Lord God, put your words in my mouth and cover me with the shadow of your hand-You who set the heavens in place, who laid the foundation of the earth, and who say to Your children, "you are my people." Isa. 51:16

I liked this one because of the "put your words in my mouth" part. Lately I feel as if many of my friends are going through challenging times and I never know what to say. I want God to put His words in my mouth!

I feel within myself a deep-rooted resistance to proving anything to anybody. I don't want to say:"I will show you that you need God to live a full life." I can only say:"For me, God is the one who calls me the beloved, and I have a desire to express to others how I try to become more fully who I already am." But beyond that I feel very poor and powerless. - Nowen

Keeping up with my Small group prayer thing...

Ok so before I go watch Desperate House wife's and Greys Anatomy...here is a word from the Lord...or... to the Lord anyways

O'God please set my heart at rest in your presence when my heart wants to condem me. For you God, are greater then my heart, and you know everything. (Prayer derived from1 John 3:19-20)

I like that one because it combines 2 of my favorite truths: There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus and we can't even trust our own hearts!

"every time you listen with great attentiveness to the voice that calls you the beloved, you will discover within yourself a desire to hear that voice longer and more deeply. It is like discovering a well in the desert. Once you have touched wet ground, you want to dig deeper." Nowen

Small Group

In our small group we are studying a book called Praying God's word. There are weekly topics that we pray for God to give us strength in. (that's the easy way of explaining it) We are all so busy that sometimes we have a hard time doing our daily prayers so we have decided to try and post them on our Blogs when we can to help encourage accountability with eachother and more importantly with ourselves. Sooo....if you see random Bible Verse/prayer things on my Blog then you will know what is going on!

This week we are praying about over coming the insecurity of feeling unloved. I think that is a great one because I know that is one of the biggest lies the devil wants us to believe because it makes us weak. When we feel fully loved and confident in our identity in Christ we are MUCH less likely to struggle with pride and be obedient because we don't care what others think. WE also will have the joy and hope that God intended us to have. The Bible tells us we are to live for God's approval alone and not mans. There is freedom in God's unconditional love. Henri Nowen speaks about this beautifully in his book Life of the Beloved. ( I highly recommend it!)

"...though the experience of being the Beloved has never been completley absent from my life, I have never claimed it as my core truth...I kept refusing to hear the voice that speaks from the very depth of my being and says: You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests. That voice has always been there, but it seems that I was much more eager to listen to the other, louder voices, saying: Prove that you are worth something; do something relevant, spectacular or powerful, and then you will earn the love you so desire. Meanwhile, the soft, gentle voice that speaks in the silence and solitude of my heart remained unheard or, at least, unconvincing."

So anyhow here is my verse/prayer for today:

Lord God, help me not only to fully accept how much you love me, but help me to abide in your love. (John 15:9)

Please pray...

For those of you who may be visiting my Blog and somehow haven't heard... our super friends Crystal and Scott are having a very challenging week. Their daughter Emily, 9, has been diagnosed with Papillary Thyroid Cancer. This apparently is a "good" cancer to have. However, it is unimaginably terrifying to hear your baby has cancer. Please keep them all in your prayers. Emily will have to have her thyroid out in the next couple weeks. She is one of the bravest girls I know. They are in the process of finding a endocronoligist (I have NO idea how to spell that!) and getting ready for the surgery. Pray for peace and courage for the whole family and that they would find a good doctor. And obviously pray that Emily will get well! Also pray for Emily's brother Frank,8. I'm sure this is a strange time for him. Kim may be annoyed with me posting this...but...she told me that when we were little and I had my eye surgery she remembers wishing she too could have surgery because it was hard for her to see me getting all this special attention. When your that young it's hard to understand these things! So please remember the whole Kunze family in your prayers. They are like family to Mark, Kim, Malachy and I and we love them all so much (even little Madison who may someday marry my little Malachy) !! You can visit Crystal or Scotts blog for more details or to give them some much appreciated encouragement!

I have been meaning to post this for awhile...

This was the house warming present that Noah and Lauren got us way back in october at a truck stop on their way into town....

This is how Malachy felt about it...

I'm feeling alittle better...Kim just told me I need a shower....hmmmmm...I guess I better go get on that!

I'm so sad right now I may actually vomit

Things I learned in NY....

when going to NY in Feb. bring wool sock and boots! Military men wear their hats extremely tight. Turkeys and porcupines can climb trees. In case of nerve gas exposure you can pee on your socks and cover your nose and mouth with it....

Our new Hats!

Malachy and I got cool Army hats with our names on the back just like Uncle Noah! Malchy LOVES his!! I keep putting it on his head and he gets all excited and touches it! It's sooo cute!

More fun NY pictures....

Noah "helped" me with my pancakes at the Golden Unicorn. We snuggled with the puppies! Played some games, tried on Army gear and had a great time!

Good times at Ft. Drum

We had a great time in NY with Noah and Lauren!! We did many fun things...we went to the Golden Unicorn where we experienced some hometown flavor!! They have a huge pancake meal where if you finish it you get a t-shirt!! I tried-ish but there was no way. Noah has done it in the past!

Lauren made us tons of yummy food! My favorite was the lasagna and the bannana bread!! Lauren is an awsome cook!

We went bowling! Mon almost beat Noah! I did the worst of course.

Here is the family portrait Lauren took for us before she drove us to the train station in a blizzard!!

Amtrak delayed

Ok so apparently there is a BIG storm in NY and Boston further East then we are....so our train has been delayed 3 hours and counting. Also we were informed that the train will be full. We experienced a full train when we came to NY this past summer and it sucked!! Think of crying children on mothers laps, overflowing toilets with NO toilet paper! And being squished like sardines into a tin can. So needless to say I'm not looking forward to this ride home!

I can't wait to see Malachy and Mark too!! That is what will get me through this.

I really miss Malachy!! I just called Mark to talk to him but he's sleeping. Mark must be playing video games because he wasn't interested in talking to me at all....oh well. It's nice visiting with Noah we have had a really good time.

I am going to New York...upstate

Sooo...In a few hours Kim, Mom, Dad, and I are going to NY to see Noah and Lauren! Noah is stationed there currently and will be shipped out to Afghanistan for over a year within the next month. Noah only gets 24 hours of notice before he leaves so we couldn't really go and send him off. This is the best we could too because this weekend is his 2nd to last "for sure" weekend here in the states! Please pray for us as we travel 13 hour train ride there and another 13 hours home...yikes!

Also pray for Mark who will be a single parent thru Tuesday! Not only does he have Malachy but he is also responsible for Kim's 3 cats and 1 of Moms!! And I have no idea why but he agreed to serve at Impact this Sunday with a 6:30 am call time and he is taking Malachy!! He is nuts!

Laurens sister Meg is watching Malachy Saturday so Mark can work then too!! Thank goodness for Meg! Poor Malachy is going to have a tough couple days though please pray that he will feel safe, secure and loved!

Talk to you when I get back! Steph

Nice weekend!

I forgot to check the box where it tells the pictures to be centered...opps! Anyways, other then the random pic of Noah and Malachy (that I just had to share) these pictures are from the Promiseland Production Super Bowl Party. Where I was forced by Kevin to spend more then I was budgeted of the churches money on cheap pizza!! It was a good time. Malachy has so much fun! It was in Blue Sky 2 (the 3 year old Promiseland room) so there were many toys to entertain Malachy! (thats not to say Mark and I didn't do our fair share of chasing after him) It was a real busy weekend but a good one at that. Today we slept in and ran some errands. Also the heating guy came and checked the furnace and water heater. He informed us that both were "OK" but already had out lived their life expectancy and where pretty old...great! Houses are fun! Tomorrow we go to the Little Gym and I start on my huge task of things to get done around the house so I'm ready to go to NY! By the way... thanks you to Lauren and Crystal who sent me encouraging e-mails after my last post. I really appreciate both of your friendships!
This first one is of Noah and Malachy from when Noah was last home.



















This next one is of Malachy eating pizza all by himself like a big boy!



















Here I am cuddling with Arnez and Katherines daughter Noe...
they have the 2 cutest kids who I adore!














This is my programer Sandy and her man Alan who is my super volunteer. Mark and I really enjoy them and wish we had more time outside of work to hang out with them!














This is Malachy and Noe in one of the many toys we got out.

I found this quote on a blog Kim linked to recently...

"History will have to recall that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but the appalling silence and indifference of the good people. Our generation will have to repent not only for words and actions of the children of darkness, but also for the fears and apathy of the children of light." --Martin Luther King, Jr.

I was surfing blogs yesterday and came across some women's blogs who were bashing celebrities for dif. Things they have said and done and I just thought... who cares. Why do you feel so defensive and angry about that? Why can't people get angry and vocal about the millions of starving and under- educated children. Why can't we use our passion to make ourselves heard on the things that matter. Why are we so insecure that we let little quotes from celebrities throw us into heated rants. Why can't we find our identity and confidence in Christ alone and live out of that amazing grace?

another powerful quote I heard yesterday that made me think was:
You can know how much of a servants heart you have by how you respond to being treated like one.

20 Random things about Mark:

I was tagged by Sara to do this a while back and I'm just getting to it now....Crystal also did one on her blog...

1. Mark loves his job and I think he is doing a great job and learning so much, I'm really proud of him.
2. Mark can speak "communicative" Russian and lived in Moscow for 2 years.
3. Mark feels he is often attributed motives that just aren't there(mostly by Kim and I) ...he's a pretty simple guy.
4. Mark went to private school the majority of his life.
5. Mark has need new glasses for almost 2 years now and keeps allowing me to put it off and spend our money on other things.
6. Mark has been to Mexico, Jamaica, Canada, Holland, Germany, France, Switzerland, Hungry, Romania, Austria, Latvia, and Russia. ( I have never been out of the country)
7. Mark is the most sound sleeper I have ever met, and he is very slow when he first wakes up.
8. Mark has to tuck in his undershirt otherwise his belt pulls on his tummy hairs...he hates that.
9. Mark gets really mad when I talk while I'm yawning
10. Often times when I ask Mark if he just farted his response is, "I don't know" and he's serious.
11. Mark took 2 years to edit his best friend Todd's wedding video...one year to finish ours.
12. Mark is often eager to help people (especially at work) and never feels resentful or burdened by it.
13. Mark really likes beef villa and his favorite fast food meal is a bacon cheesburger.
14. Mark spent the first 2 years of our relationship trying to convince me that Des Moines, IA is bigger then Schaumburg. (apparently he was right)
15. Mark really misses playing Basketball and hopes to get a bike and a camcorder this summer (or sooner)
16. Marks favorite video games are sports ones and not the shot 'em up type...but he also likes his world domination computer game called civilization.
17. Mark is really good at geography and all that other stuff we were suppose to memorize in school but I never did.
18. Mark's favorite family vacation would be camping and hiking somewhere out west like Colorado or Montana. (I like beaches and Malls)
19. Mark can't wait to play tee ball with Malachy.
20. Mark pretends like he dosen't like Kim's cats but you can tell he is pretty attatched to Piper. He does however, want to get Malachy a dog sometime soon.

Poor Malachy!

Soooo....my poor little guy is sick AGAIN! He has a had a light fever for several days and last night it got pretty bad going up to 103 and he has been having chills and shaking! The strangest part is he has been on antibiotics for over a week now!?? So he shouldn't be able to have a fever! He also seems really uncomfortable and won't eat. So I'm going back to the doctor again today at 3.

In other news 24 was soooo good on Monday night. Then Gilmore Girls was a re-run, made me bad! At least I had American Idol to hold me over! Tonight is an all new LOST! We have no food! Wll no esy to pop in the microwave food that is and I'm feeling lazy! Can't wait till payday!Mom, Dad, Kim, and I bought train tickets to go see Noah in Feb. We will get there on a Saturday morning and leave on a Sunday night, so it's a short visit. But Noah is working that Monday and that is how the train schedule runs. I'm so glad Mom and Dad are coming. I think Noah will be glad they got to see where he has lived this past year. This week is a real busy one at work. We have the big Casa concert with Maria Del Sol. Alright thats it. Pray for Malachy please!

blah!

Bad day at work...I mean everyones nice and all I just feel like a failure. It's not really my fault it's more like the VCR's fault but if stuff goes wrong and I'm the one in charge and I can't fix it then I'm the failure...yuck...I'm stressed and tired I need to go to bed!

oh man!

So it looks and more tragicly feels like we got almost a ft. of snow here last night! If my batteries were not dead in the camera you would all be shocked and horrified. Mark and I spent the better half of the morning trying to come up with $500 and a pal with a van to get us to Sears to purchase a snow blower. After we realized that wasn't going to happen we set out shoveling. Poor husband is still out there. I had to quit becase I'm in so much pain. The worst part is we were both pretty sick going into this morning and now we feel even more crapy with a full weekend ahead of us! I hope I make it! Tear down tomorrow is going to suck!