a fruity life

Many times in the life of this blog I have shared about the fruit of the sprit. I desire to have such a fruit filled life that I cannot resist sharing!

We are starting up an after school program at the corps(church). It starts next week. In some ways I feel prepared and so excited to kick start this and have kids filling the rooms of the downstairs. In other ways I fell ill-prepared, as though I haven't put in enough time and effort yet. Either way, we start up next week and I feel confident that God is prepared to bless us in a big way - he's been doing so already!

Back to the fruit!

Having such a strong desire and will to live out the fruit of the spirit in my own life, I thought this would be the perfect teaching subject for Kids Klub(the above stated program). We will be having a short teaching time each day(15-20mins). I felt confirmed in this decision last Sunday when Josh spoke on Joy and mentioned the fruit in his sermon. So today I began to pray the fruit into the lives of all the children who will come through our doors...

that they will learn to love each other they way God wants us to love, and the way he loves us,
that they will be filled with joy, no matter what the circumstance of their young lives,
that peace will be in the minds, and show through their actions,
that patience will come naturally, pushing aside that the world tells us we need to hurry,
that kindness will pour from their mouths...'from the mouths of babes...',
that goodness will be seen in their eyes so precious,
that they will learn faithfulness to be attainable in this corrupt world
that gentleness with be the new strength,
that no matter how the world is whirling around them, self-control will prevail.

If you're of the praying persuasion, pray for us. Pray that kids will drawn in, that relationships will be nurtured and that Jesus will reign over all we do with them.

On a completly different topic, I got a book today that I'm excited to start reading. Its Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. We are going to begin reading it in my sunday school class. Since I'm not gifted in teaching, we have been going through books, reading them together and allowing them to generate discussion - its been great! We started with Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. It was awesome to see the confirmation that God gave to us through the words, our discussion and then the morning meeting(sermon and whatnot). God is good! I am looking forward to this next book, I've heard great reviews.

Finally, on a personal note, I have started a diet! The South Beach Diet to be exact. I have never made the choice to start an actual diet program, but have borrowed the book to this one and it seems so easy. I like the easiness of it. These first 2 weeks are the hardest, as we're(my roommate and I)attempting to rid our bodies of their addictions to sugar and bad carbs. Its the hardest for me because my sister and her family were just here on vacation and brought me so many yummy Canadian things that I'm currently(for the next few weeks) not allowed to eat!! They will be good treats as I slip various things back into my diet slowly. We'll see how it goes.

Blessings.