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ForGod4Country
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Name: Sarah
Birthday: 4/14/1984
Gender: Female
Interests: I am here for two reasons...for my God and for my country but enjoying life while I'm at it :)... Piano, (just about anything musical, that's truly music ;) classical music, Josh Groban and Jim Brickman CDs, singing, doing concerts with my family, law, politics, debating, hangin' out with friends, goin' to the movies, talk radio, discussions of substance, (though I like to talk about nothing, too:), philosophy, theology, IMing, concerts, cooking, sewing, writing, chess, volleyball, iceskating, walking, hiking, shopping, bookstores, Mexican/Itallian food, chocolate (anything), decaf coffee, I enjoy MOST people, annoying my brother (but if you know him, you know why! j/k :P) I guess that is about it, enough to fill a life. :D Oh! Did I forget, studying? ;)
Expertise: Piano/Voice
Occupation: Teacher
Industry: Musical
Message: message me
AIM:  forgod4country
Yahoo:  forgod4country
Member Since:
5/18/2006
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| More lessons to learn...Howdy y'all!!! Yes sah, I'm down south and lovin' it!  I'm finally getting in touch with my southern accent too...it's been a long time since we've communicated.  I feel like I have been on vacation...totally just hangin' out with the bestest people in the world...shopping when I want, eating when I want...lounging when I want...and yeah, you get the picture...it's AHHHHH. But not all of it has been beautiful and exciting. Despite all the amazing circumstances, I've definitely had challenges within myself. Some days I feel like I'm fighting deceit and feelings not based on truth left and right. From coveting to comparing to fearing to feeling sorry for myself. YET, in ALL these negative emotions that pop up every now and then, GOD HAS TRUTH THAT FREES!!! - Coveting is only a result of discontentment and mainly a false perspective of a loving God.
- Comparing is not trusting God to make me just the way I am for His loving, joy-fulfilling purposes.
- Fearing is often for me, worrying about the future and again not trusting the heart of love my Lord has for me.
- Feeling sorry for myself is usually the result of a wrong perspective of the circumstances God has allowed me to be in.
I confess, it has been hard watching Stephen and Ashley but it has been soooo good as I feel I am undergoing yet another test of my faith in the Lord and His provision. Not only that, but God has shown me how I can minister to them if I'm only willing to quit focusing on myself. They are the most amazing people in the world!!! God is my joy and nothing and no one can take that place!!! And THAT is freeing.  Thank you for the comments you guys! I'm looking forward to getting home and digging in the dirt. ~Sarah | | |
| Counting my blessings...but not on one hand! :-DHo folks!
We are headed down south yet again. My Grandma's funeral will be
this Thursday...*sigh* I'm not looking forward to it, though I am
looking forward to seeing my cousins again. Please pray that God
will help our family to be sensitive to opportunities to "plant seeds"
and/or share the Gospel with them! After that, we plan to spend
about a week in NC with dear Ashley and her family, at which time we
are HOPING to find a bridesmaid's dress for me...that could be a laugh,
considering I'm small to begin with and am looking for something Ashley
will like and is modest...but God thrives on the impossible and I'm
looking forward to seeing what He will do with this. Anyway,
I just thought I'd do a bullet post on God's blessings. I cannot
begin to tell you all He has been doing for me and mine!!! As
Ashley pointed out I'm watching Him fulfill His promise that as we
delight in Him, He will fulfill the desires of our hearts! So
here goes...
- He confirmed my desire to quit babysitting and has given me grace
in the eyes of my neighbor, whose children I babysit...she didn't even
need me this summer! Or at least part of it.
- He's confirmed my desire to focus more on teaching piano this
summer for income by adding four new students and working out the
schedule for them to come for lessons!
- He's confirmed my desire to have more time for gardening and
teaching piano this summer (which is JUST what I've wanted to do!) and
is providing us a FREE tiller through some dear friends, who are also
willing to put us up for a night or two in MD!!!
- He's confirmed my way, as I was struggling to decide what to do
on this trip, whether to stay in NC longer and fly back or not...and I
have peace about my decision, thanks to my parent's counsel.
- He confirmed my way and made it clear to me that yes, I am going
to continue taking piano lessons, they really are helping me especially
in the area of technique and strengthening my fingers.
- Unexpectedly, He laid it on two dear friend's hearts for us to use their car for the trip to save on gas!
- Unexpectedly some friends gave financially out of the abundance the Lord has given them for our trip.
- Our present church family gave encouragement and sympathy to us Sunday.
- He laid it on some other dear friends to take care of Nikki, our dog for us, while we're gone.
- We were able to find Bil-Jack dog food which until today we have
not been able to find anywhere!!! This may sound silly, but our
dog grew up on this food and just about any other food her stomach is
not accustomed to and so leaving her with someone in that condition was
not a favorable idea.
- He worked in some other friends to help me rake our front yard and garden area Saturday morning before the rain came!
- He gave me grace in Mom's eyes to let me get tested for my
driver's lisence as soon as we get back home from our trip! Guess
what is going to provide reading material on the trip?
 This
has got to be one of the BIGGEST blessings yet!
- Haha, yeah here's a small one, but one nonetheless...He's helped
me discover a new hairstyle that tames and softens my wild curly hair
and is healthier for it...that also was a desire of my heart...you
girls understand I'm sure.
I have been amazed watching God confirm my desires left and
right. There is not much else left on the list! lol Truly,
truly, He is a God that desires to bless us and is worthy of our
whole-hearted trust. I need to write these things down in my
journal so I can always remember Who He is by what He's done. I'm
sorry, but I'm going to write this verse again as it sums up all that
God is teaching me through all of this...
"I
call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set
before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose
life that both thou and thy seed may live. That thou mayest love
the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey His voice, and that thou
mayest cleave unto Him, for He is thy life, and the length of thy
days." Deut. 30:19, 20
To love, obey and cleave to God starts with making a choice...for great thoughts on this go to http://www.xanga.com/jehu_the_barbarian
May He shower His blessings upon y'all the rest of this week and weekend!
~Sarah
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| Update, Quote and VerseGreetings once again! The good news is that life these days is filled with yardwork, such as I love...raking and now I'm preparing our gardens around out house. Last night I even DREAMED of flowers to put into my partly shady areas. I'm hoping to fill them with flowers and herbs. I still have our vegetable garden to rake and clean up, our island area to rake up...still so much to do! The weather has been awesome for all this!!! Tonight dad is planning to bring me some mulch...so take THAT you little weeds! *Mwa-ha-ha!* Besides that, it looks like I might be getting three more piano students and my cleaning job back. We finished the topic we've been studying for our girl's group, so I'm prayerfully considering another topic, I think it's going to be study on Lordship. I'm looking forward to digging in the Word with my younger friends. I've been considering quitting piano lessons due to the expense and time committment - but I haven't decided yet. It's a hard decision. I feel like I'm in another world when I have my lessons doing what I absolutely love to do...don't know if I really should quit. Praying about that too. Somewhere along the way, I want to take a trip down to NC to spend a week or two with dear Ashley and go to a wedding of a dear friend. I don't know how it will all work out. Lastly, I'm working on a new song...still very much in the beginning stages...I almost feel like i have to learn more lessons to complete it. But maybe it'll appear on xanga one of these days when I've learned it all...haha...might be for quite a while then. Bad news is Mom got a call today saying her mom is in the hospital and is dying.  Grandma spent so much time with my brother and me when we were little and for quite a while there before she and Grandad got sick, we would visit them nearly every Sunday afternoon. My grandfather died not too long ago, if you remember and Grandma went down pretty fast after that. It's sad...mom has had a lot of time to witness to Grandma and she's heard the Gospel all her life - loved listening to Billy Graham, so I think she's a Christian. We are praying for her and however and whenever the Lord would have us take a trip down there. So much going on! On top of that, dad's boss keeps asking how his search for work goes...he thinks dad should consider UPS. Benefits, working for unions? I don't think so!!! I think he'll keep looking. Oh! And we have our first concert of the three of us this Saturday! So if you think of us you can pray for that...we've been practicing A LOT, so I feel pretty good about it. We'll all be sharing our salvation experiences, so I'm hoping and praying it will be an uplifting experience. This wouldn't be complete without a quote and Scripture passage: "Faith looks back and draws courage; hope looks ahead and keeps desire alive. And meantime? In the meantime we need one more item for our journey. To appreciate what it may be, we have to step back and ask, what is all this for? The resurrection of our heart, the discovery of our role in the Larger Story, entering into the Sacred Romance - why do we pursue these things? If we say that we seek all of this for our own sake, we're right back where we started: lost in our own story. Jesus says that when a person lives merely to preserve his life, he loses it altogether. Rather, he said, give you life away and discover life as it was always meant to be. Self-preservation, the them of every small story, is so deeply wrong because it violates the Trinity, whose members live to bring glory to the OTHERS. The road we travel will take us into the battle to restore beauty in all things, chief among them the hearts of those we know. We grow in glory that we might assist others in doing so; we give our glory to increase theirs. In order to fulfill the purpose of our journey, we will need a passion to increase glory; we will need LOVE. It would be a dreadful mistake to assume that our Beloved is only waiting for us at the end of the road. Our communion with him sustains us along our path." ~John Eldredge in "The Sacred Romance, p. 158 "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore, choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live. That thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him; for he is thy life, and the length of thy days..." Deut. 30:19, 20 | | |
| Plumb Wore Out!!!Howdy folks!
Yes, when one starts debating whether to take a nap, decides it's still
too early in the evening to take one, decides to clean up messy room
instead, but remembers how her body feels like lead and requires
conscious effort to move it - one is plumb wore out. So like,
the only thing I feel like doing is blogging...everything else requires
my room to be cleaned. (For those of you wondering, I hate
doing anything in a messy room. lol)
Yesterday we had a total blast with some friends and friends of friends
playing a good ole' game of softball (to which the bruise on my arm
caused me to question how in the world it got its name!). To
this day I don't think I shall ever get all the rules and dos and
don'ts and if this-then-that-happens stuff. But it was fun
nonetheless, even if the ball made me slightly paranoid hurling it's
way toward me. Our team was SO close to winning too, oh well, it
was worth it. And so were the aches and pains when I woke up this
morning, even though the pews at church only made them more
pronounced. I'm looking forward to giving them some
rest. Oh! And I milked a goat for the first time! My
heart is totally changing toward homesteading and country living.
There is nothing like the feeling of hard work, enjoying the fruit of
one's labors and sharing the joy with others. And country
people are so down to earth! (pun not intended, lol)
Ok, enough blabbering. Ever felt like God just won't let go of
you? Ever been grateful for that at times and others, wish He
would let go for just a few seconds so you can breath? It's been
that kind of week. Oh my Lord has poured out His wisdom upon me
and I feel slightly like his disciples, like I still just don't get it,
but I believe God will continue to help me. In the last two weeks
He's impressed upon me how He is my Life, my Father and this afternoon,
my Lover. I felt as I read John 14 that He was proposing just to
me. He doesn't want me to just cling to Him for dear life, or
even just be grateful He's a good Father to give me good things.
He's after my heart, my love and my affections. What young man
cared about a girl loving him just because he gave good things?
Would he not rather want her to return his deepest love? The
Almighty God of the Universe is being vulnerable to me. Not in
the same we are to people, no He doesn't NEED me, but He wants
me. We are studying preparation for marriage in a Bible study
right now, and I am looking forward to finding parrellels between what
we find and my relationship with the Lord. One cannot fill my
mind enough with Him for me to be faithful to Him. Thankfully,
He's never asked me to be faithful, only to trust in His
faithfulness.
Well, I guess that's about it for now. I think I'm going to watch
more Christy DVDs with my fam. Have a great week
everyone! Thanks for all the comments!
Ever learning,
~Sarah
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| More Ground-breaking News!!!I posted.
Honestly, I have tried to think, ok, what has changed since the last
post I wrote and what did I get for troubling my brain about it?
Not much!!! Well, mom and I have begun to spend an hour in prayer
together daily, my quiet times are usually about the same amount of
time, we are regularly practicing and piano practicing sometimes takes
that time, not to mention talking with Stephen in MT and adding various
and sundry things to my list, besides keeping up with phone
friends. I suppose there is enough said. BUT, wonder of
wonders, I'm here and glad to have this time, sipping tea and writing
to you, my dear xanga friends.
So how have y'all been? How went your Easter? As you can
see, I've been very busy. Babysitting is one thing that has
slowed down to a stop at least for about this month, which is fine with
me. I enjoy it, but these kids aren't mine and I think I will be
happier working with my own kids, if and when the Lord wills.
Besides that, I'm planning on doing music for a women's retreat.
Just playing my guitar and leading the singing. God has since
provided two more students so I've been having fun with them.
Hmm...what else...we had some old friends visit us from MD last weekend
and had a blast with them, but somehow after friends leave I am
reminded of the word, "exhausted". But it was awesome, me and
their daughter stayed up early and solved all of the worlds problems,
so you shouldn't have anymore to worry about. lol But it was
great. And then a homeschool father visited us from North Dakota
so we had him two night's afterwards. So it's been great to have
life calmed down a little. Ok, enough about me, we'll be coming
back to me in a minute. I should give y'all an update on everyone
else dear to us.
- Stephen is doing awesomely out there in MT, but misses his
fiancee and family terribly - if you think of him, please pray for him
about that. Waiting till October for a wedding that he wishes
could take place tomorrow isn't easy. I've never seen someone SO
in love. He loves life out there. He spoke to mom on the
phone the other day while delivering a calf. It was
cool!!! It won't be long before he will be coming up to the
"branding" season. He would love to eventually have his own ranch
and still talks to us about coming back together one day as PFQ -
Plourd Family Quintet. He is still the sweetest, bestest
brother and son and calls us almost every evening. We miss him
though...*sigh*
- Mom's mother had us all scared there for a bit, but thankfully is
healing from infection. She has an advanced case of Alzheimers
but mom and I have still been able to hold somewhat of a conversation
with her...she told both of us she loves us last week.
- Dad is still looking for work. The company he is working
for presently is REALLY coming on hard times. We continue to pray
for God's will to be done...we are concerned about dad's boss's
financial decisions. Dad also has the challenging role of leading
PFT - yep...that's what happened to our quartet after Stephen left
it..."pffed" right away. BUT, we are excited as God is giving
us new ideas and we have a concert at a church in May! We turned
Stephen's room into a music room, set up our sound system in there and
God is helping us to sing in three-part harmony, something we never
expected we could do without Stephen!
- Auntie Anne is doing really well. She's getting around
awesomely and has a very positive attitude. She's reading her
Bible and we see her about every other week. She is still at the
assisted living home near where I take my lessons.
I'm sure I'm forgetting things, but I can always share them later,
besides, I hope to be posting again sometime before next Christmas.
I just wanted to share with y'all some principles the Lord
has been teaching me amidst my "growing pains". Let's see if
I can remember some of them! And some of them are quite obvious,
but hey, it's different when you're experiencing them.
- Selfishness cripples me and others from accomplishing God's work in our lives.
- When I focus on myself, whether that's because I am hurting for a
just cause or not, living in fear (when I give way to fear, I still end
up focusing on myself) or just focusing on what I desire, the same
result occurs.
- It is not worth fearing anything I have no control over, especially as it regards tthe future.
- God holds me responsible for accomplishing my responsibility now,
not for knowing His plans later (though He may or may not choose to
give me a glimpse of his future work).
- Too much focus on something I have no control over also cripples
me from being the most I can be for God and others - again, that's
focusing on self.
- Over-attention on the future or future desires (no matter how
good or sincere they are) can often be the result of discontentment.
- Indulging myself in a defeated attitude robs me from experiencing God's powerful grace.
- Truth really is freeing!!!
- Though God has removed some dear people from prominent places in
my life, I can still invest in and enjoy the ones I still have, rather
than focus on what I don't have.
- I am SLOWLY learning to enjoy the moment!
- LIFE IS SO PRECIOUS!!! It is here, and then gone - I'm
learning to value life and relationships even more, especially as it
regards the elderly in my life, they have so much I can learn from!
- Parents are crucial counselors and supports...I never should
underestimate them! And listening to them promises a fuller and
longer life.
Wow, I know some of those were redundant and I am definitely still
learning this stuff. But as I have stated before, I went through
a really rough time there (and still deal with bouts every now and
then) but God is taking me through a growth spurt I think.
Almost 24, I feel in God's grace, more ready than ever to
pursue His will for my life - though that is something I have yet, to
some extent, to determine. Something that has changed over
the year is a greater desire to homestead and a love for the country
life, filled with hard work, honest living and the wonderful feeling of
enjoying the fruit of one's labors. I'm looking forward to Lord
willing gardening this summer! Stephen always said I was a
country girl at heart.
Well, this is way long enough. Thanks for any of you that take
the time to read it. I'm looking forward to responding to y'all
soon! May God abundantly bless you with His measureless wisdom
and life!!!
Leaning on Him,
~Sarah
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