Shabbat Shalom

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   My sister, Trisha, tells me that if I want a good blog that I should post more often. This is me posting more often. I usually think I don’t have anything to say, but once I start typing, the words start coming, which doesn’t make sense, since I am usually not one to say much. I guess people should just read my blog. 

   Ok, one important tid-bit about my life right now, I am now a mac owner. It is a beautiful thing. I never thought I could love a machine so much. I was wrong. After many sleepless nights, tossing and turning over what to name this five pound piece of heaven, I finally came to a conclusion one night while watching my favorite show, Saturday Night Live. Its name is Maverick. Mainly because I bought this jaw-dropping device during the spur of the 2008 Presidential Election. Even though I will unfortunately not be able to vote, I am a fervent supporter of  John McCain and Sarah Palin. I am also a big fan of Tina Fey. So that is why  I named it Maverick. If you don’t understand, try paying attention to the election or at least Saturday Night Live. 

   I am trying to get my photography up and going. So if you know of anyone needing senior pictures, a family shoot, baby pictures, pregnancy pictures… whatever, let me know. Go to my flickr at www.flickr.com/photos/mollyab. I am about to get a good photo editing program so we will see how it goes. I am mainly just working on getting more experience and more work for my portfolio. 

   Last weekend Me, Trish and Mark (and Trey) of course headed to savannah. On this visit we went to look at houses and go to Canvas core group (http://www.savannahcanvas.com.) Markus spoke on journey, and the importance of journey groups. He referenced Acts 2:42, which emphasizes the importance of fellowship, eating together and praying together. That is one thing that i will miss once i move to savannah, is my journey/small group. My best friends are my small group. I have some of the greatest friends. Though Jesus is my everything and I am soley dependent on him (at least i try to be most of the time…), I still thrive for those relationships. Its funny when I think about how the group has changed in the past four years. I first started going with Emma and it was just six of us at the time. Then I told my best friend Kayla she should come… and after about three or four months she did. But it has grown and at the same time gotten smaller but it is just nice to have some girls to talk to and keep each other accountable. My youth group is amazing too. Sunday night,  Mark brought attention to the fact that we should eat together and I love to eat.. so I really agree with this. Every sunday night after Reckless we always go out to eat and though I shouldn’t always do it because of my shrinking bank account and my growing waistline, I cannot tell you how many relationships have been accumulated or strengthened in this time. Its just fun and I think too many times we focus on just going to church and thats it. But as christians we just need time to hangout and socialize. I tend to undermine journey groups too much sometimes and recently I have been missing my journey group and I have been busy but there shouldn’t be an excuse. I have noticed in the last month or so that I have been absent from journey group, God has been a little absent in my life too. I just wanted to continue and be grateful for the amazing group of friends that God has given me and to step up and not only do what God has told us to do but just enjoy the time I have with other Christians.

   Ironically, I have to admit that I missed journey group this week. I have been sick and in need of some family time. Some times it is just also good to rest. Last night Kayla and I, along with some other folks from Genesis, went to Beth Hallel (http://www.bethhallel.org/) for Erev Shabbat. And Rabbi Kevin spoke on “rest.” Though, I am not converting to Judaism anytime soon, I still felt that his message applied to me. Being sick will make you stop. I am not one to sleep in, but on both Thursday and Friday, I slept until 10 and it felt amazing. I felt 95% cured from my cold just because I had gotten about eleven hours of sleep. Its such a simple solution too. Anyways, this synagogue was really cool. It is a messianic jewish synagogue, which means that they believe in Christ and that he is the Messiah. Almost half of the service was in Hebrew, which sounded very foreign but amazing. Of course, most was translated but it was just neat to see the my roots as a Christian and to participate in a service like that of which Christ would have been in, chanting the same verses and excerpts of the Torah. As much as I adore my church, I think a lot of churches have lost that reverance that I saw last night at Beth Hallel. I believe we sometimes become to comfortable and casual in God’s house. I’m not trying to condemn modern or contemporary churches, but I am just saying it was nice to step back and remember that God is present and ready to be praised and glorified in these holy places. For instance, they had a tradition, the opening of the Ark ( I believe that is what it was called.) Two ushers come and open the doors of this wardrobe-looking-thing, and it has two velvet curtains that drape the three Torahs that they have, two of which were Holocaust survivors (a bit of cool trivia for you.) Each covered with symbolic items such as the breastplate with the 12 tribes symbols, and the crowns and shawls with bells and pomegranates. Today I have just been researching Judaism and different religions. I am really interested in learning about other religions now. I am just rambling now. It was just an awesome experience to worship with fellow believers in a way that maybe we are not as used to as Christians, but I would suggest you (whoever is reading this) go and just remember we are ONE body meant to serve ONE God (or G-D as the Jews would write it. Ok, I’m sorry I will stop with the Jewish culture trivia right now.)

And you can also go listen to Mark’s message on iTunes. Just type in Canvas Church in the iTunes search bar and look under podcasts!

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