Holy Spirit Moment

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Holy Spirit Moment (def): When the Holy Spirit is placing people, things and experiences in your life that you cannot avoid and feel called to act on.  (not to be confused with a coincidence it is more of a God-instance.) 

This just happened.

I recently returned to West Texas after 9 days away visiting friends, family, or and a work CE course filled with phenomenal individuals.  I took in the River Walk, my friends new perfect baby, 3 nights on retreat, 3 nights in Dallas surrounded by family and friends at my Bridal shower and many family dinners.  On my last day I lost it. As I'm saying good-bye to my family tears are swelling up.  Do I want to leave?  No.  Am I ready to leave? Yes.  I love this 'city' life, I am forever grateful for this life and these people who love me so very much.  And I love them more than they know.  But my West Texas, my small town is so quiet, so clarifying, so spiritual, I am anxious to return.

Holy Spirit moment #1: Returning to San Antonio, indulging in parts of my past life there, and not -feeling - complete. 

Holy Spirit moment #2: Talking to my dad about his retirement.  His fear for the future and having a small income and then his realization that life isn't about money.  It's about family time and personal growth.  As I explained my small town offers both of the above, he encourages me to continue on my journey.

Holy Spirit moment #3:  Coming back to my small town, and falling right back into church, church community, and my prayerful time with my fiance and God.

Holy Spirit moment #4:  Listening to a recently retired University president who reiterated all of the above:
He shared:
--"I spent my life reacting to the reaction and not searching or even acknowledging the quiet whispers"  Why does it have to be a bang?  Why do we only feed the squeaky wheel?  There are people in our own lives who need just as much help and support, they just aren't asking for it
 --"My life is full of blessings.  I need to recognize the blessings in the good and in the bad.  I need to be grateful."  AMEN! 
 --"There is so much personal growth that is dismissed because it doesn't fit with the status quo.  Don't follow the crowd. Follow your heart!  If you follow your heart it will lead you to a life of love.  Love of your family, Love of your neighbor, Love of your job, Love of your Life"  Not all loves bring material goods.  (Not all jobs pay well).  But all loves bring personal and spiritual growth.  We are not put here on this earth to live forever on this earth.  EVERYONE DIES.  And the sooner we come to terms with that the less we will take for granted and the more we share.  Sharing our time with family and friends, sharing our gifts of leadership or compassion, sharing our goods through gifts and donations. 

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I strongly feel God is telling me (through these Holy Spirit Moments) that I need to be comfortable with the minimal.  I need to be aware of my blessings and be grateful for them.  I need to be an example of Christian stewardship by giving my time, talent and treasure to the church.  It's not easy, but the reward will be priceless. 



In conclusion, I have always wanted to be a benefactor.  I've always wanted to give my money away.  But in order to do that, I needed to make money.  But the more money I made, the less I would give away.  Funny how the Devil works.  Today I make less than I did waiting tables at age 16, but I have worked to give over $1 million dollars in grants to our Lubbock Diocese.  That is what wakes me up everyday, not MY paycheck, but the gifts I can give to God's people through my talents. 

Are you having Holy Spirit Moments?  Say a pray right now that you have the courage to listen to God speak to you.



What are you reading?

What are YOU reading??

I just finished a book I had always been interested in.  The title is "Heaven is for Real" by Todd Burpo and his son Colton.

 

If you are interested in what's going on in Heaven or if Heaven even exists, I suggest reading this book.  If you don't believe in Heaven and think this is a scam, I suggest you read this book.

 

It is incredibly easy to read.  I read it to my fiance while we were driving to Dallas.  It was a 6 hour drive, I was reading aloud and we were able to finish the book!  We did get to Dallas and sit in the car for a couple of chapters because we just couldn't put it down.

 

So this little boy has to have emergency surgery and he has what on earth was a brief experience, but in Heaven it was a lengthy experience.  An experience full of meeting passed on relatives, including a sister his mother had miscarried, that he never knew about and his grandfather.  He had never met his grandfather and when his dad showed him a picture of his dad at an older age Colton didn't recognize his grandpa.  But when shown a picture of his grandpa in his 30's Colton immediately recognized him.

 

My favorite story is this book isn't even about the main character.  It is about the face of Jesus and the little atheist girl who drew His face at the age of 4.  Her painting of Jesus Christ is now the backdrop of my phone, so I can see His face everyday! 

 

I'm sure you can find this book at your local library but I highly encourage you to buy it and pass it on.  I've already passed my copy on.  This book is written by a Christian pastor, not a Catholic family, but Catholics are Christian!  And he does mention the Virgin Mary at the end of the book in the comments, for the assurance of Catholics. 

 

Enjoy and God Bless!

 

 

 



Unplugged

photo credit: edikenkoy via photopin cc

That title is misleading....you may think my blog posts haven't been delayed because I 'unplugged' myself from the internet.  Actually, it was the exact opposite.  I only have the internet on my phone (instead of at the house) so I've been plugged into my phone for months.  Looking at pinterest on my phone...do you have the pinterest app?  It's amazing!!  I'm playing Words with Friends with my fiance and checking Instagram every 30 minutes.  I've also been watching YouTube on my phone for the first time...election parodies and Catholic videos. 

However, my 4G's of data are running out quick!  I have 2 weeks left and I've already used 3.2Gs.  Oops....So this weekend and more so yesterday I turned off the data on my phone.  I could only receive text messages and phone calls.  I couldn't check pinterest, instagram, facebook or even play words with friends.  And guess what?  I got so much accomplished!!  I rearranged my desk, I cleared off the kitchen table, and cleaned the living room.  I did the dishes and even had time to listen to a Dani Johnson call.  As Dani says, focusing on what's in front of you  can lead to success.  Avoid the focus on what's behind you, what's distracting you and what's causing your problems (laziness, excuses, bad attitude).  Instead commit and focus on your one or 3 goals and make them happen. I've definitely been allowing a LOT of outside influence in my life lately.  But I'm confident with my spiritual life better than it's ever been (and improving daily) I can focus on some back burner goals I've had and really bring them to fruition!

I hope you can too!  You can hear what I heard from Dani here: http://www.danijohnson.com/2012/part-1-refresh-refocus-redirect/  FREE TODAY (Tuesday 10/30) ONLY. 

Memory Lane

The other day my JM and I went down memory lane.  We took out his family photo albums and revisited his childhood. 

It was tons of fun and hilarious that him and his brother (a.k.a. best man) look so similar I couldn't tell them apart as kids!

Hello Sumo baby!! That is a BIG BOY

This innocent face fools no one... Look at that hair!  It is totally the 70's.
Groovy man!  I do love his eyebrows...I hope our kids get his and not mine

I LOVE this photo...in a tux with crazy beautiful hair.
I think this photo may have been taken the year I was born.  Crazy!
Now he has no excuse not to wear a tux at the wedding!

This probably looks like him more than the other pictures

Then there were those awkward teenage years.  I won't share those with you out of respect for my future-husband....

I hope to share some of my baby pictures with you soon!

-Rachel

Engagement Party

Such an awesome weekend!  Leadership day at work followed by a quick flight to Dallas for our engagement party!!

I'm so busy we'll start with a photo post and then follow up with actual stories later...

Got my new ring!!!

Pinterest worthy decorations!!!

VERY 'spirited' toasts!!

The host of the party - an AMAZING woman we are SO BLESSED to know

On her chalkboard pantry door... nod to our wedding website

Our "Tip Jar" - we had a blast reading these tips the next day.

Engagement Story

I can finally share with you our engagement story.  I wrote it the day after the enagement, but we lost the camera with the engagement photos.  And we all know no blog is complete without photos....so we found the camera, got the photos on the computer and I am sharing them with you now!

The Story:
    For Lent the Man and I have been praying the rosary once a day.  It's AMAZING.  It's better than yoga!  I sleep so well and I have NO worries...so with each decade of the rosary you offer a special intention (a decade is 10 Hail Marys - the 10 beads you see together on a rosary).  The Man and I often pray for those close to us, family, friends, marriages, single people, babies, pregnancies, work, weather, health, etc.  Everything you worry about during the day you can offer as a special intention.  We can kinda tell how our day went based off our special intentions.  So one day the Man prays for marriages and people getting married and engaged.  I'm sure he was praying from the heart and didn't realize his over thinking girlfriend was reading into his prayer.  Gosh, I'm awful!  But we keep praying, finish our rosary and talk about what our plans are for the weekend since he's coming to town.
    He wants to have a date night so we can get dressed up and eat sushi.  I tell him we have an engagement party to go to and my sister's birthday is that Friday so we might be celebrating that with her.  Not too sure if date night will work - more like Sunday date afternoon?  I'm usually the one making plans and he's always along for the ride and I love that.  But he's insisting we go out on a real date.  We're always doing a family thing or a friend thing and if we every spend time alone it's eating pizza in our sweats with a movie.  I agreed-we were due for a date night.
    He comes in LATE Thursday night.  So we wake up Friday, go out to breakfast (I have the morning off) and then I go into work at noon.  I'm gabbing to my receptionist that I think he's going to propose because he was dropping all these hints.  Turns out I left my phone at home so I need to have him bring it to me.  I call and catch him off guard.  I ask him what he's doing and he says he's at the store.  So I'm thinking...Oh really? The diamond store?  The florist?  Are you buying rose petals to lay all over the floor?  Are you buying champagne and doves and a harp player and, and, and!!!  Yes, I'm that girl.
    So 'that girl' comes home from work to an apartment that looks just like it did when I left.  I am so disappointed.  I'm thinking ok, maybe I read into this date night thing too much.  I always hear girls saying that before their husband proposed they were acting really weird and really nervous and the Man was just being his normal self.  So I start getting ready for our date night. 

He was taking pictures of me getting ready.  He's never done that before.
This was kinda weird so maybe I should have caught on

I am starting to hate getting dressed up just because our relationship is so relaxed it's almost awkward to be all fancy in front of him, it's just not us.  But I get dressed up and when he sees me his eyes light up and the look on his face is priceless, so I guess dressing up is totally worth it. 
     For Valentines Day we stood in front of my fireplace, put the timer on the camera and took pictures together.  It was a cute idea and I'm so happy we did it for our first Valentines Day.  We weren't dressed up on Valentines Day, so he wanted to take pictures this time since we were dressed up. 

     So after the pictures the man is like "Oh, I have a present for you" so of course I'm thinking Yay!  Engagement!!  Then he hands me a Victoria Secret bag and my excitement goes from a 10 to a -3.  Seriously Victoria Secret?  boo. This is a present for him, not me!  So I open the bag and it's a pair of jeans I had left in New Mexico with his brother over THANKSGIVING, that I finally got back!  I freakin love these jeans so I'm super happy and now ready for dinner.  If it's not going to happen it's not going to happen, but yay for him remembering I really wanted these jeans back asap. 

   Then he says "No, I got you a real present" and he hands me this crystal swan with a red rose and a red ribbon.  It's incredibly romantic (just like him) and it's very nice. 

 So I say "aww, this is sweet thank you babe" and then I look closer and I see IT.  There IT IS.  Everything goes quiet and I loose all peripheral vision.  I'm focused on one thing and one thing only.  My beautiful and perfect oval diamond ring!!!  When I look up he's on his knee asking for my hand in marriage.  I'm so happy!!!!  I tell him to take that ring off the ribbon and put it on my finger!  I didn't cry, probably because I was so caught off guard (and hungry) but it was the perfect engagement.  He totally knows my personality and knew that I was expecting something so tricking me was very clever of him. 

See how hidden it is??

It's really hard to take a picture of a diamond.  flash vs. no flash

   We're both beaming from ear to ear and I'm looking for my phone so I can text and call everyone.  I want to tell my parents in person so I tell them the next day, but my friends were super happy, much happier than I thought they would be.  I was expecting "about time!" or "duh! we totally knew" but I got calls, texts, tears, screaming, and one even got drunk off excitement? (or loneliness) and called me 10 times since I couldn't answer at dinner.

He's trying to get an 'after' shot, but I'm on the phone!! 

Thanks for reading this story!!  I hope you enjoyed it!  I sure did!!

Now back to wedding planning!!

Laughter is the best

This guy is hilarious.  Last night we had a huge giggle fest.  Let's just say I was taking myself WAY to seriously and he was being a gentleman by keeping his mouth shut.  Then, he bursts out laughing explaining to me that how silly I looked being so serious.  Instead of getting upset I burst out laughing too! Thinking, why be serious when you can be fun!

This story may be a "had to be there moment" but I'll share with you:

I HATE bugs.  This weekend we were at a party that used old potato bags as the table cloths.  Well there were flies ALL OVER the tables because they still smelled like dirt or potatoes, I have no clue.  It was so gross for someone who hates bugs like me.  Well last night there was a fly in the house.  I was trying to ignore it, but I couldn't take it anymore.  So while JM is sitting at the dining room table I yell "FLY! DON'T MOVE!" I grab a hand towel and slowly creep over to the fly.  I start slowly moving my arms, winding up for the big hit.  JM says I was licking my lips looking like a crazy lady.  I ended up killing the fly and being so proud of myself.  Then I look at him and he's cracking up!  He starting mimicking what I was doing and he looked hilarious!  I had to laugh.  I wish I could find a youtube video as an example.  Just visualize one of those old black and white movies with the batter winding up and taking himself way too seriously and when the ball comes he misses and everyone laughs.  That's what happened.  I looked ridiculous and he couldn't help but laugh....and I couldn't help but join in!

He saw the funny in the moment and I'm laughing just remembering that moment!

I'm so blessed to have this goof ball by my side for the rest of our lives. 

What have you laughed about recently?

Living life to the fullest and laughing along the way!

-Rachel

Engagement Photos

We got the photos!  Some of these I stole from our proof on Sara's website because I am too impatient to wait for the DVD of the high res photos. 

If you want to read details about the photo shoot see my previous post.  If you want to see the photos, scroll down and enjoy!!

Love this one.  We'll have to revisit with our kiddos and take this a a yearly family photo!

All copyright Sara Miller with Photographs by Sara.  Isn't she amazing?!  Love love love!

Can't wait for the wedding!