CAN you smell the SPRING??

Spring, my favourite time and season of the year! Can you smell it? I can, I love the different smells out there, the new colours of different flowers, even the rain smells different. Do you know what I mean? I love to hear different birds out there and I love the beginning of spring. I decided that I am an EARLY-SPRING-GIRL! What are you? Which season do you like best? And why? Spring is the sign for a new beginning, for new motivation, for life in general and for exuberance (did I spell taht one correctly?) Kerstin Sunshine

Being selfish

Hey there, I find it very disturbing yet it seems to be too true that we are all very self-centered. Being selfish is something I want to get rid off, yet I know that it is part of the human condition after the fall. However, with Christ in me I can let HIm help me to be LESS self-centered and more Jesus- centered and thus more other-centered. Does that work? Yes I do believe so. Why am I selfish? I am not selfish because in the morning , I get up and tell myself: today, kerstin, it is all about you, be selfish today! NO , but I walk around with wounds from the past and dynamics that start to fall in place with specific people more or less. It takes a conscient decision NOT to function in these parameters. I observe the selfishness-epidemic with all of us. Love God , love people, liebe Gott, liebe Menschen: as if that were so easy! I am writing this post to tell you that I do not want to FUNCTION in these dynamics anymore, I decide every morning when I wake up to let HIM who is greater than anything or anyone rule me ! May HE lead me from self-centeredness to God-centeredness and thru that to other-centeredness!

The funny story of the "Ringelsocke"

I am feeling better today first of all and I am so thankful! Now to my funny story from this morning. As I was at the church office, I talked with one of the wonderful staff people and as I turn around to go my way, she asked an odd question: Is this sock hanging out of your right backpocket hanign out there on purpose, Kerstin? I stopped, frowned, and reached back into my right backpocket- YES, she was right, there was my sock, my "Ringelsock", a very colorful fluffy one. I started laughing as did my colleagues. Then I rememberd: well see our dog BUDDY, tha black lab loves to take a sock and carry it all the way to the porch where he wants to go OUTSIDE. Somehow in teh last night , he woke someone of the family up, carrying my sock, then dropped it to run outside. This morning I found my sock at the porchdoor and I took it and put it in my backpocket. Then I totally forgot to take it back out. O my gosh, I ran around with this sock in my pocket (pretty visible, let me tell you that!) out to the car, into the post office, and into the hcurch office. WOW!

OUWY

Ouwy, that is what a little girl says when being asked how she is doing and she has an OUWY. Well I have lots of OUWYS today: my head hurts and all my joints seem to hurt. I am soo slow in all I do today. I am off work and in 15 minutes we have staff meeting and I am tired and my head hurts. Jesus told us to have a childlike faith- I also want to be a little girl when I come to HIM and tell HIM where I have an OUWY Anyone else any OUWYS?

AMAZING GRACE

Wow my head is full of good statements, full of words like GRACE and full of good stuff that is hard to put to paper. I need to process. The word GRACE has taken pretty much all my attention now, though. Grace, what a word, no word can really explain it, no scent can really describe it....well, someone called it :a faint whisper which we YET got to catch and understand. GRACE is such a foreign concept for me, so far from my normal life, so far from what I experience and yet that is what I want , that is what I love to have: GRACE! I need GRACE to survive and God gives it to me freely every day: EVERY DAY. I am writing it down and still it seems so unreal- do you know what I mean? I know that as a human being I will always struggle with this concept of GRACE. That is okay; however I want to come closer to God's definition of it. GRRRACE, say it out loud, right now, GRAAAAAACE, isn't it a beautiful sound? I need it. I need GRACE in relationships and in the way I see myself, I need GRACE , I need it desperately. I am holding out my hands, learning to receive DAY BY DAY the GRACE, sweet GRACE, AMAZING GRACE!

we want to be experienced!!!!!

I have been thinking about this post a lot. Have you ever been there? You want to write about this...then about that...then about another topic ...all seems so inviting to wrap my mind around and be creative about. I do not like this new post setting; it makes it hard to be creative, no colors no more :( Yesterday while I was waiting for my doctor’s appointment to get my shots for South Africa, I started to read a magazine (I totally forgot the name of it....). There was one article about our SOCIAL QUOTIENT instead of Intelligence Quotient (I.Q.). This article talked about the author of the E.Q.: Emotional Quotient. His newest book is on the Social Quotient. We are all social beings, wired for fellowship, wired for being with one another. One phrase really caught my attention: We all long to be experienced by another person, by our friends etc. That is so true and I love the wording: I want to be experienced; I want a person to have interest in me, in my personality. I want to be experienced. So often, as we focus on ourselves, ...wait I should stay in the I-message here, : so often as I focus on myself, I loose sight of wanting to experience my friends, to experience this other person in front of me. Then I think I already know that person, and then I assume and project my thoughts wishes and feelings onto that person INSTEAD OF EXPERIENCING THAT PERSON and INSTEAD OF LETTING THAT PERSON DEFINE HIM OR HERSELF! Help me dear God, not to be so self-focused, and be more motivated in get to know the person that is right in front of me. Let me experience them!

Capetown, I am coming...

Capetown, this is where I will go in exactly one month and 16 days. I will fly with 3 other East Hillers over 20 hours and will have my first visit in the country of South Africa. I am getting excited and I pray for God to prepare me. This is so much bigger than I am, so much bigger. We will bring the change book from Genesis to tehir small groups but I have the feeling that we will be receiving so much just by being there. Enrichment in relationship, in patience and in BEING isntead of doing. Praise God for that!

Saturday night and it is not too late. I am glad I decided to stay home tonight, be with the family, watch who is America's next Top Model (it was actually an old season...anyway)with Abby, snuggle with the black labrador Buddy and eat some good chicken from Safeway. All is very slow tonight and I need that after a long and really good day. I have been listening to sermon tapes lately...you know, old stuff , old Ted Roberts sermons form like 10 years ago or so. It is amazing how they so fit to where I am these days. Cool. I need to let go, let go a lot of things and it is so liberating doing it. However, it is also very hard at times but HEY, what ISN'T hard? I say HI to all the bloggers out there and wish you a wonderful evening, a really cool sunday and may we all be refreshed for the new week to start on monday, right? I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels or dark powers, neither things present nor things in the future, things high or low or any other thing may be able to seperate us from the Love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord for everything is possible with our God!