Writing Contests and Retreat stories

Hello, everyone. I've had an interesting evening. While I was reading the cherished novel To Kill A Mocking Bird, I heard my parents say the words "Lauren" and "community college" in the same sentence. Now to a junior in high school, that can only mean one thing: that the community college sent me an application form. In fact, I had been planning to go to the community college for two years and then to another college for two or more years. So I promptly went down the stairs to see what was going on. However, instead of an application form, I got a letter that stated that I had won a writing contest!

A long time ago, I had sent in one of my short stories for a short story contest. The contest was being held by a local publishing company. One of the lucky winners would get a chance to read an excerpt from their story at a book fair. Their story would also be published along with other stories in a book! And I was one of the proud winners of this contest! I was doing wiggles of joy and my mom promptly had my dad order Chinese take-out! Yum! Nothing like food to go with good news! This is the first time any of my stories is going to be published (I like to write stories). But for the grace of God, I would not have been able to do this! God be glorified!

All right, now that I've done my little victory dance, I want to tell you the other retreat story.

I met C.J. Mahaney!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I know those of you from Covenant Life (who have no doubt been raised there) are going to laugh and say, "Lauren, you're so silly! C.J.'s just another human being. He's no celebrity!" I agree that I have learned from being in a church full of people who are well known, that famous people are normal too.

But this was C.J. Mahaney!

Our conversation was very brief. In fact, it wasn't a conversation at all. I was at the "ministry night" on the retreat. C.J. had brought his son Chad for the first time, because Chad was a ninth-grader. So there I was, just standing around, when all of a sudden, C.J., who was a few feet away from me, suddenly looked at me and the following dialogue ensued:

C.J.: (walks up to me and shakes my hand) Hello.

Me: Hello.

(C.J. walks away.)

I'll admit, it was brief, but it was so cool! But I must be ever mindful that to shake the hand of God is worth more than an eternity of shaking the hands of famous Christians, and to hear Christ's voice is worth more than a thousand sermons by the best preachers

I'm back! I'm back!

I'm back! The retreat was awesome! It was very intense and I have lots to tell. To start, Sandy Cove is an awesome place! It borders the Chesapeake Bay, so that if you're staying on the part of the building that faces the Bay, you can open the curtains and look at it! It was so big and beautiful! There are plenty of activities to do there, like playing sports, games and plenty of other things.

I met so many people! Everyone was so nice! We had a lot of fun. It was very intense, however. I felt like I was rushing about. But I guess it's not about sitting about and relaxing, because there was lots to do. We had devotions, then breakfast, then the sessions (sort of a church service), then lunch, free time, dinner, another service, time with our caregroup, then running about willy nilly until 12:00 p.m.! Whew! But it was so much fun!

I cannot emphasize how spiritual the sessions were! C.J. Mahaney, one of the greatest preachers of our time, preached excellent sermons about extravagant devotion to God and how to apply the retreat to our lives. Jeff Pursewell preached about how God rescued us, Dave Brewer preached about how God sacrificed for us, and Bob Kauflin preached about the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts. On the last night of the retreat, we had ministry night, where we got to pray for each other. I got prayed for and I prayed for others. I wish that the sermons had been recorded so that you could all hear these wonderful sermons, but I don't think they recorded it.

I've never been on a retreat before, but I'm glad that Covenant Life's was my first! It was the best! I've got two really cool stories that I'm going to post, along with my Friday Funnies. Be prepared! Also, I would like to let my adoring fans (just kidding) know that I'm going back to school on Monday. I don't know if I'll have as much time to post on the blog. Maybe I'll post before I go to bed. But I just wanted to let you know so that you don't go onto my blog and complain, "Hey! Why hasn't Lauren been posting on her blog! This isn't fun!" So if you don't see any new posts, you'll know that I'm at my desk working as busy as a bee.
For God's Gospel!

Friday Funnies

Here it is..............another Friday Funny. This time, we're going to hear from the mouths of children. Before I begin, I want to let everyone know that I won't be blogging from Monday to Wednesday because I'm going on a youth retreat. Sigh. What a way to end the summer! Anyway, here are the Friday Funnies:

• A Sunday school teacher was telling her class the story of the Good Samaritan, in which a man was beaten, robbed and left for dead. She described the situation in vivid detail so her students would catch the drama.Then she asked the class, "If you saw a person lying on the roadside all wounded and bleeding, what would you do?"A thoughtful little girl broke the hushed silence with......"I think I'd throw up!"
• A Sunday school teacher asked her children, as they were on the way to church service, "And why is it necessary to be quiet in church?" One bright little girl replied, "Because people are sleeping."
• The Sunday School teacher was telling the kindergarteners the story of Joseph and coat of many colors. Teacher: "Then Joseph's brothers got angry about their father giving Joseph the coat, so they sold him to some traders passing by in a caravan." My 5-year-old: "They had the same kind of car we have! We have a Caravan!"
• A little 3Yr. old boy was crying very loud and his parents rushed into the room. He had swallowed a penny and was convinced he was going to die. Nothing they could say would convince him otherwise.Finally the Father palmed a penny rubbed his son's stomach and pretended to pull the penny out of his sons ear. The little boy started smiling when he saw the penny. Though he quickly snatched it out of his Father's hand swallowed it and said: "do it again Dad."
• One summer evening during a violent thunderstorm, a mother was tucking her son into bed. She was about to turn off the light when he asked with a tremor in his voice, "Mommy, will you sleep with me tonight?"
  The mother smiled and gave him a reassuring hug. "I can't, dear," she said. "I have to sleep in Daddy's room."
  A long silence was broken at last by his shaky little voice: "The big sissy."
• A wife invited some people to dinner. At the table, she turned to their six-year-old daughter and said, "Would you like to say the blessing?" "I wouldn't know what to say," the girl replied. "Just say what you hear Mommy say," the wife answered. The daughter bowed her head and said, "Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people to dinner?"
• My children began reciting the Lord's Prayer at 2 1/2 years old and I remember my daughter very seriously praying, "Our father, whose art's in Heaven, Howard is His name..."
• My best friend's little sister learned about Jesus at a very early age. And she was always very faithful about putting her seat belt on in the car. Well, for some unexplained reason she suddenly stopped putting on her seat belt. When her mother asked her why she stopped putting on her seat belt she said, "I want to go flying though the window and see Jesus."

Long live King Jesus!

Today is the anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley, a.k.a., "The King of Rock 'n Roll". Good music, but can he die and rise again in three days? I don't think so! What Jesus did far outdoes whatever accomplishments rock 'n roll ever contributed (and I don't think it contributed much). No human achievement can outdo any accomplishment of God. We're just like the people at the Tower of Babel. We think we're all big and tough, but next to God, we're small like fleas. If God created the man who was going to create catchy rock 'n roll music, then would you think that God would be much more awesome than Elvis Presley? The Creator was is more magnificent than the created. That's why we need to sit at the cross each and every day and say, "Long live King Jesus, the real King!" Cheers!

HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!!

Great news! Two of the South Korean Christian hostages just got freed! Keep praying, everybody! Keep praying! God's listening! Keep praying!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.kare11.com/news/national/national_article.aspx?storyid=261922

Friday Funnies

The girls at Girl Talk have this thing called "Friday Funnies", where they post something funny every Friday. I decided to do the same. This is joke is from my Grandpa. It's called, "Kitty on the Roof":

"There was a man who had a cat that he loved very much. He was nuts about that cat. Every day at lunch time, he would call his wife from work and the first thing he would say is, 'How's Kitty doing?' 'Kitty's fine,' the wife would reply and then he'd ask how her day was going. The wife was mad that her husband showed so much attention to that cat.

"One day, the man called his wife and asked, "How's Kitty doing?"

The wife replied, "Cat's dead!" The man was horrified and mourned his cat for days on end. After he finished crying, the man turned to his wife and said, "Why couldn't you have told me about the cat in a nice way?'

'What do you mean?' asked the wife.

'I mean you could have broken the cat's death to me gently, like, "Kitty's on the roof and he won't come down," then, "Kitty tried to jump over to the tree and I can't see him," then, "Honey, I'm afraid Kitty didn't make it. He fell through the tree." Like that!'

'Okay,' says his wife.

A few months later, the man calls his wife and was about to ask how Kitty was doing, but then he stopped himself.

Then his wife said, "Your mother's on the roof and she won't come down."

The End

The Daily News

"People who don't read the newspapers are uninformed. People who do read the newspapers are misinformed." -- Mark Twain

I found this quote on Conservapedia.com. Mark Twain couldn't have said it better. If we don't read the newspaper or watch the news, we can't keep up with what's going on in the world. However, the media is so biased and (usually) liberal, that it's hard to know what's true and what's not. Fortunately, that's why we have conservative news channels like Fox News and conservative radio hosts like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levine and Laura Ingraham. In my humble opinion, these folks tell it like it is and then some. I'm sure that things would be very muddled for those on the Right without these people.

But actually, even if we didn't have Sean Hannity, even if we didn't have Fox News - even if we didn't have any kind of conservative news at ALL - we would still have God's Word. With God's word, we can discern what's right and wrong, good and evil, because "The Word of God is living and active, sharp like a double-edge sword." Therefore, regarding all information, liberal and Conservative, Christian and secular, we must go to God's Word and see what God says about it. So please, before you make a decision about believing a piece of information, ask yourself, "What would be God's view about that?"

The Cake Mix Doctor

Over this summer, I've been learning to bake and when it comes to cakes, I love using "The Cake Mix Doctor". It's a book by a woman named Anne Byrn, who "doctors up" cake mixes. The recipes are very easy and they're very delicious. I highly recommend this book and others by Anne Byrn. This includes "Cupcakes from the Cake Mix Doctor"; "Chocolate from the Cake Mix Doctor", and "The Dinner Doctor". It takes the cake! Go to http://www.cakemixdoctor.com/ to order it! And we must remember, that "whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." (Colossians 3:17)

Hello!

My name is Lauren, and this is my blog. This is the first time I owned a blog and I think this is very cool. I'm thankful that God has allowed me to live in a country where I can blog about my daily life and share the Gospel. Please feel free to go about the site (just don't get lost!). My only rule is that you make kind, courteous comments that reflect the love of God and the glory of Christ Jesus. Any comments that are rude, use bad language, or talk about things that shouldn't be discussed I will promptly erase. So please follow the rules and enjoy the ride!