oh and did I mention I am going to be a cousin 2 times over in May. Ben and Katie and Steve and Betsy are both expecting. This will make 26 grandkids with me being the oldest. It's pretty crazy! Tomorrow I have school and my last class is canceled so I will be meeting Ashley Herrmann for lunch at Chiles. This week is going to be pretty crazy, but I am looking forward to it. May you all have a Happy Thanksgiving and remember all that God has blessed you with!

Happenings....

I realized that I hadn't blogged for a couple of weeks, so here is a shortened version of what's been happening in my life recently. I have been keeping fairly busy with school, only a few more weeks until this semester is over! I can hardly believe it, I guess time flies when you are having fun:) It really has been fun, I enjoy it so much. I have great friends at ICC, which makes it 10 times better. I also have enjoyed going to Wednesday night rotations with the ICC young group. Sophie is growing up so fast it's scary! She is really learning how to talk. Some of her cute sayings lately is we ask her who's cute and she replies "ME!" Of course she learned that on her own:) When I tell her that she is a meanie she just says "No, Nene(Lynelle) memie. Work is pretty much the same. I work only until noon on tuesdays, which is really nice, because I can come home and play with Sophie or do laundry. Today was my laundry day, and let me tell you it is quite a chore. I have to do my own laundry so I usually procrastinate and it sits in my closet for about a month until it drives me nuts enough to do it. I always feel so great after it's done though. It is pretty hard to do laundry and stuff like that, because I am never home. I guess I have to get use to adult life, like the girl who came into the bank today. She came in and said, "I'm trying to get use to the adult life, and I don't know how to cash a check so you will have to show me." I guess we all have things to learn about the adult life. Speaking of adult life, my birthday was November 3rd, and I celebrated it in Chicago with Amber Ehnle and Emmy Grant. We stayed at Emmy's sister and brother-in-laws. We went to the Art Institute(Amber got extra-credit for going there),  then for lunch we ate at the Cheesecake Factory, and lastly we shopped on Michigan Avenue. It was an awesome way to spend my birthday. This last weekend, I was in Washington for an invite. It was small, but I like it that way, since I usually get drained when there is an over abundance of people. I stayed at someone's house who was 12 and I was the oldest one there. There were 2 others who stayed there too. I decided that I have a greater respect for the older ones in the single group:) Well, I had better sign off, I here Dad praying upstairs, which means I missed supper. Have a blessed rest of your week, and shine the light of Jesus!
O taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man that trusteth in him.
Psalm 34:8

College Weekend 2012

The theme of College Weekend was What is the Gospel?. I was only there for a few hours, so I didn't get to hear all of the speakers, but I was very blessed by the ones I did hear. The first speaker was Bro. Darren Plattner from Champaign and he spoke on "For The Sake of My Name." I felt he explained what the gospel was more, but that was good that he did. He asked us to write what we thought of when we hear the word the "Gospel". I wrote down, "the gospel is the good news that Jesus saves, that he died so we can have eternal life with him." He stressed that there is only one gospel and it is not denominational, cultural, or traditional. He has talked about how we cannot comprehend the good news until we understand the bad news. It's very true that we always want to hear the bad news first so that the good news will be even better. He also told us that we are more like Adolf Hitler than Jesus. He had us draw a morality scale which consisted of a vertical line with God at the top and "bad guys" at the bottom. He then asked us to put an "x" on the scale of where we are. I obviously put mine right next the to bad guys, which was correct. The space in between is the gap of righteousness. Next he had us draw a horizontal line a third of the way down. It formed a cross and on it we wrote "the good news." One thing I really took from his talk was that he said God treated Jesus as if He was living my life, so that He can treat me as Jesus. That was really convicting, and even though we hear that a lot, he put it in a completely personal way. I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. 1 John 2:12
The second speak was Bro. Matt Kaufmann from Bloomington and he spoke on "the cross". One of his main points was that at the cross there was an exchange. My sins for his righteousness. He also said that the only one who can forgive our sins is the one who we transgressed against. Very convicting. Also, he said that God turned his face away from Jesus on the cross, because of my sin. The whole time he was speaking, I felt so unworthy of what I have been given. When we walked up to Jesus, we walked up with sin and walked away with him and his righteousness. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. Isaiah 53:5
Bro. Mark Schmidgall from Oakville was the third speaker. He spoke on "the resurrection". He spoke of how in Jesus days, they were writing about the resurrection at historians and scholars. We have eyewitness evidence! Mark also said that it can't happen naturally, but super-naturally. He also spoke on the resurrection of the new man from the old man, and putting off the old things, and putting on the new. We should set our affections above and not on things of the earth. He also spoke on death and that is our last enemy. Not satan. When we victor over death and are not afraid to die, that is when we are ready to die. Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?  Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. II Peter 3:12-13 The last talk I was able to listen to was Karen Metz speaking on the Bride(to just the sisters). She talked about the bride of Christ, the church. She explained how we can prepare for marriage and it is simply being faithful to God, focusing on or relationship with Jesus, and being subject to Christ. We need to pursue him by spending time in his word, making it a priority. We need to pray, our time to praise him, bring our worries and cares to him, and faults to him. We need to practice contentment, letting his love satisfy us, and accepting how God mad us. She also spoke on purity and different areas on it and why we should practice it. It was a really good talk, especially for college-age girls, because for most of them, it really is probably the next step in their lives, and it's easy to make it an idol. We also had our discussion groups, where we went into separate rooms, with about 7-8 other girls and talked about what we learned that day and struggles we face in college. Overall, the weekend was a huge blessing to me and I can't wait until the next one! If you want to listen to some of the speakers the link is here ---------->http://www.acsermonstreamer.com/ 

Going, Going, Going....

It's been a pretty crazy end of the week, so forgive me not blogging for a couple of days. Wednesday was pretty normal. Nothing very exciting happened that day. Thursday I had some heart tests done at OSF. I actually was going to have 3 tests done, but my Mom didn't think the X-ray was necessary. I had an Echocardiogram, and Pulmonary Functioning test. We think it's nothing, but my doctor told me to have them. The nurse that did my echo was a mom of one of Rhea's classmates. The nurse prepping the room was a sister from our church and the man who did my Pulmonary functioning test was someone we have known for a long time. His wife was in my mom's wedding, and they have a daughter that is a year older than me. Their kids also go to Heartland with my sisters. I was pretty embarrassed, because of all the people that work at OSF, it had to be people I knew that did my tests. After the tests, my mom took me to Baskin Robins:) It was sooo yummy. Then we went to The Baby Shop, which is an old house that has tons of second hand baby clothes, carseats, bouncy seats, etc. We didn't find anything, so we went to Goodwill where I found a skirt for work and a cute shirt. I usually don't shop at second hand stores because I like my clothes to be brand new. I may have changed my mind now:) We also went to Wannabes, which is also a second hand store for nicer, higher end clothing. On Friday, I had class, and then worked from 2-6. After that, I rushed to Brianna Streitmatter's for Elderly Singing. We stayed later than everyone else and played volleyball in their shed....with our skirts on:) We always make jokes about all the things you can do in a skirt. When I went to Michigan this summer, we tubed in long jean skirts to say that we did. On Saturday, I went to College Weekend with Tonya Martin in Bloomington. I will write about some things I learned from it later. We stayed until about 4:35ish and headed to Ryan Stoller's for a wiener roast. We got there an hour late, but it was still good to be there. We had a very long hayrack ride:) When I got home from that, my mom had put a whole bunch of stuff from my Great-Grandma's in my room. She recently moved to a nursing home, so they were cleaning out her house. I got an awesome chair that I can use for photography, 2 afghans, some old wooden blocks, old hangers, and an old brush and mirror set. Oh, and a toaster for when I move out:) Today, was a pretty small Sunday, which was nice, and now I am waiting for Sophie to wake up. My family went to hiking, and left me with Sophie. The Young Group is going to Ben and Hannah Martin's for a wiener roast tonight, so I am taking Sophie along. She is becoming a regular at Young Group events. I always complain about taking her places, because no one else has to haul their younger siblings around, but it's never as bad as I make it out to be. Well, I can't think of much else to write about, so everyone have a wonderful week:)

Long days, early mornings

Due to internet difficulties, I was not able to post yesterday. I guess thats something that happens when you live in the country. It's probably better if I post at least two days at once anyways. Monday. We all love them don't we? A bad wake-up to reality. Actually, to be honest, I had a really awesome Monday. A great way to start your week:) I had class until 11:50 like every day. Nothing really exciting happened at school, except having fun(more like goofing off) with my wonderful friends. I got a call during class from Kristen Johnson asking if I could take their family pictures that day. It was pretty last minute, but the weather was gorgeous, so it all worked out. I meet them at Grandview Drive at 5:00 and took pictures until about 6:45. The colors were gorgeous:) I still have to edit them, but I will probably post some when I get a chance. After that, I went to the nursing home to sing like every Monday night. It was a pretty good turn out and the residents always enjoy it. I came home, and went to bed, attempting to have Sophie sleep with me on my top bunk. I smuggled her from upstairs down to my room, but she is loud enough to wake the neighborhood, so it didn't turn out to well. Plus, I tried to pretend I was sleeping so she would get bored and fall asleep. Well, long story short, it's hard to sleep when someone is centimeters from your face saying all the random words they are learned. The stinky breath didn't help the situation. As you can image, I couldn't hold back the giggles, which just egged her on even more. Eventually Mom must have figured out she wasn't in bed, and came down to get her.  I them woke up on Tuesday(today) morning at 5:30, because I had to open. I had a really good day at work, and really enjoy my co-workers, even though they all are my mom's age or older. I got off work at 3:15, so I went to Amber's and we had some really good talks:) It's always so nice to be able to have one-on-one time with her, because even though we go to school together and see each other all the time, we don't really get to have heart-to-heart talks. Claire called me up while I was there and wanted me to pick up an insect book for her for her bug collection. I ran back into Dunlap, picked up and book for her, and came home with 6 books for me:) For those of you who don't know, I LOVE READING!!! I use to read all the time, but now I just have to re-read everything, which is ok. So, I came home and ate supper with the family(well part). We never really have the whole family eating supper together, because someone is always gone. I guess that happens as everyone gets older. After supper, I went to my room and read. I already finished one book, so 5 left to go:) And now, I am typing this blog post, which I'm sure you are all enjoying reading;) Everyone have a very good week until next  post. Remember to be good stewards for what the Lord has given us!
As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
1 Peter 4:10

I live for the weekends....

Not really, but I do look verrry forward to them! This weekend was nice, because I didn't work on Saturday:) Not that I don't like my job, but it's nice to have a Saturday to relax, since I am going, going, going every single hour of every single day! Not quite, but it sure seems like it sometimes! I am going to start blogging about daily life now, just things I have been doing, and things that make me laugh, and things that make me proud(Sophie:)). On Friday, I did not have class due to our fall break! Yay!! I was hoping to sleep in, but got woke up at 7:45 to Sophie crawling on me. Not a pleasant way to wake up, but thats what happens when you have younger siblings I guess. So, I woke up, because Tessa was scared since Mom was garage saleing/shopping. I feed Sophie and Tessa breakfast(I had no idea if Sophie had eaten or not, but she acted starved!). Then I went downstairs to get ready for the day. I went back up stairs to get some hairspray(We always run out....it probably has nothing to do with having 6 girls in one house:)) and found Sophie sucking on the end of a broken mercury thermometer, and there was no line inside. I literally freaked out. I called Mom and she was like I don't know what to do, and I was like well I don't either and that's why I called you. Anyways, it's nice to have a aunt who is a very good nurse, so I called up Brittany and she said that is actually the fumes that are harmful so we should just get it out of the house and Sophie will probably be fine. So we did, and Sophie is still alive. I can't guarantee she is normal, but that's probably not from the mercury and more from having 5 crazy sisters. After settling down from that fiasco, I gathered myself up and took Tessa and Sophie to Tanner's Orchard for the morning. We went and played on the playground a while, although Sophie was a little wary of the whole deal. There was a school there, so there were kids everywhere. Tessa got bored of that pretty quickly. It was good that Sophie and I were free, because we didn't spend much time at the playground. Then we headed over to the animals. I think that was Sophie's favorite part. She loves animals! She's probably one of the only one's in our family who does. Let's hope she doesn't lose it when she gets older! We feed the goats, even Sophie:) Tessa didn't like the big ones, and I felt bad for them because everyone feeds the little ones, but I guess life gets harder as you get older....sigh. Then we went inside for some yummy lunch. Well mine was, I'm not sure how delicious their hot dog was, but thats what they wanted. Then we went outside to the playground some more, then we went inside and bought some carmel apples for the family:) delicious!! Aunt Marybeth was our cashier, so that was fun seeing her! Then we headed home, and I worked from 2-6. Here is a funny story that happened to me on thursday. I was sitting at my teller window, and I saw this black boxy thing that looked like a remote control. It was right underneath my desk, and I was kind of messing with it(problem #1). Next thing I know, 2 cops come walking into the bank. I guess it was an alarm for the cops if someone is trying to rob the bank. Why can't they tell me these things ahead of time?! After work, I went to Kaylie and Kourtney Stahl's house for the H.O.P.E wiener roast. It was a really nice evening. Saturday, I cleaned some at home, and they went up to Cherrytree to clean. I rushed home, packed up the 3 youngest girls and headed to Titus 2 at the Villa. It was Mom and Dad's 21st anniversary on Saturday, so they went out to eat and did some shopping. It was a fun evening, and I learned that tying comforters is harder than I remembered. On Sunday(today), we had a wiener roast at David and Crystal Streitmatter's for Crystal's 50th birthday. It was sooo much fun! We played knock-out, frisbee football, and even had a hayrack ride despite the freezing cold weather. So, that was me weekend packed into a book for you to read:) I really had a very good weekend, and next weekend won't come fast enough! Hope you all enjoyed yours also and have a blessed week this week!